MANTRAS FOR SUCCESS: INDIA'S GREATEST CEOs TELL YOU HOW TO WIN

by Suhel Seth, Sunny Sen

In Mantras for Success, India’s finest CEOs and business leaders tell you what it takes to be successful.They take you to the heart of their enormous businesses and tell you how they built these corporations and grew them to their present standards of excellence. These icons of business will show you how to find the keys to greatness, unlock the secrets of their ability to innovate, break the conventions, overcome challenges and generate strategies. Many of them have a lot of qualities in common, and all of them have a number of abilities that set them apart as the best. They talk candidly and clearly about these aspects of their life and work, and the elusive ‘x-factor’ needed to win.

This is a book that is intended for the general reader who wants to build a successful career and life, but it will specifically benefit those who are involved in business and management—from trainees to CEOs.

Genres: India, Business

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Hemant Malankar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got this book with great expectations. However, I was disappointed with the writing style and approach of the author. Introduction part itself was too voluminous. When I started reading about Tata, Ambani, Birla; it could not hold the grip to read further. The idea was excellent i.e. to present India’s top most CEO and their views. It could have been great learning had it been written is some different style.

[Neha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book to read by young readers but has become outdated

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

What do Indian business leaders, working in India, believe are the necessary ingredients for success? Answering that question motivated Suhel Seth (with Sunny Sen) to interview some two dozen top executives from finance, commodities, real estate, and IT. Ideally, each leader would distill their experiences into several 'mantras' of workable advice for the would-be tycoon.

Seth's execution was left wanting. The writing is uninspired, the structure unconvincing (Seth spends 18 pages in the introduction providing backgrounders on each interviewee, despite the leader-specific chapters also featuring extensive bio sections), and the mantras highlighted often hollow. There are some real gems, such as Coca Cola's Atul Singh sharing that he sets 10-year 'vision maps' for both professional AND personal goals, but these were often crowded out by stale platitudes like "No dream is too big" (Sunil Mittal), "Go with the flow and never challenge the laws of nature" (Kishore Biyani), or Aditya Puri's "Work hard and live life honestly, leaving the rest to God." I would've liked to see more actual wisdom, like that embodied in statements from Aditya Ghosh and Pawan Munjal.

If the goal was to share some glimpse of best practices for being successful at business in India, it's unclear that goal was achieved. There were some illuminating anecdotes, many useless anecdotes, and a lot of praise heaped on Seth's heroes in this feel-good collection. I sincerely wish I had learned more about the difficulties of conducting business in India, what is unique about business in India versus elsewhere, and which lessons can be articulated from the failures, setbacks, and unanticipated consequences which are par for the course.

[Ganesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

We have heard, read and admired many great CEOs, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, but Indian business houses hardly found the same level of adulation. In that sense, I found it fascinating to read about the unique challenges faced by many of the Indian CEOs who made it big, and how they overcame them. The author has made each story short and easily consumable, so he had me thoroughly engrossed.

What I didn't like though was the 'Mantras' part. Most of the time it seemed forced and out of place in an otherwise coherent piece. Another qualm of mine was that he chose to include characters with a dubious record, such as the Ambanis and K.P.Singh. While I am not contesting the point that they took their respective businesses to great heights, the way they chose to do it had a lot of question marks and it is only fair to expect the author to mention that at the very least

Overall I found it well researched and well written. Four stars.

[Ramaswamy N · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very average book .... reads like an aggregation of articles from various Biz Dailies/Magazines.