Don Quixote

Don Quixote – Finding leadership in Lunacy

Reference: Don Quixote by Cervantes

The novel Don Quixote was written by Cervantes in 17th century and has been a best seller not only of its time but across centuries and the world. It is the only novel to be translated into most number of languages.

It is a story of Don Quixote, a tall thin idealistic country gentleman who after reading books about knights in medieval times gets such a fascination about knights that he starts believing himself to be one! He longs to do acts of bravery and does not miss any opportunity for it even if the opportunity does not exist. He is accompanied in his pursuits of knighthood, by Sancho Panzo, a greedy, cowardly but kind and faithful peasant labourer who acts as a reality check for Don but is conveniently ignored by the knight.

Don’s various acts in the story seem to be stupid and nonsensical but at the same time his single minded pursuit of goal force us to ponder whether he is a delusional madman or a leader ruled by vision and strong sense of self. He exemplifies the fact that when a mission consumes you, it fills you with optimism, creativity and stamina. The character forces us to search for answers to questions like:

a. Should we be ashamed of our dreams or follow them in reality regardless of their absurdity?
b. Should we hold values that the world around us has forgotten and placed in meuseums?
c. What is better - being people's hero or being hero in one's own eyes?
d. Where is the line that separates boldness from recklessness, bravery from blindness and cowardice from prudence?

Though the character may not be able to give clear answers to the above questions but certain leadership qualities do come out rather strikingly. He is full of energy and looks forward to the unknown despite being old. His ability to imagine has not withered with age. When on a mission, however absurd it may be for the rest of the world, his single minded pursuit is admirable.

Managers of organizations can draw lessons in leadership from Don. Whether they will like to be a Sancho who represents the world at large and is found in abundance or will they assume the role of Don and refuse to conform to the norms of the society thereby setting up their own norms and achieving the results that they dream about. Don exhibits a sense of responsibility many times and teaches the managers to be responsible for their actions, words and dreams. Don proves that achieving dreams calls for being mad; it demands rebelling against the set rules of the world.

If God was a Banker

If God was a Banker


Ravi Subramanian

After many months, I could get to read a novel thanks to a long flight and here’s my account of it.

I somehow tend to like stories that are told in more than a few flashbacks and therefore I enjoyed the story telling style (even the 2 or 3 amateur stories written by me in my blog are told in a flashback). But all along I could get the feeling that the plot is a complete pickup from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. While Ayn Rand pitched the two protagonists on the creative profession of architecture, the author here pitched his two on the hottest career of our times – banking. It’s been a long time when I read The Fountainhead, and I don’t recollect if we had anyone who can be labeled as God for both the protagonists. This seems to be the only difference between the two novels – here we have a God (who never showed any godliness except that of forgiveness) for taking care of both of them.

Sundeep and Swami start from the same professional backgrounds – management diplomas from IIMs. But it is surprising that Swami was shown to be way too modest even after spending 2 years in IIMA. It did not feel very nice to know that my alma mater was shown not instilling enough aggressiveness in its students. Anyway, Sundeep filled the vacuum. A few other things seemed to be not correct chronologically but one would not have given them any importance had the author himself not made it too realistic by using certain names especially of organizations.

The story could have been more to my liking if it had a little less of the excessive explicitness of sexual encounters of one of the protagonists. At times it seemed that the author is trying very hard to emulate Khushwant Singh but then Singh’s novels have a much smoother flow.

Enough of negative criticism. I did like the novel for its style of story telling. The pace was good and emotions seemed real. It also captured the politics, dramas etc that go on in banking circles – just that there were no inter-bank scenes. They are pretty common too and I wished they were captured somehow.

In the story, Sundeep and Swami, pass outs of IIMs join a foreign bank in India and in the first week impress their boss – Aditya who plays the God. The two take different paths to success – Sundeep takes short-cuts to climb up the ladder and pocket the moolah as well, while Swami takes the hard way full of sincerity and hard work. And as any Bollywood movie would reach its climax, Sundeep gets trapped in his own actions and is asked to give resignation by the bank while Swami is elevated to higher posts. Aditya, the God comes to the rescue of Sundeep as he did in past for both Sundeep and Swami despite Sundeep’s bad behavior with him during Sundeep’s rise.

