Frédéric Grare is a senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment’s South Asia Program. His book ‘India Turns East’ tells the story of India’s long and difficult journey to reclaim its status in a rapidly changing Asian environment increasingly shaped by the US–China rivalry and the uncertainties of US commitment to Asia’s security.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
India’s Look East policy cannot be entirely explained by China’s rise and India’s desire to counter it. Yet ongoing bilateral disputes and mistrust between Beijing and New Delhi, coupled with China’s growing economic, political, and military role in Asia and beyond, have been important motivators behind India’s engagement with the region. India’s rich and evolving ties with countries in Southeast and East Asia have been partly but increasingly molded by China’s rise.
The relationship between India and China is complex. It includes territorial and border disputes and elements of rivalry for political dominance in Asia, but also strong economic incentives for cooperation. Many (if not most) components of the India-China relationship are of a strictly bilateral nature. Yet these bilateral issues also affect India’s larger regional policy. It is therefore necessary to analyze the various determinants of the relationship between Beijing and New Delhi and the ways in which India’s relationship with China has shaped its interactions with the broader regional community. The Look East policy is consequently an attempt not only to balance and deter, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to engage China at the same time. India seeks to create a virtuous cycle, by which engagement with Asia will not only mitigate the consequences of the capacity gap between India and China but will also, over time, provide India with the economic, military, and political resources necessary to alter the Asian power structure in its favour.
This chapter does not intend to recall the combined histories of China and India since time immemorial or even since independence. Nor does it aim at establishing a narrow correlation between India’s diplomacy vis-a-vis China and the development of the Look East policy. Instead, it identifies key characteristics of the evolution of the relationship and analyzes the various dynamics at play between the two countries since the early 1990s in order to better understand both India’s approach to regional relations and the way the India- China relationship might play out in the future, specifically with regard to the Asian power structure. By pointing out some obvious gaps in the rhetoric of some Indian strategic circles and the reality of a policy whose initial objectives were only secondarily linked to China, it also seeks to define the constraints under which India’s diplomacy is operating.
The India-China relationship leading up to and following the LEP For India, conflict with China is not an abstract concept. It is a painful, real memory. In November 1962, disputes over the demarcation of the McMahon Line, the border inherited from the colonial era, escalated into a full-scale war. China defeated India in less than a month and withdrew to the current Line of Actual Control (LAC). This humiliating episode has had a dramatic impact on the bilateral relationship—the trust deficit between the two countries has never disappeared—but also on New Delhi’s larger foreign policy which became almost entirely reactive after this episode.
Following the 1962 debacle, diplomatic relations between India and China were suspended for almost fifteen years. They resumed only in 1976, when both countries exchanged ambassadors. It took three more years for the first official visit since 1960 to take place, when External Affairs Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee went to China to discuss the border issue and China’s support to insurgent groups in Northeast India. China’s attack on Vietnam, following the latter’s invasion of Cambodia, interrupted the visit but did not end the dialogue between the two countries.
In May 1980, soon after her re-election, Indira Gandhi met Chinese premier Hua Guofeng at Tito’s funeral in Yugoslavia. The meeting led to the June 1980 Chinese proposal of a “package deal” institutionalizing the status quo, which India refused. The same year, however, India informed China that it was ready to resume the process of normalization. An annual dialogue at the level of vice-ministers started in June 1981 and continued until 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, the first visit an Indian prime minister had made to China since 1955. India dropped its earlier demand “of asking for settlement of the border as a precondition for any improvement in relations in other fields.” Two joint working groups were established to deal with trade negotiations and the border issue.
Category: Excerpts
Why Osho was inspired by Pythagoras?
Pythagoras, as we know, was not just a mathematician – he had the power to explore the workings of the inner mind and the outer world. The wisdom of Pythagoras influenced Osho to embark on matters of politics, love and meditation, obedience and surrender.
Pythagoras, the spiritual and divine master stirs an effect in Osho’s ‘Philosophia Perennis’. Osho, in this volume, speaks of the little-known teachings of Pythagoras.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
The truth of Pythagoras, the truth of the greatest synthesis ever attempted, can trigger a process in you, can start something so immense, about which you could have never have dreamed. That is the whole purpose of satsang: being in communion with a master. His presence, his utterances, his silences start working on you—sometimes even in spite of you. Sometimes you become aware of those processes, sometimes you are not aware of them; they start working underneath your consciousness. One day, they explode into a great blossoming.
Pythagoras really tried the impossible, not only tried, he succeeded. But the world wants to live in division, because the world can only understand conflict. It cannot understand synthesis. Synthesis can only be understood when some synthesis inside you starts happening; otherwise synthesis is non-understandable, will be misunderstood.
Everybody was against Pythagoras. All religions, all sects, all the so-called gurus of those days were against Pythagoras. In fact, they should have been there for him because he was bringing together all the scattered fragments of truth. But it hurts . . .
