BOOK REVIEW - Why I Failed Lessons from the Leaders

Why I Failed 

Lessons from Leaders 

By Shweta Punj  

Random House India 

Pages180; Price Rs 199 

(Available on Amazon)

 

One needs a stout heart to take the risk of starting a business in a highly competitive economy. A strong and imaginative mind is required to run a new business. And only a person with steely nerves can keep his sanity while seeing his/her business declining, or even folding up. The stalwarts chose by the author for her book "Why I failed?" obviously possess all the rare qualities in full measure, because they went through all three stages and progressed.

They say "failure is an orphan", but in this book, the parentage is announced. Also, it is said that "experience is the best teacher, but very expensive". With this book, you can learn from others' experiences. The sub-title of the book is "Lessons from Leaders", a highly economic proposition.

Shweta herself says that "this book is built around stories of people who screwed up, sometimes again and again. These stories are about imagination, miscalculations, illusions, misadventures, ambition, love affairs, inspiration and most importantly courage".

Successful, and particularly self-made, people are reluctant or often decline or side-track when asked about the secrets behind their success and the heartbreak from failures. In a TV series, a very prominent third-generation CEO of a family-owned company was interviewed. The interviewer very skillfully encouraged him to talk about past glories and strategies used to attain them. In the end, the interviewer asked, “we wonder why the group is sliding down fast?” The shrewd businessman answered with a wry smile, "we are asking the same question ourselves."

In face of such reluctance, Shweta Punj's persuasiveness is indeed of a high calibre. Her glorious track record persuaded many eminent people from diverse fields like industry, film, sport and banking to be open and frank, even on some awkward issues. Shweta is a journalist, television host and social entrepreneur. She is an Associate Editor with Business Today in New Delhi and her journalistic experience spans over a decade, across the US and India. She has reported on policy and business for CNBC TV18, Inside Washington Publishers, Bloomberg UTV and NewsX. She is the founder of India's first open government platform, The Whypoll Trust, whose work in the area of use of technology for women’s safety has been reported across the world from The New York Times to Washington Post.

All 16 eminent leaders featured in the book are renowned for their achievements. It is better that readers learn the lessons they offer from the book directly, However, we wish to cite two lessons, one from Abhinav Bindra and another from Narayan Murthy. 

1. A parallel is sought to be drawn between Arjuna's mindset during the Mahabharata war. His mind was preoccupied, dreaming about the ultimate end of the war which divided the objective and subjective aspects of his mind. Bindra's failure to win the Olympic Gold was also linked to the same lack of mental equilibrium. 

2. With Infosys, there came a time when other founders wanted to sell the company and it was Murthy who dared to make an offer to buy out the other founders. This led to further discussions and all six founders worked together to build the Infosys we know today.