CHAINED TO SUCCEED!

Michelangelo

She was a young girl when she first came to Mumbai from a small village. She was born into a dalit family and had faced discrimination all her life. After marriage at a tender age of 12, it got even worse as she was beaten up by her husband's family and tortured daily. She could not take it and ran away to her father's house. But the Indian society always looks down at a woman who leaves her husband. The pressure was too much for her to take and she tried to commit suicide at the age of 16. Her aunt saved her and inspired her to live her life on her own terms. That day, this 16 year old Kalpana made a promise to herself to live her way. She went back to Mumbai and started working at Rs.2 per day. She worked 16 hours a day. Soon, she started her own business. Subsequently, as luck would have it, she got a chance to run a metal engineering company - Kamani Tubes - which was in massive debt. She could understand the plight of the people best as she had already been in that situation once. She soon turned the company around and is today the CEO of this multi-million dollar company. Her commitment to herself, to never give up, finally paid off.

Rajita Chaudhuri

Success comes when you are ready to be bonded, when you are ready to be committed. With commitment, comes the ability to give your best without looking for returns. A mother's love is the best description of commitment. She loves her child without thinking or calculating what she will get in return. It's pure, it's unconditional, and it comes from a deep commitment towards her baby. All people who have achieved greatness have been able to do so because of their steely determination and their commitment to the cause. Michelangelo was one such person. He was a great artist, but his greatness lay in his ability to stick to his commitments. He sculpted his first masterpiece at the age of 21. He was so good that he was soon asked to paint the ceiling of a small chapel in the Vatican. He was initially asked to paint only 12 figures on the ceiling, a figure that over time increased to 400. Since he had committed to the task, he did not refuse to paint any of the 400 figures. The whole task took him four years, and that too while working mostly lying on his back, as he had to paint the ceiling. This caused permanent damage to his eyesight; and at the age of 37 itself, he started looking quite old. One day, while Michelangelo was immersed at work, someone saw him intently painting a figure that was quite concealed in a dark corner, a corner that most people would not notice. The person asked Michelangelo why he was working so hard on something that not many would see? His answer was, "God would see!" That is commitment. when you work with passion and give your best without calculating how much benefit you would get. As expected, the ceiling that Michelangelo painted set a new standard in art, which is being copied for generations now.

Mary Kay Ash

Great leaders are those who are committed to a cause. In fact, not just that, they are great leaders if they can make their employees as committed as they themselves are. As Thomas Watson Jr quoted in the book A Business and its Beliefs - The ideas that helped build IBM: "The basic philosophy, spirit, and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation, and timing." If your people believe in you, then you can achieve anything. For them to believe in you, they need to see your commitment towards them. If you treat them well, challenge them well, and give a good, fair, honest feedback, they will remain committed to you come what may. Mary Kay Ash was not just a businesswoman committed to her business but she was also committed to the women who ran her business, who sold her products. After working for 25 years in a male-dominated industry, when Mary retired in 1963, she started writing a book on `direct-sales', something she had done all her life. The book soon turned into a business plan; and Mary and her 20-year-old son soon started a cosmetics company. She had spent her life in a male dominated world and knew how difficult it was for women and she was determined to change it. She created her company with a strong commitment towards women. A company where women had unlimited potential personally and financially. She once said, "My objective in life is to help women know how great they really are." The commitment showed and soon her company - Mary Kay Cosmetics - became one of the largest direct-sales cosmetics companies in the world. After all, a company is as great as its people.

Henry Luce

Henry Luce founded the Time magazine not only to make money from it, but he also thought that it was his responsibility to inform and educate his readers. He wanted them to think, debate and discuss various issues. He brought a sense of mission to journalism. By 1940, he was America's most powerful and innovative mass communicator. It was his commitment to a cause that made his magazines more gripping than others and provided readers a better view of the world than similar periodicals and newspapers. Soon, Time Inc. became a substantial concern. Most correspondents started reading Time and tried to copy its style of writing.

When you are committed, you set standards of excellence.

