Nagesh Belludi

Some Lessons Can Only Be Learned in the School of Life

November 19, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How Anil Ambani Learned the Ropes of Doing Business in India

In the Fall of 1982, Anil Ambani, scion of one of India’s wealthiest family, returned home to Mumbai, then Bombay, after attending the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Anil had fast-tracked through his two-year MBA program in less than 15 months.

He met up with his father Dhirubhai Ambani and announced, “Look, Dad, I’ve become an MBA, and I’m going to take a break since I worked hard. I will see you in the New Year.”

Dhirubhai asked, “I am very happy and delighted that you accomplished this. Since I did not go to any formal school or college, I do not have any degree, why don’t you tell me, from your learning at Wharton, what does an MBA stand for?”

Smug and self-satisfied, Anil replied, “That’s simple. Master of Business Administration.”

Dhirubhai countered, “An MBA represents Manē Badhā Āvō che,” (Gujarati for “I am know all.”) He explained,

You are entering India, and you need to Indianize your MBA … at Wharton School, did they teach you about customs duties, excise duties, income tax, sales tax, Parliament?

Do you know about a zero-hour question, a call-attention motion, and the difference between a starred question and an unstarred question in the Indian Parliament?

If you don’t get to know all these things, let me assure you, all your formal education is not going to help you. You need your practical Indian MBA. And I am going to create that learning environment for you so that you can get the exposure.

A formal education doesn’t necessarily teach you everything about how to navigate the real world

Dhirubhai Ambani, the prototypical crony capitalist that he was, was highlighting the importance of learning the ways and means of doing business in pre-liberalization India.

One must note that Ambani’s extraordinary rags-to-riches story was a blend of cunning, street smartness, audacious risk-taking, and an unparalleled knack for bending the rules through powerful politicians and bureaucrats. As controversial as he was, Ambani must be understood in the socio-political context of India’s post-Independence industrial milieu. He artfully exploited the opportunities those times offered.

Idea for Impact: Formal education cannot complete the kind of real-world operative skills that you need

If you’re truly serious in your desire to get ahead in business, you will need a broader grasp of your chosen discipline than you can get from formal education.

Look, listen, learn. Every industry, company, organization, and team has its own culture. Spend time observing the winners: what does success look like? Who holds power, and how are they persuaded? What are the traits of people who get ahead? Emphasize developing skills in line with the winners.
Develop a network of people who can potentially lend a hand or bail you out of a jam. Invest in the people who will listen to your ideas and support your ambitions. Get to know peers at all levels to build a support base. Any person may have the knowledge and the allegiances that they can put to work for you if they’re so inclined.
Discover how to make the most of the circumstances you’re dealt with. Don’t manipulate others for your own devices in a Machiavellian sense—although, occasionally, you may need to use duplicity for respectable purposes, i.e. where certain ends can justify certain means.

Remember, the political payoff for fostering and nurturing relationships, and for developing a vast reservoir of skills and experiences, may take months, years, or even decades.

Inspirational Quotations #815

November 17, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

The ablest man I ever met is the man you think you are.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (American Head of State)

There’s no way that you can live an adequate life without many mistakes. In fact, one trick in life is to get so you can handle mistakes. Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

We gain strength from other people. We give strength to each other.
—Rudy Giuliani (American Politician)

Women hate everything which strips off the tinsel of sentiment, and they are right, or it would rob them of their weapons.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)

Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

When it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.
—Maya Angelou (American Poet)

Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

No effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost. Sometime, somewhere, somehow we shall find that which we seek.
—Helen Keller (American Author)

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of the few: and number not voices, but weigh them.
—Immanuel Kant (Prussian German Philosopher)

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

A name is a kind of face whereby one is known; wherefore taking a false name is a kind of visard whereby men disguise themselves.
—Thomas Fuller (English Cleric, Historian)

He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Founding Father, Inventor)

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.
—Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary)

Inspirational Quotations #814

November 10, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

A man is known by the company he avoids.
—Muriel Strode (American Author, Businesswoman)

Do to others as you would have others do to you, inspires all men with that other maxim of natural goodness a great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful: Do good to yourself with as little prejudice as you can to others.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French Philosopher)

Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.
—Sam Harris (American Neuroscientist, Atheist, Author)

Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)

The secret to humor is surprise.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

