Bezos' Five "Amazing" Points

JEFF BEZOS SPENT AN EVENTFUL TIME with his larger Amazon.com engineering team in India recently. The "events", so to speak, involved no less than a typical decorated delivery truck on one hand (The event where, apparently, his amazon.in CEO called out Jeff as his 'Baap' ^{[try here]}). And, on the other hand, there was him meeting with the Indian Prime Minister in Delhi and talking about things (in e-retail in the most promising e-global economy with the world's 3rd largest open internet userbase, of course).

In between these two was a private dinner organised with a dozen or so CEO's in Bangalore. This paraphrased post is thanks to one of them ^{[try here]} "minuting" the following five points that Jeff talked about among other things.

#1: What was the hardest moment of your life?
Jeff: My experience of raising the first million dollars to start Amazon.
Nothing over the following two decades of founding Amazon compared to that. I reached out to 80 odd investors and how they thought my idea of selling books over the internet was crazy.

#2: How do you hire people?
Jeff: I look at two things: one, does the person consider himself to be fortunate? And two, how good are they at making decisions without data... I'm biased and I prefer people who consider themselves as very fortunate [...] they will make or do things better because they are thankful to the way their lives are shaping up. The others will waste their lives looking over their shoulder and complain about how life is not satisfactory. “Those kind of people I don’t want on my team”. [...] While data is an extremely important element of decision making, you have to first listen to your gut, what feels right. Usually, the gut is right and you have to substantiate it with data. But you should not start the other way round, where you look at data first and then suppress your instinct and do what the data says. That will not necessarily make you do great things. 

#3: Would you hire a philosopher and/or an entrepreneur?
[Jeff pauses for a bit], I would hire a philosopher and not an entrepreneur. [...] a philosopher will take my mind where nobody else has taken it. And then, he will find the entrepreneur to make that into a reality. 

#4: What are the fundamental tenets of your business? 
Jeff: There are three things -
1. Customers rule: That is an obsession at Amazon. At any meeting that we have, we have a chair for the customer. I say, ‘there’s a customer sitting here, and are we doing things right for the customer?’.
2. An incessant appetite for innovation: This has to be there in every walk of life, and it’s not an annual activity, but an everyday thing: we have to do things better.
3. Operational excellence: When you are running a successful corporation, the fundamental building block is phenomenal operational excellence. Everything will happen the way it is planned to happen and that we actually execute and deliver on the promise. 

#5: What next?
Jeff: I’ve only just begun.
(For a perspective, today Amazon ranks #35 in Fortune500 list - compared to Google's #46, and Microsoft's #34). 

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"Peter Drucker - Managing Oneself" on SlideShare.net

IN THE INTRODUCTORY paragraph of this legendary paper for Harvard Business Review, Peter Drucker writes:

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: If you've got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you started out. 

But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren't managing their employees' careers; knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers. It's up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change the course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years. To do those things well, you will need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself - not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution.

Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.

Marking a small footnote today as this 10-slides synopsis (below) of Peter Drucker's "Managing Oneself" crosses a sort of a mini milestone on SlideShare with a thousand+ downloads from 26k+ views overall since its first publication.
Thank you all.

Peter F Drucker - Managing Oneself - a synopsis

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Revisit: Lewis Pugh's TED talk

Here is to revisit Lewis Pugh's amazing 10m "Radical, tactical shift" TED talk, declaring, "There is nothing more powerful than a made-up mind."

• See also:
• Go here for Lewis Pugh's personal pages.
• Go here for Pugh's TED profile, and here for the video on TED's YouTube channel.

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SKR, Education, Three videos, and "3 idiots"

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE THERE COMES AN IDEA THAT has at least three beautiful things together: holistic relevance, sincerity towards applicability, and honest and bold presentation. Such ideas carry an element for illumination and invokes belief in the audience.

Let's listen to Sir Ken Robinson (SKR). The Professor of Education has thus far given two of the best and most popular TED talks (see below). His ideas on the challenges of modern Education systems across the world, and possible solutions through paradigm shift have been path-breaking (including, earning the professor his knighthood).

When the idea is larger than life, it is often easy to miss the whole picture while focusing on the point if delivery of the idea, beautiful that it mostly is. For this reason, RSA Animation has done a great job in the video below in creating a sort of "skeleton key" based on SKR's RSA speech - Changing Education Paradigm. Within a couple of minutes into the animation, it is most likely that one gets reminded of some of the ideas that got reflected in Raju Hirani's recent bollywood script "3 idiots", that made the film immensely popular.