If I say that the Koran is true, as true as the Vedas, and people understand this, then both Mohammedans and Hindus would be tremendously happy. But that doesn’t happen; both become angry. The Mohammedan becomes angry because I have compared his holy book to an ordinary book, the Vedas; the Hindu becomes angry because I have compared his holy book to an ordinary book, the Koran. They both become angry because their egos are hurt.
You can understand what must have happened to Pythagoras because it is happening to me, it is happening to you, the same process. Hindus are against it, Mohammedans are against it; Jains, Buddhists, and Christians are against it. Why?
I am bringing Christ, Buddha, Mahavir, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu and Krishna to the highest possible synthesis, but still they are all against it. The reason is: they are divided within themselves. They can only understand that which they are. You can never understand anything beyond your consciousness. If you are split, you can only understand a split world. If you are in a subtle harmony inside, only then will any harmony happening outside be understood.
It is good that you felt great gratitude arising in you listening to the synthesis. It shows that something has started becoming integrated in you—something that is bringing you together, that is creating a kind of unity between the two hemispheres of your brain, the left and the right.
These two hemispheres of the brain have to be understood, and very deeply, because much depends on that. Now scientists are also in deep agreement with the ancient mystic lore that unless these two brains are bridged and bridged rightly a man remains schizophrenic. They are bridged, but in a very, very small way; just a small thread bridges them. That thread can be cut.
Excerpt from 'Bharat: The Man Who Built a Nation'
Dr Vineet Agarwal brilliantly retells the story of the son of Dushyant and Shakuntala, the grandson of Brahmarishi Vishwamitra in his latest book, Bharat: The Man Who Built a Nation.
Here’s an excerpt from the book.
Voices filled the royal hall of Hastinapur, bouncing off the two dozen marble pillars that supported the high vaulted ceiling. Wide latticed windows provided illumination as well as ventilation to the cavernous hall that was full of people watching the royal debate.
Aileen, ruler of the Puru kingdom, sat on a beautifully carved sandalwood throne that had been fashioned to resemble the vehicle of the moon god, the founding father of the Chandravansh. It was shaped like a chariot drawn by eight antelopes, and the king occupied the central seat, sheltered by a silver umbrella. The elderly king was presiding over a debate between his eldest son and the royal council. Of his five sons, Dushyant, the eldest, was quite simply the best.
Since the day he had first stepped into the court, the crown prince had shown a flair for solving the tricky situations that arose in the running of a kingdom. Dushyant was almost twenty-five now, and towered over his sire. Aileen saw a glimpse of his own younger self in him; they had the same tan complexion, sharp nose and dark eyes but the king had a greying beard and his face had assimilated fine lines from years of looking after the kingdom, while his son’s visage had the freshness of youth. Rigorous training had made Dushyant’s body lithe like that of a cheetah and his mind as sharp as a needle. He was practical and perceptive, and even now seemed to be winning the debate that had almost reached its conclusion.
For more than a prehar now, the councillors and the prince had been debating the need to change old policies followed by the kingdom—three hours and counting. Aileen had been trying to get his council to formulate new guidelines for more inclusive development, but to no avail. Change was not easy for anyone, let alone senior members of the court who were set in their ways and accustomed to their lavish lifestyles, but the king hoped that his son would be able to convince them.
Rising to his full six feet, Dushyant addressed the assembly emphatically, ‘The time has come for Hastinapur to introspect. We must decide which of our traditions are redundant and which can be retained. As the wielder of Shiva’s axe, Parshu Raam showed us, there is no place for practices that encourage corruption in this new world order.’
Aileen watched the seasoned councillors wince, a tiny smile playing on his lips. The use of Parshu-Raam’s name was a clever touch. Over the past year, the son of Rishi Yamdagni had gone on a rampage, annihilating autocratic rulers from the Himalayas to the southern ocean, paving the way for a new and just class of kings. Brahmins, Vaishyas and Shudras were the new Kshatriyas of Nabhi-varsh and what remained of the old guard was still haunted by the prospect of Parshu Raam’s return. Aileen himself had been lucky to escape with his life. His superior, Kartavirya Arjun, the emperor of the world, had not been so fortunate.
Dushyant’s closing argument had made even the most reluctant of councillors agree to the demand for modernization and as they passed a unanimous motion in favour of the idea, Aileen dismissed the court for the day and called his son to the throne.
‘My son,’ he said in a tone that betrayed his satisfaction, ‘seeing the way you have convinced the senior councillors to change their stance for the benefit of the people, I am confident that you are quite ready to look after the affairs of this kingdom. Acharya Dirghatamas, other senior members of the family and I concur that the time has come to pass on the crown of Puruvansh.’
Bollywood: The Films! The Songs! The Stars! Foreword by Amitabh Bachchan
Who isn’t enchanted by the glitz and glamour of the world’s largest cinema industry AKA Bollywood?
