I Bought The Monk's Ferrari (6 page)

Notwithstanding lucrative offers to work overseas, she returned to India and joined ANZ Grindlays. In 1994, she joined Morgan Stanley and initiated the work on the merging of JM Financial and Morgan Stanley. In 2002, she joined HSBC and is today, the first lady CEO of any large foreign or private sector bank in India.

This is what aspiration can do for you. Set your aspirations high, chase them with wholehearted commitment and conviction—no one can hold you back. Naina's example proves this beyond doubt. She exemplifies the fact that if you want to own the Ferrari and be successful, aim high. Aim for the sky. Reach out for the stars and nothing lower. There will be a lot of people chasing and competing with you, if your aspirations are mediocre. But once you cut through the clutter and surge ahead, traffic is really very thin on the last mile. You will suddenly find yourself running all alone. Only a few people make the cut and if you want to be one of them, you will have to surge ahead with the power of your dreams.

Why is the story of the birthday party relevant here? In aspiring to have a birthday party in Goa at the age of six, Anusha was being restricted neither by the bias of people she knew, i.e. Dharini or me, nor was she limiting her thoughts to something mediocre. She wanted the best birthday party for herself and asked for it. Her request for a party in Goa might sound a bit naive, but unless you aim big, you will never get anywhere. So, define your aspirations, state your goals, your objectives, all that you want to achieve and articulate them at least to yourselves. Once you ASPIRE and articulate it you are bound to reach the goal.

If you built castles in the air,
your work need not be lost;
there is where they should be.

Now put foundations under them.

H
ENRY
D
AVID
T
HOREAU

But what is the meaning of 'Aspire'?

ASPIRE
to me is,
A Strategic Plan for Individuals which Revisits and Restates Expectations.

A

S
trategic

P
lan for

I
ndividuals which

R
evisits and Restates

E
xpectations

All of us, at various points of time, at various levels, make strategic plans for businesses, departments, teams, etc. Once done with the initial planning the chain of action begins. Taking up necessary tasks to meet those goals come after that. If this can be done within an organisation, it can be done in life, too.

Your aspirations must be audacious and your efforts to achieve them must be commensurate with the audacity. Naina's story proves this point. She had the audacity and wanted to make the best out of it. She worked hard and
 
concentrated all her efforts towards winning her laurel.

The harder you work, the mor
e lucky you get.

T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON

Today, Naina stands taller than most, rubbing shoulders with the polity and the regulators, businessmen and the media. She has carved a niche for herself in the banking world.

If you wish to get any closer to Naina's achievements, you will have to work hard at reaching your aspirations, blowing away all the obstacles that come your way. My recommendation is try out the CBA method, as Naina did, to acquire your Ferrari.

C
- Constantly take stock of your aspiration

B
- Balance between Success and Failure

A
- Adopt an attitude to deal with situations.

Aspirations are dynamic. They keep changing every few years. Constantly taking stock of your aspirations means reinventing yourself. Ask yourself 'Where do I want to be? What do I want to achieve?' The answers to these questions must be constantly sought and revisited periodically to ensure that you are not pitching yourselves below your capabilities.

There are very few people who can conjure long-term visions and set themselves long-term goals. Most people cannot see more than three or four years ahead of them. A typical example is that of an executive in the branch of a small bank who aspires to be a branch manager. Once he becomes a branch manager, his aspirations change. He now aspires to become the head of a cluster of branches ... so on and so forth.

I can think of a similar paradigm in my early career. I joined ANZ Grindlays Bank in the year 1995 as a relationship manager, at a level which in those days was called Grade Three. All new management graduates joined at that level. The compensation structure in that level was a normal cash-based compensation with no perks attached to it.

