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| Anurag Batra |
The Bhagwad Gita is the richest resource of knowledge on how to live, lead and win without compromising on your principles that I know of. Management leaders around the world have successfully imbibed the Gita’s invaluable lessons to steer their organizations through increasingly testing marketplaces. Equally, many B-School lessons have been inspired by this ancient treatise on life.
Take for example, the three lines that pretty much encapsulate the core concept of leadership enshrined in the tome: “Guru Brahma Guru Vishnu, Gurur Devo Maheshwaraha, Guru Saakshat Para Brahma, Tasmai Sree Guruve Namaha”
Meaning, “A Guru is verily the representative of Brahma (the creator) Vishnu (the saviour and one who sustains) and Shiva (the destroyer). A guru creates wisdom, sustains knowledge and destroys the weeds of ignorance. I salute such a Guru.”
Last week, at the Forbes Person of the Year Awards event I witnessed a discussion between Chanda Kochhar and K V Kamath, the guru and shishya so to speak of India’s largest private bank, ICICI.
Kochhar, the articulate and much quoted face of ICICI, opened by recounting how she, a management trainee, had risen up the ranks under the tutelage of Kamath, reaching the very top.
Over years Kamath had trained her, taught her the nuances of the business, lessoned her to differentiate between the good and the bad and trusted her to take decisions independently.
This is a quintessential story of a guru-shishya relationship which benefited both the guru and the shishya and consequently ICICI, turning it into one of the most successful private banks in the country and an international brand.
The trend these days is to start early. I see many young professionals, starting out on their own immediately after their studies. This is definitely a positive trend but equally there is no substitute to learning from the wisdom of veteran “gurus” to do well in business. You can learn from their conduct, leadership style and also hopefully, mistakes.
I was fortunate to have some truly exceptional leaders as my direct bosses, among them Deep Kalra (at AMF Bowling) and Anuj Puri (Chesterton Meghraj) before starting the exchange4media group.
Deep Kalra today is the poster boy of the Indian Internet business with makemytrip.com setting the benchmark in more ways than one and Anuj Puri is credited with having turned Jones Lang LaSalle into the country’s largest Property Services Company as its Chairman.
One quality that both these men shared was that they were extremely humble and also very youthful. Deep, in fact, would often say that the day you think you are cool and big, you are finished. Both of them are really down to earth people who understand the meaning of real things in life.
Anuj taught me how important it was to communicate the right things at the right time and that communication was critical for survival. I still remember speaking into his dictaphone 13 years back responding to a letter or mail.
Anuj believed in letting information travel to the deepest levels of an organization so that everyone understood and was on the same page. He showed that to retain your workforce you needed to give your people a sense of empowerment and ownership.
Employees don’t stick to a company just because of financial gains, but also because they want to grow with it. Some of the best people in my workforce have stayed with me for many years because they feel like they are a part of the organization. This is where effective communication helps the most. Everyone knows what the dreams and goals of an organization are and strive together to achieve them.
Working with Deep was like living with a person who literally ate, slept and breathed his passion and took great interest in whatever he did. The phenomenal success of makemytrip.com can be attributed to Deep’s persistence and entrepreneurial passion, which are hard to match. So is his personal charm that has a lot to do with his high energy levels, approachability and informal behavior. He never gave you the feeling that you were talking to a “boss.”
Deep once told me to never hire someone who is as smart as you; always hire someone who is smarter and more knowledgeable. What is the point in hiring someone for a task you can do equally well or for which you have as much knowledge? I wonder then how Deep hired someone like me. But I guess everyone makes mistakes.
I remember two things that Deep enforced at AMF as part of our work ethos: One, if you wanted to go for training and the company felt it was relevant than the company picked up a part of the tab and you picked up the rest. And second if you did not send your sales reports on time then you get docked `200 per day.
Deep was also a dreamer, he dreamt, executed and turned them into reality. “Everything is possible”, is what I learned from him. Deep has lived and made his dream into reality.
Anuj and Deep have rock-solid backgrounds with stable and happy families, kids and a great friend circle. They never ceased to show their genuine warmth when I really needed it.
Kumar Mangalam Birla has transformed the Aditya Birla group. On winning the CNN IBN Indian of the year award for Business, he shared that a leader is as good as his team and that the award belonged to the entire team, which had worked hard to take the company to this level. The team that works under Birla is indeed fortunate to have a leader like him.
Karan broke through the chakravyuh, something no one else could achieve, because he had learnt from Guru Dronacharya to set his eye only on targets. That’s the power of mentoring and learning. Every person has a good and a bad side. It’s what you want to take away! Working under someone can be bliss if you learn the best things. “A lot of people have gone further than they thought they could because someone else thought they could”. I have because I learned that I could from Anuj and Deep. To me they are the ultimate Guru Preneurs.
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Anurag Batra is real life, first-generation entrepreneur who is Much Below Average (MBA) from the prestigious Management Development Institute, MDI. When he is not busy writing such columns, he can be reached at anuragbatrayo@gmail.com. Anurag is the founder and editor-in-chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com.
To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Anurag Batra'.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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written by heuer , March 12, 2011
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