With Bollywood: The Films! The Songs! The Stars!, be mesmerized by the glamour and colour of Bollywood. Known for their glittering costumes and epic song-and-dance routines, the charming movies produced in Mumbai have captured the hearts not just of Indians but of people the world over.
Here’s what Amitabh Bachchan has to say in the foreword of this lavishly illustrated book.
I abhor the title of this book. The Indian Film Industry is what I shall always refer to as Cinema in India. We are an independent creative industry and not a derivative; any attempt to imply otherwise, shall not find favour with me.
But the absence of any kind of film documentation is another malaise that has been of great concern to me; one that I lament greatly. To find a global publishing house now wanting to tap into “the increasing interest in the Hindi film industry from national and international quarters” is indeed most laudable.
Hindi cinema, indeed the entire cinema in India, is the largest film-producing unit in the world. To me it has always played the role of a unifier, an integrator. When we sit inside that darkened hall we never ask who the person sitting next to us is – his or her caste, creed, colour, or religion. Yet we enjoy the same story, laugh at the same jokes, cry at the same emotions, and sing the same songs. In a world that is disintegrating around us faster every day, where can one find a better example of national integration than within those hallowed portals of a cinema hall? There are not many institutions left that can boast or propagate such unity.
I once asked a Russian gentleman in Moscow what it was that attracted him to Hindi cinema. He replied: “When I come out of the theatre after watching a Hindi film, I have a smile on my face and a dry tear on my cheek!” There can be no better assessment of our films than this – and that too from an individual who was not an Indian. But my father, the great poet and litterateur, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, summed it all up most succinctly. On asking him one day what Hindi cinema meant to him, he said: “I get to see poetic justice in three hours! You and me shall not see this in a lifetime… perhaps several lifetimes!”
SMM Ausaja, a friend and a passionate film admirer, curator, and journalist, contributes to a section of this book. My wishes to him and to the publication.
Why the Judiciary is Important and How the Legislative Can Take Advantage
Lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan’s The Case that Shook India is a blow-by-blow account of the watershed case that led to India’s Emergency in 1975.
The book also depicts how the judiciary can be misused by powerful members of the legislative body to their advantage, thereby emphasising on the increasing need of a stronger, robust judiciary.
Here are 5 instances from the book that the author highlights.
Grab your copy of India’s most thrilling courtroom drama today!
Are you Connected? An Excerpt
Venugopal Acharya is a monk at the ISKCON and has spent eighteen years living with over 100 people in a small monastery. Prior to becoming a monk, he worked with an investment bank, and has an honours degree in economics, a Masters degree in international finance and an MBA in finance.
In his book, Are You Connected, Acharya emphasizes on sharing mutual success and growing with care and compassion. He shares the different skills and experiences that help one feel loved and in touch with one’s self, the people who matter and God. Here is an excerpt from the book:
In one of Shakespeare’s most powerful soliloquies, Hamlet, struggling with his private thoughts, asks himself:
What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be
but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure, he that made
us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave
us not that capability and God-like reason to fust in us
unused.
Prince Hamlet regrets that a man who simply eats, sleeps and carries on his life as an animal does no good to anyone. He reflects that God created us for a reason, and it’s up to each one of us to fulfil it.
We live, love and leave. We seek to live peacefully, in harmony, with who we truly are. We also desire to love and be appreciated by others. And for more evolved humans, to leave a legacy—to serve, add value—and to contribute to others’ happiness is as sacred a need. In other words we have three aspects to our existence—our relationship with ourselves, others, and with divinity, also referred to as God in most cultures, that transcends our matter-centred routine life.
There are many people who work hard for their family and have good friends, yet they feel a vacuum in their hearts. They wonder if they have chosen a wrong career or a partner. Thinking they are not doing things that truly represent their innermost values and purpose in life, they feel disconnected
from their own self.
There are, of course, some who do what they want, but realize over time that their relationships have suffered. After all, we need to love and feel loved. Despite measurable success and money, it’s love that we seek.
Marilyn Monroe, one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s, rose from a miserable childhood to Hollywood stardom. She always wanted to be an actor and she did become a legend. Yet, weeks before her death, suspected as suicide due to an overdose of drugs, she confessed in an interview, ‘I never quite understood this sex symbol. I always thought symbols were those things you clash together. That’s the trouble; a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing . . .’ She got
what she wanted, but her heart remained starved of love. She felt disconnected.
A few people do manage to live on their own terms, and they also get love from others. Yet, an incompleteness stares at them until they seek a deeper relationship with their spiritual existence. A divine being, also known in various traditions as Bhagavan, Supreme Lord or the Almighty, is at the core of our existence. Our spiritual reality is as inseparable to us as sunshine is to the sun. Yet, we chose to be covered by the clouds of ignorance. Spiritual practices—meditation, prayer, chanting—help us dispel these clouds; they unravel the mysteries of our own identity; we connect to our eternal spiritual self and to God, our loving friend and parent. And as a by-product, we also bond with our fellow brothers and sisters on this planet. Spiritual practices flood our hearts with love and help us leave behind a legacy of love.
