Praise for
The Mind of the Futurist
The management ideas of CK Prahalad are widely known. This book shows the passion and integrity that drove him and enabled him to turn ideas into impact in the classroom, boardroom and the real world. The Mind of the Futurist is more than a tribute; it is a call to action. His boundless optimism and call to focus on the future is more relevant than ever.
Deepa Prahalad
The Mind of the Futurist is far more than an illustration of CKs incredible intellect and wisdom. It reminds us that CKs real genius was provoking brilliance in everyone around him. With this rich compilation of CKs thinking comes a clarion call to carry forward his work and realize the promise of his great vision for India and the world.
Liz Wiseman, WSJ bestselling author
This is a book that celebrates the ideas of a remarkable human being. As an academic and thinker CK Prahalad had few equals. As a man he combined humility with a burning desire to improve the lot of his fellow men and women, especially those afflicted by poverty. His ideas changed the way the world thinks about the people at the bottom of the pyramid and much more besides.
It is testament to his global reputation that he topped the Thinkers50 ranking in 2007 and 2009, the first Indian thinker to do so. Realistic and pragmatic about the challenges facing India, CK was optimistic about the countrys future.
India will take one step forward, half a step backward, a quarter step sideways, he told us the last time we saw him. It is never going to be a smooth transition and we should not expect it. But directionally, I am extremely positive on where India is going.
CK was a great man and a great Indian. If ever a country needed his ideas, it is India today.
Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer,
Founders of the Thinkers50
C K Prahalad
The Mind of the Futurist
Rare Insights on Life, Leadership & Strategy
Benedict Paramanand
westland ltd
61, Silverline Building, Alapakkam Main Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095
No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560026
93, 1st Floor, Sham Lal Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002
First published by westland ltd 2014
First ebook edition: 2014
Copyright Benedict Paramanand 2014
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-93-84030-38-4
Typeset: PrePSol Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.
To The Jesuit Fathers
Contents
The Man Behind the Guru
Go with Humility
Teachers Teacher
Indian CEOs - Turning Sheep into Tigers
Global Impact Don of Business
Indian ITs Value Driver
Distilling CK A Critique of his Published
Work by Prof. S. Manikutty
Vision & Framework India@75 Speech
Foreword
The community of practitioners, academics and commentators in the field of management is young in comparison to many other professions. Even when I graduated from college in the mid-1960s, in India, the concept of the professional manager was not widely understood. That is why I did not study at one of the upcoming IIMs, and preferred to go to an IIT. But CK, my senior in age by four years, did study at an IIM (Ahmedabad, for the benefit of IIMA chauvinists!). One of his classmates was Dewan Arun Nanda, who became my colleague at Hindustan Lever, and later acquired distinction as the Rediffusion entrepreneur.
How did CK become a legend even during his lifetime? His physically exhausting travels to India, his relentless hectoring of risk-averse Indian entrepreneurs, his lofty sermons on globalisation, his invitation to managers to play in his innovation sandpit and much more: all these were the stuff of CKs grand calls to action. Ideas like Core Competence and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid are synonyms for CK. That is why he became a legend.
In this book, there is mention of an episode when CK was engaged in deep discussion with a business leader. The discussion strayed into a product domain that was connected with another company where he was a director. CK promptly closed the discussion. That showed his character. I was that business leader. I was hugely impressed by the clean line that he drew, and very elegantly, at that.
CK was an intellectual giant, but he did not wear that attribute on his sleeve. He was approachable and friendly. CKs ideas were scrutinised and studied during his lifetime, but not CK himself. We all thought there is time to do that later. Alas, we were all wrong.
Now Benedict has started the process of remedying that lacuna. He has painstakingly reconstructed an authentic compendium of who CK was, what CK stood for and what made CK so magnetic: a truly inspiring effort about a truly inspiring thinker.
The Catholic Church recognises its great leaders through a four-stage process. The process itself begins five years after the person has died. The first stage is Servants of God, then Venerable, then Blessed, and finally after an exhaustive parsing of accumulated evidence, Saint (beatification or canonisation). The management world has no such rigorous process. But, for sure, the Servant of Management process is on. Benedict has made an interesting and fascinating contribution.
R. Gopalakrishnan
Director, Tata Sons Limited
Mumbai, 1 June 2014
Foreword
I knew CK Prahalad since he was a graduate student at IIM-Ahmedabad and then at Harvard Business School. We continued our friendship over time and became a bit closer when he became active with TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), moved to San Diego and became an entrepreneur.
I was in utter shock and disbelief when I learned that he passed away in San Diego in April 2010. He was too young and had so much more to contribute to the management and strategy disciplines. Fortunately, his legacy is eternal and he will be always remembered in the same way as we continue to remember Peter Drucker through his writings.
Just as we rediscover and admire great poets, playwrights and authors, I am convinced that CK Prahalad will be rediscovered and admired further in the future by both management professionals and academic scholars.
CK was not only a brilliant thinker but an equally a great writer. He articulated and persuasively advocated his perspectives and frameworks which often either challenged the prevailing dogma or expanded the thought horizon. Like Peter Drucker, CK was the bridge between the academic world and the real world. He carried unique solutions to urgent problems of companies and industries. His long term influence on Philips in the Netherlands is legendary. At a young age, he agreed to join the MAC (Management Analysis Center) group founded by two Harvard professors and had great consulting practice.
He also brought to the academic world many ideas and practices of the real world. This was not only through great articles in Harvard Business Review (HBR) but several classic books including Competing For The Future (with Gary Hamel); The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid; and The Future Of Competition (with Venkat Ramaswamy).