My deepest feeling about politicians is that they are dangerous lunatics to be avoided when possible and carefully humored; people, above all, to whom one must never tell the truth.
—W. H. Auden (British-born American Poet)

I’d rather regret the things I have done than the things that I haven’t.
—Lucille Ball (American Actor)

It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block.
—Paul Gauguin (French Painter)

Man while he loves is never quite depraved.
—Charles Lamb (British Essayist, Poet)

Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.
—Virginia Woolf (English Novelist)

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skillful hands; in unskillful, the most mischievous.
—Alexander Pope (English Poet)

Emulation is a noble and just passion, full of appreciation.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Satisfaction linked with dishonor or with harm to others is a prison for the seeker.
—Zoroaster (Persian Religious Leader, Prophet)

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Lessons from the World’s Worst Aviation Disaster // Book Summary of ‘The Collision on Tenerife’

November 5, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Jon Ziomek’s nonfiction history book Collision on Tenerife (2018) is the result of years of analysis into the world’s worst aviation disaster on Tenerife Island in the Canary Islands of Spain.

Distinct Small Errors Can Become Linked and Amplified into a Big Tragedy

On 27-March-1977, two fully loaded Boeing 747 passenger jets operated by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines collided on the runway, killing 583 passengers and crew on the two airplanes. Only 61 survived—all from the Pan Am jet, including its pilot.

These two flights, and a few others, were diverted to Tenerife after a bomb went off at the Gran Canaria Airport in Las Palmas, their original destination. Tenerife was not a major airport—it had a single runway, and taxi and parking space were limited. After the Las Palmas airport reopened, flights were cleared for takeoff from Tenerife, but the fog rolled in over Tenerife reducing visibility to less than 300 feet. Several airplanes that had been diverted to Tenerife had blocked the taxiway and the parking ramp. Therefore, the KLM and Pan Am jets taxied down the single runway in preparation for takeoff, the Pan Am behind the KLM.

At one end of the runway, the KLM jet turned 180 degrees into position for takeoff. In the meantime, the Pan Am jet was still taxiing on the runway, having missed its taxiway turnoff in the fog. The KLM pilot jumped the gun and started his take-off roll before he got clearance from traffic control.

When the pilots of the two jets caught sight of each other’s airplanes through the fog, it was too late for the Pan Am jet to clear out of the runway into the grass and for KLM jet to abort the takeoff. The KLM pilot lifted his airplane off the runway prematurely, but could not avoid barreling into the Pan Am’s fuselage at 240 kmph. Both the jets exploded into flames.

The accident was blamed on miscommunication—breakdown of coordinated action, vague language from the control tower, the KLM pilot’s impatience to takeoff without clearance, and the distorted cross-talk of the KLM and Pan Am pilots and the controllers on a common radio channel.

Breakdown of Coordination Under Stress

Sweeping changes were made to international airline regulations following the accident: cockpit procedures were changed, standard phrases were introduced, and English was emphasized as a common working language.

In Collision on Tenerife, Jon Ziomek, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, gives a well-written, detailed account of all the mistakes leading up to the crash and its aftermath.

The surviving passengers’ first- and second-hand accounts recall the horror of those passengers on the right side of the Pan Am jet who saw the lights of the speeding KLM 747, just as the Pan Am pilot was hastily turning his airplane onto the grass to avoid the collision.

Ziomek describes how passengers escaped. Some had to make the difficult choice of leaving loved ones or friends and strangers behind.

Dorothy Kelly … then spotted Captain Grubbs lying near the fuselage. Badly burned and shaken by his jump from the plane, he could not move. “What have I done to these people?” he yelled, pounding the ground in anguish. Kelly grabbed him under his shoulders and urged “Crawl, Captain, crawl!”

Recommendation: Read Jon Ziomek’s Collision on Tenerife

Some of the bewildering details make for difficult reading—especially the psychological effects (post-traumatic stress syndrome) on the surviving passengers. But Jon Ziomek’s Collision on Tenerife is important reading, providing a comprehensive picture of the extensive coordination required in aviation, the importance of safety and protocols, and how some humans can freeze in shock while others spring into action.

The key takeaway is the recognition of how small errors and problems (an “error chain”) can quickly become linked and amplified into disastrous outcomes.