However, things changed dramatically at the next level— referred to internally as a Grade Four position. As per the Human Resource rules, the bank offered a fully furnished accommodation, to anyone at Grade Four. Even the loan entitlement at that level was significantly higher. One could even get car loans at discounted rates of interest. My ultimate aspiration in life at that time was to get to Grade Four. I hoped that my life would change once I got there. I worked towards it and eventually did get there, but once I got there, everything changed—but not the way I had expected. Grade Four no longer sounded as alluring as it used to. Now, I wanted greater things in life. I wanted to ascend to Grade Five, Grade Six and Grade Seven. I wanted to progress. Had I become complacent, after reaching Grade Four, I would have remained there even now. Therefore, it is very important that you keep revisiting your aspirations and redefine them. Remember the definition of ASPIRE—A Strategic Plan for Individuals which Revisits and Restates Expectations— it sounds more sensible now, than ever.

This is a very interesting point which Naina makes. Imagine you are setting sales targets for your teams. One of the teams busts its targets by the 25th of every month. This does not happen once or twice, but for months. Such a case has only one of two implications—either it is a brilliant sales team with tremendous drive, energy and passion that they are able to deliver a month's target in twenty-five days consistently, or that given their vintage, experience and calibre, the targets set for the team are just not good enough, so they are able to meet it easily. More often, the problem is the latter and not the former. Therefore, a word of caution for all those who have been successfully getting to hundred percent of their goals and aspirations ... maybe, you are not stretching yourself enough. You are setting far too low targets and are easily achieving them. If you can push your subordinates to stretch targets at the beginning of the year, you might as well do it for yourself while re-evaluating your goals.

Your quest for higher activations should not be tempered by your failures. To all those self-doubters, I would say that failure is not the end of the road. It is a learning opportunity. If you dissect every failure of yours, there are enough lessons to learn. You need not fear failure or public condemnation, after all. I can give you many instances of people who have failed and resurrected themselves from the ignominy of failure. They have gone along to become extremely successful in their pursuits of the Ferrari.

Let me tell you about a young cricketer. He was initially selected to the Indian cricket team that toured South Africa in 1991-1992. After a disastrous series, he was dropped from the team. He never made it back till he was picked up again for the series against England in 1996, wherein he made back to back centuries in his first two matches and even momentarily threatened Azharuddin's record of three consecutive centuries on debut. This was Saurav Ganguly who went on to become one of the most successful captains in the history of Indian cricket. Then, there was this young man, who was initially thrown out of the All India Radio auditions for his unusually heavy voice, thoroughly unfit for the job of a news-reader. Who would imagine that he was destined to become the most coveted voice in Indian film history—Amitabh Bachchan. You would not have heard these names if they had been deterred by failures.

However, the bottom line is, aim for the stars and reach them. That is what I call an aspiration fulfilled. You can stand on a stool and reach the ceiling quite effortlessly, but reaching the stars is not quite as easy. Owning a Ferrari never was.

The path to the Ferrari will not be bereft of obstacles. There will be a number of cynics to condemn you. Eccentric, dreamer, impractical ... you will often find such words being thrown at you. A successful man is one who builds a strong foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.

When Bill Gates said, A PC on every table' in the early eighties when servers were of the size of half a room, people laughed. He was dismissed as a maverick. But look at where we stand today. A computer is an indispensable tool both in office and at home. Can you imagine a life without computers now? Therefore, reaching the pinnacle of your aspirations requires a special skill. An ability to deal with detractors and doubting Thomas's with confidence. The best way to deal with the detractors trying to dent your confidence is not to have them in your team at all. Build a team of people who will help you fulfil your dreams. Having a team full of aligned, strong-w'lled, and challenging individuals gives you the confidence to deal with almost any situation.

One of the big stories which held everyone's interest early in 2006, and which to my mind, marked the beginning of an era of India's economic dominance in the world, was the takeover of Arcelor Steel by Lakshmi Mittal. To date, I remember a television interview of L.N. Mittal, which was being telecast on CNBC TV 18, soon after Arcelor had rejected the takeover bid of Mittal Steel; calling it hostile. It was in no way an easy interview, but Mittal kept his calm. The interviewer tried to push him hard to provoke a response. But Mittal would not say anything derogatory or controversial.