Irrationally Passionate
Jason
Kothari
The
Book
The
book is the story of the life of Jason Kothari, an autobiography if you will.
Jason Kothari is a prominent Indian Business Leader, a professional manager
plus an entrepreneur. He is currently the CEO of Emaar, and has in the past
held prominent roles as former CEO of
Freecharge, Housing.com, and Snapdeal. He is also the former CEO of the USA
based Valiant Entertainment, which deserves a special mention inasmuch as
Valiant is a success story that Jason scripted from literally the dustbin; a
once-great corporation with a millions-strong revenue history, and once-strong
valuations, but now up for sale – which he bid for, and won, while a kid just
out of college, and with zero cash; yes – no money. And from there, Mr
Kothari crafted a success story that is stunner…
It
dives into exhaustive detail of each of his professional tenures, with generous
details of his personal life as well. Jason Kothari was educated throughout,
right till college {Wharton}, from the USA, and that is also where he started
his professional career. The book tells a remarkable story of an Indian who
came back to India, after a highly successful business in the USA, exiting it
and starting in India; the kind of story we don’t hear a lot about. That is
what makes this book a double delight, to be honest. And that is a powerful
learning – in your job, always ask yourself, are you contributing? If not, take
the call!
Why
Did I Pick It Up
This
deserves a special mention – my trigger for reading it. The book cover itself
states – My turnaround from Rebel to Entrepreneur. And then there was Karan
Johar’s endorsement, more than the person endorsing, it was the words used- “One
of the most riveting, raw, authentic, and insightful stories of an entrepreneur
I have ever come across”. Well, after reading it, there is for sure no doubt in
my mind, that this description is valid in every word. This is an incredible
story, and a must read.
Is
it just a personal-interest book?
Far
from it; while the personal story is honestly riveting, and worth a read for
that reason alone – the best and biggest part of the book is the focus on the
professional decisions, insights, strategies, tactics, thought-process,
organizational processes and responses, multi-functional strategic learnings as
well as defined tactical response learnings to be had. To put it very simply,
this is a Leadership Training Manual disguised as, or rather combined with, a
personal autobiography. The managerial and leadership learnings are there quite
literally on every page, and this is not a book that one would read and either
forget or not read again. You will read it again and again, for the Leadership
and strategic decisions and the strategies employed by Mr Kothari.
The
Analysis
I
can either focus on the personal aspects, or the professional ones – this is
just a review, after all and not a book summary. So, my choice is to drill into
the professional learnings that are to be had. The author has an engaging
writing or narrative style, that impresses one as honest, down to earth and
from the heart. The use of conceptual terms {aka Jargon} is kept to a minimal,
which is excellent, as new entrepreneurs can assimilate the contained
learnings.
First,
my personal take on one of the only touchy or controversial or harsh parts of
the book – the repeated layoffs Mr Kothari was forced to undertake. {Please
note my choice my words}. Mr Kothari is a troubleshooter; a Professional who
excels at turning around bad situations in organisations. Companies go to him
when they find themselves in a hole, and can find no way out. And he excels at
it; having done it myself at a department level many times, {on a much, much
smaller grade ^ 10!} – I can fully appreciate. I have never, ever sacked
anyone from any of my teams for any reason other than integrity. Even in the
worst of times.
I
would stick it out, fight tooth and nail with the Management, prefer to get
sacked myself than sack someone else as company didn’t have money. I could
never understand or appreciate why Companies resort to it; well, after reading
the inside story of the other side, I can empathise and appreciate. I still stand
by my actions – a Leaders’ first calling is to fight to save his team, period. Nothing
else matters, quite literally; to a Leader, a true Leader. Regardless of the
situation.
Yet
there does come a time when options run out; and in these – it is how you
handle it that matters. Be honest – and, Mr Kothari, I hope you are reading
this – the way you handled it is the only way, quite literally, to handle it. What
happens is, organisations hunt for scapegoats, sacking by underhanded methods
and unethical conduct, which is what I have faced in all such occasions,
bar one. And in that one situation – I did not have to fight to save my team;
the company did it in the way they handled the sackings. But, Mr Kothari, few
people are as transparent as you are. Special Kudos to you.
The
above is the first Leadership lesson of the book – managers manage – but
leaders lead teams. There are many, many others, as Mr Kothari has gone deep
into each business situation he sorted, leading companies from the brink of
closure, collapse to growth. This is a review, and I cannot go into details of
all; that is why I chose to highlight one – a rare quality today, that of
ethics, honesty, transparency and integrity in dealing with your people, your
teams. For the rest, each example, right from Housing.com to Snapdeal, is a
fascinating case study in Leadership.
Let
me quickly give one more small example – Snapdeal; a superb exemplary case
study in hard decision making basis solid logic, transparency, and on-point
business planning. The way in which he created 3 options – Grow, Sell to
Flipkart {a nearly done deal, as we all recall} and a third option. That is
one; the second is the restructuring exercise, and the way it was done, how
what why where the restructuring happened in detail is a learning you are not
likely to get any other place. My special favourite part is again from my
domain / experience : Logistics and SCM. I loved every bit of it, and specially
the realization that it was a cost-drainer; despite that the way Mr Kothari
went about it, protecting teams wherever possible, is simply educational.
Summary
I
could go on and on – the Valiant exercise, the way the assets were valued, the
legalities traced, contractual obligations studied; the resetting of the
business and operations, the GTM for Valiant, and more. Similarly for other
companies – but this is a review. Above the reader will find two opposite
implementations, and a strong restructuring exercise example as the glimpse
into the content of the book, which has all of this and much more. This is not
just an autobiography – it is a study book which teaches you the art of
situation analysis, making & implementing hard decisions, crafting a
strategy, its tactical implementation, and problem resolution. A must read for
all professionals!
Comments
Post a Comment