BackA different perspective on leadership, success
This year, 'INSIGHT: The DNA of Success' programme, led by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev , will take place from 24 to 27 November
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Bengaluru: If you cannot manage yourself, how are you going to manage a thousand people, or even a hundred or even ten?"
That query posed by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev at the Isha Foundation’s annual leadership workshop for entrepreneurs resonated with many attendees, including Deepak Satwalekar, the former managing director and chief executive officer of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Co. Ltd.
“It makes you think and reflect on what your priorities should be. Don’t go around trying to fix the world. Fix yourself first, and the rest will follow," said Satwalekar, who has been a “resource leader" at the annual event since it first started five years ago with the aim of helping small businesses scale up.
This year, ‘INSIGHT: The DNA of Success’ programme, led by Sadhguru, will take place from 24 to 27 November and will feature State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya, Piramal Group and Shriram Group Chairman Ajay Piramal, former Kellogg and INSEAD dean Dipak Jain, former Britannia Industries Ltd MD Vinita Bali, TeamIndus fleet commander Rahul Narayan, Shoppers Stop Ltd non-executive vice-chairman B.S. Nagesh, and textiles minister Smriti Zubin Irani. Mint is a partner of the programme.
So what draws so many corporate leaders, academics and entrepreneurs to the event held every year at the Coimbatore headquarters of Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation?
“You will learn several things that you were not taught in management school or at work," and get a chance to be inspired by Sadhguru, said Shanker Annaswamy, the former MD of IBM India Pvt. Ltd.
For instance, the workshop helped Sapan Jain summon the courage to leave his corporate job at International Business Machines Corp. and start reverse logistics service provider Blubirch, and alter his entire approach towards problem-solving. It taught him to focus on the variables he could control rather than obsessing over the potential consequences of a situation, ranging from the departure of a key employee to a promised investment falling through.
“All of us read business books. All of us hear business leaders. Sometimes, (all of that) beyond a point can get vegetative and monotonous. When you hear a different perspective which is still very pragmatic and practical (such as Sadhguru’s), it makes a lot of sense," Jain said.
Vikash Agrawal, the promoter of power plant equipment maker Hi-Tech Systems & Services Ltd. (HTSSL), agreed.
The insights he gleaned there have “become a kind of another management book for me," said Agrawal, who is planning to attend the event yet again this year.
Agarwal has made sure to implement some of the business lessons he learned at the event, including the “fail early" concept and “the 90-day rule" proposed by BRICS Bank chief K.V. Kamath in a bid to set a limit on the time a company should pilot a new idea before moving on.
This is exactly why management gurus such as Ram Charan recommend the workshop.
“The single most reason (that makes this workshop unique) is that the learning is done from the practitioners," Charan said.
The resource leaders, who act as informal mentors to entrepreneurs at the event, come from diverse backgrounds and sectors, making it almost a certainty that a participant will find someone he or she will be able to relate with personally and professionally, former attendees said.
Also, unlike years past, this year’s event will include more structured modules on specific topics and include more women and people from the manufacturing, said programme facilitator Nagesh.
For Nagesh, the biggest challenge is to make the workshop equally appealing to somebody whose company’s sales are Rs10 crore and another who runs a Rs1,000 crore firm. That said, he believes the programme is “fairly unique" because of the fact that the spiritual part is actually integrated into it. The event’s faculty chair, Dipak Jain, too has been fascinated by Sadhguru’s focus on “inner engineering."
“First you have to be a better person before you start a better business or a better society," Jain said.
The programme has proved to be an eye opener for not just the entrepreneurs but also for those who have been past speakers or mentors.
“Everyone has their own struggle and sometimes understanding how others dealt with their own challenges, can give us the inspiration to move forward," said Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd co-chairman and CEO G.V. Prasad.
Prasad encouraged entrepreneurs to practise a mantra he learned from Sadhguru that those who want to scale up must learn to let go of their current state without fear and move to a higher plane, akin to trapeze artists, while Satwalekar urged them to stay hungry for knowledge, learn to prioritise, surround themselves with smarter people and not be afraid of failure.
For many, like Varda Shine, the former CEO of De Beers Diamond Trading Co, the main draw of the program is Sadhguru, whose way of looking at leadership and success is “much wider than any other business learning."
And former participants across the board have a simple piece of advice for anyone looking to attend the event this year.
As Anupal Banerjee, senior vice president – human resources, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd, succinctly put it: “If I were to do it again, I think I would go with an open and empty mind."
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