COMMITMENT GIVES YOU A REASON TO LIVE

AND A REASON TO DIE FOR

One man who gave up his life for a cause, a commitment, was Ernesto Che Guevara. He said, "We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it." In 1955, Che, who was just a troop doctor then, met Fidel Castro. Slowly, he developed close bonds with Fidel. Soon, Che understood the cause for which Fidel was fighting and started believing in it. He started fighting with Fidel - and from a doctor of the group, Che soon became its most courageous soldier. He was deeply committed to the cause of the oppressed and the exploited and was ready to fight for them, irrespective of which part of the world they lived in. He was from Argentina but he fought in Cuba; he even fought in Bolivia where he met his death. This is what has made him the most famous revolutionary of the world. He is a man whose life will continue to inspire many, even years after his death, for he lived his life for a cause and even died fighting for it.

Che Guevara

Commitment makes you go beyond your comfort zone. A lot of us start a lot of things because we are interested in them. We start learning a musical instrument, a new language, join the gym etcetera because, well, we're interested in the same. To be really successful in any field, one needs to go beyond merely being interested. One needs to be committed. When all that binds you with something is plain interest, you would undertake that only when it's convenient to you. But if you are committed, you'd do that even when it's not convenient.

Similarly, you find someone interesting and fall in love; but to make a marriage last, takes something more. A deep commitment to the relationship and a lot of hard work are required. Today, many are ready to fall in love but few are ready to commit to it; so the number of divorces are increasing because that commitment to love, no matter what obstacles or temptations come your way, is missing. Passion without commitment is of no use.

COMMITMENT IS FREEDOM

Commitment is a choice to give up choices. Once you have committed to a cause, it actually gives you a lot of freedom, for it removes all distractions; it removes the burden of finding other possibilities. You now become free to put all your energies into the one cause you believe in. When you commit to something - or someone - your life acquires a whole new meaning. Lack of commitment makes life unfulfilled and boring. Commitment makes you act, builds a sense of discipline, and gives you direction and satisfaction. Anita Roddick was one such leader. She was the founder of the company The Body Shop (which is now owned by L'Or‚al). She made cosmetics from plant extracts. She also made a commitment to herself that unlike other cosmetics companies, she would not test her products on animals. She operated a business of cosmetics but she was committed to the society. She once said, "I would rather promote human rights than a bubble bath." It was this commitment that helped her make all policies and make all the tough decisions. It is this commitment that made her company such a special company, for her customers too believed in her and in what she believed in - and loved her for it. She died in 2007 but her brand, her way of doing business, lives on. She showed the world that business could be done to help principles and ethics; and yet, one could make profits.

Ford Motor Company had been plagued with losses, yet the company stuck to its commitment towards the environment and did not succumb to pressure under hardships. Its focus and vision paid of and in 2011, it was voted as one of the world's most ethical companies. Its commitment to the environment was actually its key differentiator and helped it to beat its rivals. No wonder, it was the only auto company that made it to the list that had 110 companies in all. Ford made a comeback - but without compromising on the key issues it believed in.

All companies that have survived over generations, all relationships that have grown over decades, all leaders whom we talk about... all of them have chained themselves to certain ideas, certain philosophies. If you want to succeed, first find an idea that you want to commit your life to, that you want to be tied to and bonded to forever, for then you will find the freedom to really work and achieve what you want. It's a fact that with commitment comes true freedom, and being chained to a cause brings true success!

IT’S COMMONSENSE SILLY!!!

The Olympics are over and forgotten and so is India’s performance. Yes, we did win a few medals, but we did not win a gold. If we had to look at the Olympics from a marketer’s point of view, then once again, there is this one company, which deserves to get the ‘Gold’ for its marketing strategy.