The articles compiled in this book have been categorized into two broad categories: One, connecting and succeeding with self, and two, living and growing with others.
The first section, ‘Connecting and Succeeding with Self’, contains twenty-seven articles that focus on transcending internal barriers to go deeper into the spiritual aspects of our lives. Likewise, under the second category, ‘Living and Growing with Others’, you’ll find twenty-nine articles on principles that could help us succeed in our relationships with others; so we can care, serve and love better. Altogether, these fifty-six articles are elaborations of the twenty-five keys, which form the base of a truly connected life.
Can Emotional Intelligence Be Learned?
FOR AGES, PEOPLE HAVE DEBATED if leaders are born or made. So too goes the debate about emotional intelligence. Are people born with certain levels of empathy, for example, or do they acquire empathy as a result of life’s experiences? The answer is both. Scientific inquiry strongly suggests that there is a genetic component to emotional intelligence. Psychological and developmental research indicates that nurture plays a role as well. How much of each perhaps will never be known, but research and practice clearly demonstrate that emotional intelligence can be learned.
One thing is certain: Emotional intelligence increases with age. There is an old-fashioned word for the phenomenon: maturity. Yet even with maturity, some people still need training to enhance their emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, far too many training programs that intend to build leadership skills—including emotional intelligence—are a waste of time and money. The problem is simple: They focus on the wrong part of the brain.
Emotional intelligence is born largely in the neurotransmitters of the brain’s limbic system, which governs feelings, impulses, and drives. Research indicates that the limbic system learns best through motivation, extended practice, and feedback. Compare this with the kind of learning that goes on in the neocortex, which governs analytical and technical ability. The neocortex grasps concepts and logic. It is the part of the brain that figures out how to use a computer or make a sales call by reading a book. Not surprisingly—but mistakenly—it is also the part of the brain targeted by most training programs aimed at enhancing emotional intelligence. When such programs take, in effect, a neocortical approach, my research with the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations has shown they can even have a negative impact on people’s job performance.
To enhance emotional intelligence, organizations must refocus their training to include the limbic system. They must help people break old behavioral habits and establish new ones. That not only takes much more time than conventional training programs, it also requires an individualized approach.
Imagine an executive who is thought to be low on empathy by her colleagues. Part of that deficit shows itself as an inability to listen; she interrupts people and doesn’t pay close attention to what they’re saying. To fix the problem, the executive needs to be motivated to change, and then she needs practice and feedback from others in the company. A colleague or coach could be tapped to let the executive know when she has been observed failing to listen. She would then have to replay the incident and give a better response; that is, demonstrate her ability to absorb what others are saying. And the executive could be directed to observe certain executives who listen well and to mimic their behavior.
With persistence and practice, such a process can lead to lasting results. I know one Wall Street executive who sought to improve his empathy—specifically his ability to read people’s reactions and see their perspectives. Before beginning his quest, the executive’s subordinates were terrified of working with him. People even went so far as to hide bad news from him. Naturally, he was shocked when finally confronted with these facts. He went home and told his family—but they only confirmed what he had heard at work. When their opinions on any given subject did not mesh with his, they, too, were frightened of him.
Enlisting the help of a coach, the executive went to work to heighten his empathy through practice and feedback. His first step was to take a vacation to a foreign country where he did not speak the language. While there, he monitored his reactions to the unfamiliar and his openness to people who were different from him. When he returned home, humbled by his week abroad, the executive asked his coach to shadow him for parts of the day, several times a week, to critique how he treated people with new or different perspectives. At the same time, he consciously used on-the-job interactions as opportunities to practice “hearing” ideas that differed from his. Finally, the executive had himself videotaped in meetings and asked those who worked for and with him to critique his ability to acknowledge and understand the feelings of others. It took several months, but the executive’s emotional intelligence did ultimately rise, and the improvement was reflected in his overall performance on the job.
It’s important to emphasize that building one’s emotional intelligence cannot—will not—happen without sincere desire and concerted effort. A brief seminar won’t help; nor can one buy a how-to manual. It is much harder to learn to empathize—to internalize empathy as a natural response to people— than it is to become adept at regression analysis. But it can be done. “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. If your goal is to become a real leader, these words can serve as a guidepost in your efforts to develop high emotional intelligence.
This is an excerpt from HBR’s 10 Must Reads (The Essentials). Get your copy here.
Credit: Abhishek Singh
Prologue: 'Origin' by Dan Brown
Dan Brown is back with yet another novel in ‘ The Robert Langdon Series’ after Angels & Demons (2000), The Da Vinci Code (2003), The Lost Symbol (2009), and Inferno (2013).
‘Origin’, which is the 5th installment in Robert Langdon’s adventures, is based on Langdon’s travels in Spain. It moves forth with the same paradoxical power play between Religion and Science.
