TWEAKING THE NOSE OF FAILURE

Sometimes, life may hit you on the head with a brick. But there are those 'hard-headed' people, who are just brick-resistant. So, if you are happy in your skin and love what you do, nothing can stop you, believes Kunal Guha.

He dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months. He didn't have a dorm room, so he slept on the floor in friend's rooms and returned coke bottles to buy food. But he didn't give up and gave in to his fascination which led him to calligraphy classes which helped him later while he was designing the first Macintosh computer . Ten years of toiling , took the garage venture to become a $2 billion company with 4000 employees. Nothing could fall apart after that, right? Think again. He got fired from the company he started himself at the age of 30, because of divergent visions with the board.The man was none other than Steve Jobs. Getting fired from Apple was one of the biggest public failures for global business case books. But as Jobs believes, "Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. Five years after being fired from Apple , I started a company named NeXT and another company named Pixar. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance ." This story tells us that if you've found what you love to do, you shouldn't let any form of setback pull you down. You will find below similar stories of dreamers who've hopped all odds and yes, tweaked the nose of failure.

THE TEST OF GREY

Nirvik Singh, President South East Asia and Chairman, South Asia of Grey Worldwide, a strong believer of 'from failure comes success and strength' , remembers, "The year was 1997. Ravi Gupta (the founderchairman of the then Trikaya Grey) had just passed away. From a well-defined path of growth and grooming, I was suddenly thrown into the pilot's seat and asked to take charge of the agency. The overall economic mood in Asia was recessive, and the mood within was no better !

" I found myself... dealing with senior management scepticism within and clients questioning our capabilities, instead of charting a path of profitability for the agency when we were burdened with financial instabilities. Adding to all, the agency was also moving from a Trikaya to a Grey management, which brought about many cultural changes and reservations. I believe my best skills came to their fore... in the face of these adversities . I always thought I was here for my advertising capabilities . But in the face of pending failure, I discovered a leadership style in me that brought out not just the best in me when the need arose, but I was able to draw out a wealth of latent talent that existed in people around me. The one thing I learnt... was that however grim the situation, never show it to the people who are looking to you to lead them and especially those among them that you believe are going to be key and instrumental in helping you through the crisis .

NEVER SAY DIE

He braved two major blows- as two of his ventures had failed due to the negative labour environment . Yes, this is Mr. Never-Say-Die , Deepak Puri, Chairman and Managing Director, Moser Baer. I don't like the word failure... rather I use disappointment . I looked at the disappointments as hurdles, which have to be jumped and cleared. Also, it is a great help that you have a strong family support backing your decision; especially my wife has been very supportive during those tough times. There were a lot of learnings... from my previous disappointments . One of the key learnings was the importance of people, IR and HR in business. I am proud to say that in over 20 plus years of Moser Baer's history, we have never had any labour related issues. I think that one of the important facets of an entrepreneur is that he is always open to learning and not just learning from disappointments .

BRAVING SWEETS

He was full of energy and enthusiasm, having freshly graduated from SIBM. He had a burning desire to do something different. But being different doesn't always spell success. Yes! We are talking about our vada pav maverick - Dheeraj Gupta. His previous vision was to brand Indian sweets like kaju katri, rasgullas and gulab jamuns . His dream failed to gain market acceptance. But he bounced back with Jumbo King Vada Pav, with the knowledge that he has to score from the first ball itself. Branding Indian sweets... meant going against the grain. Mithai was always accepted fresh, while we were trying to brand it as a packaged product. Here, shelf life was a challenge since the packaging industry in India is so basic. The product had a very niche category and hence it would have taken at least 4-5 years to gain acceptance. And I couldn't wait that long to realise my efforts. So, I had to shut it. When you've just shut a business... you're trying not to start another. But I'm big fan of "Focus" which talks about how niche products can be scaled up. I took to reading autobiographies of how ventures like McDonalds and Walmart started off with a simple idea. If you're not exactly a Tata or an Ambani… …you have to have a product which has ready acceptance and then you provide a value-add as a differentiator in the market . And when I started Jumbo King, the product was already there in the market, we just gave a value for money offer with the size differentiator and some packaging modifications.

Source Economic Times : 26.09.2006