Outlook Business | Leading Edge 2018 - Corporate Karma
Editor, N Mahalakshmi, engages in a lively discussion on leadership lessons from the Mahabharata with Abhay Aima of HDFC Bank, Nilesh Shah of Kotak Mahindra AMC, Eika Banerjee of Future Learning and writer, Krishna Udayasankar
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Music: Hooksounds
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Music: Hooksounds
#CorporateKarma #LeadingEdge2018 #Business #OutlookBusiness #OutlookMagazine #OutlookGroup
Transcript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 So great, I don't have a question list.
00:15 And we are going to just develop this whole conversation
00:18 as we go along.
00:20 The idea was to create a discussion around,
00:26 are there lessons from the Mahabharata?
00:29 And to clarify, this is the Amar Chitra Katha
00:32 version of the Mahabharata, because Krishna just
00:34 educated me that which version of Mahabharata
00:37 are we going to talk about?
00:38 I don't know any other version of Mahabharata.
00:41 The only version I know is Amar Chitra Katha,
00:43 and I think a whole bunch of people
00:45 out here may not know the different versions
00:47 of Mahabharata.
00:48 So based on the Amar Chitra Katha version of Mahabharata,
00:52 are there some serious business lessons?
00:56 Are there analogies to the corporate world?
01:00 And what can we truly learn?
01:02 So one leading question is that you
01:08 have these various characters in Mahabharata
01:11 who can be conceived in leadership roles,
01:17 right from Krishna, the strategist,
01:19 to the Yudhishtira, the righteous leader,
01:23 to Duryodhana, who was aggressive, according to me,
01:27 should have been a good leader.
01:28 There was nothing that went against him,
01:30 except that history portrays him to be a bad guy.
01:34 There is Bhishma Pitamah, who is like a group patriarch,
01:39 unwilling to let go, and so on and so forth.
01:42 So look at all these characters and see
01:44 who could be the best role model for a modern-day CEO.
01:49 So with that, Krishna, your interpretation
01:51 of the various characters and how do you relate to them?
01:54 Thank you for that very interesting question,
01:58 first of all.
01:59 And it's always difficult to pick
02:01 who should have been the leader, because I
02:03 think the beauty of the Mahabharata
02:04 is that it raises more questions than it gives answers.
02:09 And it is we in this time and age
02:11 who are left to try and find our answers,
02:14 even construct answers that are relevant to us
02:17 from the legacy that has been left to us in terms of what
02:20 you would call it myth or history.
02:23 With that preface, I would say, in fact, my pick,
02:27 if I had one vote for who was the best
02:29 leader of the lot in the entire character gamut of the Mahabharata,
02:33 I would say it was Ashwathama.
02:35 OK.
02:37 Please portray Ashwathama for us.
02:39 Ashwathama, even in your Amar Chitra Katha version,
02:42 or any other version, is considered a warrior,
02:45 a scorner, a man who has done absolutely no wrong,
02:50 till supposedly that one night he goes around murdering people.
02:54 One disclaimer, she has an entire book on Ashwathama.
02:58 Just one?
03:00 Yeah, so I mean, Miyakalpa, he's a favorite,
03:03 so I am rooting for my favorite here.
03:05 But I think that the very fact that we
03:09 can debate whether Ashwathama was leadership material or not
03:13 brings us to a question of what is a leader?
03:16 Is it just somebody who's not done wrong?
03:19 Is it somebody who spoke up at the right time
03:21 when wrong was being done?
03:24 Or is it somebody who used a broader environment,
03:28 a competitive and very competitive environment,
03:31 if you were to follow a business term,
03:32 to try and make their way ahead?
03:35 So I think that brings us to a very fundamental question of whom
03:38 you would consider a leader before you even pick one and say,
03:42 this is the best leader.
03:43 Every one of them portrays a very different leadership
03:46 quality, but every one of them also
03:48 brings with it the flip side, which
03:50 is that the best of leaders have certain flaws.
03:54 So yeah, I think it lends itself to a very interesting
03:57 discussion on who would we pick as a leader and why.