• See also:
• Go here for the official website of Sir Ken Robinson, and here for his wikipedia entry.
• Three videos: 1) TEDtalk-Do schools kill creativity? (Feb 2006, Monterey CA, ~20:00m), 2) TEDtalk-Bring on the learning revolution! (Feb 2010, LA, ~20:00m), 3) RSA lecture-Changing Paradigms (~55:00m)
• Go here for various publications, and here for the list on Amazon.com

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HBR: What Is The Work Of The CEO?

"The CEO is the link between the Inside that is 'the organization,' and the Outside of society, economy, technology, markets, and customers. Inside there are only costs. Results are only on the outside."
-- Peter Drucker, "The American CEO"

Alan ("A.G.") Lafley TOOK OVER AS CEO of Procter & Gamble in June 2000 when the FMCG behemoth was battling turbulent times. At 6pm on his first day at the office as the new (and first time) CEO he was facing a hostile press conference live on national television – like a "deer in the headlights" as he recalls. P&G stock price that had crashed from $86 to $60 in one day tanking Dow index by 374 points, went further down by 11% at the news of Lafely's appointment as the new chief. The headlines went from "P&G Investor Confidence Shot" to "We love their products, But we hate their stocks." to "Does P&G Still Matter?"

Four years into working hard at trying to turn the tide and leading P&G as the chief executive, one day out of the blue, A.G. decided to give a call to Peter Drucker at his residence. Drucker, 83 at that time, answered the calls himself, and apparently invited A.G. to come over for a chat.

In October 2004, A.G. and a groups of executives spent quality hours discussing the leadership challenge with Peter Drucker at his residence. Drucker made numerous side notes during the meetings, and others made notes of Drucker's advisory quotes and observations. In 2009, before retiring after 10 years as the CEO of P&G, A.G. compiled an HBR article and published a very interesting case study on how he turned around P&G's fortunes to make it one of world's largest consumer goods manufacturer. On the larger part, A.G. credits Drucker for his strategy and success.

In a nutshell, A.G. Lafley notes the following four fundamental tasks of the CEO as per Drucker’s simple and clear observations, with Drucker's comments as quotes:

1. DEFINE The Meaningful Outside –
Determine which external constituency matters most. Your company has many stakeholders, each with important demands. Once you’ve defined your most important external constituency, ensure that everyone acts on that understanding.

2. DECIDE What Business You Are In –

"Equally important—and also a task only the CEO can fulfill—is to decide, What is our business? What should it be? What is not our business? And what should it not be?"

For example, what are your core businesses, and which of them will you grow? Analyze the attractiveness of the businesses you’re already in, your company’s position in existing industries relative to competitors’, and industries’ strategic fit with your core competencies.

3. BALANCE The Present And The Future –

"The CEO decides on the balance between yield from the present activities, and investment in an unknown, unknowable and highly uncertain future... it is a judgment rather than [a decision] based on 'facts.'" Adding that, "Effective CEOs make sure that the performing people are allocated to opportunities rather than only to 'problems.' And they make sure that people are placed where their strengths can become effective."

Ensure that stakeholders’ near-term interests don’t overshadow your company’s long-term future. Balance short-term investments with investments in resources needed for your company’s longer-term future.

4. SHAPE Values and Standards –

"CEOs set the values, the standards, the ethics of an organization. They either lead or they mislead."

Define your company’s values (its identity) and standards (expectations) in ways that encourage the right behaviors.

• See also:
• Related article: HBR: Managing Oneself - by Peter Drucker
• Related article: "What would Peter do?" – A Tribute at Drucker Century
• Go here for A.G. Lafley's HRB article: "What Only the CEO Can Do"
• Go here for more on A.G. Lafley at "Leading Authorities" website

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HBR: Paths to Power by Jeff Pfeffer

"Power is the organization’s last dirty secret." ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

POWER IS REQUIRED IF ONE WANTS TO GET ANYTHING DONE in any large organization. Unfortunately, Power doesn’t just fall into one’s lap: one will have to go after it and learn how to use it. Stanford University professor for Organizational Development, Prof. Jeffery Pfeffer, argues that being uncomfortable with Power Dynamics has cost career promotions (and sometimes, the job) to many talented people from premier organizations and institutes including Harvard and Sloan. Pfeffer offers a primer on why power matters, how to get it, and how to use it to advance your organization's agenda - and thus, in turn, how to furthering your career, not just incidentally.

