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The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.

March - 2012 - issue > Management

They decided to take a BOW

Elango R
Chief Human Resources Officer-Mphasis
Monday, March 5, 2012
Elango R
A colleague once asked me- "What is the sure shot way of achieving Success by design and not by dumb luck?"

A few months ago, I would have given a flippant answer and moved on, but now, having authored a best selling book on making success happen, I knew my reply would carry weight. Luckily, I had answered that question in "You Don’t Need a Godfather" (YDNAG). The answer, simply - "Play to fail"

What you hear most often is "Play to your strengths" or "play to win" – then why on earth would I suggest anyone to play to fail? Doesn’t playing to our strengths enable us to stick to our comfort zone and hence guarantee success? True, but it also guarantees is limited success and growth.

A gym instructor explained this well to me. If you were to only exercise your upper body and not work on your lower body you will land up looking like a turnip! But isn’t that what most of us do - we start our careers, get successful and then continue doing what we are good at. Then we hit a glass ceiling, don’t get that coveted promotion or worse get fired because we didn’t adapt.

In YDNAG, I dedicate a full chapter to embracing failure, moving out of your comfort zone and expanding your skill set. The key takeaway - BOW to failure:


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