The Ingredients of Success

When the Cat is away…

I had the privilege to go for dinner this week with some of the leaders of our European business, and they had some real gems of experience to share. The Managing Partner said, the first stage is to know your weakness, and yes, we all have them. The second stage is to hire people around you who are strong in your weak areas. Then you have a chance of succeeding. This is not a new principle, it has been followed to success for many millennia. I was also fortunate to once meet a monk called Govinda Prabhu. He explained that in the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the virtuous brothers, the Pandavas, also exhibited this dynamic, albeit in a relative sense. They were all virtuous and had an abundance of good qualities, but some were particularly strong in certain areas. Yuddhistira Maharaj, the elder of the brothers was extremely righteous. For him, righteousness was dearer to him than his life. On numerous occasions, his brothers would complain and say that they had more than sufficient grounds and reasons to wage war, and he would always decline and speak of the benefits of the way of peace, and need for tolerance. Now, in explaining some of these principles, Govinda Prabhu explains how both these elements are critical to success. He said that without the cause of righteousness, it is pointless to act, because you are simply setting yourself up to fail. At the same time, righteousness, cannot be upheld if there is weakness. The strength and to some extent aggression that the younger brothers, particularly Arjuna and Bhima bought, were necessary to uphold the righteousness and direction that Yuddhistira Maharaj bought. Sometimes we see this in corporations. At the top, the leadership is often very nice, with excellent principles, and sometimes at the middle management levels we see a style that may seem at conflict with these values. However, sometimes, in order to ‘get things done,’ a more aggressive mood may be necessary. Certainly in an environment where when the cat is away, the mice are at play so to speak.

 

Borrowing from the Future

Youthfulness, dynamism, freshness, ambitiousness. These are the qualities people like to see in leaders. But are they a physical attribute? Not necessarily. The greatest leaders often become great because they imbibe these. Nothing can stop the hands of time, but at the same time, those with these qualities, who are conscious of their benefits, continually learn and deepen their experience with them, and therefore constantly being conscious of them, they don’t forget them. They stay youthful and fresh at heart, although of course, externally they may be getting older. When I was a graduate, the global CTO of a company sponsored one of my projects. He used to always be so excited to hear of my developments and ideas. The more experiences I have, and the more people I meet, I realise more and more how great he was. He had these qualities, which had stayed with him over time. He clearly had experience with these concepts and applied them very enthusiastically. The CEO of our company addressed our Partners at a conference where they were being congratulated on achieving Partnership, saying that he would recommend a particular mindset on their achieving Partnership. He said they should not think of themselves as having “done it” and now  being the King’s of the Castle so to speak. Rather that they should think of the experience as borrowing time from the leaders of the future. In this way, one can be very forward looking, always leave lasting legacies, and find life actually quite light, and free flowing as they free themselves of the heavy weights of viewing themselves as part of a constitution if you like. This lightness is what paves way for achieving big.

 

The Ingredients of Success

The concepts cited above, you don’t see everyone around you think this way. It’s not quite normal. Why isn’t everyone thinking like this? Because only very few people become successful. It is not normal to be very successful. That’s why not everyone embodies such principles. But not all successful people think like this, I hear you say. We do not have the lense to analyse what bought someone success as there may be some things we cannot see with the naked eye. There may be a host of things a person may have done that bought them success, which we were not there to witness or see. Some of this may be planning, and training the mindset, which normally takes place not in the workplace. We don’t see this. There are numerous other reasons one may be successful, but we should look for the universal causes of success, and try to follow those. What the ancient Indian scriptures have to say about success, or opulence, or power as it would be called in corporate terms, is that it is born of austerity, or sacrifice. They also say it is based on virtuous behaviour. So we can understand that success must involve hard work, and virtue. One without the other, will not be successful in the corporate environment.