All in all, an OK one time read, but don’t do the mistake that I did – purchasing the novel. Read it by borrowing it.

Power Plays

Power Plays
(John O. Whitney & Tina Packer)

Taking up the issue almost all of us face in our professional lives – promotion or transfer, or new hired the authors reveal the one doesn’t necessarily get fired but one always feels the push and its neither subtle nor gentle. One needs to keep an eye on the peers and other executives just as King Henry IV did. One shouldn’t trust them blindly. Shakespeare makes it very clear that the life of a usurper is not at all easy. The new boss (could be you) is a foreign substance injected into a living organism. S/He is grain of sand in the oyster – will either be rejected or go on to become a pearl. Thus the words of King Henry IV should always be kept in mind

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”

As a boss you have an influence on the lives of your subordinates both official and personal. Thus the self conduct becomes very vital and should be impeccable. The two qualities that could see one through this not so friendly environment are being paranoid and an ability to make a lot of clever moves. This further demands a creation of one’s own team of loyalists which is not easy but is too important to be ignored. As King Henry IV advised his son that to unite the factions at home, find a foreign enemy; such an outside threat will keep people inside focused.

As observed by Machiavelli, while the leader’s best job insurance is to enlist the support of the people, which alone is not sufficient: watch the nobles. The masses don’t aspire to your position, but the nobles do. That apart, working with the people is important to assess people’s skills, commitment and future loyalty. Just as Prince Hal hung out on the streets to know the people of his estate and was able to get much information which otherwise never reached him.

Though it is an acknowledged fact that monetary rewards are important, they aren’t enough to keep people enthusiastic and committed. They want a piece of the intellectual action too. So the way is: give them tough challenges and give them the resources and room to do the job, then when they succeed, reward them with recognition and cash.

Given all this, one still needs to be wary of the people who helped one up. And to avoid such backstabbing, stay in touch, stay involved and reward your people as merit deserves. But make sure that your total attention is not just to that inner circle but extends to the people who do the real work – salesmen, technicians, machine men etc. It may seem to come in the way of cost-cutting exercises that are so prevalent all across. This can be managed by following what Robert Lear of Columbia Business School says, “Hire four to do the work of six and pay them like they were five.”

Now when you take up a job at a higher level, you might find that you need to fire/transfer some people. But these some people could be powerful people in their own right and it mayn’t seem easy, though it might be important for the company. Describing the mistake that Henry IV made by dismissing outright the people who helped him get the thrown and even going to the extent of referring them as servants – thus displaying complete lack of diplomacy and hence committing a tactical blunder. A new manager has a small window of opportunity when s/he first arrives. If s/he can identify those who are likely to make trouble and are not well respected, s/he should let them go immediately. But such firing should be tactical after considering all repercussions and the strength of the ground s/he stands on.

Second, one should keep in mind that one should be appearing larger than one’s boss – as the author says. “A duke can never upstage a King”. Just as it is important to acknowledge the good work of your subordinates by rewarding them with appreciation and money, it is important to pamper the boss by letting him take the credits for the world to know.

While we referred to encouraging people, make sure you are good orator and if not, learn to be one or at worst learn to imitate as one. Take a look at Henry V’s speech to his soldiers as they readied themselves to face the French who outnumbered them. The speech surely made his men’s passion many times more than that of French:

“This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”

Same goes with the famous speech by Churchill, which instilled passions when his men readied themselves to face the men of Hitler. Another instance is the speech of Antony in Julius Caesar whereby he wins over the riot of the people.

But, a leader needs a companion – friend, secretary, spouse, anyone – with whom the heart can be let out; something of a support system. A support to which one can go to at the end of the day.

Another very important point a leader needs to take care of is the succession which is not only important for the company but also for the leader him/herself. And as per authors, planning a succession is the most difficult task as it brings in sight the reality of one’s retirement/moving out thus lose of all the power one was gloating in. But even if one is able to conquer such difficult feelings, the choice of successor is not easy and often proves to be the point of fall for the organization. Authors advice that qualities to look for in the leader are the same since centuries: strength, resourcefulness, guile, knowledge, wisdom, empathy, energy, courage, curiosity, constancy, persuasion and vision.