The vagaries of a successful business career are as mysterious as life itself. To cope with success, you have to relax and not take yourself too seriously. Apart from great qualities of head and heart, it takes good fortune to get success. With that fortune and success, you have to do something for others. Obligation is born in success.

Vijay Gokhale graduated from Calcutta and studied engineering in the UK. He joined Union Carbide as a Trainee Engineer, and rose rapidly. He was a copybook case of success.

With 25 years’ service and at 48, he was appointed as Managing Director in January 1984. It was his best New Year. Union Carbide was a blue chip company, having 14 plant locations and employing 10,000 people. Vijay had a lovely family, was a member of the club and was a highly respected corporate manager.

1984 turned out to be a tumultuous year for the country. In a dark act, a bodyguard assassinated Mrs. Gandhi; Rajiv took her place, raising the hopes of a besieged nation. A few weeks later, a disaster struck. In Bhopal, a deadly chemical leaked from Union Carbide’s factory. The matter is sub-judice and is not the subject of this article.

What happened to Vijay, the person and manager, is the subject of this article.

Bhopal was the only non-US plant to manufacture this complex chemical. The plant operation was considered a tribute to Indian engineers’ ability to absorb technology. For several years, the plant operation had been superb, boasting a record 2 million accident-free man-hours. Yet, the ‘impossible’ had happened.

Vijay’s world came crashing around him, mercilessly and relentlessly. Within 48 hours, Vijay and the top company leadership were under house arrest at Bhopal.

Law and politics took their own courses. At the centre of this maelstrom was Vijay, who, until the other day, was envied by his peers as ‘a very competent and lucky manager.’ How fate had changed lives: of Vijay and, even more unfortunately, the lives of several thousands of poor and affected families.

The slings of outrageous fortune were arrayed against Vijay. He felt like resigning: first, it seemed an honourable thing to do; later, it was an escape from depressing jibes.

An American colleague (not representing the leadership’s view) said hurtfully that the Indian company had to be severed like ‘an infected appendix.’ Business friends indulged in insensitive humour e.g. ‘are you Nathuram Godse?’ When Vijay offered to help with relief work, a senior bureaucrat politely said to him, “Your visits here are an embarrassment, please do not come here.”

Then something strange happened. Vijay realized that his success had created in him an obligation. What about those families, who were ruined by this disaster? What about those employees, whose jobs were at stake? What about small shareholders, who had invested in the company shares? How could he even think of quitting? It was just not an option.

Suddenly, Vijay became a tornado of positive work. He was consumed with the issue of compensation to the victims. He traveled relentlessly to all his units to explain the company’s response. He sold company assets to partly pay for the compensation. He got his leadership team to think of how to rescue the investment of small shareholders. He faced daunting obstacles, but Vijay reminded himself that so had the efforts of many characters in history and mythology. There was only one way to go, which was forward.

No member of the top table left for over a year. They collectively felt fully accountable for the legal proceedings. They saved the company as best as was humanly possible. When Vijay became CEO, the company had a history of steady profits. Within 4 years of the sad incident, the profit had plummeted to 40%. When Vijay retired after another 4 years, the profit had reached a new peak, 110% higher than when he took over. This was after paying the company’s share of compensation and disposing of half of the company!

With a moist eye, he recalls, “ My most touching moment was in Cossipore factory, where I began my career. The workers had tears in their eyes. They felt I was a son of that factory, that they would do whatever was needed, but please would I lead them through this most unfortunate crisis?”

What did all this do to him as a human being?

Vijay gazed wistfully at the bay beyond the Bombay gateway and said, “It brought out the humanity in me. It taught me humility. It demonstrated that obligation is born in success.”

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While reflecting about the column on careers and business life, I asked myself what purpose could be served by such an effort. A simple idea, supported by a simple story, could be a positive format for learning and reflection and practising managers could find that useful.

Over the last two months since this column began, over 150 messages have been received at the e-mail ID mentioned below. Each one has been responded to individually.

While most comments have been appreciative of the ideas in the column, one had a reprimanding tone. Its author lamented that ‘management jargon and braggarts have taken over; it is time to revert to the real management guru, Swami Vivekananda.’ A valid comment!

