Life Lessons for the Young Professional

A book by Subroto Bagchi



The Book    |    Media    |    Reviews    |    Archives
Subroto Speaks

Time to Move On?

Posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Last week, I was moderating a TiE Panel in Bangalore with three industry experts who spoke on the subject of how an Entrepreneur-CEO should plan his or her own career. Like any other role in an organization that needs planning, nourishing and systematic care, the role of the CEO also needs the same careful attention.

The idea revolved around a basic concept - when a CEO experiences personal growth, the individual buoys the company up. Such growth on a sustained basis, is not an accident. It is therefore that behind high-performance companies, stand high-performance CEOs.

Take for example Andy Grove of Intel.

The forty years or so he spent at Intel can be equally divided into 10-year periods of being a start-up entrepreneur-cum-chip designer, the chief operating officer, then the chief executive officer and finally, as the chairman of the board. David Yoffie, Professor at Harvard University and long standing member of the Intel Board, told me once that it was as if they were four different people; such was the transformative, personal growth experienced by Grove.

We see similar cases in India when we look at the career trajectories of CEOs like Ratan Tata or a Narayana Murthy. Why is it that some CEOs keep growing and some hit the glass ceiling? What can an entrepreneur-CEO do to keep growing? These were the conversation pieces at the TiE Panel had. The Panel members were Hema Ravichandar - the much talked about HR and Strategy consultant who saw Infosys grow up, Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay of Perot systems and Rishi Das, founder-CEO of Career Net. Towards the end, the Panel took questions and as happens in case of any engaging Panel, we ran out of time for that one all important question that came at the end: What are the signs that should tell an Entrepreneur-CEO that it is time to get help? May be, move away to the next role within or to sometimes, move out? It came from an entrepreneur-CEO in the audience; so it wasn’t your typical idle question at the end of a session.

Leadership requires what Peter Drucker termed “planned abandonment” - only that leader who can let go can experience planned abandonment so that the individual may expand his or her capacity and in the process, take the organization along. Inability to do so stifles the organization. The sad news is that there is no one to tell the entrepreneur-CEO, because of the very position the individual holds, that he indeed is the cause of his own, and the organization’s stagnation.

I have been pondering over the question on tell-tale signs for the last few days and I finally decided to take a crack at the question myself. I want to share a few situations with those who are interested in the subject - these situations, if evident in multiple numbers in the life of an entrepreneur-CEO, should send the signals that it is time to get someone smarter for the job and move up or move on. So, if you are beginning to question your own competence to run the tasks you currently do, check out the following. If many of these look familiar, it is time to get help.

Read more…

The Burden of Dreams

Posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Commemoration Day, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack
November 16, 2008

Vice Chancellor, Principal, Faculty, Members of the Senate and the Syndicate, my dear Students, Ladies and Gentlemen.
My being with you this evening is historic for me. The Ravenshaw ethos is part of our family heritage. My father studied here. My uncle studied here. Three of my elder brothers studied here. The eldest topped his class throughout and was elected vice resident of the student’s union. The third brother chose activism over academics as his calling and was the president of the college union in his time.

I was the last born and lived with my parents and an immediate elder brother in far away places like Koraput and Keonjhar. As we grew up in those places, we were told stories about the great Ravenshaw College, and we aspired to one day take our place in its imposing red structure. We learnt about the great academicians who taught here, the minds who mentored young people who eventually became destiny’s children. We were also told about something mysteriously transformational in the insipid food of the Ravenshaw hostels that sent people straight to a place called Dholpur House in New Delhi.

To us, Ravenshaw was sacred ground.

Unfortunately for me, by the time I was ready to come to its hallowed precincts, my father had retired. The last two of the brood were picked up by the elder brothers - by then one was a bureaucrat in Bhubaneswar and the other had started a fledgling legal practice in Cuttack. My immediate elder brother got allocated to study at Ravenshaw under the tutelage of the lawyer brother; I was sent to live with my eldest brother in Bhubaneswar and asked to go to the BJB College there. I have to admit that I felt deprived.