04:01 So that's my personal favorite.
04:03 But yeah, hey, I have a vested interest.
04:06 Even before that, what would we consider a good leader
04:09 is something we probably need to think about.
04:11 And I wish we can do that.
04:14 Who is a good leader?
04:15 And you can then look at the various characters
04:18 and say, who is the right role model from Mahabharata
04:21 to be a good-- to mimic from?
04:24 I work in Kotak Bank.
04:26 So I consider Uday Kotak as a good leader.
04:30 When I joined Kotak Bank, I asked Uday,
04:34 what is his philosophy?
04:36 And he combined Ramayan and Mahabharata.
04:40 He said there are two by two quotient.
04:43 One, a Ram quotient, where your goals are good, righteous,
04:49 and your means to achieve that goals are also righteous.
04:53 The other one is Krishna quotient,
04:55 where your goals are obviously righteous.
04:58 But in terms of means, you are street smart.
05:01 You take certain liberties which Ram will never take.
05:05 On the other end, there are other two quotients,
05:08 a Ravan quotient, where goals and means both are adharma.
05:14 And then there is Duryodhana quotient,
05:15 where goals sometimes are reasonable,
05:19 but means are always disastrous.
05:23 Now, if you're running business, try to be in Ram quotient.
05:26 That will build business over a longer period of time.
05:30 But since you're operating in India, once in a while,
05:33 if you have to go to Krishna quotient, it is fine.
05:36 But never ever be in Duryodhana quotient,
05:38 never ever be in Ravan quotient.
05:41 I think that philosophy defines Kotak Mahindra group.
05:45 It has worked well for Uday Kotak and Kotak Mahindra group.
05:48 And to some extent, we have copied that in Kotak Mahindra
05:52 mutual fund, and it has worked well for us.
05:56 So why did we have to get Ram into this at all?
05:59 I mean, is Krishna not enough?
06:02 Ram is Maryada Purushottam.
06:05 Ram is the ideal.
06:08 He always lived within a cage, within the restrictions given
06:13 by the society, by the dharma of that time.
06:18 Krishna lived outside the cage.
06:22 He could always take a shortcut, a smart way,
06:25 a street smart way.
06:28 But Ram was Maryada Purushottam.
06:30 And I think we need both Ram and Krishna together,
06:34 rather than trying to be only Ram or trying to be only Krishna,
06:39 especially in current environment,
06:41 where your goal should be righteous.
06:44 But sometimes to achieve those goals,
06:46 you need to take a street smart view,
06:48 rather than just walking on the straight lane.
06:52 Sure.
06:54 Who's your favorite leader character in Mahabharata,
06:57 and what is your idea of a leader?
06:59 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
07:00 [LAUGHTER]
07:01 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
07:03 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
07:06 You know, we are holding them from the--
07:08 Bar.
07:09 Bar.
07:10 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
07:13 No, I think at various stages in life,
07:18 various people can lead you to where you want to go,
07:22 if you choose to.
07:23 So the choice is yours.
07:26 I don't think you can actually pinpoint and say, OK,
07:29 this is my ultimate goal or ultimate person
07:34 that I need to follow--
07:35 Ram, Krishna, whoever it is.
07:39 The key to life is that you are what you are,
07:44 and you know what you want to be.
07:47 And along the way, if someone helps you in their journey,
07:51 which is fine.
07:52 But I don't think the ultimate aim
07:57 should be to become the Krishna or Ram or any one of these.
08:03 Those are just guidelines.
08:04 Those are just things that you need to take support from.
08:09 But I think it was Zen, we said that if you see your parents,
08:13 kill them.
08:15 If you see Buddha next, kill him too.
08:18 Because everyone has the capability
08:19 of becoming a Ram, Buddha, or Krishna.
08:23 So the moment you idealize someone,
08:27 the moment you say that this is what I--
08:31 subconsciously or consciously, you're
08:33 trying to be that, which I think is unfair to your being.
