Read Online I Bought The Monk's Ferrari by Ravi Subramanian - Free Book Online
Authors: Ravi Subramanian
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big. Raj has, within Shelters, built a culture which he personally oversees, which motivates his four thousand employees to rise and achieve those dreams. People from ordinary backgrounds deliver extraordinary results with him, and he works throughout the day with them, making this happen. This takes its toll, leaving him with no free time for himself.
Till date, I have never heard him complain about trying to strike a balance between work and his family. I have never heard him say 'life sucks'. He has never complained of not being able to go back to his son every night. Though he too, has family responsibilities and aging parents to take care off, he has never let that affect his work. Does this mean that he has no love for his family? Of course, not. He is as much concerned about family, as he is about work. It is just that he is equally passionate about both.
Now, let me pose a different question to you. Assume for a minute that you have the Ferrari. You struggled in life, made it big and finally have acquired that dream machine. That is the only car you have. Would you stop driving the Ferrari on weekends because you need to give it some 'work-life' balance? The answer would be an absolute NO. If the answer is 'no' for the Ferrari, why should you be so bothered about 'work-life' balance for yourself?
I spoke of Khosla to prove one crucial point—if he can work fourteen to sixteen hours a day in his fifties, I am sure, the youngsters of today can do it as well. I have a piece of advice for those who have just made their career beginnings. If you want the Ferrari, and want it early in your career, you will have to take one of the three routes ... hard work, hard work and more hard work.
The other day, I had gone to IIM-Bangalore for a pre-placement talk—a presentation which every company makes to its prospective employees, telling them what it has to offer. I had gone to do a selling job—to sell my bank to the smart young MBAs. I could not curb my natural instinct and was showing off a bit during my talk. Digressing from the laid out presentation, I decided to demonstrate my audience-engaging skills. I looked at a young girl sitting quietly in the first row, I asked her, 'What would you look for in a company before you decide to join it?'
I caught her a bit off-guard and she was too baffled to answer. However, someone from the back did ... '"Work-life" balance!' My heart sank. I ignored the answer and asked for more parameters that would influence their choice of career... 'Five-day-week!' Oh, my gosh! What is wrong with them? I decided to quickly shelve my digressive path and return to the original canned presentation.
It has become an 'in-thing' to talk of 'work-life' balance. In the good old days, when I studied at the same campus, answers to similar sounding questions would have been— exposure, learning, brand value etc. None of these featured in the top of mind response that I got. This 'work-life' balance has become the most discussed issue in the campuses as well.
But, I call it nothing more than just an idle topic for cafe gossip. Else, all the students would have run to join PSU (Public Sector Units). But that seldom happens. And, in that particular year not a single student joined a PSU.
Your Ferrari will not come with a 'work-life' balance. I once read an interesting interview, I think, it was with Rahul Bajaj, who said: '"Work-life" balance is for wimps. Successful people go out and do what it takes to get there. If they have to work twenty-six hours out of twenty-four, they will.'
Let me introduce a concept here—the LFL (i.e. Leaders, Followers and Laggards) rule of employee distribution. Every employee in an organisation falls in one of these three categories:
Leaders
Leaders are the scarcest of the lot. Barely five to seven percent of the people fall into this category. The organisation depends on this set of people to lay out the vision and direction. These people barely care about
Till date, I have never heard him complain about trying to strike a balance between work and his family. I have never heard him say 'life sucks'. He has never complained of not being able to go back to his son every night. Though he too, has family responsibilities and aging parents to take care off, he has never let that affect his work. Does this mean that he has no love for his family? Of course, not. He is as much concerned about family, as he is about work. It is just that he is equally passionate about both.
Now, let me pose a different question to you. Assume for a minute that you have the Ferrari. You struggled in life, made it big and finally have acquired that dream machine. That is the only car you have. Would you stop driving the Ferrari on weekends because you need to give it some 'work-life' balance? The answer would be an absolute NO. If the answer is 'no' for the Ferrari, why should you be so bothered about 'work-life' balance for yourself?
I spoke of Khosla to prove one crucial point—if he can work fourteen to sixteen hours a day in his fifties, I am sure, the youngsters of today can do it as well. I have a piece of advice for those who have just made their career beginnings. If you want the Ferrari, and want it early in your career, you will have to take one of the three routes ... hard work, hard work and more hard work.
The other day, I had gone to IIM-Bangalore for a pre-placement talk—a presentation which every company makes to its prospective employees, telling them what it has to offer. I had gone to do a selling job—to sell my bank to the smart young MBAs. I could not curb my natural instinct and was showing off a bit during my talk. Digressing from the laid out presentation, I decided to demonstrate my audience-engaging skills. I looked at a young girl sitting quietly in the first row, I asked her, 'What would you look for in a company before you decide to join it?'
I caught her a bit off-guard and she was too baffled to answer. However, someone from the back did ... '"Work-life" balance!' My heart sank. I ignored the answer and asked for more parameters that would influence their choice of career... 'Five-day-week!' Oh, my gosh! What is wrong with them? I decided to quickly shelve my digressive path and return to the original canned presentation.
It has become an 'in-thing' to talk of 'work-life' balance. In the good old days, when I studied at the same campus, answers to similar sounding questions would have been— exposure, learning, brand value etc. None of these featured in the top of mind response that I got. This 'work-life' balance has become the most discussed issue in the campuses as well.
But, I call it nothing more than just an idle topic for cafe gossip. Else, all the students would have run to join PSU (Public Sector Units). But that seldom happens. And, in that particular year not a single student joined a PSU.
Your Ferrari will not come with a 'work-life' balance. I once read an interesting interview, I think, it was with Rahul Bajaj, who said: '"Work-life" balance is for wimps. Successful people go out and do what it takes to get there. If they have to work twenty-six hours out of twenty-four, they will.'
Let me introduce a concept here—the LFL (i.e. Leaders, Followers and Laggards) rule of employee distribution. Every employee in an organisation falls in one of these three categories:
Leaders
Leaders are the scarcest of the lot. Barely five to seven percent of the people fall into this category. The organisation depends on this set of people to lay out the vision and direction. These people barely care about
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