On
life, death and courage
Anand
Pillai,
Senior Executive Vice President and
Chief Learning Officer at Reliance Industries, discusses his life journey and
why leaders must move from their comfort zone to their ‘courage zone’.
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Anand Pillai |
To understand a person today, it helps to look
at the experiences in his past. What happens when we face crises in our lives?
Do crises make or break a man?
The day I was born, my father’s business
suffered a huge financial loss. As my extended family were very superstitious,
they considered me to be a bad omen. To put it mildly, even my immediate family
did not treat me cordially.
But, worse was to come. At the tender age of 10,
my world came crumbling down. Due to disputes over a piece of property, my
father’s brothers cast an evil spirit on him. He then became so tormented that
he committed suicide. I kept asking a close friend of my father’s, “What
happened? Why did he do this? Why did he leave us?”
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Cover page of the magazine |
Then, a sequence of events happened in the next
eight years that prompted me to start thinking about life after death. Four
years after my father passed away, my elder sister got married and some money
was given for her dowry. After the marriage, more money was demanded and her
in-laws subjected her to mental persecution. She could not bear this and so she
consumed poison and died. Two years after that, my aunt, who had been childless
for 10 years, could not bear the curse of not having a child, and so poured
kerosene on herself and set herself aflame to death.
After these tragic events, I began to develop a
strong resolve to make the most of my life, see the world, and do something
worthwhile with my time. I wanted to study at the best engineering school I
could get into, and studied hard for two long and sleep-deprived years. To my
joy, I won admission to the much sought after Indian Institute of Technology
(IIT) – widely seen as India’s premier engineering college. However, my dreams
were soon dashed.
My mother was adamant that I do not leave our
hometown of Bangalore. Perhaps because of her many painful losses, she became
extremely protective and possessive of me. She wanted to keep me close to her
at all time, and I reluctantly continued in Christ College (Bangalore
university) to pursue a degree, majoring in pure sciences, followed by a
diploma in Computer Science in another institute.
Then in July 1978 my younger sister was
diagnosed with cancer. She was told it was terminal and that she had four
months to live. This brought me to question and to seek answers about how there
could be an end to this misery, this suffering, and how to find salvation,
which in Hindu terms is called moksha (liberation.) I started going to Hindu
religious meetings to try to understand the various paths to spiritual
liberation. I also asked, “Is this a result of my sin or somebody else’s sin?”
There seemed to be so much evil in my family.
When my sister ultimately died, I felt ashamed
that I was living and everyone else was dying. I ran away from home with the
intention of committing suicide. However, I could not follow through with it
because I did not have the answer to my question of “where will I go after
death”?
None of the scriptures that I read gave me a
definitive answer. About three months after my sister’s death, I was still in
this confused state and decided that enough was enough. I got a rope and
decided that it was time for me to end my own. Then, out of the corner of my
eye, I glanced at a thick green book in a nearby cupboard. It was the New
Testament. This was given to me at school, but I had never bothered to read it.
At that moment, I felt compelled to pick up the
book. I found an index of where to find passages to help you when you have a
specific need, such as “when you need peace”, or “when you are feeling sad”,
and so on. My name is Anand, which means ultimate bliss. In fact, it is the
culmination of peace, bliss and joy. I knew that my need of the hour was peace
so I looked up the passage that it referred to. The verse was John 14:27,
“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give as the world
gives. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
I said to myself, this is a very strong, very
assertive and confirmative statement. I knew what peace the world gave, but
this was not that. This is a different peace: this is God’s own peace. Then
Jesus said something very important to me in that moment, “Do not let your
heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” This felt like everything I was
looking for was in this one passage. It was very definitive. Suddenly even some
of the words in the Christian literature I had read previously came alive for
me. I realized that Lord Jesus was saying that he had “come so that I could
have life at its fullest, which is what I needed, especially at that moment.
I got really excited and decided to postpone my
decision to take my own life. I needed to explore this. I thought that I would
like to pray to this God. I basically said, “Dear God, you are a Christian God
and I am a Hindu, and I want to know more.” I finally made a personal decision
(without changing my religion) to follow this Jesus as my Lord & Savior
.
This happened when I was 20 years old. Since
then, the Lord has been wonderful, even though there has been some opposition
from my relatives and friends initially. I realized a simple truth, in that all
of us have a choice to make when faced with overwhelming challenges.
Looking back, I’m now convinced that I had not
succeeded in spite of the challenges in my life – I succeeded because of them.
And, I succeeded because I chose to respond proactively, and I had a Saviour
who gave the strength from within.
But, my desire to venture into the bigger world
was undiminished. After my graduation, an opportunity to interview for the
position of a Management Trainee with DCM Ltd in New Delhi arose.
India’s capital city was a world away from
Bangalore, which was then a relatively small city. The selection process for
this role was very rigorous and stringent. This included various rounds of
aptitude tests, analytical ability tests, group discussions and personal
interviews. Out of over 16,000 applicants, I understand only 36 were
shortlisted for an in-depth interview. I was one among them. I was excited to
be so close to securing my dream job.
However, when arrived for the interview, I was
told I could no longer be considered because of an oversight. The HR head
mentioned that they would only consider applicants with post graduate degrees.
I only possessed a post-graduate diploma, and was told to leave immediately.
I paused for a second. And then responded, “Can
you please give me 15 minutes of your time? If I turn out to be a poor
candidate, you would have only lost 15 minutes of your time. But, I return home
now without an interview and you may have lost a good candidate forever”.
