A summary of the talk delivered by Mr M K Raju, Chairman, MK Raju Consultants Pvt Ltd at the Global Leadership lecture series on “The Surest Way of Rising to the Top!” held on 21st June 2007 at Chennai.

Ihave had the privilege of interacting with thousands of professionals in several hundred organisations in India and abroad for over five decades. I want to project the essence of my observations for what they are worth. I thought I owe it to the professional community, to share my experience.

1. NO MATTER, AT WHAT LEVEL YOU START YOUR CAREER AND WITH WHAT BACKGROUND, NOTHING STANDS IN THE WAY OF YOUR MOVING FORWARD, BY YOUR OWN EFFORTS AND MERIT. R K Swamy, the Advertising Legend was a matriculate, and he could write and speak English better than the best Doctorates in English Literature. He made up what he missed at the University by his own efforts. If you have not read the book ‘R K Swamy – His Life and Times’ which was recently released, I suggest you do so. So also my book ‘The Saga of a Professional’ as it projects a few points relevant to this subject.
Once you start your career, all your degrees, designations and suffixes after your name vanish and lose all the importance. You are defrocked and you stand naked on your own merits and on your own contribution. For your information, I am not an MBA. I learnt management the hard way with down-to-earth exposure to each and every phase of industrial activity.
Regardless where you start, whether you are an MBA or a simple Graduate, Scientist or Economist or Engineer, you have a great future ahead of you. If you play the cards right by sheer merit and hard work, nothing stops you from going up. Do not be on the defensive and start with an inferiority complex. You may not become a Chief Executive over night or earn a six figure salary but be assured no one can take away your professional contribution. It will be an all time asset. This is the starting point.
Professionals who rose to the top did so, not because they did not face hurdles but because they had the ability and the stamina to cross the hurdles, take positive action and produce results. Thus you become a creator of the economy and not a creature of the economy.

2. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT CHALLENGING ASSIGNMENTS, YOU CAN NEVER PROVE YOURSELF AS A PROFESSIONAL. You know how sharp a knife is only when you use it. Corporate Health is a reflection of the quality of the professionals managing the company.
Let me cite a case. A bright professional, barely thirty, worked with an MNC for five years and when they closed their operations in India, he preferred to join an Indian Manufacturing Company with recurring losses, nil order book, one year unsold stocks and poor quality image. He tuned it around and made it the best managed company in India. He quickly rose in his career and he was Chief Executive in seven years. Had it not been for his willingness to accept a great challenge, he would not have made such a phenomenal progress. Instead of choosing an easy option, he took the bull by the horn.

3. YOU CANNOT BECOME AN OUTSTANDING PROFESSIONAL WITHOUT GOOD HEALTH. All you have to do is follow simple rules: clean air, pure water, nutritious food at regular timings, daily exercise or walk, pranayama, prayer and sound rest. Positive attitude for good health and happiness is the key. You must find your own answers. You cannot move up without good health. It is so easy but so neglected.

4 TIME-MANAGEMENT - THE KEY TO YOUR SUCCESS. Whenever some one says he has no time to do something I used to reply ‘there are 24 hours a day and it is up to you to make the optimum use.’
Punctuality earns respect from others. It is a work culture. I was the honorary Chairman of HPF when I was still the Chief Executive of India Pistons. For two days in a week, I used to visit Ooty. Take the Cochin Mail at 7 pm, arrive at Coimbatore at 3.15 am drive for two hours to Ooty, be in the plant at 6 am and return back to Madras the same evening by the Mettupalayam – Chennai Express. The workers used to see me go round the factory early in the morning and felt ‘if this honorary Chairman who is not drawing even one rupee salary or enjoying any pre-requisites, is working so hard, to turn around the company, why can’t we assist him even by raising a little finger’. HPF made phenomenal progress converting one lakh loss per day to one lakh per day profit. There is a Case Study on The Turnaround of HPF, by Dr C K Prahalad and Dr P T Thomas a standard program in all Management Schools.
We are so casual about timings, whether it be at the Committee Meetings, Board Meetings and even social functions. Drift culture is the order of the day in our social and official commitments. This stands in the way of progress