Let’s read more to find out what happens next in the first of our three excerpts from ‘Origin’
—-
Prologue
As the ancient cogwheel train clawed its way up the dizzying incline, Edmond Kirsch surveyed the jagged mountaintop above him. In the distance, built into the face of a sheer cliff, the massive stone monastery seemed to hang in space, as if magically fused to the vertical precipice.
This timeless sanctuary in Catalonia, Spain, had endured the relentless pull of gravity for more than four centuries, never slipping from its original purpose: to insulate its occupants from the modern world.
Ironically, they will now be the first to learn the truth, Kirsch thought, wondering how they would react. Historically, the most dangerous men on earth were men of God . . . especially when their gods became threatened. And I am about to hurl a flaming spear into a hornets’ nest.
When the train reached the mountaintop, Kirsch saw a solitary figure waiting for him on the platform. The wizened skeleton of a man was draped in the traditional Catholic purple cassock and white rochet, with a zucchetto on his head. Kirsch recognized his host’s rawboned features from photos and felt an unexpected surge of adrenaline.
Valdespino is greeting me personally.
Bishop Antonio Valdespino was a formidable figure in Spain—not only a trusted friend and counselor to the king himself, but one of the country’s most vocal and influential advocates for the preservation of conservative Catholic values and traditional political standards.
“Edmond Kirsch, I assume?” the bishop intoned as Kirsch exited the train.
“Guilty as charged,” Kirsch said, smiling as he reached out to shake his host’s bony hand. “Bishop Valdespino, I want to thank you for arranging this meeting.”
“I appreciate your requesting it.” The bishop’s voice was stronger than Kirsch expected—clear and penetrating, like a bell. “It is not often we are consulted by men of science, especially one of your prominence. This way, please.”
As Valdespino guided Kirsch across the platform, the cold mountain air whipped at the bishop’s cassock.
“I must confess,” Valdespino said, “you look different than I imagined. I was expecting a scientist, but you’re quite . . .” He eyed his guest’s sleek Kiton K50 suit and Barker ostrich shoes with a hint of disdain. “‘Hip,’ I believe, is the word?”
Kirsch smiled politely. The word “hip” went out of style decades ago.
“In reading your list of accomplishments,” the bishop said, “I am still not entirely sure what it is you do.” “I specialize in game theory and computer modeling.”
“So you make the computer games that the children play?”
Kirsch sensed the bishop was feigning ignorance in an attempt to be quaint. More accurately, Kirsch knew, Valdespino was a frighteningly well-informed student of technology and often warned others of its dangers. “No, sir, actually game theory is a field of mathematics that studies patterns in order to make predictions about the future.”
“Ah yes. I believe I read that you predicted a European monetary crisis some years ago? When nobody listened, you saved the day by inventing a computer program that pulled the EU back from the dead. What was your famous quote? ‘At thirty-three years old, I am the same age as Christ when He performed His resurrection.’”
Kirsch cringed. “A poor analogy, Your Grace. I was young.”
“Young?” The bishop chuckled. “And how old are you now . . . perhaps forty?”
“Just.”
The old man smiled as the strong wind continued to billow his robe. “Well, the meek were supposed to inherit the earth, but instead it has gone to the young—the technically inclined, those who stare into video screens rather than into their own souls. I must admit, I never imagined I would have reason to meet the young man leading the charge. They call you a prophet, you know.”
“Not a very good one in your case, Your Grace,” Kirsch replied. “When I asked if I might meet you and your colleagues privately, I calculated only a twenty percent chance you would accept.”
“And as I told my colleagues, the devout can always benefit from listening to nonbelievers. It is in hearing the voice of the devil that we can better appreciate the voice of God.” The old man smiled. “I am joking, of course. Please forgive my aging sense of humor. My filters fail me from time to time.”
With that, Bishop Valdespino motioned ahead. “The others are waiting. This way, please.”
Kirsch eyed their destination, a colossal citadel of gray stone perched on the edge of a sheer cliff that plunged thousands of feet down into a lush tapestry of wooded foothills. Unnerved by the height, Kirsch averted his eyes from the chasm and followed the bishop along the uneven cliffside path, turning his thoughts to the meeting ahead.
Kirsch had requested an audience with three prominent religious leaders who had just finished attending a conference here.
The Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Since 1893, hundreds of spiritual leaders from nearly thirty world religions had gathered in a different location every few years to spend a week engaged in interfaith dialogue. Participants included a wide array of influential Christian priests, Jewish rabbis, and Islamic mullahs from around the world, along with Hindu pujaris, Buddhist bhikkhus, Jains, Sikhs, and others.
The parliament’s self-proclaimed objective was “to cultivate harmony among the world’s religions, build bridges between diverse spiritualities, and celebrate the intersections of all faith.”
A noble quest, Kirsch thought, despite seeing it as an empty exercise— a meaningless search for random points of correspondence among a hodgepodge of ancient fictions, fables, and myths.
