Importance of hiring - What Entrepreneurs can learn from Shankaracharya - Part 6

**What Entrepreneurs can learn from Shankaracharya - Part 6 **

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I pray to the noble Guru, by washing whose feet, the ocean of transmigration, and endless sorrows is completely dried up and the Supreme wealth is revealed.

Continued from part 5 of this series?

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Most investors say they invest in 3 things, team, team & team.?

Building a team will ultimately determine how well one can execute & It's never enough to repeat execution is all that matters in any startup/ enterprise.?

We were advised many things that include hIring someone elder, someone matured, hiring for attitude, hiring for dedication, hiring the one with hunger in belly & many variations. With all the structure, expert hiring managers, and resources at our disposal, we fail to build an organization that we can be proud of.?

Shankara teaches us, that hiring is as critical as creating a vision & developing a solution.?

A parallel, many ask me how come Arjuna could make Krishna deliver Bhagavadgeete and not even Dharmaraja. My answer to them was it was not Arjuna who made it, but rather Krishna choose Arjuna to receive Geetopadesha. All Arjuna did in his life was to become worthy of listening to Mahabharata. It started when Arjuna requested Krishna to be part of their side rejecting all the battalion that Yadavas had to offer. Finding the right disciple or hire is always tougher than finding a guru/ company to be part of.

As many of us know, Shankara created 4 centers to propagate his message in the north, south, east & west. For each of the centers, he had to find a leader.??

Here is a small illustration of how Shankara went around hiring the leaders.

Shankara traveled to Mahishmati to debate with MandanaMishra on the importance of knowledge. After being defeated MandanaMishra becomes Shankaras disciple and becomes “Sureshwaracharaya”. Shankara gives him the most critical responsibility of managing the southern center. Let's not forget Shankara was from the South & the South definitely will have huge importance to Shankara. Getting Sureshwara acharya to head the Southern center not only speaks about Shankara’s confidence but also the respect he had for his expertise & experience. One may also wonder if Shankara had to go all the way to Mahishmati, just to find a suitable disciple or team member

We often see acquisitions failing, especially those between competition. Here is a perfect example of a young startup, beating the competition & getting the competing leader to own the most critical piece of the vision.? The only parallel could be in Acharya Chanakya, convincing Amatya rakshasa to be the minister for Chandragupta mourya.

His disciples included Padmapada, another young scholar & one who was blessed, Totaka, who was loyal and served Shankara like none & Hastamalaka who became normal with the grace of Shankara.?

Is essential for the Entrepreneur to construct his core team. All the Effort in team building is totally worth it and might be the difference between expectation and the actual result.? Further having a core team with a diverse mix of profiles ensures diversity in terms of thoughts. Shankaracharya is a great example for entrepreneurs wanting to build a great & diverse team.

His mastery in leveraging the skillsets & role allocation is equally commendable which we will see in our next chapter around “Segmenting organization & markets”

Summary

An entrepreneur should identify what is the best team required to execute the vision and go all out to build the team

An entrepreneur should focus on diversity in terms of hiring strategy & talent

An entrepreneur should have confidence & trust to identify and place the team's talent in the right positions