Prakash Iyer - The Habit of Winning

I have known Prakash as a young lad in Unilever where we worked together for several years. It has been a privilege seeing him evolve from a successful manager to an inspiring leader. It would have been disappointing had he not decided to further disseminate the insights he has gained through years of leading teams across different companies and challenging circumstances. I am glad that he has chosen to do so through this delightful book full of stories and anecdotes. In a very charming and non-prescriptive manner, the book stimulates the reader to reflect on what it takes to be a successful manager and leader. These nuggets of management draw significant lessons from nature, sports and episodes from daily lives and thus are easy to relate to.

There are two schools of thought on leadership, one strong view being that leadership is innate and cannot be taught, while the other school strongly believes that leadership can be learnt. Prakash obviously belongs to the latter group and so do I. Even the clan which believes leadership can be learnt is split into two sub-clans. While one strongly relies on techniques and processes to influence its students, the other believes in shifting the onus on to the students to do the learning themselves. The prerequisite for the latter, however, involves creation of an environment that brings in engagement, immersion, reflection and contemplation. I am a strong proponent of the latter and surely Prakash subscribes to the same view. It is evident that storytelling creates a connect with the audience and is a perfect mechanism to foster reflection. The strong connection between learning and stories exist because in anecdotes, an idea is united with an emotion. Prakash has weaved a string of stories which put together practically covers all that budding managers need to imbibe to transform themselves into future leaders and winners.

In the 1940s, the great Indian statesman and politician C. Rajgopalachari wrote a series of weekly chapters on the great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. These were finally put together as an enduring book. To this day, the book sells very well. Its longevity demonstrates the value and durability of stories and emotions. Think of the best lessons you have learnt in professional or personal lives. Almost always, the lesson is mostly associated with an anecdote from your experience or an interaction with somebody you respect or a story told by somebody. There are traditions of storytelling in India that have evolved over the centuries; for example, the jatra in rural Bengal, the Upanyasam in Tamil Nadu, and the harikatha in the north are regional expressions of education and entertainment rolled into one. This is so in other countries too.

The drama of human emotion is a great preservative for ideas, because both the idea and the drama get indelibly etched in your mind. Storytelling is not normally a welcome skill in management; in fact it is pejorative. But thanks to efforts by authors like Prakash, narrative and anecdotal style is gaining prominence to simplify and demystify the esoteric world of management. This is done in a manner that profound lessons are imparted with such poise and elegance that they stay with the reader. The book is fast, pacy and one-flight long but leaves enough for the reader to reflect long after completing the book.

Normally, books in this genre tell us what to do and how to do it. Refreshingly enough, this book also tells us when to stand still. I am referring to my favourite story from the book, which like other stories, leaves us with a lot to think about. In the story, the author talks about a piece of research by a team of scholars in Israel who wanted to study a soccer goalkeepers mindset in a penalty shoot. After analysing a number of penalty kicks from major league games, the conclusion they reached was that a goalkeepers best chance of blocking a penalty kick is to stay put at the centre. Despite this, in 92 per cent of the cases, the goalkeeper committed himself to a dive on either side! The answer lies in the bias for action that high achievers have, whether in a game of soccer or life in general. When standing still can perhaps fetch the desired result, the dive on either side demonstrates the desire to be seen as somebody who at least tried. Standing still is scorned at when that could have been the most effective route. The author then gives practical instances of how deeply this bias runs when we look around: some of the most memorable advertising campaigns being stopped by a new brand manager so that he is seen doing something of his own, CEOs busy acquiring businesses, divesting, downsizing, etc. when doing nothing could have been the best course of action!

On similar lines, the author narrates a fantastic story of a football coach who on the first day of practice came without a football. The students were uneasy but the coach had an indisputable logic. At any point in time, only one man has the ball in a football game. It is important to learn what the remaining twenty-one should do and for that one doesnt need a football! The urge to control the ball by every player can lead to disaster and thus team work needs to be practised from day one!

In all forms of organizations, managers face leadership issues for which they seek solutions. In the earlier part of ones professional career, one is dealing with known issues and known solutions. The intensity of ambiguity increases with higher leadership roles and the most complex issues that we eventually start facing are unknown issues having unknown solutions. Thus, the prime challenge of future leadership is to understand the root causes of ambiguity. In a climate of uncertainty, leaders look for maps on how to get from one place to a target destination. Psychologist Karl Weick has pointed out that maps can help in known worlds which have been charted before. Where the world has not been charted, the compass is required, he argues, because amidst uncertainty, it gives you a general sense of direction. Therefore, navigating the leadership ocean requires both the compass and the map. Thus, while maps which are equivalent to the factual, functional and analytical knowledge can help us deal with relatively known problems, what differentiates leaders from others is the ability to deal with complex issues where maps will not work. The compass being talked about works at an intuitive level and develops as we learn from our own experiences and most importantly, from the experiences of others. This book talks about the many facets of leadership like perseverance, self-belief and building effective teams, each serving us an opportunity to reflect and develop our compass.