So, whenever I got a chance, while studying at BJB College, I came here - I stood by the Sun Dial or peeped into the Kanika Library. Sometimes I came to debate here. On two occasions, I won the Inter-College Debate competition held at Ravenshaw College - they used to be held in the Physics Lecture Theater and on one occasion, Dr. Mayadhar Mansingh was one of the judges. To be judged by someone like him gave me a sense of high I carry even four decades after! The prizes for the debates - one in English and one in Oriya - were instituted by Dr. Mahendra Kumar Rout, then Principal, in his father’s memory.

Picture shows the then Leader of Opposition, Shri Biju Patnaik giving away the prize to Subroto Bagchi for the Inter-Collegiate Debate in Oriya instituted by Dr. Mahendra Kumar Rout

Read more…

Of the Melt Down & IT Jobs

Posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008

The first time ever the Indian IT industry tasted a downturn was in 2001. That is when 9/11 sealed the doubt over whether the dot.com and telecom busts as well as a recession were all real. At that time, at MindTree, we were a less than 500 people. We did two things immediately: the internal board took a 25% salary cut and everyone else took a 10% cut. Those steps were not enough. So, we seriously considered asking the “bottom 5%”, formally assessed as “non-performers”, to be let go. That was when we had a lesson in people caring. The middle-management team walked in to Chairman Ashok Soota’s room and said they were willing to volunteer an additional 2.5% reduction in salary so that the bottom 5% could be retained until the market rebounded. Their logic was simple: do not let go of poor performers at a time when jobs are difficult to come by in any case. We listened to them and we all survived.

There are many messages in this story. One, tough times are about shared pain. Two, when the pain is shared, the bond that ensues is the greatest return on investment - we retain that middle management even nine years after! Finally, there is the inevitability of non-performance and there is an economic consequence of carrying it. Non-performers must be let go. The issue is timing. It is a known fact that in every single company, across industries, there are at least 5% people who do not pull their weight or cannot. Sometimes, this is because of attitudinal issues, sometimes the problem is lack of competence and yet sometimes, companies have hired wrongly. There is no way a customer or an investor can pay for them. In good times, they are invisible, in bad times - they appear like mangrove bushes in low tide.The best thing about being in the bottom 5% is that you really know that fact.

The greatest favor you can do to yourself is not sit there to get the bad news: accept the reality that this job, this company, this career is not for you. Get out and do something else - it may mean a salary cut, a social ignominy for a while, but I can tell you that it may be the greatest move in your life to brace reality and rebuild your career. When 9/11 happened, I personally know a head of Human Resource who actually re-started life as a “handy man” - he was good with tools - over time, he added a realtor and a placement business. He started off slowly but with patience and self-confidence, even after the tide returned, he did not go back to be a mangrove bush. So, rather than lament, ask very hard-hitting, fundamental questions: who are you? What are you really good at? What is your passion? What is that one thing you could really excel in? It is not going to be easy, you rather have your old job - but know what? If it was not this downturn, the sheer fact that your bosses at work think that you are not a performer is a disgrace that would kill your self-respect. So, why seek kindness?

Now to the trigger-happy organizations that use a hire-and-fire mindset that and pull the plug than build shared pain: know that this winter is not going to be your last. People will remember what you did to them and if you did things without sensitivity, care and concern - remember that getting rid of people always leaves behind residual toxicity and it damages the hand and the heart and the head of the organization. Make sure, you have exhausted all means before you take up the easiest option. Communicate transparently, involve everybody, explore other cost cuts, ask people to do alternate things, consult your customers and suppliers, and retrain people. Finally, if you have to let go of some people, for Heaven’s sake, don’t ask the HR folks to show them the door. Line managers must know that this one is their job. Only when line managers get involved, fairness returns.