08:37 So you are an individual, and you
08:41 will be Abhay or Nilesh or Krishna or whoever,
08:46 or Mahalakshmi or whoever wants to be.
08:48 And I think that's more important.
08:50 I don't think it's important that you
08:53 need to give so much of emphasis that you end up--
08:57 -No, but you always look for role models, right?
08:59 You say that, OK, this is a good model to follow.
09:02 I mean, in everything we follow that in business,
09:04 you look at business models that work.
09:07 For everything, you look for some inspiration,
09:09 so you get a framework in terms of how can this be structured.
09:13 -If it's a support, it is fine.
09:16 You should not become that, because then you
09:19 are denying yourself the possibility
09:21 of becoming a Buddha.
09:23 I think each one of us has a capability
09:25 of becoming a Buddha.
09:28 I think there was this-- I was listening to this song
09:34 from one of the Pakistani singers,
09:37 and it says, [SPEAKING HINDI]
09:46 So I have the capability of becoming Shankar.
09:49 I think each one of us has.
09:51 So as long as you're using it as a support
09:56 and it's not overwhelming enough for you to-- because then you're
10:01 just a clone, and then you're just-- I think each one of us,
10:04 I don't think we should miss out on that.
10:05 It would be unfair to life.
10:06 It would be unfair to you.
10:08 It would be unfair to you as a human being.
10:10 So each one of us has the capability
10:12 of becoming a Shankar or a Buddha or a Ram or a Krishna
10:15 or a Dishonest.
10:18 OK.
10:19 Your favorite character, please don't go on about lines.
10:22 So given that I already work in the space of both leadership
10:28 and ancient wisdom, it's probably a biased question,
10:32 as far as I'm concerned.
10:35 So let me start with Mahabharata.
10:37 So the Mahabharata itself, we always
10:38 say [SPEAKING HINDI]
10:40 So starting with that premise, I
10:48 don't think it's just Mahabharata characters
10:50 that we should talk about.
10:53 And as far as leadership is concerned,
10:55 I believe that there are-- and I am-- and Ilesh, pardon me,
11:00 but I'm very against binary frameworks.
11:02 They make me very, very uncomfortable,
11:04 linearities and binaries.
11:06 So I believe that [SPEAKING HINDI]
11:12 So you're the creator, the classic startup guy.
11:16 [SPEAKING HINDI]
11:18 The preserver, the builder, somebody
11:20 who looks at a business at x and says, [SPEAKING HINDI]
11:25 Who's the disruptor, the destroyer,
11:26 the turnaround artist who looks at a business as it is
11:28 and says, no, it's fine where it is,
11:30 but it needs an orbit change.
11:31 Can I break it down into pieces and rebuild it?
11:33 By the way, that is also one thing
11:35 that [INAUDIBLE] often uses.
11:38 There's Brahma.
11:38 Every organization must have a Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva.
11:41 Absolutely.
11:42 Absolutely.
11:42 So to me, it's a function of [SPEAKING HINDI]
11:48 So if the organization is in its founding stages,
11:51 you need to start a business, you probably
11:52 need somebody with a Brahma core.
11:54 Otherwise, you need somebody-- business has been built up.
11:56 You need somebody to take it to the next level.
11:57 It's a Vishnu.
11:58 And you're struggling with a business.
12:00 You know that it logically makes sense,
12:01 but how do we reinvent the business?
12:03 It's a Shiva.
12:05 Coming back to the Mahabharata, I
12:09 don't think I have a favorite leader there.
12:12 But yeah, predictably, my heart beats for Krishna,
12:16 and it bleeds for Karna.
12:18 But yeah, between the two of them,
12:20 I don't think there are--
12:21 so leadership lessons are more in terms of lessons
12:23 to be learned than role models to be emulated in the Mahabharata
12:28 is how I believe.
12:29 I also believe there are qualities in all bad.
12:31 So I don't think there is a superhero there.
12:34 I think everybody is a shade of gray somewhere,
12:37 and what do we want to pick out of it?
12:39 So I'm not about blacks and whites and emulations,
12:41 but yeah, so Krishna at one end of the continuum,
12:44 and Karna at the other.