5. STATUS SYMBOLS AND DESIGNATIONS COUNT BUT THEY ARE NOT THE END ALL OR CURE ALL. NO POINT IN LOSING SLEEP OVER THEM. A young professional joined an MNC and had no table and chair of his own for the first six months. He used to sit on the table of any of the officers, who went on leave. It did not bother him. He was promoted as a member of the Core Group within three years and marked as a person with a potential to become the Managing Director
What does this reflect? We make a mountain of molehill on status symbols. I have nothing against BMWs and Mercedes Benzs. By all means use them but let them take their turn. Your professional calibre and professional contribution are your status symbols and nothing else. Very few people appreciate this stand and hence my emphasis.

6. BRING A NEW DIMENSION FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO, HOWEVER TRIVIAL IT MAY LOOK LIKE. This throws up new opportunities for recognition and promotion. In one company, for a Management Conference for all the 100 and odd managers, on the eve of the Conference the previous night the Managing Director visited the venue of the conference and made a comment that the screen was too small for the participants to see properly. He did not ask anyone to do anything about it. However, a bright manager took the hint and went to a Cloth Dealer’s house, got his shop opened at dead of night and procured a twill cloth, got a tailor to stitch it into a large screen, to be ready early in the morning, much before the inauguration of the conference. Nobody asked him to do it but he took the initiative. The Managing Director himself was so pleased and recognised the initiative of the young man, who grew in the company quickly, ultimately rising to the position of an Executive Director. Even a trivial thing is an opportunity to bring a new dimension to your success.

7. KNOW all the FACTS ABOUT YOUR JOB and keep up-to-date: BUILD AN AUTHENTIC AND TIMELY DATABASE. BE THOROUGH ALL THE TIME. EARN RESPECT FROM OTHERS. THIS IS CRUCIAL FOR SUCCESS.

8. Do Today’s Job TODAY WE UNDERESTIMATE THE IMPACT OF DOING A JOB AT THE RIGHT TIME. ANANTHARAMAKRISHNAN WHO WAS THE CHAIRMAN OF 26 COMPANIES REPLIED TO ANY LETTER FROM ANY OF HIS EXECUTIVES ON THE SAME DAY. IT IS EXCEPTIONAL. IT SHOWS HOW WELL ORGANISED HE WAS.
Let me cite a case. Sir M Visvesvaraya once led an Indian Industrial Delegation to US in the thirties. On his return journey from New York to London on Queen Mary, he finished his report and got it typed (no air travel those days). On his return to Bombay, he took the Frontier Mail the same day and submitted his report to the Minister, on arrival at Delhi. This is incredible by any standard. All this is ‘doing today’s job today’. It breeds success; it breeds respect from others and it motivates you.
Contrast this with the general culture, when minutes of the meetings are not circulated for months; reports of industrial delegations held up for years and by and large a drift culture permeates all-around.

9. HIGHER POSITIONS ENTAIL GREATER RESPONSIBILITY. You grow only when you are capable of taking up additional responsibility and you have trained your sub-ordinates to take over from you.
At each level you require new skills. You can become a General Manager only when you have the ability to deal with several Divisional Heads.
If you are not ready for the promotion and have doubts about your capability, better not accept the offer.

10. HOW TO CHANGE A JOB IS AN IMPORTANT MILESTONE IN YOUR CAREER AND IF YOU DO NOT HANDLE IT WELL, YOU MAY MAR YOUR FUTURE CHANCES
• Change of job is often an inevitable part of an executive career. You need not be bashful about it.
• You must think of change only after carefully weighing all the pros and cons, and after exhausting all avenues for promotion or change of assignment in your existing company.
• Do not be hasty or emotional when deciding on a change. It should be a well thought-out decision.
• It is in your own interests to take your immediate boss into confidence and convince him why it is necessary for you to make a change and, if possible, take his advice.
• Finally when the time comes, give adequate notice to the company, clear all pending work and part as friends, with everybody’s goodwill.
• Shameful behavior, sudden disappearance without being relieved, falsehood and manipulations ultimately lead to grief, even though in the short run you may feel you have gained.

