An entrepreneur’s ultimate success hinges on being a good human being in today’s idea-driven world
No journey is more exhilarating than running one’s own business. At first glance, all entrepreneurial ventures may appear to be about capital, cash flows, products, marketing and sales. But that is part-truth, or ardh satya.
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| Anurag Batra |
I believe that successful entrepreneurial ventures are driven by good human beings. By a good human being I mean one possessing both head and heart qualities. Successful businessmen such as Ratan Tata or Narayana Murthy are known for their personality attributes, such as their views on life, attitudes and habits, which are reflected in their style of running their business. In the past India has also seen entrepreneurs as individuals who have manipulated the political system and were successful business people because of that. It might have been true 30 years ago but there has been a paradigm shift since then and being an entrepreneur today is about ideas, and capital follows ideas and the ability to execute them.
The father of modern management the late Peter F. Drucker said, “Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation, the changes and their symptoms that indicate opportunities for successful innovation. And they need to know and apply the principles of successful innovation.” To my mind, such a successful entrepreneur must possess five basic qualities: talent, discipline, commitment, selflessness and forgiveness.
Unarguably, talent is the foremost prerequisite for any successful entrepreneur. Without talent, there is nothing. With talent comes the ability to cope with setbacks, regroup and advance again.
But talent is not all. Successful businesses also require the organization of skills, resources and above all, proactive and positive attitudes, shared by the collective. For success may look easy, but it is not. A great part of it comes from commitment and hard work. Owning and running a business means long hours of dedication, personal sacrifice and tonnes and tonnes of hard work. The noted mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary,who recently passed away, said that “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
Discipline is very important for entrepreneurial success. It is the refining fire by which talent becomes a reality. Modern day management guru Deepak Chopra says, to have discipline is “to have a passion, to have a dream, to have a purpose in life. And there are three components to that purpose. One is to find out who you really are, to discover god; the second is to serve other human beings, because we are here to do that; and the third is to express your unique talent, and when you are expressing your unique talent, you lose track of time.”
When I speak of selflessness as a necessary attribute, I mean a successful entrepreneur does not have an inflated ego: the enterprise takes precedence over his personal prestige. A couple of months ago, while addressing the captains of industry, Maruti Suzuki chairman and chief executive, Osamu Suzuki said, “During my initial years at Suzuki back in Japan, my wife and I would wait for our clients at the airport and then take them around our factory and escort them back.” Today in India, who doesn’t know the name of Maruti Suzuki, the leading car manufacturer in the country?
Come to think of it, why go all the way to Japan to learn humility? Just look at our Metro man E. Sreedharan and the Delhi Metro, a picture of efficiency and safety, not just on the track but also on the construction sites working 24 x 7. Since the beginning of the Metro project, not a single human life has been lost, not a worker, nor anyone else in the proximity of the worksites. Awareness of safety norms and their observance is universal and unfailing. Why? Because Sreedharan leads by example: if he were to do an on-site inspection, he would first put on the worker’s fatigues and headgear.
It is true that no enterprise has grown richer that doesn’t have a set of committed human beings. That takes me to another important trait of a successful businessman: forgiveness. Accountability is a must. But, as has also been demonstrated, so is a second chance. One shouldn’t overlook three powerful resources always available to oneself, namely, the power of love, prayer, and forgiveness. Mahatma Gandhi said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” The entrepreneur, as a leader, must set that example.
I find inspiration in Lord Ganesha’s qualities: communication skills, wisdom and the ability to adapt to circumstances, qualities modern managers also need. Why is Ganesha, son of Shiva and Parvati, also Vigneeshwara, or the remover of obstacles? Let me illustrate with a tale. Shiva and Parvati once acquired a pot containing the nectar of supreme knowledge. Both their sons, Kartikeya and Ganesha, contended for it. The hapless parents set up a competition. The rules read that the first one to go around the world seven times would have the vessel of supreme knowledge. Kartikeya, man of action, instantly started circumambulating the world on his peacock. With a mouse for a mount, Ganesha needed to do some quick thinking. He analysed the situation: he was being held back by his bulk and slow mount. As a solution, he recast the perspective and arrived at a different truth: his parents were bigger than the world (because the world, of course, ultimately came from Vishnu). So, Ganesha went around his parents seven times and claimed the pot of nectar. Adapting to his unique form as a given, he found a better solution to his problem and acted on it.
The basis of the Hindu Trinity—Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva or Mahesh the destroyer—makes up the three aspects of godhead. Vishnu’s preserving, restoring and protecting powers have been manifested in a variety of avatars. The seventh and eighth avatars of Vishnu, Rama and Krishna, are the heroes of mythology. Vishnu lies supine in the infinite ocean from which the world emerges; he is called Narayana. From his navel grows the lotus out of which appears Brahma, the god who creates the universe. And Vishnu’s wife or Sree is the goddess of wealth and fortune.
I feel that every successful entrepreneur should be blessed by goddess Saraswati and goddess Lakshmi. What it means today is that in the emerging knowledge society, one must win the blessings of the one to win the blessings of the other. That depth of knowledge also bespeaks depth of spirit. A successful entrepreneur needs that: it adds a dimension to his powers of meditation, of thought. That is what carries him through therollercoaster of a life in business, with its highs and lows.
I hope and pray that I live up to this framework and definition of entrepreneurship that I have just shared with you. I must tell you that I try to though it is not easy. At this point I am reminded of the saying “An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”
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. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Anurag is the co founder and editor-in-chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com.
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