12:47 You can probably bring on business lessons
12:53 for leaders from Mahabharata.
12:55 And also, you talked about competition, strategy.
12:58 Maybe you can pick on two or three of those ideas
13:01 and tell us some lessons and side stories.
13:05 Possibly.
13:05 Yeah, I'm just going to share this thought that's
13:07 running in my-- sorry, I don't think I need this, right?
13:10 I'm going to share this thought that's
13:12 running in my mind from what Aika said, which is the whole idea
13:14 of old progression.
13:17 And the moment she talks about Krishna,
13:19 the immediate thing that comes to my head
13:21 is the whole idea of Schumpeterian creative
13:24 destruction from a business cycle perspective, where
13:27 you see Krishna as somebody who understands
13:30 that the status quo of how things are,
13:33 or the entire market structure, is not at its optimal, most
13:38 efficient level.
13:39 So some degree of destruction, followed by rejuvenation,
13:44 followed by a completely new systemic order,
13:47 is required for the market.
13:49 Or if we think of a kingdom as an economic unit,
13:53 and something that has to operate
13:55 at maximum possible resource utilization efficiency.
13:59 If you think of it as that perspective,
14:01 he sees that this is not optimal.
14:03 And so the whole process of war and rejuvenation
14:06 is actually creative destruction,
14:08 where you are trying to optimize the entire resource utilization
14:12 pattern.
14:13 So that's just thought on top of my head,
14:17 based on what Aika said.
14:19 I think in terms of particular business lessons,
14:24 it is very interesting to see the Mahabharata as--
14:28 I mean, my competence is strategic management
14:31 in international business, when it comes to the business side
14:34 of things.
14:34 So I always see the Mahabharata as a battle
14:38 for resource management.
14:39 Control over economic resources, which
14:43 then become a source of power, which I know is probably very
14:45 Marxist in nature, but hey, that's how it is.
14:49 So from that perspective, I think
14:51 it is possible to take away a lot of competitive lessons
14:55 in terms of, again, coming back to my favorite keyword here,
15:00 efficiency, utilization efficiency,
15:02 coming back to issues like can the small take on the big,
15:07 coming back to issues even like how do you understand value
15:11 creation and distribution of created value, which I think
15:16 is a very important topic for us in a corporate context.
15:19 So you have this whole process that you bring in,
15:22 but then how do you distribute the value that is then
15:24 generated as a result of that?
15:27 And so I think many lessons are possible.
15:31 But here, I will admit my bias when
15:33 I say many lessons are possible if you
15:35 are willing to look at it from a rationalist perspective
15:38 rather than only a spiritual perspective.
15:41 I'm not discounting the spiritual lessons.
15:43 We get there.
15:44 But I'm saying there are a lot of economic efficiency value
15:49 maximization perspectives that we
15:50 can get if we are willing to take a rational approach
15:53 to events as history.
15:55 Can you recount three stories?
15:58 Can you recount three episodes or stories
16:00 for us which bear out the best lessons for you
16:03 from a business management perspective?
16:05 Oh my god, she's putting me on the line here, isn't she?
16:08 Three stories from a management perspective.
16:11 OK, since this is about leaders, let me start off there.
16:17 Succession issues, the whole idea of should
16:21 could the entire world-- if we think of war
16:23 as a negative thing that happened and not just
16:25 a competition-- could war have been averted
16:28 if Dhritarashtra had actually resigned from his post
16:31 as CEO/king and let the next line of leadership
16:35 come up instead?
16:36 Might it?
16:37 Yes, possibly.
16:38 Then that brings us to the second--
16:40 And who would that be?
16:41 Because the whole war was about who should be the next leader.
16:45 Exactly.
16:46 So that brings us to the next question.
16:48 What are you going to use as your measuring
16:50 characteristic of a leader?
16:52 Are you going to use competencies, skills,
16:57 or are you going to use legacy?
17:01 What are the parameters you use to define leadership?
17:04 In my personal view, Duryodhan was an extremely competent
17:08 leader, extremely, extremely competent.
