Azim Premji's secrets for success - 2

1. · Some people follow the beaten path. Few take the road less travelled. Yet others choose to create their own path.
   
2. · Managing change has a lot to go with our own attitude towards it. It is proverbial half-full or half-empty glass approach. For every problem that change represents, there is an opportunity lurking in disguise somewhere. It is up to you to spot it before someone else does.
   
3. · If you succeed 90 percent of the time, you are doing fine. If you are succeeding all the time, you should ask yourself if you are taking enough risks.
   
4. · As a country we are on the threshold of a unique opportunity. To manage this opportunity, we need to understand what will drive the changes in the future and how we need to manage them.
   
5. · If you set high standards for yourself, you strive to meet standards and hence remain modest.
   
6. · The greatest benefit of your education lies not only in what you have learnt, but also in working how to learn. Formal education is the beginning of the journey of learning. In the world of tomorrow, only those individuals and organisations will succeed who have mastered the art of rapid and on-going learning.
   
7. · Pessimism is contagious, but then so is enthusiasm. In fact, reasonable optimism can be an amazing force multiplier.
   
8. · We must remember that many have contributed to our success, including our parents and others from our society. All of us have a responsibility to utilise our potential for making our nation a better place for others, who may not be as well endowed as us, or as fortunate in having the opportunities that we have got.
   
9. · To be able to gain the respect of the diverse spectrum in our country, better than being called just a wealthy person or a successful businessman. I have managed to gain respect of everybody that is the biggest accomplishment. All this, only because of hard work and by overcoming peer competition by working harder.
   
10. · Excellence is not so much a battle you fight with others, but a battle you fight with yourself, by constantly raising the bar and stretching yourself and your team. This is the best and the most satisfying and challenging part about excellence.
    
11. · Delegating authority and responsibility speeds things up and gets decisions made faster. It empowers people more, and it allows them to further empower those who report to them, because their jobs have suddenly become much more responsible.
    
12. · You don't demolish a cash-cow business. You just simultaneously try to build the business of tomorrow, which really differentiates you.
    
13. · I don't think customer relationships are really owned. The customer is a remarkably selfish person: He takes the relationship to where the execution is in his favour.
    
14. · Any position of power or wealth means an enormous responsibility of trusteeship. The higher the share price goes, the higher becomes the expectation from investors, on the company, to perform. If the price rises to unrealistic levels, it will lead to unrealistic expectations.
    
15. · I think the most important reason for our success is that very early in our quest into globalisation, we invested in people -- and we have done that consistently and particularly in the service business. People are the key to success or extraordinary success.
    
16. · Our experience as a company is that if your top management is not global, they tend to collect people who are of the same kin. It is the most difficult transformation. If you are a smaller company, a less of an international brand name, it's not easy to get the best globally as your top management. It takes time and it takes a lot of nurturing.
    
17. · There is one thing that constantly determines success. Some call it leadership. But, to my mind, it is the single-minded pursuit of excellence.
    
18. · Exercise, be active and not lead a sedentary life. A certain physical activity should be maintained -- walk, skip or jog -- along with a good food diet. That is the only way to de-stress.
    
19. · The advantage of building teams focussed on quality is that the teaming culture eventually spreads to the rest of the organisation and teaming becomes a way of life.
    
20. · Success requires no explanation and failure permits none. But you need to respect yourself enough so that your self-confidence remains intact whether you succeed or fail.
    
21. · Progress is defined by the changing nature of issues that a society considers topical. We have made the transition from concern for just basic literacy to improvement of the quality of education. We need to progress from a compulsion to mass-produce stereotypes to creating independent thinkers and active learners. We have to create the right balance between our diverse subcultures and create an education system that caters to the need of every one of them.
    
22. · Most people wait for something to go wrong before they think of change. It is like going to the doctor for a check up only when you are seriously sick or thinking of maintaining your vehicle only when it breaks down.
    
23. · We should question the customer. Too often we just follow instructions. If we have a point of view that is different, we should question the customer's instructions and say, "We think what you are asking us to do is wrong; it would be better to do it another way." If we have to fight to make ourselves heard, we should do that because customers won't want product problems to come back three weeks or months or years later.
    
24. · We cannot be the best in everything we do. We must define what we are or would like to be best at and what someone else can do better.
    
25. · No successful company should be taken for granted. A company to survive in this competitive world should change the rules of the game, be it its business model, technology, delivery model, supply chain that significantly affect the ongoing change of the company.