As Bishop Valdespino guided him along the pathway, Kirsch peered down the mountainside with a sardonic thought. Moses climbed a mountain to accept the Word of God . . . and I have climbed a mountain to do quite the opposite.
Kirsch’s motivation for climbing this mountain, he had told himself, was one of ethical obligation, but he knew there was a good dose of hubris fueling this visit—he was eager to feel the gratification of sitting face-to-face with these clerics and foretelling their imminent demise.
You’ve had your run at defining our truth.
“I looked at your curriculum vitae,” the bishop said abruptly, glancing at Kirsch. “I see you’re a product of Harvard University?”
“Undergraduate. Yes.”
“I see. Recently, I read that for the first time in Harvard’s history, the incoming student body consists of more atheists and agnostics than those who identify as followers of any religion. That is quite a telling statistic, Mr. Kirsch.”
What can I tell you, Kirsch wanted to reply, our students keep getting smarter.
The wind whipped harder as they arrived at the ancient stone edifice. Inside the dim light of the building’s entryway, the air was heavy with the thick fragrance of burning frankincense. The two men snaked through a maze of dark corridors, and Kirsch’s eyes fought to adjust as he followed his cloaked host. Finally, they arrived at an unusually small wooden door. The bishop knocked, ducked down, and entered, motioning for his guest to follow.
Uncertain, Kirsch stepped over the threshold.
He found himself in a rectangular chamber whose high walls burgeoned with ancient leather-bound tomes. Additional freestanding bookshelves jutted out of the walls like ribs, interspersed with cast-iron radiators that clanged and hissed, giving the room the eerie sense that it was alive. Kirsch raised his eyes to the ornately balustraded walkway that encircled the second story and knew without a doubt where he was.
The famed library of Montserrat, he realized, startled to have been admitted. This sacred room was rumored to contain uniquely rare texts accessible only to those monks who had devoted their lives to God and who were sequestered here on this mountain.
“You asked for discretion,” the bishop said. “This is our most private space. Few outsiders have ever entered.”
“A generous privilege. Thank you.”
Kirsch followed the bishop to a large wooden table where two elderly men sat waiting. The man on the left looked timeworn, with tired eyes and a matted white beard. He wore a crumpled black suit, white shirt, and fedora.
“This is Rabbi Yehuda Köves,” the bishop said. “He is a prominent Jewish philosopher who has written extensively on Kabbalistic cosmology.”
Kirsch reached across the table and politely shook hands with Rabbi Köves. “A pleasure to meet you, sir,” Kirsch said. “I’ve read your books on Kabbala. I can’t say I understood them, but I’ve read them.”
Köves gave an amiable nod, dabbing at his watery eyes with his handkerchief.
“And here,” the bishop continued, motioning to the other man, “you have the respected allamah, Syed al-Fadl.”
The revered Islamic scholar stood up and smiled broadly. He was short and squat with a jovial face that seemed a mismatch with his dark penetrating eyes. He was dressed in an unassuming white thawb. “And, Mr. Kirsch, I have read your predictions on the future of mankind. I can’t say I agree with them, but I have read them.”
Kirsch gave a gracious smile and shook the man’s hand.
“And our guest, Edmond Kirsch,” the bishop concluded, addressing his two colleagues, “as you know, is a highly regarded computer scientist, game theorist, inventor, and something of a prophet in the technological world. Considering his background, I was puzzled by his request to address the three of us. Therefore, I shall now leave it to Mr. Kirsch to explain why he has come.”
With that, Bishop Valdespino took a seat between his two colleagues, folded his hands, and gazed up expectantly at Kirsch. All three men faced him like a tribunal, creating an ambience more like that of an inquisition than a friendly meeting of scholars. The bishop, Kirsch now realized, had not even set out a chair for him.
Kirsch felt more bemused than intimidated as he studied the three aging men before him. So this is the Holy Trinity I requested. The Three Wise Men.
Pausing a moment to assert his power, Kirsch walked over to the window and gazed out at the breathtaking panorama below. A sunlit patchwork of ancient pastoral lands stretched across a deep valley, giving way to the rugged peaks of the Collserola mountain range. Miles beyond, somewhere out over the Balearic Sea, a menacing bank of storm clouds was now gathering on the horizon.
Fitting, Kirsch thought, sensing the turbulence he would soon cause in this room, and in the world beyond.
“Gentlemen,” he commenced, turning abruptly back toward them. “I believe Bishop Valdespino has already conveyed to you my request for secrecy. Before we continue, I just want to clarify that what I am about to share with you must be kept in the strictest confidence. Simply stated, I am asking for a vow of silence from all of you. Are we in agreement?”
All three men gave nods of tacit acquiescence, which Kirsch knew were probably redundant anyway. They will want to bury this information—not broadcast it.