17:11 I know that probably myth history
17:12 portrays him in a very dark way on many occasions.
17:16 But let's think about it.
17:17 Let's think about the instance when--
17:19 we say the war began.
17:20 Why?
17:21 Because Krishna went to Duryodhan and said,
17:23 please give the Pandavas at least five villages for them
17:26 to rule.
17:27 And he says, sorry, you're not getting five needle
17:30 points of land.
17:32 Why?
17:32 Well, one way of interpreting it is
17:35 that he is a power-obsessed maniac who is not
17:37 willing to cede any power.
17:39 Another way of interpreting it is to say that, boss,
17:43 you had half a kingdom.
17:45 You had an entire kingdom.
17:46 You had an empire, which you gambled away.
17:50 What does that say about your competency
17:52 to be a leader, a CEO, a king?
17:56 I am sorry I am not giving you any resources to work with,
17:59 because I do not think you have the competency
18:01 to handle those resources.
18:03 And that is very different from saying,
18:05 I'm not giving it to you because I don't like your face.
18:08 So that would be a second thing.
18:10 When do you let go as a leader?
18:12 What values do you seek in a leader
18:14 when you are looking at succession?
18:17 And then, of course, we get to the whole issue of,
18:20 for whom are you trying to use these resources
18:24 and generate value?
18:25 Is it personal gain?
18:27 Is it because you are on a hubris trip
18:29 where you want to be a leader?
18:31 Or is it because you actually take
18:33 into account your stakeholders and see what permutation
18:36 and combination, what are the competencies you can bring
18:39 to bear on those resources to actually generate value
18:43 for a broader set of stakeholders?
18:44 And which, in this case, are the characters
18:48 we actually never talk about in the Mahabharata,
18:49 the common people.
18:51 You know, it's like Mahabharata is full of all these kings
18:54 and warriors and queens who have their own agendas,
18:57 but hey, they are kings of something.
19:00 They are queens of something.
19:01 They have a duty, sort of,
19:05 they have a duty in corporate governance terms.
19:09 They have something they owe their stakeholders.
19:12 Is that actually being maximized?
19:15 So, yeah, I think those would be my three takeaways.
19:18 - So, so I see it.
19:24 So here's how I see it.
19:29 And again, like I said, they're just lessons to be learned.
19:32 I don't think there's any perfect solution there that exists.
19:35 But one of them is about managing your people and your team.
19:41 So when Duryodhana decided that everybody
19:46 was going to fight on his side,
19:49 because he was paying their salaries,
19:50 the level of awareness of saying that,
19:54 dude, your chief of staff, your general,
19:58 wasn't going to kill one enemy soldier, right?
20:02 You had, in all your army,
20:05 you actually had just one person
20:06 who was fighting your cause.
20:08 So, you know, in the classic situational leadership grid
20:10 of M1, M2, M3, and M4,
20:13 you actually had just one person who was in M4,
20:15 which was Karan, willing and able.
20:18 You didn't deploy him because you couldn't handle
20:20 the politics of your chairman.
20:22 That's Abhishek saying, I don't want this, I don't want that.
20:24 But you're the CEO, you're sitting there,
20:26 you know what's good for business.
20:28 And yet you choose to not deploy, right?
20:32 And frankly, by the time you actually got to deploying,
20:34 Karan-- - There, at least you had
20:35 a CEO in Pandav, there was no CEO only, do you agree?
20:38 There was no CEO in the Pandav.
20:40 They only had a McKinsey consultant in Krishna.
20:42 - It's not clear.
20:43 - I said, she's talking about Kauravs.
20:49 Kauravs certainly had a leader in Duryodhana.
20:51 But the Pandavs didn't have a leader only.
20:55 They only had a McKinsey consultant in Krishna.
20:57 - Four by fours and three by threes.
21:01 - They were just going by what the consultant was saying.
21:03 - You know, actually I love that analogy,
21:05 because that's my other favorite incident about this.
21:08 Yudhishthir knew that, and look at the level
21:11 of self-awareness of the leader in that sense.