If you watched the Olympics, you would not have missed the neon green shoes on the feet of some 400 athletes. Well it’s not the first time that athletes have worn Nike shoes during the Olympics, but it is definitely the first time that they have worn this color. Earlier, Nike used to make shoes that matched the uniforms of the athletes. The shoes ‘matched’, which means that they blended with the uniforms. Nike did not like that for nobody really noticed them. Martin Lotti, the designer at Nike, was not happy just designing shoes; he wanted to be noticed. So he chose a color that was bound to stand out – be it the racing track, the boxing ring, or any other event. He colored his shoes neon green and made every athlete wear them. There was no chance that anyone could miss them. So while Adidas was the official sponsor of the game, it’s once again Nike’s shoes that got noticed.

Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri

If you stick by certain basic rules, chances of going wrong are reduced remarkably. Like in the above mentioned case, when people go to watch the Olympics, they go to watch the athletes. So if any brand wants to get noticed, the most logical thing would be to be as near to the athletes as possible. Nike did just that. It thought ‘athletes’ and all marketing and branding efforts were concentrated around the athlete. So while Coca Cola is rumored to have paid $100 million and Adidas has apparently shelled out around $63 million, it is Nike who did not spend any money on sponsorships that got the maximum attention. Branding is all about creating the right impact and Nike was bang on target this time. Branding is also about creating customer satisfaction, but surprisingly, many companies lose this focus and finally lose out in the race.

IT’S FOR THE CUSTOMER, SILLY

Peter Drucker quoted a long time back, “There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer.” This simple fact is overlooked by many. First, you have customers, and the rest follows later. However logical and simple the concept, some companies just fail to implement it. For many, the focus is on ‘shareholders’. They rationalize that if shareholders are happy, the company is doing good.

Jack Welch is one of the best examples of a CEO who is known for his capacity to grow shareholder value. He moved GE from a market value of $14 billion to $484 billion; making it the most valuable and largest company in the world. It was the one company that met market expectations every quarter for almost 48 quarters, and it delighted shareholders for 12 years. So if shareholder expectations are the benchmark, then GE should have been the strongest company. But surprisingly, after Jack Welch retired, the company’s market capitalization started going down and today, GE has lost 60% of that value. How could this happen? The answer is simple; the earnings and the balance sheets were ‘managed’. There was no ‘real’ value creation happening in the company. This is one of the reasons why every day, a new accounting scandal emerges in the corporate world and companies that looked so strong and sturdy just disappear.

It’s customer delight and not shareholder delight that makes a company really outperform its competitors. Time and again, it has been proved that the company, which did not shift its focus from the customer, come what may, won in the long run .

The iPhone 5 was launched recently. It’s a phone the world had been waiting for with great anticipation. That’s because this is one company that never cared for Wall Street or the shareholders. It believed in only one rule – delighting the customer. In fact, Apple’s iconic founder Steve Jobs never left an opportunity to bring out the fact that he did not bother about shareholders, and what mattered was delighting the customer beyond expectations. His energy was focused on developing a new product and his consumers loved him for that. Apple fans world over adore the company, and do not care about the technology that it uses. So while the tech geeks might not rate the iPhone 4S very highly, the fact is that Apple sold four million iPhone 4 handsets in three days; the maxi mum a phone has ever sold in corporate history. The iPhone 5, which was launched a few days back, has been judged by many as lacking the ‘knockout gasping features’ that people have started to expect from Apple. But it will still sell 22 million units in the September quarter. In fact, after the launch, experts have revised their figures and are thinking that it will touch 27 million. According to some, the new device should sell as many as all the previous models combined. JP Morgan has even calculated that iPhone 5 could add half a percentage point to the country’s GDP growth!! Once again, you’ll see lines in front of Apple stores and share prices will start moving up.

Jack Welch

A company that specializes in delighting its customers looks different, feels different and behaves differently. As Roger Martin, in his book “Fixing the Game”, says “To delight customers, a radically different kind of management needs to be in place, with a different role for the managers, a different way of coordinating work, a different set of values and a different way of communicating. This is not rocket science.” These organizations are not dominated by the sales force or the accountants, who only talk numbers; but by people who know how to create value. After all, it is commonsense that delighting the customer is what gets a business profits.

Business is finally for the customers and shareholder satisfaction is the consequence of correct strategies and not the strategy, silly!!