Inspirational Quotations #813

November 3, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honor as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.
—Thomas Hardy (English Novelist, Poet)

Even for practical purposes theory generally turns out the most important thing in the end.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (American Jurist, Author)

Better know nothing than half-know many things.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Five things are requisite to a good officer—ability, clean hands, despatch, patience, and impartiality.
—William Penn (American Entrepreneur)

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don’t want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
—Alfred Hitchcock (British-born American Film Director)

It may be long before the law of love will be recognized in international affairs. The machineries of government stand between and hide the hearts of one people from those of another.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Any kind of lasting success is rooted in honesty.
—Russell Simmons (American Music Promoter)

What morality requires, true statesmanship should accept.
—Edmund Burke (British Philosopher, Statesman )

Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.
—Martha Graham (American Choreographer)

It didn’t occur to me until later that there’s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.
—Stephen King (American Novelist)

This loving person is a person who abhors waste—waste of time, waste of human potential. How much time we waste. As if we were going to live forever.
—Leo Buscaglia (American Motivational Speaker)

Going Over Your Boss’s Head After She Rejects Your Idea?

October 29, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you’re terrified by the prospect of going over your boss’s head to pursue an idea after she’s rejected it, consider the following steps.

First, have an in-depth conversation with your boss to make sure that you’re not misreading the circumstances of getting rejected. Your boss may well have a good reason for her decision.

Ask your boss what’s lacking in your proposals.

Is your idea solid enough, but lacking the right support products or services to go with it? Is it feasible to implement? Will it divert valuable attention away from other initiatives?
Does your idea actually enhance the customer’s experience? Have you explained how your idea translates to the bottom line?
Do you lack credibility? Have you previously blown an assignment? Do you need to rebuild leadership’s trust in you before pitching your idea again?
Have you prototyped your idea? Have you tested your idea on others? Do you have data confirming your idea’s feasibility? Are you disclosing all underlying issues and potential challenges that will have to be attended?

Address the above concerns, rework your idea, strengthen your proposal, and pitch it to your boss again. Consider meeting with your peers and your managers’ peers to build some grassroots support (management consulting firm McKinsey calls this “pre-wiring”) for your idea.

If your boss rejects your idea again, handle your boss’s negative response by reiterating that you respect her judgment, but would like a go-ahead to take the idea further. Your boss may surprise you with a green light.

Think twice before stepping outside the chain of command and talking to your boss’s boss about something on your mind.

Inspirational Quotations #812

October 27, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi

Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)

Demand not that events should happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.
—Pearl Bailey (American Singer, Actress)

One is still what one is going to cease to be and already what one is going to become. One lives one’s death, one dies one’s life.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Dignity and pride are of too near relationship for intermarriage.
—Dorothee Luzy Dotinville (French Dancer, Actress)

Don’t suffer fools or you’ll become one.
—Tim Ferriss (American Self-help Author)

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)

It is well to learn caution by the misfortunes of others.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)

A good laugh overcomes more difficulties and dissipates more dark clouds than any other one thing.
—Laura Ingalls Wilder (American Author of Children’s Novels)

We are here not to get all we can out of life for ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happier.
—William Osler (Canadian Physician)

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

Mediocrity doesn’t mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

Regrets are the natural property of gray hairs.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

Waste no tears over the griefs of yesterday.
—Euripides (Ancient Greek Dramatist)

Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child’s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man’s whore.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The best mask for demoralization is daring.
—Lucian (Greek Satirical Writer)

Who Told You That Everybody Was Going to Like You?

October 24, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

From investor Joshua Kennon’s perspectives on being disliked,

Years ago, a family member had to deal with a work colleague who utterly despised her to the point this colleague couldn’t conceal their disdain.

Exasperated, my family member called the prayer line of a televangelist and pleaded, “Please pray with me to have God to change this coworker’s heart so they like me. I’m friends with everybody. There’s no reason they hate me so much.”

The lady on the other end of the phone was quiet for a moment. When she finally spoke, she asked, “Who told you that everybody was going to like you? You weren’t promised that. In this world, there are going to be people who hate you for one reason or another, perhaps even without justification. As long as you’ve examined yourself and are sure it’s not something you’re doing wrong, if you’ll let me, I’d instead like to pray with you that God helps you find peace with the situation so it doesn’t steal your joy and you can move on to more edifying things.”

If others’ disapproval tends to nurture your self-dissatisfactions, question it. If you’ve made a mistake, try to right the wrong. Learn from it, pardon yourself, and move ahead.