Powerful people prevail by using various techniques when push comes to shove. With examples from real-life and historical accounts from corporate and national political scenarios Pfeffer illustrates many of these techniques. (Interestingly, Pfeffer analyses Lalit Modi's ascent to great power from the world's wealthiest sporting body to the world cricket arena as one of the case studies.)

In his brilliant article titled "Power Play" in the latest issue of HBR magazine Pfeffer discusses the following basic idea. The article headline reads: "Acquiring real clout—the kind that helps you get stuff done—requires bare-knuckle strategies." Written more as a survival guide for any new 'idea' to progress, Pfeffer identifies personal barriers that the leader has to overcome. The article explains 11-point exercise towards the Paths of Power, acknowledging all along that it is not the ideal world that the techniques apply to, but rather it is for the real world that one deals with, and which is much less 'ideal' and just than all of us may want it to be.

The basic idea of the article is this:

Any new strategy worth implementing has some controversy surrounding it and someone with counteragenda fighting it. When push comes to shove, you need more than logic to carry the day. You need power.

Learning to wield power effectively begins with understanding the resources you control. Money is not the only one. Whatever you have - a valuable network, access to information - can be meted out or denied to gain leverage.

You can also push past obstacles through sheer relentlessness. You should avoid wasting political capital on side issues and dispense with opponents in ways that allow them to save face.

You may find such power plays and the politicians behind them unsavory - and they can be. But you'll have to get over your qualms if you want to bring about meaningful change.

Pfeffer identifies three main barriers that can make you 'your own worst enemy' unless you learn how to get over them and embrace the power you need.
1) The Belief That the World Is a Just Place: Believing in a just world makes people less powerful in two important ways. First, it limits their willingness to learn from all situations and all people, even those they don’t like or respect. Second, it anesthetizes them to the need to proactively build a power-base.

2) The Leadership Literature: The teaching on leadership is filled with prescriptions that reflect how people wish those in positions of power behaved. There is no doubt that the world would be a much better place if people were always authentic, modest, truthful, and concerned about others, instead of simply pursuing their own aims. But wishing that’s how people behaved won’t make it so.

3) Your Delicate Self-esteem: If people intentionally do things that could diminish their performance, they can view disappointing outcomes as not reflective of their true abilities. For instance, told that a test is highly diagnostic of intellectual ability, some people will choose not to study the relevant material or to practice, thereby decreasing their performance but at the same time providing an excuse that doesn’t implicate their natural ability. Similarly, if people don’t actively seek power, the fact that they don’t obtain it doesn’t have to be seen as a personal failure.

In the article, Pfeffer argues that Power is 'exercised' using some of the following techniques:

1. Mete out resources.
2. Shape behavior through rewards and punishments.
3. Advance on multiple fronts.
4. Make the first move.
5. Co-opt antagonists.
6. Remove rivals—nicely, if possible.
7. Don’t draw unnecessary fire.
8. Use the personal touch.
9. Persist.
10. Make important relationships work—no matter what
11. Make the vision compelling.

So, welcome to the real world. It may not be the world we want, but it’s the world we have!

See also:

• Go here for the HBR article page. And here for the HBR IdeaCast podcast page for Jeffery Pfeffer's interview - Telling The Truth About Power.
• Go here for Jeffery Pfeffer's official page at Stanford University.

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The Purpose of Business

"EVERYONE LIVES BY SELLING SOMETHING." Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish traveller and writer, once concluded. In the knowledge industry of the modern era, the selling could be of — an idea, a change, an example (PoC), an influence, a model. The logical outcome of which is value creation. Which further translates into profit or benefits of various kinds at different levels of its hierarchy.

Peter Drucker had a different view. Creating profit didn't seem to him to be the main goal of an enterprise. While advocating for Not-for-profit organizations, Drucker observed that there are obvious limitations to making continuous profit-making business models. According to him, to be responsible and relevant in the society, a business model could make profit that is equal to its cost of capital. However, if the goal of the business model is to create a customer, that could possibly provide a sustainable model for existence of a business.

Taking this argument a notch further, FT columnist Michael Skapinker suggests that, like leaders and people, business indeed is in the business of gaining respect:

Some are lucky enough to fulfil the highest of Maslow’s [top need from his psychology theory of the hierarchy of needs], self-actualization, at work. All sorts of people find true fulfilment at work – software developers, recording artists, even auditors. But it is a lot to ask from a job. Others, perhaps most people, hope for work that is reasonably interesting, and indulge their true passions – singing, hiking, wine-tasting – on the weekends.

