Fortune favours the bold

Abraham Maslow best summed it up when he said that “one can choose to go back towards safety or forward towards growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again."

Three decades on, Maslow’s words still hold true. If you look around, it would seem that the whirlpool of downturn has sucked everybody in; no matter where you go, people are talking job cuts, cost cuts, freeze and the death of business literally.

Tough times bring with them tough questions. And those who dare to look beyond the viels of comfort and present answers in a daring way, are often the ones to lead the way.

If you do a 360 degree turn to see what we are doing at HCL or, in fact, have achieved over the years, you will realize that we have always navigated the whirlpool by going in its direction of rotation and using innovation as the centrifugal force to help us up and out of its current.

We dared to think different and introduced an employee centric philosophy in a customer driver business world. The world watched us with curiosity in the beginning, puzzlement later and today we can easily say that we have wowed them with our Employee First philosophy that continues to be the heart of our working.

The current economic scenario demands that far from desperately trying to protect what we have, we reach out for the thrill of ruling newer worlds. This is what we did with our acquisition of Axon at a time when there was much doubt over the risks involved in it. If we are contemplating an onward journey, Axon is the kind of risk we have to take and believe in.

It’s a difficult task to be sure, to swim against the tide but the need of the hour does call for a maverick’s touch. An appetite for risks, a fierce independence in thought, innovation and objectivity. All of this has to be a part of life, if not life itself. There is no other way out of the whirlpool that time throws us into now and then.

This exodus in thinking is as much outward as it is inward. It is people who recognize the potential in the rising steam. This is how, I believe, we’ll catch a glimpse of the starry skies and shooting stars. Chances are, the very human wish for a pat on the back will come true sooner than we think it will.

This is why the recognition of our bold initiatives at the Financial Times Arcelor Mittal Boldness in Business Awards is not just reassuring but also re-energising. It is humbling to know our boldness in business, innovative leadership stance, approach to decision-making & corporate strategies and pre-occupation with people rather than processes have been globally appreciated over names like Twitter, Nintendo, American Apparel and Santander by both the readers of FT and the eminent members of the jury.

The bar has been raised now and we have a challenging journey ahead of us. And we need to continue to keep that bold step forward to set new heights of excellence as we chart a new course.