At the NASSCOM Summit for Small & Medium Enterprises (SME)

Posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008

The last few weeks, after the sunrise at Pondicherry, have been very hectic. I was continuously on the move - starting with an inaugural address at the NASSCOM summit for SMEs in Delhi, then a trip to Sagar near Jog Falls in Karnataka to be with the folks at NINASAM - an outstanding organization that I must tell you about someday - another talk at NASSCOM’s Quality summit (I am done with NASSCOM for the year… :-) ) in Bangalore, a trip to Bhubaneswar and finally, the last weekend with 150 doctors at the Narayana Hrudayalaya - talking to them about the idea of Vision. It has been busy and fulfilling!

The SME Summit had an air of uncertainty - the timing is such that it is natural for people to question if at all it is a good time to be a start-up or are these times particularly bad for being an SME?

At the Shangri La Hotel in Delhi, the venue for the summit, MindTree co-founder Krishna Kumar and I were sharing a room the night before. The morning conversation was pretty much pre-ordained by the news of collapse, gloom and doom in the capital markets as we waited for breakfast before heading down to the summit venue. We were discussing the issue of bad times and good times and what they do to business. Then a young waiter came in, bringing with him our idli and tea. As he set down the food, we shifted our attention to him. He was about twenty four, very pleasant and clearly knew and liked his work. KK and I started a small conversation with him. Where was he from? What had he studied? Who was his family?

You will be surprised how everything changes with these three unhurried questions.

He said that he was from the hills of Himachal Pradesh - when he spoke those words, I could see the mountain streams and apple blossoms in his eyes.

Then, blushingly, he told us that next month he was getting married!

KK and I were delighted - we congratulated him.

The young waiter thanked us, collected the tray and, with a glow at the thought of the young-bride-in-the-waiting, walked out on an invisible carpet of clouds.

He had heard about the bailout packages in the US, the shroud of rumor about the ICICI Bank, the layoffs in the airline companies and the impending slow down.

But he is getting married next month.

What can be a bigger act of confidence in the future than raising a family? Bringing a coy bride all the way from the land of the gurgling streams and apple blossoms into the harried capital city where our man would return to work - serving idli to people who become friends between a loaded tray and an empty one-people whom he may never meet again.

KK and I watched his receding steps to realize a simple truth: slowdown or not, people will marry; they will visit friends with the new bride wearing a pair of jeans but with her hands covered in those white and pink bangles that notify the whole Universe about her change of status; they will celebrate; they will mourn; one day they will get up in the morning and wake the kids up who must now go to school; they will go to work; start a new business; they will cook a meal and eat; they will fight with their loved ones, kiss and make up and then sleep. So, we told ourselves, the world does not really come to an end after all.

Read more…

A Professional for the Future

Posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008

It is five o’clock in the morning on a September day by the seaside, away from Pondicherry. I am perched atop a 40-foot-high rappelling wall in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the Bay of Bengal. I am waiting to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. The sun will not come out for good fifty-five minutes more, but like a villager who must not miss his train, I like to be nice and early. Next to me in the breezy darkness, my Canon digital SLR camera is sitting quietly. Beyond the camera is a box full of lenses. This morning, the one that is particularly happy to be here is my newly acquired Sigma 500 mm lens. We are here to capture the first rays bursting through scattered clouds, announcing the arrival of another brand new day. I like my camera, the aluminum box, the tripod. I love the 500mm lens the most, though. There is something solidly attractive about it. I like his power looks. Yes, it is a he. He clicks into the groove of my SLR every time I slide him in, as if to say, “OK, let’s go”. Each time I set the vision, his whirr gives me a high. I call him Lens. Lens makes me feel professional.

I can hear the sea waves but can not see them. The silhouette of a fishing boat is now beginning to appear and I can see the clouds in waiting-just as curtains and backdrops wait for a rock star to make an appearance. We have time yet. So here I am, thinking about what it will take to be a great professional in the days to come.

These days, even a small town guy who owns a so-called “photo studio” has a digital SLR. I, waiting for the sun, wonder: what is the difference between him and professional such as Dewitt Jones or Raghu Rai? Since everyone can take great pictures these days, photo-shop them, and freely upload them on the Internet, what separates them from these two?

The sunrise is still another good ten minutes away. Lens yawns listlessly.

His mind does not wander like mine.

