Book Review #99: Taking Wings And Winning By K.V. Subramaniam

Title: Taking Wings and Winning

Author: K.V. Subramaniam

Publishers: Rupa Publications India

Genre: Startup Stories/Management/Non-Fiction

Pages: 230 (Hardbound)

Source: Advance Review copy from Publishers

In today’s competitive world, setting up a new company is a tedious and challenging task. There are many parameters, aspects, ideas, processes exists that one should follow diligently in order to succeed. The unflinching determination and an innovative idea should be the focus of any startups. What this book might offer is not a regular mumbo-jumbo of how your startup should be setup or what are the guidelines should be followed. Rather, it is the story of a company that has been setup with a zero experience in the particular field and yet, the company has passed all the hurdles and established a name in the business arena.

This is the story of a company called “Reliance Life Sciences” authored by its very own President K.V. Subramaniam. The author was the person who took the responsibilities of setting up this company from ground zero. Given his background, he was more of a management expert, expertised in energy and utilities sector and little or no knowledge about Biotechnology or any clinical research medical industry. But still, with an enormous support from the Reliance group head and chairman, Mukhesh Ambani, this company took its birth as a novice in the industry and today it is one of the top contenders in the field of Biotechnology, Stem cell research and other medical based products.

The book gives us a clear and a detailed explanation of how this company has been conceptualized at the first place. Author has described his inspiration of taking the responsibility of setting up this company with his own personal traumas in his family in his younger years. The need of advanced medical equipments, medicines and other related products are the need of the hour in a country like India as per the author’s assessment. So, he started off with the basic plan of understanding the industry in the first place.

As we read through the book, we get to read a lot of initial planning that has been put to set up this company. What was the management decisions made, how the team has been recruited, how the real estate has been procured, how the plant came into existence, what was their action plans on the crisis management, how they managed their finances, what are all the pitfalls they had to face, how they overcome the resources issues, how they strived for the top notch quality in their products and finally how did they sustained in the race, is all well documented and an inspiration to read from the book.

Having the backing of a huge organization like Reliance doesn’t necessarily proves that a new company can be managed without any bottlenecks. Each company has its share of pains and pleasures. So does the Reliance Life Sciences. In terms of working as a team, they had to endure lot of adverse situations from the likes of industry experts who are hell bent on working in a specific way and would not budge to the rules and regulations of a new company. This is true in terms of any startup. Once we recruit people that claim they are experts in some of the core areas, we cannot ask them to tow the line, but it doesn’t mean that, they are allowed to work on their own accord. This is precisely what happened with Reliance Life Sciences too. Especially when it comes to research experts or scientists, they work like they have all the time in the world. So, how did they manage to make people to work for them?  How their people management system was was effectively put in place? These are the grey areas that a startup is more concerned, and this book provides a clean and simple explanation on how to manage that kind of egoist personalities.

There are also a few examples of money laundering cases in Reliance Life Sciences where they had to take drastic measures on top officials in order to stay clean and work with utmost morals and ethics. This is one area where a startup should focus on disbursing their funding. If too much of money spent on the extravaganza of few people, then the company is bound to answer their investor for the amount of money they are spending.

Overall, I guess this book is a step by step guide to establishing a new company and how to make it a success. It has great lessons on people management, finance management, property management, quality control, human resource, administration, logistics, procurement, contracts, micro managing, etc... I would definitely encourage readers to buy this book and read. It will surely give you a fresh perspective on the task that you’re ready to take up.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by the Publishers in exchange for an unbiased review. 

Book Review #93: Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman

Title: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Author: Daniel Kahneman

Publishers: Penguin

Genre: Non-Fiction/Decision Management/Cognitive Psychology

Pages: 512 (Paperback)

Source: Personal Copy

How often do we really think we are making the right decision? Or, do we really think that whatever we have assumed or professed as true indeed? What about all those decisions we have made all these years? Does it always make us more contented that we’ve made them or was there any slight doubt that we would’ve thought a moment before we made that decision? Does being regretful is anywhere related to the decision we make or does that not at all related to our thinking minds? There are thousands questions for a questioning mind when you begin to read this book. In first few pages itself all our so called beliefs that we held dear to us all these years will be shattered brick by brick. That doesn’t mean that, this is a book that changes your thinking overnight and you can be more assertive and cognitive in an instant.

A book like “Thinking, Fast and Slow” is not a one time affair to read end to end. It has more to do with the assessing our minds in each page we turn. The decisions we make consciously or unconsciously have a profound impact on the overall journey of our life. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate, has crafted a well analyzed, well researched, well documented book. Each and every experiment or survey that he has conducted throughout his life about decision making, cognitive assessment, character forming, opinions that we have on all and sundry has been articulated exceptionally in this book.

One such example where I liked the most is, when the author and his associates conducted a survey on “was Gandhi older or younger than 144 years when he died?” Obviously, the answer the public gave was less than 144 years. When the same set of people asked a different aspect of this question like “how old they thought when Gandhi died?” and this time people picked up the answers as between 80’s and 90’s. On the next attempt when the people were asked “if Gandhi was older than 44 when he was died?” the expected answer was older. When he asked “how old Gandhi was when he died?” most of the people picked up the answers in late 50’s and 60’s. This particular experiment shows that, people tend to come up with their own set of beliefs in answering a question that had nothing to do with the reality and certainly had no impact on their choices. This is just a tip of the ice berg when it comes to convincing people. The people at marketing department knew the nerve of people and they try every way to manipulate its target customers by feeding information subtly and manipulate them into making decisions in favor of them.