A recurrent comment has been, “I agree with you, but is it practical to follow? Your view is for the lucky few, not for all e.g. you write ‘work with courage.’ However, I need the job badly, so I cannot afford to be courageous and risk the loss of the job. You write ‘enjoy what you do.’ Actually, I detest what I do, but I need the job badly. I am not so lucky as some others etc. etc…” Since all of us do periodically experience such feelings, it is easy to empathize with those thoughts.

What then is the way to reconcile these two apparently opposite things: an idea that appeals with an action that carries a big risk? Aldous Huxley wrote, “Experience is what a man does with what happens to him”.

In your life and career, you cannot choose what will happen to you. What has to happen will happen. But you can choose how to respond when whatever has to happen to you happens—this has been emphasized in ancient Indian philosophy.

Therefore, each of us has does have free choice, and we have to live with the consequences of the choice we have exercised. If you can do that, and be mentally at peace, then may be it is alright. Thereafter, you should not grumble about God or fate, or express destructive dissatisfaction with your condition, irrespective of whether you are vice-president, a BPO executive or even a peon.

Driver Vincent drove a car at Bangalore. He was exceptionally cheerful. Whether it was midnight duty or early morning duty, he was able, willing and infectiously enthusiastic. Once I apologized for imposing successive days of heavy work with long hours. He ended up narrating his story.

His father worked in a car garage at Mangalore. There were many mouths to feed in the family, yet his father insisted that he should study. Vincent was so infatuated by car mechanics that he would loiter around the garage as a helper rather than complete his school homework. He told his father that he would like to become a driver rather than study.

His father was disappointed. “You should study more. If something happens to me, who will take care of your sisters?” he often said. However, Vincent chose the option of indulging in his passion rather than continue his studies. That is how he drifted into driving.

“But surely all these long hours must make you sometimes regret it,” I persisted. “Not really, after all, it was I chose to become a driver, so why feel regret? Even if I do feel so sometimes, I have to dismiss it. And, sir, I do get paid overtime and that helps me to dream of making my son an engineer. My father would be proud to see his grandson as an engineer,” Vincent replied in a matter-of-fact way.

Recently, Vincent called to announce his daughter’s marriage. He chirped, “Sir, incidentally, my son has graduated in Mechanical Engineering and is going to work in a software company. I am sharing my joy because you used to enquire. I wish my father was around. He would think well of his grandson.”

Vincent took responsibility for his decision and learned to live with the consequences with great cheer.

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All endings are also beginnings. It is just that we don’t know it at that time. In a delightful book, The Five People You Meet In Heaven, Mitch Albom narrates the story of an 83 year old war veteran, who discovers people who affected his life without anyone knowing about it.

This is true for managers also. Views from casual acquaintances who are not formally assigned the role of being a well-wisher can be extremely valuable. Their ideas come like gentle drops of rain that fall around you without making their presence felt too strongly, nor being intrusive.

When I grew up in Calcutta, it was a premier mercantile city, still maintaining the famous boxwallah tradition. Any young person walking around the office areas like Fairlie Place and Brabourne Road would yearn for a management trainee job in those business firms—Andrew Yule, Balmer Lawrie, Bird and Company, and Martin Burn, names that have now virtually vanished.

I was completing my final year BSc course, resident at the college hostel. Father de Bonhome, the principal of St Xavier’s College, asked me whether I would like to be recommended for a trainee’s job at McKinnon McKenzie. It was a fine firm, he could suggest only two from the whole college, and the salary would be Rs 450 per month. I calmly said that I was honoured to be recommended; in reality, I was thrilled. I did not consult my father, who had by then moved to Bombay.

With a borrowed suit and soaring dreams, I interviewed at the McKinnon office. After being seen by two managers, I saw one Mohi Das, the managing director. He asked me several thoughtful questions. As I was getting convinced that I had done well and might actually get the job, he drew up close to me and asked, “Son, may I call you that way? Don’t get me wrong, but you are just past eighteen. You can have the job; we can train you quite well. But, tell me, do you need the job? How is the family situation?”