Ignoring him, I ask myself, is this question any less relevant for doctors, architects, software engineers, lawyers and dress designers? What is required to be called a professional in the future?

Lens looks at me, rolls his eyes and makes a face, very similar to an affectionately irreverent teenager.

Just then, on cue from the clouds, my body tenses-the Moment has arrived. I lift the camera, pick Lens up, and fix him in. He is sharp and engaged, ready for war. The sliver of red appearing from below has made me one with Lens and my camera. Silently, so as not to disturb the arrival, we begin clicking. A whirr, the sound of a click and the shutter closes. Soft like my breath. Then a small wait. Shoot. Wait. Shoot.

Soon it is a ballet. The initial stiffness of a preying leopard is gone. We are talking again. But this time, Lens is doing most of the talking. I think he is showing off a bit, but he clearly knows what the professional of the future is all about.

“Have you heard of Howard Gardener?” he asks, casually.

I reply, “Oh yes: the Harvard prof who has written twenty books and received twenty one honorary doctorates; the same man who questioned the role of IQ in determining intelligence. In fact, it was he who had propagated the idea of multiple intelligences.”

“Same man,” says Lens. He begins to refer to what Gardner had said about professionals of the future: that to be a great professional you have to master the five minds of the future.

“What about that?” I ask a little impatiently, more keen that we focus on the job at hand, concerned that it seems to be suddenly slipping away.

“Why, it was you who asked for the reason your country cousin of a studio photographer could not become Tom Hewitt!”

I can sense that Lens is miffed.

 Sunset - Photograph by Subroto Baghi

Whirr, click, shoot. Silence. Whirr, click, blink, shoot, silence. More silence. More shots.

Read more…

Boy Grocer to Director, NIT

Posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

So, this week I am taking you to Trichy, the 2300-year-old, historic South Indian city that has been witness to dynasties like the Cholas, the Pallvas and the Hoysalas - not to forget invaders like the Moguls and the British and the French. Situated by the banks of the Cauvery, Trichy bears testimony to the rich learning and cultural heritage of the region. This is where we have the impressive campus of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) where we are headed today.

NIT, earlier known as the Regional Engineering College or REC, is where MindTree Co-founder Srinivasan Janakiraman comes from. This is where the son of a village postmaster, a young Janakiraman, took his graduate degree in technology before heading off to the Indian Institute of Technology for a master’s degree. Sometime back, Janakiraman (or Jani as we call him) was felicitated as outstanding alumni.

Today, we are visiting NIT with a purpose. We want to actually spend time with a group of NIT alumni who have established a primary school. It serves the needs of villagers nearby on whose land NIT was set up. The members of the alumni association have raised money to upgrade the makeshift school to an impressive building which is being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs. 70 lakhs. Jani and I are here to see how MindTree Foundation can get engaged with the school as our way of saying “thank you” to NIT for giving us the likes of Jani.

By the time we reach NIT, it is past nine in the night. After a quick meal, I lie down on my Spartan bed at the Guest House. I love the bare essentials in such places - University Guest Houses are clean, friendly and functional - sometimes very historic too. For all I know, a Nobel Laureate has slept on the same bed as I. That thought itself makes me feel wonderful and relaxed and before I know, I am asleep.

I wake up early in the morning. The Youngman who brings me tea explains that the Director would be coming over to meet us for breakfast at eight. Now that is a surprise, we came to visit a primary school and of course I am talking to a bunch of students and faculty of the MBA course in the afternoon, but that does not warrant a meeting with the Director. But what choice do I have now? He, Dr. M. Chidambaram, wants to have breakfast with me and Jani!

Read more…

Of Start-ups & High Performance Teams - II

Posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008

From a team building perspective, start-ups go through different phases in their early years. In the beginning, it is mostly all about the core team. Then comes a stage when the core team must expand its sphere of influence to a larger group of people who come to join in the journey. Next, the start-up survives and moves on to become an established entity - it is in this phase that we have to look at teaming as an abiding way of the organization. No longer is it about just a few people or for that matter a group. This is what I wrote about in the last blog and we carry the discussion onto this week as I show case the learning from Arjun Erry and Mohinish.

