The Philosophy of Guru
Happened to watch Guru on Saturday night, fantastically done by Mani Ratnam! I think all of us MBA-types should watch the movie. I know that I am stereotyping a particular group of people despite always being against the phenomenon. But the story does offer several insights for all comers.
The biggest insight for me was Guru's motif in his business dealings, the one he defines as "if a law can be made in a day, it can be changed in a day."
Mind you, if you look carefully enough, it doesnt mean breaking the law and even more importantly, it doesnt mean disrespect for the law. This is a rather important insight for doing business in India.
We all have heard several tales of the bureaucracy and the politicos frustrating an honest entrepreneur's efforts at doing business in a business-like way. However, our visionary(s) soon gets fed up with the various new rules and new interpretations that are brought out of the rule book, all these to extract maximum possible personal value by the arbiters of the rules. These personal value extraction is not always in terms of money but is also done as an ego-trip at times.
In the end, when the visionary sees new rules being made at a moment's notice, all in an effort to stop his venture, then while I'd expect most to give up and cut losses, our visionary would then make the statement, "if a law can be made in a day, it can be changed in a day".
We have to remember things change when somebody somewhere sees something seriously wrong with them. Change is not brought about by people who respect every rule, without reason, just because they have been taught to.
The biggest insight for me was Guru's motif in his business dealings, the one he defines as "if a law can be made in a day, it can be changed in a day."
Mind you, if you look carefully enough, it doesnt mean breaking the law and even more importantly, it doesnt mean disrespect for the law. This is a rather important insight for doing business in India.
We all have heard several tales of the bureaucracy and the politicos frustrating an honest entrepreneur's efforts at doing business in a business-like way. However, our visionary(s) soon gets fed up with the various new rules and new interpretations that are brought out of the rule book, all these to extract maximum possible personal value by the arbiters of the rules. These personal value extraction is not always in terms of money but is also done as an ego-trip at times.
In the end, when the visionary sees new rules being made at a moment's notice, all in an effort to stop his venture, then while I'd expect most to give up and cut losses, our visionary would then make the statement, "if a law can be made in a day, it can be changed in a day".
We have to remember things change when somebody somewhere sees something seriously wrong with them. Change is not brought about by people who respect every rule, without reason, just because they have been taught to.
posted by Amit at 11:14 AM
1 Comments:
Making of new laws to stop the progress of GURU reminds of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged wherein to block Hank Rearden's magical metal the Taggart chap leaves no stone unturned.
But then laws are always there to be broken, its only those who manipulate laws in their favor survive.
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