I was a bit offended, what did my family situation have to do with the job? He clarified, “Well, I have spent my career in one set of circumstances, but you will spend your career in an entirely different set of circumstances. I feel you should get a professional degree. You can always get this kind of job, son—unless the family situation requires you to get a job right now”.

How could he dangle one of the most prized jobs in front of me and then say what he did? I just did not want to listen to him. And I was quite clear about my future (or so I thought) without asking too many people!

Reluctantly, I decided after some further thought that I should mention to my father that I wish to accept the job. He was furious that I could even think of taking a job. My dream job ended like a collapsed balloon. I went on to study further and joined Hindustan Lever subsequently.

I never met Mohi Das after that encounter. He retired in due course. A few years ago, I learned that he had died in Coonoor. He would not recognize this story even if I had the chance to remind him. He influenced and counseled me about my career in a valuable way, but unknowingly.

Like gentle drops of fine rain that touch you but do not interfere with you, casual advice comes your way. You need to listen to and reflect on them. Then take your own decision. Particularly for a generation that is as blessed as young people are in today’s India, this would be wise.

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It is in the first ten years after the working career begins that the greatest neglect of youthful health begins. Sportsmen stop playing sports, teetotalers drink alcohol, non-smokers smoke, active youngsters sit on desk jobs, and starving hostel inmates eat rich foods. These early years are the ones to watch.

You can convince yourself about the reasons—no time to exercise, the importance of socializing, the difficulty of getting a club membership, timings and logistics problems and a whole host of reasons. However even if all these are correct, you can always go for a walk or do yoga! There are no good enough reasons for lack of fitness and exercise, other than indulgence or laziness.

While growing up in Calcutta, I joined a tennis coaching scheme at the Bengal Lawn Tennis Association. It was run and supervised by Dilip Bose, the Indian Davis Cup tennis star of the 1940s. He was a fiend for fitness. Before we could get our tiny hands around the racket, he would make us run around the South Club tennis courts ten times, do one hundred jumps with a skipping rope, and do another fifty sit-ups. We were too tired to play any tennis by the time all this was done. His message was that we could not be tennis players if we were not fit.

There is much truth in this for executives also. The stereotype shown in advertisements of the high-living and high-spending executive is completely mythical.

One day, Dilip Bose asked us,” How would you take care of your car if you were told that it would be the only car you would have for your whole life?” The answer was self evident; all of us kids said the same thing in chorus.

“Well, your body is the only car you will have for all your life. You cannot change it, so look after it like your only car,” he bellowed.

To a kid, that was a simple message to understand and to remember. I owe it to the late Dilip Bose that I grew to love exercise and tennis, both of which have been an inexhaustible source of pleasure, relaxation, character-building and fitness, all rolled into one bundle.

Upon arrival in Mumbai for my first job, an early expenditure was on a membership of the Bombay Gymkhana. The club membership took precedence over the purchase of a motor cycle, music system or occasional fine dining (Bombelli on Warden Road, not the Taj Mahal!).

It is terrific to see health-conscious executives exercising and keeping fit. A management career is extremely stressful, and every young executive should work at managing that stress. Some are unlucky because they develop health problems without bringing it upon themselves. But others squander away their good health on the grounds that office work is stressful. Healthy and young people need not develop stressful social habits, deluding themselves that it is relaxing. Such a hectic lifestyle catches up after ten years.

My university tennis partner was Jyoti, who was already a State level champion. I used to wish I had his ground strokes and his swing. When I met him after 40 years, we naturally spoke about tennis. “Oh, I gave up 20 years ago. I should have taken better care and played more regularly after college. I should have controlled some of my habits. I had to stop after a bypass surgery several years ago,” he said to my great regret, for he was such a lovely hitter of the ball.

I am not suggesting a Spartan lifestyle, far from it. Go out and enjoy life, youth comes only once. However, do listen to what your body is telling you and do not flog it to capacity.

Your good health is an asset on your balance sheet. Grow it, maintain it, but do not destroy it. It is the only opening balance of asset you get at the beginning of your life.

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The most common complaint heard in company corridors pertains to the company’s appraisal system and the quality of feedback to the manager from his superior. Whatever is done, it never seems to be good enough. Improving on this aspect is a constant effort everywhere, all the time.

