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Dare to be Different-Musings for a New Year

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DQI Bureau
New Update

One of the most evocative television advertisements in this country has been

the little cameo where actor Pankaj Kapur samples a tomato ketchup and proclaims

"It's different!" This one simple line epitomizes the challenge that

many of our companies will continue to face in the new year-how to define and

implement this "difference"?

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One truly "different" professional in the global Infotech industry

is Avinash Lele, who worked with the Tata Administrative Services in the Taj

Group and Tata Infotech, acquired a Law Degree in the US, and then spent five

years pulling one Indian software company out of the morass. What makes Avi

different is that he, like a handful of other people in this industry, is able

to see things differently.

One example that may well warm the hearts of many brilliant people running

small and innovative companies in India is his view that-contrary to popular

opinion which says that every company must aim to be Number One or Two in their

industry segment or get out of the way-there is a real value in every

successful company redefining its segment so that it is again Number Ten or

Eleven, giving its teams the impetus to look at new horizons and get some new

ambition to achieve higher levels of success.

"Value the 'difference' 



in views, perspectives and even expectations that they will come across in every new situation"
Ganesh

Natarajan
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This difference in perspective is something that I have discovered and

treasured very much in the last three years during my interactions with

academicians and philosophers on the way to my PhD. During the early stages,

doing predoctoral coursework, the different worldviews of lecturers was just

something to be amused and sometimes enthralled by. As I went deeper into the

research process and got gored to near death in the progress seminars, the

insights of the professors came through like foglights on a murky Delhi January

morning and each, while seeming to contradict the other, contributed to a

picture of reality that enlarged with every interaction to accommodate newer and

newer inputs to finally blossom into a theory of Knowledge Management Maturity

that would transform management.

What can Software professionals learn from this is to value the

"difference" in views, perspectives and even employee and customer

expectations that they will come across in every new situation. Most leaders

will acknowledge that every deep interaction with individuals-shareholders,

customers, bosses, subordinates, colleagues and even suppliers-gives them

insights into a thinking process that could well be different from their own but

can add tremendous value to their work. Robin Sharma, author of the hugely

successful book "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" talks about the need

to ritualize leadership, and there is no doubt that it is leaders-read CEOs,

COOS, every CXO and every program or project manager in a software company-who

can learn to recognize and internalize different points of view will be truly

successful in competitive global marketplaces.

Back to Avinash and one more "different insight." He mentions one

Moore theory that suggests that as fortunes dip at the end of every business or

service cycle, the declining business itself shows the way to the creation of

new businesses which could be early opportunities in the life cycle and provide

rich returns for clairvoyant strategists who loom in the right direction and

capitalize on such opportunities. It is companies like GE, who are able to

reinvent themselves when markets change or business portfolios have to be

altered, can serve as role models for all Indian IT companies-big and small as

we step into one more year of challenge and promise.

The author is deputy chairman and managing director of Zensar Technologies

and chairman of Nasscom's SME Forum for Western India Ganesh

Natarajan

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