The best businesses are good at providing a sense of belonging. But belonging can be transient. Businesses succumb to competition and disappear. Or technological innovation makes them redundant. No doubt the photographic darkroom was a companionable place to work; so was a travel agency. There is less need for them now.

I suspect it is Maslow’s second highest need – respect – that people most crave from work: respect not just from their colleagues but from the world [...] and it gets us closer to what business is for: making profits and serving customers by doing something we can be proud of.

[Emphasis added.]

• See also:
• Go here for more on Maslow’s psychology theory of the hierarchy of needs.
• Go here for the full article at FT.

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HBR: Managing Oneself - by Peter Drucker

HISTORY'S GREAT ACHIEVERS - A NAPOLEON, A DA VINCI, A MOZART - have always managed themselves. That, in large measures, is what makes them great achievers. Addressing the knowledge workers in the new economy, Peter Drucker goes on to emphasize the needs for personal development, stating that they must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers in taking the responsibilities of developing their own careers; beginning by saying:

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: If you've got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you start.

As the first of the series, the presentation that follows - within a max of 10 slides - captures the essence of Peter Drucker's legendary paper "Managing Oneself", which he published while stepping into the new century at the turn of the millennium.

Peter F Drucker - Managing Oneself

• See also:
• Go here for the full article at HBR website, and go here to try it out at Amazon
• Go here to download this presentation from slideshare.net

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"What would Peter do?" – A Tribute at Drucker Century

PETER F. DRUCKER WAS BORN IN AUSTRIA IN 1910, and would have completed a century this past Nov '09. It was celebrated all over by "Duckerites", among which one IIM professor said - if you have some time that you want to spend in a gainly manner then simply flip open any of Peter Drucker’s books and start reading. “Classic Drucker” was at an arm's length at that time and was worth giving a try. Apparently, the prof was right. What follows now is a brief intro before the main business.

Originally, an investment banker from London, Drucker was first published in German in 1930. He then went on to write 39 books on management and wrote editorial for WSJ for 20 years. At the height of the financial chaos, one WSJ issue carried his picture on the front page titled "What would Peter do?" – as if the question was being put to, if you may, a body of knowledge collectively known as Peter F. Drucker.

Drucker was also titled "the father of modern management". His writings have remained remarkably relevant up to and beyond Y2K era, at times touching daily life; his lessons in leadership and managing change offered a very fresh thinking; his passion towards non-profit organizations were of a true spirit; his “predictions” of corporate events such as fall of General Motors – which he actually helped build in 1950's, make him stand ahead of his time. Same as most of visionaries, perhaps. But if one is looking, there is a pattern to be found in Drucker’s digests – the advices pertain to the fundamentals, they encompass overall entropy of the system and urged to find solutions by referring to the organism’s inherent nature, and they were kept simple, brief and generic at times by cleaver wordplay.

What shall follow is a three-part series wherein some from Ducker's best of articles would be featured. A humble tribute [update] starting with Managing Oneself where Drucker sets goals, objectives and responsibilities for the Knowledge Worker.

• See also:
• Series article: Managing Oneself - by Peter Drucker

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Best Performing CEO's and Why MBA's Are Paid Higher

A HARVARD TEAM OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT consultants did a sampling of nearly 14 years covering 2000 Chief Executives of global companies listed by S&P. The sampling and tests were fairly exhaustive and unique, and presented a vivid picture of the Executive boardrooms that saw many major global economic events including the Y2K IT burst, Oil-price surge and dive, and 2007 economic down-turn, among others. Though the headline making "attribute" of the published list came out highlighting that the first three of top 5 best performing executives in the world do not have a formal degree in management. Three of the top five are connected to IT industry, and the other two are from petroleum and energy sector. Broadly, four out of 10 successful leaders in IT and six out 10 in energy sector do not possess such formal b-school education.

Overall, there are less than 30% of the top 50 listed chief executives having any formal management degree. The top 5 have total industry experience of about 30 years. And there doesn’t seem to be any trend suggesting that having an MBA correlates with (or compensates for) lesser industry experience.

Basis the media coverage of this HBR story, I did a small poll among peers of taking their opinions on the study, and one common question that I had for all was – what is the "special" expectation from a management grad from top management institutes. After all, this skill-set does command a certain premium over compensation and designation in the job market. Interestingly, alumni of these institutes could provide but a very sketchy and rather tentative reply. Whereas responses from non-MBA managers and professionals were found to be more thought-through.