“I am here today,” Kirsch began, “because I have made a scientific discovery I believe you will find startling. It is something I have pursued for many years, hoping to provide answers to two of the most fundamental questions of our human experience. Now that I have succeeded, I have come to you specifically because I believe this information will affect the world’s faithful in a profound way, quite possibly causing a shift that can only be described as, shall we say—disruptive. At the moment, I am the only person on earth who has the information I am about to reveal to you.”
Kirsch reached into his suit coat and pulled out an oversized smartphone—one that he had designed and built to serve his own unique needs. The phone had a vibrantly colored mosaic case, and he propped it up before the three men like a television. In a moment, he would use the device to dial into an ultra secure server, enter his forty-seven-character password, and live-stream a presentation for them.
“What you are about to see,” Kirsch said, “is a rough cut of an announcement I hope to share with the world—perhaps in a month or so. But before I do, I wanted to consult with a few of the world’s most influential religious thinkers, to gain insight into how this news will be received by those it affects most.”
Stay tuned for the second excerpt—
Origin by Dan Brown Releases on October 3’ 2017.
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The Elements of a Successful Business Model
EVERY SUCCESSFUL COMPANY ALREADY operates according to an effective business model. By systematically identifying all of its constituent parts, executives can understand how the model fulfills a potent value proposition in a profitable way using certain key resources and key processes. With that understanding, they can then judge how well the same model could be used to fulfill a radically different CVP—and what they’d need to do to construct a new one, if need be, to capitalize on that opportunity.
When Ratan Tata of Tata Group looked out over this scene, he saw a critical job to be done: providing a safer alternative for scooter families. He understood that the cheapest car available in India cost easily five times what a scooter did and that many of these families could not afford one. Offering an affordable, safer, all-weather alternative for scooter families was a powerful value proposition, one with the potential to reach tens of millions of people who were not yet part of the car-buying market. Ratan Tata also recognized that Tata Motors’ business model could not be used to develop such a product at the needed price point.
At the other end of the market spectrum, Hilti, a Liechtensteinbased manufacturer of high-end power tools for the construction industry, reconsidered the real job to be done for many of its current customers. A contractor makes money by finishing projects; if the required tools aren’t available and functioning properly, the job doesn’t get done. Contractors don’t make money by owning tools; they make it by using them as efficiently as possible. Hilti could help contractors get the job done by selling tool use instead of the tools themselves—managing its customers’ tool inventory by providing the best tool at the right time and quickly furnishing tool repairs, replacements, and upgrades, all for a monthly fee. To deliver on that value proposition, the company needed to create a fleetmanagement program for tools and in the process, shift its focus from manufacturing and distribution to service. That meant Hilti had to construct a new profit formula and develop new resources and new processes.
The most important attribute of a customer value proposition is its precision: how perfectly it nails the customer job to be done—and nothing else. But such precision is often the most difficult thing to achieve. Companies trying to create the new often neglect to focus on one job; they dilute their efforts by attempting to do lots of things. In doing lots of things, they do nothing really well.
One way to generate a precise customer value proposition is to think about the four most common barriers keeping people from getting particular jobs done: insufficient wealth, access, skill, or time. Software maker Intuit devised QuickBooks to fulfill smallbusiness owners’ need to avoid running out of cash. By fulfilling that job with greatly simplified accounting software, Intuit broke the skills barrier that kept untrained small-business owners from using more-complicated accounting packages. MinuteClinic, the drugstore-based basic health care provider, broke the time barrier that kept people from visiting a doctor’s office with minor health issues by making nurse practitioners available without appointments.
Designing a profit formula
Ratan Tata knew the only way to get families off their scooters and into cars would be to break the wealth barrier by drastically decreasing the price of the car. “What if I can change the game and make a car for one lakh?” Tata wondered, envisioning a price point of around US$2,500, less than half the price of the cheapest car available. This, of course, had dramatic ramifications for the profit formula: It required both a significant drop in gross margins and a radical reduction in many elements of the cost structure. He knew; however, he could still make money if he could increase sales volume dramatically, and he knew that his target base of consumers was potentially huge.
For Hilti, moving to a contract management program required shifting assets from customers’ balance sheets to its own and generating revenue through a lease/subscription model. For a monthly fee, customers could have a full complement of tools at their fingertips, with repair and maintenance included. This would require a fundamental shift in all major components of the profit formula: the revenue stream (pricing, the staging of payments, and how to think about volume), the cost structure (including added sales development and contract management costs), and the supporting margins and transaction velocity.
Identifying key resources and processes
Having articulated the value proposition for both the customer and the business, companies must then consider the key resources and processes needed to deliver that value. For a professional services firm, for example, the key resources are generally its people, and the key processes are naturally people related (training and development, for instance). For a packaged goods company, strong brands and well-selected channel retailers might be the key resources, and associated brand-building and channel-management processes among the critical processes.