Arjun Erry brought out some very interesting aspects of second-stage teaming. According to him, it is critical that we recognize “core” competence of the core-team. Find the gaps and fill them by hiring outstanding people. We have all heard about the idea of core competence and of course we know about core teams. But do core teams truly know their core competence? Do they feel emotionally secure to admit what they are not so good at? And what about timing? What happens when a core team takes longer than necessary to recognize its own gaps, initiates action, brings in supplementary talent and then assimilates the newcomer to eventually get the wheel of the chariot added? Well, if not sensed at the right time that you have a missing wheel, before you have even strated, the race is declared over!

Arjun Erry was looking at issues related to acquiring key talent that completes the team. In doing so, he underlined the importance of always going the extra mile to hire the “A” players. It is tough selling, but often the most critical first step in giving booster power to the rocket. Why “A” players? “Because”, “A”s hire “A”s, then the “B”s come. What do the “B”s do? They go and hire the “C”s. Before you know you have diluted the genetic pool of the organization and that can well mean the difference between a high performance company and just another start-up.

Arjun recommends that entrepreneurs take professional help in the hiring process. Not all founding team have the capability to talent scout. Some times you are so busy that you do not have the capacity to broad base your search. There are outstanding people who are often looking for the excitements of a start-up but belong to another industry! It is a good idea to choose a like-minded search organization and enlist their support just as you would go and sell your vision to an advertising agency or a PR firm to get their mindshare for the long run.

But handing over your specifications for a key hire to the agency is not enough. Arjun says, you must keep your involvement in the hiring process high. It is a top-management imperative. It is not something that can be outsourced and forgotten about or handled by HR. At each stage of talent induction and assimilation, the start-up team must deeply interact with the set of people who come on board - they must treat them as if they are semi-founders. When you build that mindset as against treating them as “employees”, you get ownership and not just bodies that are “work-for-hire”.

Read more…

Of Start-ups & High Performance Teams

Posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008

After MindTree got off to a great start, Sudeshna Shome Ghosh from Penguin sent me a mail asking if I would write a book for aspiring entrepreneurs using my experience of co-founding MindTree. That is how my first book The High Performance Entrepreneur came about! I am glad I wrote it because it seems to have filled a large gap. Having written the book, I am obviously very keen to learn from others on the subject and constantly look forward to interactions with experts on the subject of entrepreneurship.
A couple of weeks ago, I met three outstanding people at a TiE event in Bangalore - Mohit Bhatnagar of Sequoia Capital, Arjun Erry of Hunt Partners and Mohinish Sinha of iDiscovery.

Mohit initiated the evening with thoughts on start-up composition from the vantage point of a venture capitalist. His focus was on the early state of an enterprise. Arjun picked up from him and spoke on the idea of expanding beyond a core and Mohinish then picked up the relay baton completing the conversation by looking at teaming issues beyond the start-up stage. Let me start with you what I learnt from Mohit.

Mohit was pithy and powerful. He had a seven-fold view on the issue.

1. Balanced teams are better than a lone ‘Rock Star’

Almost every company that ever made it to the “A” list was a start-up of multiple founders. This fact is borne out by 30 years of data. It is hard being a lone Rock Star and take on the ups and downs of a start-up, all the way to it becoming a high performance enterprise. It is a little like rock climbing. “Find complimentary folks, do not go there alone if you can”, says Mohit. He should know.

Read more…

Banking on beggars!

Posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008

This one here - is especially for Rincy, Naveen and Gurudutta. You have been anxiously waiting for the Part II of our saga of the Prophet of the Bonsai People - Muhammad Yunus. So, here we go….

Professor Yunus, who made micro-credit a new chapter in money banking and public finance, after lending money to the poor without collaterals and paperwork, had yet one more frontier to conquer.

This time, lending money to beggars.
So he called his people and said, go lend money to beggars. And why not? At what level does someone give up and accept the life of a beggar? When all social systems fail. So, they were not the problem - the system was.
Professor Yunus told his people that each person working at the Grameen Bank must lend to one beggar. Only one, per person. That it had to be one and no more, was a strict requirement.