The theoretical characteristics of the ‘ideal’ appraisal system are known. The feedback message must contain comments with examples and suggestions for improvement. The message must be delivered in a positive environment, a context of trust. Implementing this correctly is very complicated.

Thirty five year old Pratap used to work in my department at a certain point of time. He was a competent engineer and could solve technical problems reliably. He had two characteristics: first, that he was forever critical of other colleagues and departments; second, that he was supremely confident that he could run a business. I often wished he would attempt to be more realistic. I even hinted such thoughts to him, bearing in mind that he was also a very sensitive individual.

In the natural course of our careers, he and I moved into other parts of the company. We began to work together again after several years. By this time, there was a senior manager between his position and mine. Pratap would drop in occasionally for a chat. Most of the time he would enquire about the family and talk of our earlier work experiences, and I would spend some social time with him.

On one such occasion, Pratap complained that his immediate boss was ambiguous in giving him a performance feedback. As a result, he felt that he was not being considered for advancement into a general management position. He felt aggrieved. I told him that his boss would give him more direct feedback.

When I broached the subject to Pratap’s boss, he insisted that he had given his feedback, which was admittedly delicate, as he did not wish to damage Pratap’s self-esteem by being too direct. However, he agreed to try once again. His boss had felt that Pratap’s execution capability was limited by his inability to get along with peers and other departments. As a result, his boss felt that Pratap had become part of the problem, not a part of the solution..

After three weeks, Pratap arrived in my office in a rather depressed condition. He said his boss had been ‘ brutal in his feedback’ and surely there was no need to make a big deal out of one’s supposed shortcomings! I was amazed. I could not help pointing out that a more direct feedback had been sought by him.

“Of course that is true. But that does not mean that you make me feel incapable or isolated,” he insisted. I found it difficult to agree with him, particularly because Pratap’s boss was regarded in the company as one of the most humane and caring managers. I suggested to Pratap that perhaps he was not really ready for a direct feedback, though he had stated that it was what he wanted.

“But what is your view? You have known me for long,” he persisted. I said that I had participated in the appraisal and concurred with what had been commented. Pratap was crestfallen. “Well, I have to think about my future,” he said remorsefully as he left my room.

Pratap left the company to do jobs in a couple of outside companies. Since he was in touch with me for advice and counseling, I could observe that he was not achieving as much happiness as he expected, hence not much success.

All managers say that they want ‘frank and open feedback’. Most are unprepared for it. The best feedback is obtained not from what is stated explicitly, but from what is not stated.

If a manager can learn to listen to the song behind the words, then he would have got the feedback without damaging his ego and self-esteem. It is a skill to be cultivated.

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Young managers are taught to think that they should ‘take charge’ of their career, that they should purposefully plan what they wish to be, what milestones they should achieve and by when. The reality is completely different. There are more factors that are out of your control than within. This does not mean that all planning is useless, but this does leave many managers in an anxious state.

Your career goal is your statement of intent and desire. The company you work for, the boss’s judgment of your work, your seniors’ views on your potential, the opportunity that develops in the wider economy—all these have a strong influence. So your own plan has only a limited influence.

Once you recognize, and more importantly accept this, you can start to do things right rather than do the right things. There is a difference.

Doing the right things means planning a desired outcome for each action or initiative. Doing things right means to stretch and do your best and leave the results to turn out the way they will.

Dave is the chairman of a large American corporation. When I met him some time ago, he told me a story about his career.

He was a young accountant in GE some 25 years ago. He was working three levels below the company CFO, who in turn reported to the legendary chairman, Jack Welch. One of Dave’s tasks was to compile a statement of the company’s forward projection of sales and profits—by year, by country and by Business Unit.

It was a mass of numbers and young Dave could not imagine what use it could be to anyone. He enquired about its utility from his senior managers, but was advised to do what he had been assigned. The statement was being produced for many years, so would he please continue?

The chairman was trying to tear down the bureaucratic culture of a very traditional company. He had, as is well known, acquired the label, ‘neutron’ to symbolize his bombarding the company with his change agenda. One day, the chairman received this complex statement, showing the company’s 5 year projection of sales and profits.