21:13 He knew he wasn't the most popular person.
21:15 He knew he had an army, he was the underdog.
21:17 He had a smaller army, lesser resources.
21:20 He knew that he was personally very easily,
21:25 very impulsive, very easily angered.
21:29 So he had two choices.
21:30 He could either work on himself and say that,
21:33 you know, I need to get myself to become better.
21:36 But look at the smartness of that.
21:38 So he walked up to Krishna and said,
21:40 be my coach, be my chief strategist,
21:43 and help me through this,
21:45 knowing that Krishna would pull this off for him,
21:47 with complete awareness, strategic awareness,
21:51 that he was the one who was going to be king.
21:54 So to me, the fact that Yudhishthir wasn't an able leader,
21:59 or not a leader at all,
22:00 and how he turned it to his advantage,
22:03 in the sense of bringing in a fabulous coach,
22:08 excellent strategist, and democratizing power.
22:12 So, that was my other favorite incident.
22:16 - So is strategy the most important thing then?
22:19 You know, essentially, the story about Krishna
22:23 and Duryodhana and Arjuna, on either side,
22:26 one on the side of the head and one at the feet,
22:30 and Krishna asks, what do you want before the war?
22:33 And Duryodhana says, I want the Yadav Sena,
22:36 and Arjuna says, well, I'm okay with just you.
22:40 So it's really the strategic choice that,
22:43 in fact, Duryodhana had the choice,
22:48 and he just made a bad strategic choice
22:50 by choosing Yadav Sena,
22:52 because that was regarded as the best,
22:55 and he said, (speaking in foreign language)
22:57 but it turned the other way.
22:58 - So why did Duryodhana choose Yadav Sena and not Krishna?
23:05 - Because he already had appointed a McKinsey consultant
23:08 in the form of Shakuni.
23:09 He had hired Shakuni for his consultancy,
23:13 and that's why Shakuni advised him
23:16 that go and get Yadav Sena, don't get another consultant,
23:19 I'm already there.
23:20 So you have to choose the right mentor,
23:22 and I think what Pandavas chose
23:27 was under-19 cricket team of India,
23:29 which went to Australia with Rahul Dravid as a coach.
23:33 So I will call Rahul Dravid rather than McKinsey for Krishna,
23:38 and both of them have a lot of similarity.
23:40 So clearly, you have to choose your coach correctly.
23:46 If you end up with Shakuni, with resources,
23:48 you will end up in results like Kaurava,
23:52 and if you choose Rahul Dravid,
23:54 even with resources of under-19 cricket team,
23:57 you'll go and win the World Cup, dominating everyone.
24:01 (audience member speaks indistinctly)
24:04 - Your favorite story and lesson.
24:07 - Sorry?
24:08 - Your favorite story and lesson.
24:09 - Story on?
24:10 - Your favorite Mahabharata story and lesson.
24:13 - Yeah, but the--
24:16 - (speaks in foreign language)
24:17 Don't tell me.
24:18 (all laugh)
24:20 - See, there is no, like I said,
24:22 I'm just going back to my previous,
24:25 (speaks in foreign language)
24:27 So I don't think I look at all these epics
24:29 as something that is so overpowering,
24:33 and I appreciate the way you people are looking at it,
24:35 and I'm wondering what Krishna and Arjun,
24:38 if they are listening to this,
24:39 would be thinking about all this.
24:40 Did they really envisage all this,
24:42 and the dissection that we are doing on their strategies?
24:45 I think it just came along the way,
24:47 and they did things that they did.
24:50 It's good for a debate to kind of--
24:52 (all laugh)
24:53 - I love that, it's time to close the discussion.
24:56 On this note, may I just add in a lighter vein?