As a personal point-of-view within the premise of making of an effective leader, the three key specialities in order of their importance that must be expected from these executive (management grads from primer institutes) are:

1. The ability to influence the work parameters
2. The ability to survive in and surpass non-conducive, and at times hostile, situations
3. The ability of effective and dynamic role-play and role-changes

Ability to Influence: Given the set of rules and roles, constraints and commitments, goals and objectives, the problem definition is analyzed. The ability to influence these problem statement parameters (and success thereof) is the value-add that the executive can bring to the table. Negotiators are high-influencers and negotiators are a sort after folks similar to these executives. This should not imply however that all executives should be negotiators; it is important though that most of the activities in addressing the problem definition would involve various levels of negotiations by the executive. It is also important to become an influencer before becoming a decision-maker.

Survive and surpass: The ability to survive in and surpass non-conducive and hostile situations directly correlates with the executive’s ability to stand-up and face challenges and adversities. Simply put, it is the attitude of the executive of not giving up and keep trying, and keep trying different things. (The expectation also arises from the fact that the executive has already surpassed trying conditions of cracking the entrance exams of premier institutes, and then has survived the onslaught of a tough curriculum.) The condition is the training. And the expectation is to have that training extended to the live working environment for the benefit of the project at hand.

Dynamic Role-play and "Seasoning": The top spot of the hierarchy is a summarization of all the roles beneath. A hands-on leader has a clear advantage over a theoretical one in practical situations. Organizations, by design or by default, provide opportunities of taking on various roles in varied capacities. "Seasoning" or Role Maturity is a parameter by which role change is judged, initiated and calibrated. It is also a very effective personal assessment tool by which the executive can identify personal strengths and work on weaker areas. While on one hand this ability is personality driven (where certain individuals may pursue a specific vertical growth is a defined area), versatility indeed is what separates successful top-spot holders from the rest.

• See also:
• Related article: NRN-Percepts of Being a Respectable Leader.
• Go here for the article at (new) HBR website.
• Go here for why Steve Ballmer of Microsoft might have missed any mention at all in the list.

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Leadership Speech of 'Guru' Greg Chappell

Greg Chappell at Mysore, Nov'09 [Source: self]

BRIEF, ARTICULATE, NO-NONSENSE, ALL-BUSINESS 'Guru' Greg Chappell has a pleasantly lighter side to his otherwise tough-guy personality and the young Indian crowd of Software professionals at ILI, Mysore got the rare pleasure of interacting up close and personal with the Australian cricket legend during his leadership speech last week.

Greg Chappell is a master tactician from southern Australia – apart from being the captain of Australia Test squad like his grandfather and elder brother, his illustrious career also includes joining breakaway leagues, fighting off nude opponents on the pitch, and the historically forgettable under-arm delivery that Greg as the then captain of Australia instructed his younger brother Trevor Chappell to deliver as the final ball in '81 against NZ at MCG.

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Peter Principle and Promotions

Peter Principle: "Every new member in a hierarchical organization climbs the hierarchy until he/she reaches his/her level of maximum incompetence." [try here for more]

IT IS PARADOXICAL, SOUNDS UNREASONABLE, AND DEFIES COMMON-SENSE. But that is how it works, realistically and evidently, for any hierarchical organization where the way of promotion rewards the best members and where the competence at their new level in the hierarchical structure does not depend on the competence they had at the previous level, usually because the tasks of the levels are very different between each other. Since about 50 years ago when a Canadian psychologist named Laurence J. Peter published his studies to this effect in 1969, there has been many changes in the way organizations and it workforce operate in relation with each other. There has been multiple experimental models across various industries, including Role-based organization, Competency-based designations, (A fusion of sorts of these two), flat-structures, circular organizations, and alike. Peter principle seem to have remained steadfast among all of these nonetheless.

In their study published a few days ago on Organization Efficiency titled "The Peter Principle Revisited" Prof Alessandro Pluchino and two other colleagues of the Universita di Catania of Italy argue that the long term consequence of Peter principle seems to imply an unavoidable spreading of the incompetence over all the organization and would be in danger of causing a collapse in its efficiency. The team presents a numerical study of Peter principle (arguably for the first time) which they presented as "agent based model" of managing organization efficiency.