He would not accept lending to the beggars as a charitable, volume game. His idea wasn’t your anonymous, no-skin-in-the-game, loan mela of the nationalized banks. His people had to know the beggar, respect him as a person, and believe that the man (or woman) can redeem himself. And then lend.

Only a handful came forward and lent to a few beggars. Others watched, as they always must. Then the floodgates opened. They too came forward. All the 27000 people who work for Grameen Bank.

The beggars were given small loans. No freebies, loans. They were asked to repay the loan at their convenience and without interest. No pressure. There was an interesting angle to this arrangement though - each time the person pays back, he or she becomes eligible to borrow an even larger amount of money.

So, what did the beggars do? Every beggar, like a salesman, has a route. He follows it based on his own judgment of effort versus yield. Nothing has changed from that model. Except that, now the beggars go to their points of call, armed with knick knacks, toys, story books, small food items - they offer their clientele the option to give them alms but suggest they buy something from him instead of giving alms.

A miracle started to take place in the lives of many beggars. It was not about their economic self-sufficiency. It was about the redemption of human respect that they had lost. All their lives, they were given their alms or turned away from outside the doorstep of a householder. Now the householders ask them in so they can inspect the merchandise, the children can touch the toys or the housewife can scrutinize the merchandise closer. Now the children tell them what they must bring the next time they return. The beggars started to turn a new leaf - they never thought they could come in. 10,000 beggars do not beg anymore. Many more have now opted to become, “part-time beggars”.

Meanwhile, what is happening at the Bank?

The 27000 folks at the bank, who witnessed one miracle or the other, came to professor Yunus and protested the unfairness of his diktat of one-beggar per banker. It was not okay to restrict them to only one beggar. How could the professor underestimate their capabilities? After all, they had proven the model was working, it could work. Each one-lend one was such an archaic model!

Finally, the Professor relented. Now, each person at the Grameen Bank can lend to up to four beggars! And that is the story of a 100,000 beggars who are clients at the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh.

Next week, I must tell you about something very different - it is about budding entrepreneurship and what I learnt from three very different and young people at a TiE event I was invited to moderate at Bangalore.

Until then, Go Kiss the World!

Best wishes,

Subroto

The Bonsai People

Posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to the Nobel Laureate, Muhammad Yunus speak for the second time in my life. The first time, I had heard him speak under a makeshift shamiana in the courtyard of a village school on the outskirts of Bangalore.
He was speaking to a motley crowd of poor women, school teachers, a few micro-credit missionaries and some folks like me. He wasn’t a Nobel Laureate at that time.

Last night, he was speaking to specially invited people at a five-star hotel in town.
Senior Government officials, newspaper editors, industry captains, educationists, writers and people who really belong to the upper crust thronged the venue.

On both the occasions, he was agnostic to his surrounding; he spoke the same language and had the same message: The poor are bonsai people. When you look at a bonsai tree, there is nothing wrong with the inherent capacity of the seed - be that of a giant redwood or a banyan tree. It is not the seed in the flowerpot, but the flowerpot that makes the plant what it is.

The ‘flowerpot’ in the conversation of course is the society we have built. With its restrictive paradigms the society has pushed poor people and bounded them to become the economic bonsais.

What kind of paradigms does our evolved society create?

Banks are financial institutions for the rich. They need collaterals to lend money, lawyers to do the due diligence and need legal documentation before doing anything at all. What happens after all that? Comes a sub-prime crisis, the same smart banks write off trillions of dollars. They cannot even cash-in their collaterals.

Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, on the other hand, lends to the poor, takes no collaterals and has no lawyers and most of their borrowers being illiterate women - the bank has no use of documentation. But you know what? More than 98% of their borrowers return the money - on time. That lesson from Professor Yunus I had learnt, under the makeshift shamiana at the village school.

Last night, I learnt two new lessons.