IT’S ALL ABOUT PEOPLE ALWAYS, SILLY!

Steve Jobs

A few days back, Michelle Obama delivered a speech at a national political convention. It was one of the finest speeches ever made. In fact, it was so powerful that it’s being touted as the speech, which could change the way the nation looked at Obama. If Barack wins, he will owe more to his first lady than any other president ever has. The speech created such an impact because she spoke from her heart, because she spoke the truth, and because she did not talk negatively about her opponent. Instead, she talked about herself, her family and her husband, and how they came from modest backgrounds and hence they understand best what the millions of voters are going through. She told them how she and Barack were still the same people and hence their policies would be the ones that they would have wanted when they were just simple working class people. She talked of love; she talked of how hard Barack had worked and how he was still that same man she had married years ago, for “being President doesn’t change who you are… it reveals who you are”. And for the first time, she had driven an entire nation to tears and most probably driven Barack Obama back into the hearts of many Americans.

Michelle Obama

Even when it comes to winning the Presidential elections, remember, it’s finally all about people and making people like you. Michelle Obama knew that people would appreciate honesty. Also, pointing fingers at your opponent will not put you in a better light; rather, being honest will. It’s commonsense.

Finally be it running a business, or running an ad campaign or even running for President; the rule remains the same. If you want to succeed, no fancy gimmicks may work. But simple commonsense will work always.

JUST DO IT!

The way to your dreams, your goals lies not just in charting a good action-plan, but also equally in decluttering your life, the way all great men have done

DON’T COMPLICATE IT

“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature...” – Thomas Kempis

In today’s world, where we live in an environment of clutter, chaos and confusion, the person who is able to de-clutter and simplify his life is the one who can achieve the maximum. Most of us are doing too much – speaking too much, connecting too much (thanks to Facebook and other networking sites), multitasking too much, aiming for too many goals, filling our workday with too many commitments, and the list goes on. It’s time to hold back, think, and simplify things. It’s time to focus on the essential and de-clutter, and de-stress our life. All successful people have done it.

However, simplicity is the most difficult thing to achieve. The ones who can achieve it have been the most successful. Charlie Chaplin was one such legend. He simplified films. All his films were immaculately constructed. He understood human psychology perfectly and depicted it in the simplest manner in his films, which is why even today, they are as enjoyable to watch. Come to think of it, simplicity can be pretty complex. Only if you have a deep understanding of the problem can you think of a simple explanation or a simple solution. As Lao Tzu once said “I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” The one who can master these three virtues is sure to succeed.

Look at the world of advertising; even here, simplicity works the best. The commercials we remember the longest are the ones that tell a simple story. Remember the Zoozoos of Vodafone, or the little pug of the Hutch advertisements? Almost all of us remember them even though the ads have stopped being aired on TV. A great advertising guru is one who has the knack to understand the pulse of the consumer. Ask any advertising man and he will tell you that the toughest challenge is getting ‘customer insight’, i.e. trying to figure out what will motivate the consumer to buy. Most of the times, the answers are the simplest. When Rasna was launched (sometime around 1983), the ad agency Mudra used one simple headline, ‘Home Magic’, and below it put a photograph of 32 glasses filled with Rasna with a straw in each glass. A simple idea, but the housewives loved it for the visual embodied the value-for-money proposition. One pack could make 32 glasses. So successful was this simple depiction that the visual remained the brand’s identity for 23 years. A great advertisement is one, which very simply articulates what the consumer wants. This requires great skill but once you have found your message, you do not require expensive locations, celebrities or expensive sets to make your ad stand out and get noticed. The right message is remembered and people never get tired of watching the ad. Amul’s advertisements are another example of the power of simplicity. They pick up a topic that is in the news and build an ad around it. In 1967, the first hoarding of Amul went up in Mumbai and till today, people wait for Amul’s next ad. Look what a simple idea can do!

