How To Catch An Elephant

By John Cheeran

To resist the urge to give advice calls for courage. To resist the urge to write ‘how to’ books demands both courage and discipline. One should never deny people an opportunity to keep their tryst with destiny by offering them advice.  

But then there are people who think different. Subroto Bagchi, chairman, Mindtree, gives us lessons in catching elephants, not just being rabbit hunters. The Elephant Catchers (Published by Hachette India, Rs 499) is all about scaling --scaling your business, intellect, reputation and people.          

Bagchi argues brilliantly. To begin with he says great strategy is not the child of reason, it is an act of emotion. He adds that execution of a great strategy is successful only when the people executing it connect to it and understand it.
He then brings in Mahatma Gandhi, as much as Apple’s Steve Jobs brought in Gandhi in his commercial to sell a point. “When Gandhi took on the British empire, all he asked his followers to pursue were two ideas: non-violence and non-cooperation.”

Bagchi writes that these ideas were as naked and simple as Mahatma himself. But it is a difficult job to remember that Gandhi had to call off his non-violent, non-cooperation campaigns each time when his followers went berserk. That’s the problem with grand sounding strategies, they do not work but remain as talking points.

Read the full story