Leadership Development
Leadership Speeches and Presentations
- The Frontiers of New Energy Paradigm: Cultivating the Courage to Create The New Dynamics
- Committing to Re-Build Trust as a “True Servant” of a Fractured Civilization: Towards A More Enlightened Leadership
- Realizing Your Full Potential in “New World” of Possibilities: Writing the Story of Convergence
- September 11th: Transitioning from an Unfortunate Myopia to an Enlightened Dynamics
- Exploring Frontiers Beyond Trade: Toward an Interdependent Pacific Community
- A Thousand Years of Evolution in a Thousand Days: Uncovering the Hidden Assets for the Digital Age
- Exploring Frontiers beyond Trade: Toward an Interdependent Pacific Community
- Responding To A New World Dynamics and Clinton Administration:Japan’s New Challenge (text)
- Responding to a New World Dynamics and Clinton Administration: Japan’s New Challenge (presentation)
- Cultivating the Courage to Create: A Fundamental Requirement to Build a Dynamic and Vibrant Economy
- Building a Competitive Economy: Lessons from the East Asian Experience
- Innovating Strategic Possibilities Ahead: Toward A Dynamic & Forward Looking Society
- Cultivating a shared vision of the future and then developing national competitive strategy to convert the vision into reality
- Humanizing the economic processes such that we could go beyond financial engineering and focus on grass roots social engineering
- Building a new India with a new mind set with a new sense of pride which will celebrate the values and principles embedded in our ancient philosophies Accordingly the theme of the All India Management Associationʹs 21st Annual convention in Calcutta ‐ ʺHuman Dimensions of Liberalization: The Task Aheadʺ is indeed very close to my heart. My interactions with people around the world, possibly in more than 15 countries, both at the Board rooms and Tool rooms of large, medium and small size corporations, have time and again convinced me, there is essentially only one dimension which drives a ʺprogressive processʺ of any socioeconomic advance ‐ it is the human dimension. This dimension will require us to manage ‐ factors such as ‐ the trust and pride that each individual cherishes, respect for each others efforts, and love for the environment that we live in.
Instead, over the last forty five years, lack of clarity in its economic policies, lack of commitment to bring fundamental changes at the grass root level, euphemism with short‐term gains, all together have created in India, a dynamics which is ʺvalue subtractive and viscousʺ. Time and again in national and international forums we have sounded positive, often over confident in our deliberations; in the process ʺby the act of talking big, we have failed to act bigʺ. In turn it has ʺled us to learn slowlyʺ, ʺled us to undermine executionʺ, ʺled us to undervalue qualityʺ, ʺled us to under focus 2 on valuesʺ, ʺled us to denigrate rather than celebrate championsʺ, and above all ʺled us away from cooperationʺ.
It is important that we acknowledge that Indiaʹs past and prevailing systems have destroyed the intrinsic divine elements, which make the process of socioeconomic development a selfless and an enjoyable one. Consistent failures to deliver as a Nation in conjunction with the false sense of confidence in leadership speeches, have taken the ʺtrue courage to face the fundamentalsʺ, totally out of our national psyche. In short, we have become a nation without a ʺcharacterʺ
RE‐HUMANIZE not RE‐ENGINEER: Re‐engineering which some term restructuring, has been in vogue in the Western world for the past 5‐6 years. Most companies who have adopted the concept successfully were able to become more efficient and cost effective; however because the human dimension was missing some of the early gains were not sustained and in some cases led to den personalization of the work place. Indian organizations today in a nation with millions of different social tensions cannot justify the re‐engineering route. What however we need to do is to get people involved in the nation building process by engaging them in re‐creating the future business concepts and delivery system (with global benchmarks) Only then will India be able to create one side sustainable economic base winch continually seek higher levels of efficiency, and at the same time increase the consumption power of the nation.
Our firm has worked with several organizations around the world in which these principles have been introduced. Today many of them are transformed into the new mode, ‐ putting in motion a process of development which is enjoyable, forward looking and competitive. We must however realize while Indian philosophy is based on strong principles, very little of our philosophy is practiced today. The period of transition will not be an easy ‐ it could well be a painful, up‐hill struggle.
Finally, should we identify with the unique opportunity to create new world based on the unique heritage of India, should we want to follow a process of nation building in which every Indian citizen could proudly participate, should we desire to build institutions which draw out the best in people, we must now face the challenge of change in building a new national character. In pursuing the process of change, may we remind ourselves of Swami Vivekanandaʹs view on character building ‐ ʺThe. cause of all the miseries we have in the world is that men foolishly think pleasure to be the ideal to strive for. After a time,man finds thatit is not happiness but knowledge, towards which he is going, and that both pleasure and pain aregreatteachers, and that he learns as much from evil as from good. As pleasure and pain pass before his soul they have upon it different pictures, and the result of these combined impressions is what is called manʹs characterʺ.
Letʹs pledge today to make a difference we must draw strength from our past, and inspire people towards an enlightened and a common future. September 27th, 1994 Calcutta.
