Do Things That Need to be Done

I started writing Memory Remains (MR), my debut novel, in June 2005. I had never written anything significant till then and so I learnt that writing is hard. When I tried to publish it, I went through all the harrowing experiences that many first-time writers go through. That’s when I learnt that publishing is harder. After that, it was time to sell. I knew that people weren’t going to line up outside stores to buy my book. ?? But I did expect a far better response that what I initially got. That’s when I learnt that selling is the hardest!

I wrote and published MR because I wanted to. But what I learnt from the experience is that just because you want something doesn’t mean that the world needs it. You have to “hard sell” it, especially in the case of discretionary items like books. I used that experience to learn selling strategies and eventually ended up selling more than 15,000 copies of all my books combined!

Anyway, the publisher who published the first version of MR did such a horrible job of it that I decided to publish it myself. I started APK Publishers, almost on a whim, and did just that. But then I started getting contacted by other first-time writers. That’s when I realized that there could be a need for a publishing house that helped first-time writers. We published the books of the first 2 writers who approached us and today, 12+ years later, we have published 150+ books, almost all of them by first-time writers! My wife runs this business today along with her “girl gang” as she calls it; all our translators, editors, typesetters, and cover designers are women! APK Publishers has not only helped turn the dream of many writers into reality, it has also helped fulfil the ambitions of the women who work for us, and even provide vital financial support to their families in some cases.

APK Publishers has survived, and in fact thrived, as a business because there is a need for it in the market. Needless to say, that is true of all other businesses as well. However, it’s not straightforward to identify what the need is. If it was, 90% startups wouldn’t have failed within 5 years of inception. The top 5 reasons for failure are: 1) Lack of market demand, 2) Insufficient financial resources, 3) Wrong team, 4) Strong competition, and 5) Pricing costs. It’s worth noting that the top reason is “lack of market demand”, which is another way of saying that there is no need for the company’s products/services in the market.

So why is it so hard to identify what the world needs? Well, I think it’s because nobody really tells you what the need is. Nobody can. Not even the customers themselves. Even if Steve Jobs had asked people what they needed, nobody would have told him, “We need an iPod.” It’s for the entrepreneurs to see the “signals” which the world is giving them, derive the right inferences from them, conceive the right product ideas from the inferences, and then actually converts those ideas into real, usable products. Even if you make the right products, you still have to sell them. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Steve Jobs and Apple made the right products and the products sold themselves. It took every bit of Steve Jobs’ marketing genius to make Apple and its products the commercial success that they are.

In some sense, entrepreneurs are trying to “catch the wave”. I say catch the wave because I firmly believe that that is all entrepreneurs can do. It is beyond them to create the wave. IMO, even the founders of all the tech giants didn’t create the waves; they only caught them. In other words, like they say, they were there at the right place, at the right time, with the right idea. Full marks to them for staying focus on the most important things and doing an awesome job of executing them though. That’s exactly what we are trying to do at TIFIN as well… catch the Fintech wave, stay focused on the most important things within that context, and execute them really well.

The execution part can’t be emphasized enough. Organizations need to do different things at different times. Sometimes they need to be nimble. Some other times they need to be disciplined. Sometimes they have to take very tough decisions. Sometimes they need to listen to what everybody is telling them to do, and sometimes they need to bet against the crowd. In some situations, they need to be conservative. And in some situations, they need to take risks and go all out. Organizations that do what needs to be done at any given point in time, succeed. Those that don’t, fail. It’s as simple as that.

But organizations are just abstract entities. It’s actually the people working in them that need to do what needs to be done, right? Leaders need to provide the right thoughts and words. Doers need to do the required actions and produce results. Leaders also need to be humble, where being humble doesn’t mean thinking less of themselves but rather thinking of themselves less. In other words, they need to think way beyond their own selves. There’s a beautiful dialogue in Chak De! India, the extremely popular Bollywood movie. In it the coach of the Indian Women’s hockey team says, “First you play for your team. Then you play for your teammates. After doing that, if there’s any life left in you, then you play for yourselves.” Similarly, leaders first need to think about the organization and then about others in the organization before thinking about themselves. But many times they don't because they have a “scarcity mindset”, a mindset where you think that there isn’t enough for everybody and so you can get what you want only by snatching from others. The solution (which is easier said than done for many) is for them to cultivate an “abundance mindset”, and enable and empowering their sub-ordinates and peers them instead of stifling them and see how rewarding it is for everybody. Leaders who do that ensure that their organizations succeed. Otherwise, they take their organizations down along with themselves.

When I joined TIFIN, I made a promise to Vinay and Jack. I told them, “I will come to the TIFIN group with no agenda of my own because in some sense I don’t want anything. I will come onboard, understand the people and the situation, and do what needs to be done.” Accordingly, I started out doing Product Management at Clout but am now also doing Product Management for Positivly and Totum. I have taken on some other responsibilities as well, and will continue to do that in the future too. My motto is very simple. To extend my hand to take only once a month… to take my salary. (I don’t actually do that. ?? I am just talking metaphorically.) At all other times, I extend my hand to give something to somebody. And I do it because I consider it as my job, which I have chosen to do for myself, willingly. I don’t expect even a thank you from others in exchange for doing it. If I get it great, great! But if not, no worries.

What applies to organizations applies to families as well, because families are like small organizations in a manner of speaking. If all the family members do what needs to be done, then they end up fulfilling their God-given potential and the family becomes healthy, wealthy, and successful. Otherwise, the consequences can be devastating. I personally know a few such families and it was extremely painful to see what they had to go through.

Similarly, there are a lot of challenges that humanity faces today. We have created weapons of mass destruction which can kill millions at the push of a button. I hope leaders who have access to those buttons do what they need to do, which is to let their better sense prevail and to never push those buttons. We need to adopt renewable sources of energy and become more eco-friendly or else our current lifestyles will wreak havoc like we have never seen before. The world’s population is only going to increase. So either we need to accept that Mother Earth will be able to fulfil our needs but not all our desires, or we need to find other planets to inhabit.

There’s a third option too: accept that we humans are a “failed experiment” and we will wipe out ourselves and all other species from the face of this Earth. But I can find some solace even if that is the case because, after all, there is beauty in destruction too!

My father, an eternal optimist, will never accept this though. Instead, he will say, “We can change the course of destiny and the way to do that is deceptively simple: every person instead of doing what he wants to do does what he needs to do. Maybe they won’t do it till it’s optional. But there will come a time when it has to be done, and then they will do it.”

I hope he is right. But I hope consciousness about our true selves awakens in one and all and they start doing what needs to be done long before they have to do it.

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This article is part of a?series of articles on self-improvement for working professionals.