Innovate. Create. Do something different every day. That seems to be author Rekha Shetty’s mantra to success. And going by the number of bestsellers she’s written, the mantra seems to be helping her.
At the launch of her seventh book, Innovation Secrets of Indian CEOs here recently, the author not only expounded on several of the principles used by some of the most successful CEOs in the country, but also gave an insight into her personal mantra for success. The evening had some light-hearted jokes, a little bit of reminiscing and some interesting pointers for those aspiring CEOs.
Shetty touched upon the differences between innovation and creativity and said that one is different from the other. The author said, “Creativity only goes on to become innovation when the creative idea distills and becomes risk free.” She pointed out the success of the fruit and vegetable selling chain Pazhamudir Nilayam and said that it was an idea that germinated in a food cart. “With careful planning, it has now grown into such a successful enterprise,” she said. She also joked about her own brush with a fruit and vegetable. “But I think I wasn’t very good at it. After that, I swore never to try to sell things that die before your eyes. That’s why I now deal in intangibles — like secrets of CEOs,” she joked.
She also added that one had to do something new every day. “Anything is better than the status quo. Doing nothing is the path to stagnation,” she said.
The book, which took her six years to put together, comprises tried and tested principles of CEOs from top companies like Bharat Matrimony (Try something new) and Infosys (Don’t try to benchmark with others) among others. “Unlike my other books, this one has information in bite-sized stories that has a principle attached to it. It can be easily compressed into an SMS message if needed,” Shetty said adding that though she didn’t consciously set out to writing it this way, she hoped the bite-sized format would appeal to youngsters. “They need this more than anyone else,” she added.
These practical, useful tools are designed to motivate youngsters. “I wouldn’t exactly call them tools,” she clarified. “They are principles that might guide someone when they need it,” she said adding that she was thinking of making the book into a series. “I’ve spoken to a lot of people and I think there is still some wisdom leftover,” she said with a smile.
(Innovation Secrets of CEOs is published by Westland Books.)