[Above: Agent Based Model -- The computational study of the Peter principle process applied to a prototypical organization with pyramidal hierarchical structure having 160 positions across 6 levels. On a lighter note, a colleague recently came up with his idea on the progression within the pyramid structure that the "lighter" the person in terms of work-load, the "higher" she floats towards the top of the pyramid.]
The "Common Sense strategy" is to promote the most efficient person up the hierarchy. However, the study argues that the best strategies to improve, or at least not to diminish, the efficiency of an organization, when one ignores the actual way of competence transmission, are those of promoting an agent at random or of randomly alternating the promotion of the best and the worst members.

Providing alternatives to the CS approach for promotions, the study illustrates two alternative strategies inspired by Peter Hypothesis wherein either a random person is promoted (incidental, which is also in line with Game-theory), or the best and the worst persons are promoted alternatively.

• See also:
• Go here for more fun with Dilbert Principle.
• Go here for the research paper "Peter Principle Revisited" at Cornell Uni Library.
• Go here for MIT Technology Review blog "Why Incompetence Spreads through Big Organizations"

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Mushroom Theory Leadership

Mushroom Management Theory: Keep employees in the dark and fearful, feed them manure and dung, watch them grow and when they grow enough, get them canned. (try here for more at urban dictionary)

IN QUITE A CONTRAST TO THE PREVIOUS post on model leadership, this is not only a different type of leadership, it is found being practices widely as well. Referencing their publication for this month (June 2009), John Landry of Harvard Business Review writes that Lehman would not have happened if they would have allowed a freer flow of information, or made it easier for employees to raise their concerns. Industry observers have drawn parallels of Lehman explosion with implosions of Enron and WorldCom citing the same "keeping in dark" issues where information is not shared.

But before that, a brief 'story':

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NRN: Percepts of Being a Respectable Leader

Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood; the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

NR NARAYANA MURTHY OF INFOSYS delivered the opening lecture at Columbia Business School's Khemka Distinguished Speaker Forum at Manhattan on May 26, 2009, where the above quote from Roosevelt were the closing lines.

Mr. Murthy began by describing Capitalism as an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange of wealth is made possible and is maintained chiefly by the private individuals or corporations. It is a system that incentivises individuals to use their enterprise, drive, hard-work and innovation to create wealth for themselves and the society.

Mr. Murthy argued that capitalism is also a system most conducive of creation of jobs and elimination of poverty and no other social or political system has succeeded as much as capitalism in benefiting the society at large. Providing his reactions on the issue of things going wrong with capitalism in recent months - especially the disproportional funds and bonuses claimed by executives of organizations going bankrupt, billions worth of fraud funds, and leaders cooking up accounting books - Mr. Murthy, who was declared by The Economist in 2005 as one of the top 10 most admired global business leaders, called for looking inward and for cultivating better ethical qualities to become a respectable leader. Following are the eight of them as he recounts.

Percepts of being a Respectable Leader:

1. Create a good culture around you: Decent behaviour stems from a good culture surrounding a person. It is required to have the culture of openness, fairness, honesty, decency, transparency and accountability in a corporation. This task has to start from day one, and can not wait till you become a CEO.

2. Cultivate simple and inexpensive habits: The best way to overcoming greed is to derive pleasure and spend time on small, simple and inexpensive habits in life. Every decent town has a modest library. And, the government (still) does not tax having a good conversation.

3. Do not equate success with money and power: Success is your acceptance by the circle of you family, friends, your officemates, and your community that you are indeed valuable. Success is also about having good sleep every night.

4. Create an environment of happiness around you: A happy leader has a circle of supportive family and friends. Building such a circle requires a lot of emotional investment on your part. I do not know of anybody who is a demon at his office and an angel at home.

5. Don't get fixated on extreme desires: Desire is the root cause of all sorrows, said the Buddha. Extreme fixation with material things leads to greed, fraud and acts that we would later regret.

6. Shun jealousy: Jealousy is a rationalization of your failure vis-a-vis another's success or achievements.

7. Maintain transparency and develop a sense of humility: When in doubt, disclose (with your family, friends and at workplace). Humility is admitting that there could be other people better than me, and helps cultivate team-spirit.

8. Take part in charitable activities in your spare time: The opportunity of meeting other generous people outside the hierarchy of your organization is a sure way of escaping the orbit of jealousy.


[Above: NR Narayan Murthy delivering speech at Columbia. Go here at YouTube.]

• See also:
• Go here for the related article on Columbia website.
• Go here for more on Mr. Murthy on the official Infosys website.

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