The chairman was incensed, so he called for the young man, who was ‘producing this rubbish’. A nervous Dave appeared before him and was too awed to answer the obvious question. He was packed off with the statement ‘that smart guys like you should not do this kind of thing.’ Presumably, the CFO’s department was roasted over the coals, and Dave received confirmatory instructions to stop the compilation soon thereafter.

Dave wondered why his seniors had brushed aside his question on the same matter, and responded with logic and alacrity to the chairman’s hollering! Perhaps you have had such an experience already in your workplace.

At a company reception a few months later, the chairman was surrounded by his officers. He noticed young Dave, lurking around. He summoned him and enquired whether he had stopped compiling that useless statement. One of the seniors present interjected to clarify that it was Dave who had asked questions about the futility of such a statement.

“But you never told me that earlier”, said a surprised chairman. Dave looked shy, and remained silent.

Some weeks later Dave’s big boss, the CFO, gave Dave a double promotion and applauded his courage in not letting down his team under the chairman’s pressure. Of course, Dave was very competent. To his surprise, this unplanned episode told others about his character, which was not at all what Dave was trying to highlight. Character is such an intangible, yet important, part of a leader’s qualities. Dave’s career advanced in GE and he went on to become the chairman of another company.

So you should remember to do things right rather than only the right things. And while doing so, remember that character is at least as important as competence. The world has enough competent people, but not quite enough of managers with character.

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Many managers spend a lot of their working time, thinking about how to accelerate their promotions, how to impress the boss more than their colleagues, and how to earn money faster. The management world is indeed very competitive. So you feel that time must be spent thinking through such matters and taking appropriate actions–quite correct, but only in part.

The question to ask is whether it is the aim of a career to go far or in the right direction. Ideally, of course, you should achieve both, but that is not easy.

If you watch club level golfers, you will see the point. Some stand on the tee box with the longest club, and whack the ball with the might of an ox. They are the ones who want to see the ball soar away with an accelerating speed. A few seconds later, when they observe where the ball has landed, they curse and crib. The ball has perhaps been lost or has landed in a difficult spot from which it would be difficult to play the next shot. Other golfers take a measured approach of landing the ball on the fairway at a spot where they want to land. For them, the next stroke is as important as this first tee shot. Both are valid ways to play the game. If you are very talented, you may learn to do both i.e. go far as well as land where you want. Many club level golfers never achieve this.

The purpose of a career is to utilize your potential fully because that alone can give you satisfaction and a sense of self-esteem. This is so whether you are a chairman or an assistant. It becomes possible to achieve such satisfaction when you are surrounded by friendship and trust, which are essential for accomplishment in managerial tasks. Nobody can do a management job all by himself, this is a well accepted fact. It is the web of relationships and friendship that enables a manager to navigate the choppy waters that the ship of his career will constantly encounter.

There was a fine movie made by Frank Capra which I recall seeing when I was young. It starred James Stewart and Donna Reed and was named It’s a wonderful life. The story is about a man, who thinks he is a failure. So he prepares to commit suicide.

An angel is sent to prevent his act and to rescue him. The angel finds that the man lacks self esteem and hence he thinks that his friends and relations do not much care for him. The angel takes him in an invisible form to overhear what his friends and relations think of him in reality. He is surprised that he seemed to be loved by them all and that he mattered to them. His own perception of his failures in his career and his business activities bothered them little, and their love for him was overwhelming. He feels blessed.

The moral of the film is that no man is a failure who has friends.

Well, it is the same with your career. You take your own successes too seriously, and your failures in the same way. Other people do not think about either with the same intensity, they have better things to do!

Philosophers say that a good question to ponder about is when you die, who will come to your funeral?

When a loved man dies, lots of people come for his funeral out of choice. When a rich or powerful man dies, lots of people may come, but for the reason that they want to be seen to have been there.

If you aim in the right direction, the best possible distance will come automatically. That is a simple truth.

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A career means different things to different people. To some, it is an end point: it is a statement of ambition e.g. I must become the CEO of this company. To others, it means the landmarks on the way e.g. I must become regional manager in two years and general manager in three years thereafter. To most it is a combination. However, these are all ‘destinations’ and not the ‘journey’.

