Quotes: A Better India, A Better World - NR Narayana Murthy

- Akshay Ranganath

General Quotes

Valuable advice can sometimes crom from an unexpected source, and chance events can sometimes open new doors (p4)

'You cannot build reputation on what you are going to do', Henry Ford (p 32)

'science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind' Einstein (p 42)

'It is very easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.' (p51)

'Some people have so much respect for their superiors that they have none left for themselves.' George Bernard Shah (p266)

We have realized over the years that solutions to most of our problems lie within ourselves. Rationalizing failure is simply a sign of weakness. The easiest way to escape from accountability is to blame reality. (p234)

If the wealth of the world is equally divided among people throughout the world, there will, of course, be no rich people any more. But everybody will still be poor. You cannot distribute poverty. Socialists often forget that we have to first create wealth in order to distribute it. (p212)

Issues with India

In France, everybody acted as if it was their job to discuss, debate and quickly act on improving public facilities. In India, we discuss, debate and behave as if the improvement of any public facility is not our task, and consequently, do not act at all. (p10)

Another bane of our thousant-year-long enslavement is apathy. The main reason why India is still very backward is our unwillingness to take proactive action even when the solution is staring at our face. We escape from the responsibility to solve our problems by blaming destiny. (p14)

Regarding constituents for success

Learning from experience .. can be complicated. It can be much more difficult to learn from success than from failure. If we fail, we think carefully about the precise cause. Success can indiscriminately reinforce all our proior actions. (p6)

..we need high aspirations. Aspirations energize us to overcome limitations posed by the context we are in. They engender and sustain hope, the main fuel for progress. (p12)

Objectivity & Discipline

Being professional and efective in our work helps us optimally utilize resources – human talent, raw materilas, domestic and foreign investment and infrastructure.. This is because a professional individual owes allegiance to his profession and not to any organization or person. Accordingly, he does not let personal relations interfere with his profesional dealings. He is fair and unbiased and starts every transaction on a zero base, without bringing in any baggage from prior transactions.. (p15)

..important aspect of professionalism is implementing meritocracy. Meritocracy is not letting personal influences or prejudices affect our evaluation of an individual's performance. (p52)

Discipline in thought & action: Discipline in thought is about objectivity, about using data and facts for arguments, and about supporting an idea purely based on merits. Discipline in action is about doing the right thing without being influenced by money, power or any form of self-interest. (p58)

I believe that the only unchaning attributes of a successful corporation will be openness to new ideas, meritocracy, speed, innovation and excellence in execution. (p19)

..'In God we trust, everone else must bring data to table'.. (p 15)

The most important attribute of a progressive society is respect for others who have accomplished more than they themselves have, and the willingness to learn from them. (p51)

Leadership

A leader is first and last a change agent. Progress is his agenda. His responsibility is to raise the aspirations of his people, to make them more confident, energetic, enthusiastic, hopeful and determined to seek a glorious future for the community and for themselves. (p158)

Demonstrate leadership by example. Most EE [Emerging Economies] have hierarchial culture. The best way to obtain compliance in such a context is through leadership by example. Demonstrate this through committment, hard work, simplicity and a focus on excellence. (p277)

Learning Organization

As long as you constantly ask the questions, 'Can we do things faster today than yesterday, last month, last quarter and last year?', 'Can we being better ideas to the table today than yesterday, last month, last quarter and last year?', and 'Can we execute those ideas with a better level of excellence and quality today than yesterday, last month, last quarter and last year?', I believe you will create a string learning organization and will succeed on a sustainable basis. I strongly believe those attributes are extremely important for enduring success of a corporation. (p164)

..Our success at Infosys depends on our ability to recognize, learn and assimilate .. changes quickly, and in bringing business value to our customers by leveraging the assimilated knowledge. Learnability is critical for us. We define learnability as the ability to extract generic inferences from specific instances and to use them in new, unstructured situations. (p233)

The biggest challenge for a knowledge company like Infosys is to recruit, enable, empower and retain the best and the brightest talent. We realized long ago that we had to make a compelling value proposition to our employees much the same way as we did to our customers. (p233)

In a knowledge company whose core competencies include human intellect and learning through a process of observation, data collection, analysis and conclusion, leaders have to walk the talk. Any dissonance between rhetoric and action by leaders will hasten the loss of credibility. (p234)

Mahatma, Freedom of Speech and India Chauvinism

On the 10th of Aug, the Supreme Court of India rejected a public interest litigation that argued that every Indian must respect the Mahatma. (See Article) It was heartening to note the court took the spirit of freedom of speech in mind while announcing this ruling.

In recent times, India seems to be getting more and more zealous. The litigation asked the court to enforce a rule to make people respect Gandi's contributions. But, isn't democracy all about discussing and finding a better way? Ganghi, no doubt was a great man. We've read about it enough times in our history books and movies. However, we Indians seem to believe in adulation over all our leaders. Anything said against a set of leaders is met with violence, irrational anger and senseless opposition.

Democracy is about freedom to express and debate. The litigation seemed to forget this. Gandhiji for all his greatness still was a human and the associated weaknesses. His concept of a self-sufficient village is jut not practical in the modern 'flat world'. If you were to follow this models, cities would be more like a dark spot on the Indian landscape and villages would be shrines of economic activity. However, the world over, it is the exact reverse that is true.

In this fit of adulation, we have crores spent of Mayawati's statues, lacs lost over violence just because some sentiment was hurt in a movie made for entertainment and cities shut down because of language affiliations!

The best part is - despite all these internal issues, we're fighting the Autrailians in the name of racism :-)