The Best Management Lesson I Learnt
Letter from the editor-in-chief
The Wisdom
of Leaders
A
s we get ready to welcome 2018,
we are passing through an era of un-
precedented disruption at every level
– technology, business, society, politics
and globalisation. We are also welcom-
ing a new generation of future leaders
in our workforce. What can this new generation do to
better navigate the challenges of today and tomorrow.
I believe that while we are going through unprec-
edented change, the essential leadership challenges
have not changed. Leaders of this generation – and
future generations – will still need to develop and ar-
ticulate a clear vision, manage people in rough times,
and build institutional systems and processes that
pass the test of time.
And while it is true that leadership cannot be
taught in the classroom and that you have to be born
with some qualities that help you lead people and or-
ganisations, it is also true that no one becomes a leader
without learning crucial lessons. Whether these lessons
come from events in one’s life, challenges faced during
specific situations, or exceptional mentors that one is
lucky to get, no man or woman becomes a complete
leader without picking up these life lessons.
For our anniversary issue this year, we asked 29
leaders the best management lesson they ever learnt
in their lives – and how it helped them in managing
and building organisations. Without exception, they
shared their insights, their stories and their wisdom.
They talked about the seminal events that shaped their
thinking, the challenges that honed their strategies,
and the mentors who guided their lives.
This issue is packed with stories that have
over 1,000 years of experience of managing corpo-
rations, building institutions and managing people
backing them.
But while each story, experience and lesson learnt
is unique, there are a few common lessons as well that
the leaders reiterate time and again.
The first is that there is no substitute for hard
work and persistence and leading by example. A.M.
Naik, Chairman of Larsen & Toubro, and a few of his
colleagues worked till the wee hours of the morning
once to fix a particular machinery problem in their
Powai workshop. The next morning, Naik was back
at work at 8.20 a.m. to punch his card.
The second important lesson is about values and
building trust. Ajay Piramal did not export gener-
ics to the US market even when he could have made
enormous profits doing so – simply because he had
committed to his multinational partner whose Indian
subsidiaries he had acquired that he would not step
into their territory. It led to short-term foregoing of
profits, but paid off in the long run.
There are multiple other lessons. N.R. Narayana
Murthy talks about the importance of Walking the
Talk, Omkar Kanwar on the need to set a Big, Hairy,
Audacious Goal (BHAG) to align your organisation,
R.S. Sodhi of Amul and Amit Agarwal of Amazon
India write about how being completely focussed
on the customer pays off all the time and Harsh
Goenka talks of the need to create processes, while
Tarun Rai of J Walter Thomson (South Asia), Keshav
Murugesh of WNS Global Services and Rajiv Lall of
IDFC Bank talk about creating teams, people leader-
ship and developing talent.
For me, I never got any advice but learnt by exam-
ple from my father to never compromise on integrity
and to never look back in regret.
The best way to learn is from other people’s expe-
riences specially from the successful ones. Hopefully,
you will pick up some management lessons from these
leaders. Sometimes good advice can change your life.
4 I Business today I January 14 I 2018
Aroon Purie