Oftentimes, it’s not the individual resources and processes that make the difference but their relationship to one another. Companies will almost always need to integrate their key resources and processes in a unique way to get a job done perfectly for a set of customers. When they do, they almost always create enduring competitive advantage. Focusing first on the value proposition and the profit formula makes clear how those resources and processes need to interrelate. For example, most general hospitals offer a value proposition that might be described as, “We’ll do anything for anybody.” Being all things to all people requires these hospitals to have a vast collection of resources (specialists, equipment, and so on) that can’t be knit together in any proprietary way. The result is not just a lack of differentiation but dissatisfaction.
By contrast, a hospital that focuses on a specific value proposition can integrate its resources and processes in a unique way that delights customers. National Jewish Health in Denver, for example, is organized around a focused value proposition we’d characterize as, “If you have a disease of the pulmonary system, bring it here. We’ll define its root cause and prescribe an effective therapy.” Narrowing its focus has allowed National Jewish to develop processes that integrate the ways in which its specialists and specialized equipment work together.
For Tata Motors to fulfill the requirements of its customer value proposition and profit formula for the Nano, it had to reconceive how a car is designed, manufactured, and distributed. Tata built a small team of fairly young engineers who would not, like the company’s more-experienced designers, be influenced and constrained in their thinking by the automaker’s existing profit formulas. This team dramatically minimized the number of parts in the vehicle, resulting in a significant cost saving. Tata also reconceived its supplier strategy, choosing to outsource a remarkable 85% of the Nano’s components and use nearly 60% fewer vendors than normal to reduce transaction costs and achieve better economies of scale.
At the other end of the manufacturing line, Tata is envisioning an entirely new way of assembling and distributing its cars. The ultimate plan is to ship the modular components of the vehicles to a combined network of company-owned and independent entrepreneur-owned assembly plants, which will build them to order. The Nano will be designed, built, distributed, and serviced in a radically new way—one that could not be accomplished without a new business model. And while the jury is still out, Ratan Tata may solve a traffic safety problem in the process.
This is an excerpt from HBR’s 10 Must Reads (On Strategy). Get your copy here.
Credit: Abhishek Singh
The Consolidators: An Excerpt
‘The Consolidators’ by Prince Mathews Thomas tells the story of seven second-generation entrepreneurs who display an arresting imagination and interest in evolving the business they inherited from their fathers.
Here’s an excerpt from the book which highlights Abhishek Khaitan’s tussle between one’s own desired profession vs the one chosen by the parents.
In many ways, the situation that Abhishek found himself in upon returning home from his studies in Bengaluru was similar to what his father Lalit had faced many years ago. The senior Khaitan too had harboured dreams of higher studies. ‘In those days there were two choices for us—law or chartered accountancy. I wanted to do law,’ he says.
The larger Khaitan families had quite a few eminent lawyers, including Devi Prasad Khaitan, founder of Khaitan & Co, the country’s third largest law firm, which completed a century of practice in 2010. Devi Prasad was part of the drafting committee that prepared the Constitution of India.
But being the oldest among his brothers and cousins, Lalit was asked by his father and uncle to study commerce at St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata, and at the same time join the family business. So after completing his classes for the day, Lalit would head to the bakery or the restaurant near Park Street that the family owned.
And then he was married at nineteen.
This—joining the family business and marrying early—was the norm in Marwari families. It was a tradition that had stood the test of time.
Many among the following generations of the family became leading lawyers, cementing the legacy of the Khaitan family in the country’s legal fraternity. A few of the Khaitans chose to do business and ventured into several industries—education, tea, batteries, cinema, restaurants, fertilizers and chemicals. Lalit’s father, G.N. Khaitan, also chose to do business.
Along with his brother, G.N. dabbled in several businesses— furniture, soap making, bakery, restaurants and a general provisions store. ‘We were a joint family. We were nine children living under the same roof [we were four brothers and a sister, and uncle had a daughter and three sons.Everything was done jointly, everything was shared. And we would all even sleep together in the same room. We didn’t have much money and were just a little above middle-class, or an upper middle-class family,’ says Lalit.
His father, called Gajju or Gajanand by his friends, was a well-known personality in Kolkata’s vibrant social circle. He had headed several institutions, including business bodies such as the Bharat Chamber of Commerce, Export Council of Engineering, and other organizations like the Indian Red Cross Society, and some popular clubs like Rajasthan Club and Bengal Rowing Club.
‘He used to be known for his bow tie. He never wore a regular tie in his life. He was very well connected, even in Bollywood. Once, he arranged a cricket match in Kolkata that had most of the biggest Bollywood names, including Raj Kapoor, attending. Shailesh Khaitan, my youngest brother, remembers the actor telling my father, “Khaitan sahib, you have got the whole of Bollywood here. If the plane crashes, Bollywood is dead”.’
Actor Pran, the legendary villain of Indian cinema, and often more popular than the heroes, was a close friend. ‘He would often drop by at our house in Kolkata. Once he was visiting after Zanjeer (a film that famously starred Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bhaduri) had released. I remarked that Amitabh had done a great job. Pran retorted, “What did he do? I did everything!”’
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