My boldness stunned the interview panel. I felt
I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain. The panel overruled the HR head
and decided to proceed and interview me. At the interview, the marketing
manager tossed me his watch. “Study its features carefully and be ready to sell
this watch to me”.
I examined every single feature of the watch
from the gold bezel to the scratch-resistant glass. The marketing manager then
asked for the watch back. He looked at me and asked a simple question, “So what
was the time on my watch?”
I was stunned. I had noticed every single minute
detail, but had failed to notice the time. I saw a crisis but also a glimmer of
hope, “Sir, I was focused on the objective that you gave me, and was blind to
everything else. Do you remember the story of how Arjuna (from the Mahabarata)
learnt archery? When his master asked him to shoot an arrow at the eye of a
bird, he could see nothing else. Not the tree, not the sky, not even any other
part of the bird. All he saw was the eye. He was blind to everything else”.
I took a big gamble. It paid off. The marketing
head was impressed with my fighting spirit and recommended that I be hired. I
was overjoyed when a month later I got the selection letter and turned up in
Delhi to undertake a standard medical examination for clearance purposes.
But, my joy was short-lived. The in-house doctor
who saw the medical reports found that I had low blood pressure. He recommended
to the panel that I was not suitable for employment. This was a big shock to me
and I was deeply disappointed. After all that effort to land my dream job, I
was to be denied on health grounds.
I walked out of the office dejectedly. As I was
leaving the place, a familiar voice called out. It was the marketing head who
had interviewed me previously. I told him the news that I had low blood
pressure, and was deemed unsuitable for hire. He smiled and said, “That doctor
does not know you. You have so much life and energy that if you had normal
blood pressure, we would not be able to contain you!”
The Marketing Head then overruled the doctor’s
recommendation, and offered me the job.
This was the beginning of my journey of work and
I have never looked back. It was the first move out of my comfort zone that
changed everything. From there on, I have worked across other states in India,
and held roles in Singapore, Canada and the US. I have had the privilege of
traveling to many different countries and of leading international teams.
When I look back at my career, I realize that I
have learnt most from times of crises and adversity. While all of us enjoy
living in our comfort zones, growth happens outside our zones of comfort. It
happens when we plunge into what I call “the courage zone”. The danger many of
us face is that we tend to gravitate towards the comfortable activities over
many years. To help my team and myself move out of comfort zones, one thing I
practice consciously has been to take on a new role or task every 18–36 months.
This forces me to constantly face challenges, learn and grow.
I have learnt a lot about leadership from my
work experience, but the fundamentals were forged before I started a single day
of work: don’t react to challenges, take charge and respond to them. Never give
up. And, dare to go beyond your comfort zone.
(Anand Pillai is the Senior Executive Vice
President Business Transformation and Chief Learning Officer at Reliance
Industries Limited)
A NOTE ABOUT SHRI ANAND PILLAI: FROM HIS FACEBOOK PAGE:
Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on New Models of
Leadership 2011
HR Professional of the year 08-09 & 09-10
Guest lecturer at Leading business schools like: Harvard Business school, MIT-Sloan,
London Business School, IIM-A, IIM-L, SPJIMR, IMT etc.,
He is the Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Learning Officer at Reliance
Industries. His primary focus is on leadership development with a responsibility to
breed Intrapreneurs by imparting skills in all functional areas. With more than 30
years of rich experience in the corporate world, Anand has handled challenging
assignments in general management and as head of operations in companies such
as TATA Group (10 years), Hughes Network Systems and Bay Networks HCL
Technologies Limited & now with Reliance Industries Limited..Anand has been a
much sought after speaker in many national and international forums. He has been
the distinguished speaker at the Fortune Innovation Forum in NY, USA (the only
non American speaker to be
invited)http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/conferences/innovation2006/innovation_spea
kers.html, at the Fortune Global Forum in New Delhi,
(http://www.timeinc.net/fortune/conferences/global2007/global_speakers.html),
NASSCOM, ISTD, CIO Summit -London, Great places to work conference -
Singapore, World’s most democratic work places summit- Las Vegas, World HRD
Congress, CII, etc.
His leadership and strong vision has succeeded in bring many accolades and
recognition to the company, like “Excellence in Training” for 07-08 & 08-09,at the
Asia Pacific HR Excellence Awards “Contribution to the Field of Global Training and
Development” & Outstanding contribution to the field of Education, at the Global HR
Excellence Awards-2009 and 2010, Award for Talent management, Innovation in
Employee Retention & Career management, Excellence in Training & HR Leadership
award at the Employer Branding Awards. He has also been recognized as “HR
Professional of the Year” 2008-09 and also given the HR Leadership award at the
Global HR Excellence Awards and Pride of the Industry at the Star of India awards.
Anand has been featured in the book “Leading with Wisdom” along with 30 other
leaders (Steven Covey, Abdul Kalam to name a few) in the world. He is also
featured in a new book “Open Source Leader” published by Penguin Publications.
He is certified to conduct leadership & management courses from various
international bodies and is also a Certified Behavioral Analyst. Anand has specialized
in advanced applications of Psychometric instruments (like MBTI, Firo-B, TKI, DISC.,
etc) in areas of, Leadership, Communication, Sales & Customer relationship,
negotiating for value and Team building. He has done extensive research on cross
cultural relationships, Intrapreneurship & Innovation and is widely consulted on
these three subjects across the globe.
To know more about this gentleman please do visit this link: About Anand
Source: Confident Living Magzine, Secunderabad
HQ Asia-Redefining Business Leadership' publication.
Anand Pillai's Facebook page.
Anandpillai.in