There are sections from the book where the author deals with the concepts of forming an opinion on persons. What do we really think when we decide about a person as so and so? Do we really care about going to the deeper level of research before deciding the character of a person or do we just form an opinion with the vague information that is available before us? One such example that we can read from the book is about a female who is banker and a feminist. So most of the opinions formed on this particular case are, either the woman is a banker or a feminist. The question of she being a feminist banker seems an absurd opinion. But why do we make such assumptions? What runs in our mind when we read bits of information on a person and we have a picture of themselves with all the characters that we assumed that fits into that person? Author expressed his opinion that, most of us will use limited information to make decisions on someone. The questions we ask ourselves most of the time is, “Can we trust them?” “Are they friendly enough?” “Are they going to be a good human being?” “Are they competent enough?” etc…

This brings us to the main argument. Are we really making our decisions emotionally rather than rationally? Author explains in simple two system concept. System 1, in which a person reacts to almost everything instantly. It is devoid of mind body co-ordination. This is explained with a simple 2X2 multiplication. And, there is System 2, which is more rational and laid back. It never responds to events in a jiffy. It consents our mind before blurting out the response. A simpler example to this is, computing the results for 17X34. System 2 always monitors the System 1.

In conclusion, reading this book has shaken me greatly. I am convinced by the vast amount of research work about the psychology of the decision making that most of my choices so far in life have been taken without having a second thought. “What if?” reactions were always ringing in my mind while I was rummaging through the pages. Taking a decision in haste and try to rationalize it later is what we have practiced in all our lives. We try to come to terms with it than to analyze in the beginning.

Author was right on when he convinces his argument that people are incredibly quick to jump to conclusions, make decisions without enough information, and have their decisions greatly influenced by the bits of information they have in their hands. This book will certainly makes you think twice about how you make the decisions. Slowing down the process and thinking right is the one take away from this book while you read and savor it.

My Rating:

5/5 

Book Review #14: Business Sutra: A Very Indian Approach to Management - Devdutt Pattanaik

Business Sutra is a unique and thought provoking book. Probably, this is the first of its kind to have such a book on management. This book is written by one of my favourite author Devdutt Pattanaik. He has given all of us an idea of what we can easily call as "Going Back To Roots". Indeed, we as a modern society dwellers do not have much time to think about all of our ancient scriptures leave alone analyzing and judging them.

As a Chief Belief Officer (CBO) for future group of companies, Author had the great responsibility to uplift the morale of their staff and explain things in such a delicate manner which led him to write this book. I must admit that, Chief Belief Officer is a very innovative designation; Nowhere in India, this kind of designation has been introduced at the corporate level.

Author has put forth before us a strong point by combining Indic thoughts by comparing with business thought process. Thereby providing an Indic thought to the business management.

This book is neatly arranged in a chronological order having an introduction alone for almost 35 pages. In intro, he talks about the differences between Indic religion and other monotheistic religions and how this has been interpreted over many centuries. He strongly argues about why we as Indians, are in need of such books. He tries to set the stage for the book and tells us how he connected Mythology with Management and how this works for someone and may not work for some other.

This is certainly a readable book. At some point you may feel as if the author is trying to preach us and trying to impose something on us. Nevertheless, you got to skim through the book and you will definitely find it quite appealing. I will only highlight what I liked about the book. You can start at any point and any page in the book, still it makes sense.

I loved the section of the intro and first few pages where his analogy of Drishti, Divya-Drishti and Darshan - which is objective truth, subjective truth and subject in that order. He nearly talks about more than 100 sutras in the book which defines only one thing: To change the approach to the management and at the same time talk about its connection to our roots. Thereby connecting the Myths and Legends.

The book also makes a point about personal growth - which is NARA as opposed to NARAYANA, which really should be a mantra of everybody in a job or business. Author have tactically uses gods as a metaphor for conveying practically everything in an organization. This is about organizations have to to be churned (Samudra Manthan) in order to realize Goals (Amrith).

He compares Aarti of a god to the praises showered on employees - which certainly empowers them. The strong fact, that we employees need organizations and organizations do not need us!!. This takes us to the point where self-development and actualization is the only thing that matters for us as a human growth. He constantly warns the readers that, his book is a not a traditional book on management. He takes it a step further with every turn of the page and you will realize only when you read the book. The illustration diagrams enhances the values of the words which will add more quality to the concept. For instance, in one of his sutra "Mental violence is also violence" with an apt diagram. This will surely sink deep into the reader's subconscious which will help them to get connected with the book.

Overall, Business Sutra takes a look at the business (Western Business) from an Indian perspective and reverses the "gaze" and tries to come up with the "Indic Management Principles". This is a great read and one should not finish this in one sitting, rather, read in a slow and steady manner and be savoured by the way it means to be.

At the very end of the book, he also has a section of "How to reject this book?", for the detractors.

My Rating: 5/5