Danone, the Euro 12.78 billion, French food giant set up a joint venture with Grameen to make and sell yogurt to the poor of Bangladesh. They have researched the micro-nutrients that the malnourished children in Bangladesh need and created a formulation that is just right. Twice a week, a child can have the yogurt and in a year’s time become healthy.

This is no MNC doing its vile, blood sucking at the bottom of the pyramid via a gullible NGO. Danone and Grameen have done this as a “social business” - a new kind of capitalism in which the impact is more important than profit. Profits get ploughed back to create more goodness and no party takes out a dividend.

With the formulation in sight, Danone showed Professor Yunus the container design for the to-be-launched yogurt. Professor Yunus had a good look at it. Guess what did he ask them next? He asked them, what the container was made of. When they told him that it was plastic - similar to what they use everywhere else in the world, he requested that they design something new and something that was environment-friendly. So, Danone went back to the drawing board. They soon returned with an answer. They had found their Chinese counterpart capable of producing a container out of corn starch that was bio-degradable when discarded.

“Discarded”? Now what was that?

Professor Yunus was back on their back. How could they make a poor child pay for a container that had to be discarded? The poor do not discard things! Why couldn’t the child eat the container? After all, we eat ice-cream cones - don’t we? So, why not a food container that is also food? Why plastic?

So, Danone is now back at work and soon, knowing that great organization, we will hear of the breakthrough.

By the time the soft-spoken, ‘banker to the poor’ had finished delivering his talk it was well past nine in the night. No one had stirred. Then it was the turn of the charismatic
Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty - host for the evening - to propose a vote of thanks. Instead, he had a child-like request to make.

“Tell us about the beggar story, Professor Yunus”, he pleaded.

Like a possessed mendicant, the messiah of micro-finance went back to the microphone on the podium and told his story about the 100,000 beggars. Let me tell you about that one, next week.

In the meantime, Go Kiss the World

Best wishes,

Subroto


The World Replies
Posted by Manoj Singh
on Saturday, December 27th, 2008
it's a nice list but many things which mentioned here should not be attained in the life cycle of a company by an entrepreneur CEO. Good lessons and could be more effective if we do our self critical analysis keeping (read more)

Posted by Somali Chakrabarti
on Saturday, December 27th, 2008
Dear Sir, Today I chanced upon the book Go Kiss the World. Once I started reading, I could not just put it down till I had reached the last page. It is very inspirational. You have highlighted the significance of learning (read more)

Posted by L
on Saturday, December 27th, 2008
Dear Gardener, I reserve some portion of a "non-working" Saturday to learning something or the other. Thus, I just heard your address at IIM-B on You Tube - hadn't heard it earlier. When it comes to Theory U, doesn't it boil (read more)

Posted by Vivek Venkat
on Friday, December 26th, 2008
Dear Subroto, Another amazing post which we all can learn from. We hope to read a lot more through your blog in the coming year and better ourselves. Thanks so much. Wish you and your family a merry christmas and a (read more)

Posted by J.A
on Friday, December 26th, 2008
@ Debachou My 2 cents... Satyam is a case of corporate goverance failure. What is more shameful is the Worldbank statement. The statement read: "Satyam was declared ineligible for contracts for providing improper benefits to Bank staff and for failing to maintain (read more)

Posted by John Micheal
on Thursday, December 25th, 2008
Merry Christmas Sir, may almighty god bless you with good health, peace and happiness in life. (read more)

Posted by L
on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Dear Gardener, Happy New Year. It is an exhaustive list, I hope you will use it in your next book. Best regards, (read more)

Posted by Debachou
on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
It's terrific, wonderful to read the article. I have a query : How come Chairman of Satyam , considered to be an outstanding leader , can commit such thing which put the entire organization into a tizzy and being (read more)

Posted by Anonymous
on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
That is a wonderful list and I am amazed how much we can learn from it. I'll add a few more to the list. To me, a project manager also is the CEO of the team, the General Manager (read more)

Posted by Lakshmi Narayana
on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008
Hi, A great insight of Human ResourcesManagement and a firm example of leadership. All you said is inspiring, but can the companies sustain in this way by cost cutting the employee who can deliver more to the one who needs to (read more)