To the wise, it means the enjoyment and experiences of work. A career is not a destination, a career is the journey.

So what kind of a journey must you have? The answer is, ‘a journey which you enjoy’. You can excel with consistency only at tasks which you enjoy. Conversely, you cannot excel with consistency at tasks that you do not enjoy. Enjoyment does not mean that the task is easy, or that you know how to do it, quite the reverse.

You enjoy doing things that challenge you sufficiently, yet are instructive to you, that engage you e.g. selling to a difficult customer, debugging a production issue, configuring a least cost solution to a problem etc. It is engaging to you for your own reason, some others may hate the same tasks.

Dev joined HLL as a young manager in sales and marketing. He had studied in an excellent school, had a fine degree from a great college, was intelligent and articulate, and had cleared the tough series of HLL interviews. He had all the characteristics to become a successful manager in the sales/marketing function. However, recruiting and developing managers through characteristics is fraught with risks.

One of the preparations before he could be assigned his first responsibility was field training. This meant that he had to work on a salesman’s beat with an experienced salesman for sixteen weeks. This involved visiting grocery shops and booking orders all day long. The idea was for him to learn the routines, pains and tribulations of a salesman.

Dev was miserable. He found it boring, in fact, as he called it, it was ‘demeaning.’ After spending some time with him, his boss wondered whether Dev would ever make a good sales manager. That did not per se make him a good or a bad manager; it just meant that Dev had to rethink what kind of work he should do to enjoy himself. The HLL job was quite a prized one: getting such a job was prestigious, conversely not being successful was considered by many to be a negative.

As Dev thought about it, something kept telling him that he had joined HLL just to prove to the world how smart he was; the salary was a huge added attraction. It was not that he understood this career, and that he wanted to try it.

What he truly enjoyed was to spend time with school students– telling them about things they did not know, and some things that they might never know. He wanted to be a school teacher!

Implementing his idea meant sacrifices of salary, and image among his family and peers. He was courageous, and took the plunge.

I met him twenty years later. By now, he was the Headmaster of a prestigious public school, probably earning a fraction of what he might have if he had stayed on at HLL. He was really enjoying himself, doing all sorts of new things in the school and those gave him a sense of satisfaction. He told me that he had found his calling, his journey had been exciting and he looked forward to each day as the sun rose in the east.

Dev had understood what a career meant—doing what you enjoy and enjoying what you do. Dev had realized that what was important was the journey, not the destination.

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Management is about leadership–of people, of ideas, of markets. It is not merely about how far you go, and definitely not about doing what you are told to do; it is about doing what you are paid to do. Managers need to remind themselves about this eternal truth.

Courage is not just another leadership quality like intelligence, compassion and determination. In reality, it is the iron ladder on which all the other virtues sit. Without this iron ladder of courage, other virtues will not be effective.

The quality of this ladder of courage is determined and defined by you; it is what you live by.

Courage is not only for the CEO or the iconic top layer; courage is about everyday things done by managers through an organization. The story of a senior manager, Praveen, is instructive.

At his retirement function, his colleagues had assembled for company dinner in the usual manner. The evening programme was progressing predictably. When the speeches began, I thought to myself, ‘this would be the most predictable’.

Praveen first said the usual stuff—grateful to his colleagues, apologies to those he had offended inadvertently, and promise to keep in touch. Suddenly, Praveen’s speech turned very different.

“As you know, my role for several years has been to co-ordinate capital sanctions. Many of you have probably felt that I asked too many questions and retarded the speed of capital expenditure. I have made known my view that, in recent years we as managers had become lax with regard to capital expenditure. We want to spend quickly, but later, we write off. We install equipment and then fail to use it the way we had planned to.

Cash is the most important resource in any company, and we all know that our company gobbles cash for capital expenditure. My career may have suffered because I was perceived to slow down expenditure. But I feel satisfied that due to my efforts, along with all of you, the company saved Rs XYZ crores of valuable cash in the last five years. If this money had been allowed to be spent more easily, we might have Rs XYZ crores less cash and, who knows, I may have advanced another level in my career! For me, that is a contribution I am proud of. I am satisfied that I acted in a particular way because I was paid to do so.”