If your quest for others’ approval is rooted in insecurity, remind yourself that your contentment in life cannot spring from other people’s perceptions of you; it has to come from an inner scorecard. Warren Buffett famously said, “The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.”

Striving to live your life to satisfy others always is an impossible aspiration. You’ll wind up losing your sense of individuality in the quest to conform to others’ expectations. “It is our very search for perfection outside ourselves that causes our suffering,” warned the Buddha.

Many Businesses Get Started from an Unmet Personal Need

October 21, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

Many successful entrepreneurs never set out with the goal of launching a large company, let alone hiring scores of people. They are motivated enough to develop solutions to a direct problem they are facing. Before long, they discover that they are not the only ones with that problem—and, like so, a successful business is born.

How “The Cult of Lulu” Got Started

Consider the genesis of Lululemon, the Canadian athletic apparel company (from The Atlantic‘s narrative of how sports changed the way Americans dress.)

In 1997, a retail entrepreneur in British Columbia named Chip Wilson was having back problems. So, like millions of people around the world, he went to a yoga class. What struck Wilson most in his first session wasn’t the poses; it was the pants. He noticed that his yoga instructor was wearing some slinky dance attire, the sort of second skin that makes a fit person’s butt look terrific. Wilson felt inspired to mass-produce this vision of posterior pulchritude. The next year, he started a yoga design-and-fashion business and opened his first store in Vancouver. It was called Lululemon.

[Yes, that’s the Chip Wilson who gained notoriety for blaming in-poor-shape women for ruining their Lululemon yoga pants by rubbing their thighs together too much. “Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it [his apparel],” he condescendingly declared on Bloomberg TV.]

At present, Lululemon has the highest sales-per-square-foot of any American apparel retailer. Its pricey workout clothing has become a wardrobe staple, prompting other retailers to launch competing apparel lines to cash in on the growing market.

Lululemon kindled the prevailing fixation on a healthy appearance. Its brand continues to be an elite fitness status symbol for the skinny and wealthy set. More broadly, over the last two decades, Lululemon has redefined how the current generation dresses and lives. The company pioneered the “athleisure” fashion revolution, which has blurred the lines between yoga-and-spin-class outfits and regular street clothes.

Sara Blakely’s Personal Undertaking Morphed Spanx into a Big Business

In a similar vein, entrepreneur Sara Blakely started the Spanx hosiery company after searching for a solution to improve the way she looked in a pair of her cream-colored pants. Blakely started her wildly successful entrepreneurial journey by making sure that the specific type of undergarment she ideated to solve her clothing problem did materialize commercially. From her biography on Wikipedia,

Forced to wear pantyhose in the hot Floridian climate for her sales role, Blakely disliked the appearance of the seamed foot while wearing open-toed shoes, but liked the way that the control-top model eliminated panty lines and made her body appear firmer. For her attendance at a private party, she experimented by cutting off the feet of her pantyhose while wearing them under a new pair of slacks and found that the pantyhose continuously rolled up her legs, but she also achieved the desired result.

Idea for Impact: Learn to Pay Attention to the Subtle Clues to Opportunities All-Around

Many entrepreneurs initially got their start by first recognizing and responding to a personal need or a localized problem and later discovering that they struck a universal chord.

If you want to become an entrepreneur, find out if you can solve a problem that you’ve personally experienced. Uncover opportunities that you may otherwise have missed by asking, “Does this have to be time-consuming, arduous, expensive, or annoying?” “How can I improve on this?” and “Can I do this better or different from the other fellow doing it over there?” Then expand your opportunity by asking, “Who else may be experiencing the same problem?”

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Nagesh Belludi

How Anil Ambani Learned the Ropes of Doing Business in India

A formal education doesn’t necessarily teach you everything about how to navigate the real world

Idea for Impact: Formal education cannot complete the kind of real-world operative skills that you need

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Distinct Small Errors Can Become Linked and Amplified into a Big Tragedy

Breakdown of Coordination Under Stress

Recommendation: Read Jon Ziomek’s Collision on Tenerife

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

How “The Cult of Lulu” Got Started

Sara Blakely’s Personal Undertaking Morphed Spanx into a Big Business

Idea for Impact: Learn to Pay Attention to the Subtle Clues to Opportunities All-Around

Wondering what to read next?