24:59 There's actually this,
25:01 to sort of take on from what you've just said,
25:04 there's actually this sort of scene in the Mahabharata
25:07 which takes place much after the war,
25:09 when Arjuna goes back to Krishna,
25:12 and he's referring to the Bhagavad Gita,
25:15 and he's like,
25:17 (speaks in foreign language)
25:21 It really resonated with me,
25:22 but I remember some of it,
25:24 and I don't remember some of it,
25:25 and I'm paraphrasing very crudely here,
25:28 but before Krishna tries to recap his first response,
25:30 I'm, (speaks in foreign language)
25:33 I don't really remember what I said,
25:34 and then he tries and reconstructs--
25:37 - Where is this reference?
25:40 - It's actually there in the Mahabharata,
25:41 it takes place post-hawk, after the battle,
25:44 after Yudhishthira has been once again appointed
25:47 as emperor of the realm,
25:49 and they've had that whole thing.
25:51 There's this very casual afternoon,
25:53 when Arjuna is like,
25:54 you told me a lot of things,
25:57 I think I grasped some of it,
25:58 I'm not very clear on the concepts,
26:00 do you care to sort of elaborate again?
26:02 And he's like,
26:03 I told you what I told you to get the job done,
26:05 now please don't ask me what I told you then.
26:07 So, I'm sorry,
26:07 this is just a very light-hearted comment
26:09 that comes on from what you just said.
26:11 - That pretty much demolishes Mahabharata
26:13 as also the conversation--
26:14 - I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I apologize.
26:16 - Surely I didn't sign up for this panel.
26:19 (laughs)
26:21 - Okay, any concluding thoughts?
26:24 - I think there's just one more thing.
26:26 Is this not a question, Shalini?
26:28 - Yeah, if you want a mic.
26:30 - So I think there's just one more aspect of leadership,
26:34 particularly that I want to highlight,
26:37 which is irrespective of whether you're the Brahma,
26:38 the Vishnu, or the Mahesh,
26:39 irrespective of what stage of the organizational journey
26:43 you're coming in,
26:44 irrespective of the challenges that are ahead of you,
26:46 if there's one thing that differentiates
26:51 a leader or makes a visionary leader,
26:54 it's actually establishment of purpose.
26:57 And the reason I like that is because,
26:59 think about it,
26:59 (speaks in foreign language)
27:02 They were fighting (speaks in foreign language)
27:07 What was Yudhishthir's army fighting for?
27:11 (speaks in foreign language)
27:14 Eventually, it was just a battle
27:15 between two warring cousin families.
27:19 But that establishment of purpose,
27:22 which allows you to bring in that sort of leadership
27:25 where people will lay down their lives for you.
27:27 Ramayana, Ravana's army was fighting
27:31 to avenge the honor of a wronged woman,
27:34 which is a very lofty purpose, no doubt.
27:37 But Rama's army was fighting for good over evil.
27:41 Barack Obama, in his first election,
27:47 his competitor, John McCain,
27:51 we really don't even remember
27:53 who his first presidential competitor was,
27:56 was promising economic reforms, democracy,
27:59 manufacturing, local jobs, et cetera, et cetera.
28:02 I'm sure that is what Barack Obama
28:03 was also promising transactionally.
28:05 But he was about, yes, we can.
28:08 So the purpose was about hope.
28:11 And so to me, that is the other very key lesson
28:14 that I take away from Mahabharata,
28:17 which is that irrespective of the kind of leader you are,
28:20 there are only two things that really make a difference.
28:22 One, how aware you are of your flaws and strengths,
28:27 and therefore, what are you going to play to?
28:30 And the other is if you're able to establish
28:33 a purpose that's larger than,
28:36 where the whole is greater than some parts.
28:39 So really just those two.
28:40 - Sure, any questions?
28:42 (audience members chattering)
28:46 - Two beautiful ladies for this entertaining,
28:57 somewhat futile discussion, I'm sorry.
29:01 But thank you, all of you, for joining us today.
29:06 I really enjoyed the three discussions
29:12 that I moderated and also the other discussions earlier on.
29:16 And let's hit the bar.
29:18 Thank you.
29:19 - Thank you so much, Mahalakshmi.
29:22 Thank you to all our panelists
29:23 for that very interesting perspective this evening.
29:25 (upbeat music)
29:28 (upbeat music)