Time to think

I am back from two weeks of business trip to Norway/Sweden, perhaps most hectic one. I got to chat with different people, at different level and there were few interesting discussions around what customers need in this globalized world.


One common factor emerging out of these discussions is today’s customers need ‘More for less’; they want vendor to be more proactive, suggest ideas to improve the ‘Customer Experience of their end Customer’. Basically they want vendors to be their business partners such that vendor can help them in driving more revenue.

There is a very powerful concept called ‘Client Partner’.

However, the most interesting discussion I had was something to do with personal growth, as how to manage the professional life. This discussion was very interesting.

I met a business unit head and discussion was around ‘Making time to think’. Very simple strategy in life, but to me it sounded very interesting.

Basically what this means is to take out time of a particular working week or some time of the day, out of operational issues and think about a big picture. Think about your strategy towards business; think about how you want to build the team; think about how you can add value to your customers; think about how you want to drive more revenue; think about a great product idea which will help the business or simply think how you can be effective at work.

Making time to think is a superb strategy for success at leadership and in life. Most of leaders spend the best hours in ‘doing things’, in execution part of it. Sometimes by end of the day we feel we are busy and we don’t even notice with what we are busy with. Thinking and reflecting makes sure we are on the right path. By thinking more we will have a better sense of our priorities and what we need to focus on. This ensures we are on the correct path. We can make better decisions and wiser choices.

More time in thinking will make us more reactive as we will have better control. We will become clearer in what we need to do with our time and thus achieve better time management. And our ‘think time’ will provoke some amazing ideas and inspire some big dreams.

And I know the fact for sure as this is how most of the top executives work and strategize. It might look simple but strategizing for the business and devising the vision of the business is not simple. In today’s ever demanding world of customers, being ahead of the curve of customer satisfaction needs a deep thinking and great strategy. And in my opinion this thinking time will help in that.

From personal front this helps in understanding the purpose of life; from broad level perspective. And it helps in cleaning the clutter of mind and helps in having a focused vision on what I want from my life.

Time to learn more!

Agriculture Growth of India: Do it like Gujarat

In the 60 years since independence Indian agriculture has recorded an average growth rate of 2.7 percent. In last 30 years the rate has been slightly more than 3 percent, well below the target of 4 percent.

It is striking that the agriculture in seven sizable states (Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa) grew faster than four percent between 2000-01 and 2007-08. The star performer is Gujarat clocking eight percent, nearly triple the national average.

IIM Ahmadabad professor Ravindra Dholakia studied the trajectory of this growth. Broadly speaking Prof Dholakia lists six factors which helped Gujarat to grow faster:
• A sustained program of water conservation and management.
• A massive and well-coordinated extension effort
• A successful overhaul of rural electricity distribution
• A strong emphasis non-food crops like horticulture
• Sustained and comprehensive support to livestock development
• Major revamping of agriculture supporting infrastructure, including roads, electricity and ports.

This case study talks in detail about each and every initiative Gujarat government took in order to improve the agriculture output.

What is really striking is, a semi-irrigated state, where major part land is desert and land is not real fertile compared to few other states; it is really exceptional that the state government has done a complete overhaul of the situation.

It’s also important to note, Gujarat is also ahead in industry development, export business and it has developed itself as a transportation hub. It should be a good case study to other states; a sheer determination of the leadership can really change a state.

I see a big lesson of leadership and vision in this case.

CEO Material

Just finished reading a book titled ’The Corner Office: How TOP CEOs made it and how you can too’. What this books emphasis is on fixed traits all successful CEOs possesses.

The author, Adam Bryant, reveals the keys to success in the business world, including the five essential personal traits that all high performers exhibit, qualities that the CEOs themselves value most and that separate the rising stars from their colleagues. He also demystifies the art of leadership and shows how executives at the top of their game get the most out of others.

What really surprises me is about all CEOs having some listed (Pre-defined?) qualities: is this what we call ‘CEO Material’? Some are natural qualities and some can be attained through mentoring, but the list is more or less similar for all CEOs, no matter which part of the globe they are from.

This book is an effort of author, where he sat down with more than 70 global CEOs and asking them how they do their jobs and the most important lessons they had learned as they rose through the ranks. Over the course of this book, they all shared memorable stories and eye-opening insights.

It’s a good book, which tells you so many details about leadership and how to build the most important personal qualities.

Ironically, the next book I put my hands on to is ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari (Second read now!). One book talks about attaining the name and fame, the other one talk about giving up everything and walk towards eternal bliss. Both are contradictory subjects!

But, life is all about having such contrasts…

Papularity and Leadership

Question is what is the probability of all successful business leaders having high score on popularity barometer?

In tough business environments like one we are in to, all the times leaders are tested against the ability to make tough decisions in the better interest of the business. Be it asking a unit head to leave or asking management to take pay cut, or it could be deciding to walkout of a deal (Remember Infosys deciding to walk out of GE business when Mr. Murthy was CEO and when it accounted for 40% of its business) leaders are being constantly under situations where they need to make tough calls.

Given kind of media attention, impact on the morality of the employees and the stock market beating for any wrong information; one has to be extra careful on the decisions taken or the communication aspect of the decision (It is told, that Infosys informed stockholders about GE deal upfront and the steps being taken, when the deal with GE episode happened)

Now having understood that the business leaders have to make tough calls, how successful business leaders are still high on popularity chart? Mr. Murthy made so many tough decisions; still we treat him as icon of software industry, Mr. JRD took some tough calls in his lifetime, he is regarded as one of business icons of modern India. There are countless such examples around us, in the past and present.

First, we all appreciate the fact that why this tough decision was made. They all were made in better interest of the business. Secondly what makes a big difference is the approach as how a tough call was executed (I have seen several wrongly executed decisions in the past, which impacted more negatively). Third is all successful leaders handled the person in question or situation with so much of delicacy that the impact was minimized. Empathy makes a big difference.

As it is rightly said, CEOs don’t run the popularity show but make tough calls all the times. But what appears to make a big difference between a successful leader and ordinary is the approach to the situation or person in question.

That’s about leadership!