11. PROFESSIONALISM AND LACK OF ETHICS DO NOT CO-EXIST. I want to dispel any false notion that it is impossible to carry on business, without being corrupt or unethical.
Be on the right side of law and take rewards legitimately as due to you. Be intellectually honest.
Don’t be on the wrong side all your life for temporary gains. It is not just worth the price.

12. Commitment for Training & Management Development must come from your heart, if you want to rise to the top.
You must maintain a management inventory to cope with the rigors of globalisation in terms of quality and quantity in all layers of management and in all areas of knowledge base and skills.
You must build two potential replacements for every executive position. Management development must be an on-going activity with an integrated approach with a budget of say 2½ % 5% of sales. HRD can only advise you and it is for you to decide who should get what training and when?

13. Effective Communication at all levels is essential for building the morale in an organisation.
Organisation Bulletins, News Letters, Committee Operations, Management Conferences, Periodical get to-gethers, and so on will help.
This requires professional skills and an integrated approach to build excellence.

14. Keep your eyes and ears open, regardless of which position you hold. IF YOU WANT TO RISE TO THE TOP YOU CANNOT ISOLATE YOURSELF IN AN IVORY TOWER. YOU MUST BE EASILY ACCESSIBLE. YOU MUST LISTEN. YOU MUST BE PREPARED TO CHANGE, IF CALLED FOR.
This is a pre-requisite for success.

15. FAIR AND OBJECTIVE EXECUTIVE APPRAISAL IS IMPERATIVE FOR ORGANIZATIONAL STABILITY AND PROGRESS. Few companies, even today, have a worthwhile Executive Appraisal Scheme. It is ad-hoc, arbitrary and subjective.
We at MKRC have developed something unique – it requires a special session to highlight the salient features.
I leave the thought with you, that you should evolve a tangible and acceptable scheme to all, if you want to rise to the top.
Industrial culture comprises of Performance orientation, Excellence, Team work and Managerial stamina.

16. YOU MUST IDENTIFY YOURSELF WITH THE CORE BELIEFS OF YOUR ORGANISATION SUCH AS EXCELLENCE IN QUALITY, CUSTOMER SERVICE, SUSTAINED GROWTH WITH PROFITS, WELFARE OF EMPLOYEES, SERVICE TO SHAREHOLDERS.
Regardless your position in the organisation, within the framework of your job you must do everything possible to achieve the company goal.

17. RELIABILITY AND ABSOLUTE RELIABILITY alone is what makes a manager rise to the top. Without this, you will never succeed. It is a basic ingredient for success. It builds tremendous confidence in your superiors.
Unfortunately many do not appreciate the need to honour commitments, whether in submitting a daily or weekly statement, returning a phone call, or attending a meeting or paying vendors on time or collecting receivables. A casual attitude does not create a good impression.
18 We have analysed the characteristics of many Great Professionals. I have had the privilege of personally interacting with many of them and all of them possess some of the following traits: -
Vision, Humility, Easy Accessibility, Meticulous Time Management, Vast Knowledge Base, Courage of Convictions, Quick Decisions, Talent Recognition, Unquestioned Integrity and Social Commitment.
A Self-Appraisal Form with 25 attributes is available to appraise yourself. If you have all these attributes, nobody can stop you from going up.
To Conclude
You cannot expect a more exhilarating opportunity than a liberalised India.
Success is within easy reach of everyone by sheer merit, regardless of caste, creed, colour or sex.
Opportunities are unlimited. It is a great privilege to be part of this change process and contribute to the improvement of quality of life of the common man