The Art of Zooming

As the number of areas one has to manage increase, the need for perspective also increases. The degree to which we can handle multiple important and urgent tasks successfully will have a big effect on our success and the speed of our progression. Handling multiple responsibilities requires discipline, the ability to differentiate, and most importantly the ability to take perspective; the ability to take a step back and zoom in and zoom out regularly. If one takes a deeper and broader perspective in life at large, it is far easier to practice this discipline and manage multiple areas; this is because outside is in, and inside is out; what we do at work has a baring on how we are outside work, and what we do outside of work, has a baring on how we are at work; it is inevitable. So what does taking perspective mean?

The Daily Tsuen Wan line Stampede

As you come off the Tsuen Wan MTR train at Admiralty station, there is a distance of about 20 to 30 meters to the train connecting Hong Kong Island Line train. As the train arrives, this distance separates the commuters from their connecting train. Sometimes, just when the doors open, the opposite trains’ doors are closing and it leaves, without taking the connecting commuters; they were late. More often than not however, there is a small window for commuters to transfer and get on. Knowing of this regular small window, passengers alight in a great rush, sometimes almost like a panic, banging into each other, sometimes even dropping their shopping on the way, and run the 20 to 30 meter distance in order to get onto the soon departing train. Now, before the train arrives, the platform is usually quiet and stable with only the sound of the large TV speakers being heard. As soon as the train arrives, there is mayhem for a few minutes. As soon as the connecting train leaves, it is quiet again. This is on-going for hours. On the Tsuen Wan line, I have never in 5 months waited more than 3 minutes for a train. Yet people, often elderly people are running, pushing others, to get onto the train just incase they need to wait for 3 minutes. There is always a small percentile of people however who wait for everyone to leave, and then walk in peace, and often times still make the train. Perhaps it is understandable if there is a tight meeting, or one is running late, but I wonder how many of the hundreds of people alighting each time, are in such a hurry every time; the importance, and scarcity of perspective.

The Way of the Wise

Sometimes we have so much on our minds that we cannot zoom out in order to select our next task or action. This has many implications, which have varying degrees of severity in the way they damage our route to success. In the best case, a clouded mind will lead to inability to act swiftly. It may lead to a lack of conviction as in our minds we’re still evaluating so many other alternatives, but the time to act has come. And in the worst case, it may lead to us choosing the wrong action. If our mind is clouded, we will find it more difficult to focus. When we lack focus, it may degrade our ability to evaluate situations and activities objectively. When we cannot evaluate objectively, we may choose unwisely. How do we facilitate the process of zooming out and getting perspective? Through remembrance. If we recall a very serious incident in our lives, the fact we often need to make an effort to recall it means that, whilst it may be very significant, its prominence fades over time. Time takes away all things no matter how great they may be, and remembrance of this can help us put things into perspective. As a catalyst to this process of gaining perspective, other people can help. Asking experienced people at work or elsewhere can add great value. Certainly this has been the way of Vedic thought. When King Yuddhistira was banished from the kingdom of Hastinapur unrighteously, often times he and his brothers would speak with great wise sages like Agastya Muni; to get perspective. When the younger brother of Lord Rama, Bharata was in a moral dilemma about what his duty was when his Father passed away and Lord Rama could not be crowned King due to being banished to the forest, he sought the advice of Guru Vasishta Muni; to gain perspective. When Vyasa Muni’s mind was perturbed after completing his authoring of the Mahabharata, he sought the counsel of Guru Narada Muni; to gain perspective. Training our minds and getting the help of our seniors, we can gain perspective.

Ultimately Perspective is Down to Us

Keshava Bharati Goswami said “You may have the greatest Guru in the Universe, but you have to do it yourself.” This is very relevant for us in the workplace and in life also; whilst guidance and the help and advice of so many very experienced and high caliber people may be there, and may be a huge help in our endeavours, ultimately our ability to handle multiple responsibilities well comes down to our own clarity of thought, decisiveness, and regularly taking perspective. Perspective, by its very nature can lead to great level of strategic position and taking advantage of big opportunities, and this is important. The greatest people however, don’t just apply it in the workplace; they apply it in life. This is why you will find the greatest leaders like the Warren Buffet’s, the Bill Gate’s of this world, whilst unparalleled in their success, do things that embody a broader, and deeper meaning. Whilst perspective is a journey and an on-going challenge, like all great things, it all begins with our thoughts.