Rajita Chaudhuri

It’s said that the greatest truths are the simplest. The same can be said of the greatest men. William Wordsworth was a great poet who wrote about the simple joys of nature; and even today, his poems remain as popular. He said, “How many undervalue the power of simplicity! But it is the real key to the heart.” Mahatma Gandhi, one of the greatest men India has seen, believed deeply in the virtues of simplicity. He said, “Live simply, so that others may simply live.” The moment we ‘clutter’ our life with too many unnecessary wants and needs, we forget to enjoy its true beauty; and it’s this greed, this insatiable hunger that leads to more problems for not just us but those around us also.

In a nutshell, great things start with simple ideas; and truly great people have achieved their greatness by believing in simplicity. They lived simple lives and found simple solutions to every complicated problem. Very simply put, if you want to lose weight, the simple solution is to eat less. If you want to do well in studies, study daily. If you want to become a good musician or sportsman, get up every morning and practise. If you want India to really change, go ahead and vote for the most deserving candidate. If you want to achieve something, just do it!

DON’T GIVE IN

The temptations of time wasters are everywhere and are the causes of a lot of procrastination. The television and YouTube are two mediums causing the biggest wastage of time. Hours evaporate into a mist of undone tasks before we know it. These temptations are the greatest when we have the most to do. The less time we have, the more the temptation to waste it doing things, which could easily have been avoided.

In his book Eat the Frog, author Brian Tracy gives one simple advice. He says that according to an old saying, if you eat a live frog in the morning, nothing bad will happen to you for the whole day. However, the ‘frog’ that he speaks about is actually the one thing that you find the most difficult to do in your ‘to-do’ list. It means the task, which is the most important; and it is generally the most demanding task that we try to procrastinate the most. It is this ‘frog’ that should be attacked first and finished the moment we start our day. This will ensure that the job is done when you have the maximum energy and time in hand, leaving you feeling happy and satisfied for the rest of the day; and perhaps, because of this, one is encouraged to do even more things in lesser time. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “The best thing about the future is it comes one day at a time.” What he meant was that we write our future ‘one day at a time’; so if each day is planned well and if each day is made productive, the future is bound to be good. Live each day to its fullest, by planning it well and starting the day by doing the most important things first.

GIVE UP, BUT DON’T GIVE IN

Give up something. Abstain from certain things. Have the courage to say ‘No’, for it gives you strength and prevents you from giving in... from succumbing to pressure. Great people managed to achieve the impossible by making a promise to themselves of abstaining from certain things till they accomplished what they wanted. Chanakya refused to tie his hair till he had avenged his father’s death. Draupadi refused to tie her hair till she had taken her revenge. Gandhi refused to eat (and undertook indefinite fasts) till the British agreed to his demands. Giving up something to attain a greater goal has been the foundation of Indian culture. It gives one immense power. Fasting makes us stronger. Giving up non-vegetarian food makes us increase our self-control. You could start by giving up one activity that wastes time and use that time to do something productive.

One of the greatest qualities of a leader is his ability to overcome temptations. It’s his ability and courage to say a ‘no’ which gives him greater control over his life and his thoughts, for every time he says a ‘no’ to the temptation, he keeps the focus on his goals and that increases his determination and willpower. You say a ‘no’ for you refuse to take ‘not possible’ for an answer; because when you are obsessed with an idea and think only about it and nothing else, all your energy and life starts revolving around it. Once that happens, you are bound to succeed.

A person who can control his thoughts, a person who has a strong mind is the one who achieves the most. As someone said, “As you think, so shall you become.” Think about what you are planning to do today, for your thoughts become your actions. If your thoughts match your plans, only then will you succeed. The book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill says that if you have a burning desire to achieve something, you will get it, for that [burning desire] will help you overcome all obstacles and opposition. Thoughts become things, and as Hill puts it, “All achievements, all earned riches have their beginning in an idea!” So find that idea which will engulf you and make you work towards it like a man possessed, and you will never look back.

Both your thoughts and actions finally decide your future. So think right – this will help you to plan right. Before that, de-stress and declutter your life; simplify it so that you can focus on the really important stuff. Finally, once you have decided on something, don’t let anybody in the world change it... Just do it!