And then, he sat down—a few seconds of dead silence later, to a round of applause.

If we analyze his speech in the format of academic thinkers, Merom Klein and Rod Napier (The Courage To Act), Praveen demonstrated the power of the CPWRR formula—candour, purpose, will, rigour, risk—in the
discharge of his everyday duties.

Candour means the quality of speaking out in a constructive and contributing way. Speaking out in a criticizing and carping way is unproductive.

Purpose is about pursuing lofty and ambitious goals. Praveen realized that his industry was a cash burner, that even at his level within the company he could contribute to the judicious usage of cash. He could have taken the easy option of leaving it to his bosses.

Will is the ability to inspire optimism. Praveen placed alternatives on the table, he did not merely ask ‘clever’ questions. He added energy to the role he was playing.

Rigour means the discipline to put a process in place. Praveen insisted that the justification for expenditure should follow a predetermined format. In the process, he was perceived as bureaucratic.

Risk is the willingness to trust others to do their bit, while accepting the consequences of your own actions.

It is not enough to have three or four of the above CPWRR. All five need to work together, a bit like the cylinders of a motorcar.

The story shows that courage is an everyday thing that common managers can practice.

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While reflecting about the column on careers and business life, I asked myself what purpose could be served by such an effort. A simple idea, supported by a simple story, could be a positive format for learning and reflection and practising managers could find that useful.

After all, management is not rocket science; you don’t need deep and technical know-how. It is all about people and emotions, accompanied by some essential intelligence and training.

As you think about your business life, you will recognize several incidents and stories that have shaped you. ‘Incident’ refers to a factual recollection of what happened. ‘Story’ refers to an emotional memory of what you felt. They are very different, so also their influences.

The connection between emotion and recall is exemplified by the work of two professors at Irving, California. Two groups were told the same story, but in very different ways. One group was told in an unexciting, factual and sequential manner. The other group had some emotion-laden content and style. After several weeks, both groups were tested for recall. The emotion-laden group could recall the sequence far more vividly although not necessarily, more accurately. The professors called this ‘flash-bulb memory.’

Another example is Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s story Chronicle of a death foretold. It is about a man, who returned to the village where a violent murder had occurred several years ago. The lay villagers recalled the episode in a matter-of-fact way. However, the relations and close friends of the murdered man remembered things which the lay villagers did not. Their memory was far from vivid.

Managers are trained to be rational and to shun emotion. Fifteen years ago, I became aware of the Parable of the sadhu, published in the Harvard Business Review. Bowen McCoy was a participant in a sabbatical for company executives. He walked through villages in the Himalayas and climbed many mountains. One of his experiences was in Nepal.

He and the other mountaineers were bound for the holy city of Muktinath through a challenging 18,000 foot pass. After resting at 15,500 feet, the team set out for the final assault. Just then, they found a sadhu, lying in the snow and still alive. He was near naked and barefoot, shivering and suffering from hypothermia. He was probably on the return journey after visiting the shrines at Muktinath; it was quite unclear how and why he was found in the delicate life-and-death condition he was found in.

They assigned some tasks to each other. As a result, the sadhu was reached a few hundred feet down and left there, the hope being that someone would find him. The question was what the mountaineers should have done. Was it ethical to have done what they did? Was there a difference between individual and corporate ethics?

This was discussed energetically during an HBS Advanced Management Programme. Some western managers opined that the action of the mountaineers was not ethical, others that their action was practical but still not ethical. The Indian in the group questioned whether it was at all a question of ethics.

She said, “Every morning as I drive from my house in Bombay, I see people who are poor, in frail health and suffering from disability or disease. The humanity in me says I should stop to help them, the pragmatist says that in that case, I would never be able to stray more than half a mile from my house. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misery even as India changes. If it becomes an ethical question, no Indian can live at peace with his conscience.”

There was a stunned silence. A very emotional discussion followed. There were no answers, but the discussion threw up questions to reflect upon. Above all, emotion made the session a ‘story,’ not another ‘incident.’ The participants would surely have forgotten the Ito Yokado case study, but not the parable of the sadhu!

Each week, I hope to offer a simple message with a story on careers and business life. I hope the effort will be interesting, if not useful.

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