Some people leave their mark wherever they go and whoever they meet, and that’s got nothing to do with their professional status in an organization. So, when the Managing Director, Ericsson Global Services India and TEDx keynote speaker, Amitabh Ray, came up with his motivational book, The Second Arrow, many of his admirers rushed to grab a copy of it.
What is unique about Ray is that his personality has ceased to be defined by the boundaries of his professional career. When it comes to inspiring and encouraging people, he is larger than life. His pleasant attitude, subtle way of communication makes him stand apart from other leaders, and motivational speakers.
Admired for his vision and leadership, Ray always inspired people with his storytelling wherever he went. Those were mostly his personal experiences, failures and achievements which he translated into lessons, narrated with touching humility and reaching out to as many people as he could.
This cover story brings out his personal and professional journey that he recently penned down in his book for readers across the board, and for professionals in particular, to understand the real issues that one encounters in their careers. Now, this might sound unusual, but his is a journey of success without looking for it. While most successful people had a set of goals that they chased, Ray did not channelise his energies towards winning, but gave his best in whatever he did, fully aware that failures were a part of one’s professional journey. And that is what helped him stay grounded in reality, undeterred by failures and not carried away by success. He worked hard, followed his vision, and instinct and success happened.
Experience in Black and White
Ray’s inimitable style of storytelling led to lot of people asking him to pen down his experience, so that a larger audience could benefit from his motivational talks.
Sharing his journey with Insights Success, Ray said, “I started life in a very humble way. Without setting myself any specific goal, when I joined the IT industry. Many people assign goals for themselves like – I want to be there in five years. But for those who are humble and start a business, they have no such milestones; but just deliver their best each day, one day at a time.”
“I am fortunate to have worked with three centurion companies. I have seen the best practices, at the same time I have noticed the baggage that many talented young people carry to the industry. They are so focused to achieve certain things that they get lost. They come from very good institutes and have the attitude – I have worked so hard since school to crack the IIT, so I am smart. They are indeed smart, but you cannot always be successful in life. It is a mixed bag,” he added.
Ray observed that many cannot reach their true potential because they are focused only on what they want.
“My overall message in the book is – Don’t try to chase success. Failure is part of success. If you are continuously chasing success, then you get dejected if you fail,” asserted the modest leader.
Quoting Buddha in the final chapter, Ray sends a very strong message to this highly competitive world – Every problem in life hits you as an arrow, he said, there is always a second arrow and that is, how you react.
A Not-so-Great Start
Ray’s initial days of his career were anything but great. However, with his determination and inherent humility, he chose to move on with a better version of himself each time that life threw a challenge at him.
“I was in a tough situation in the organisation. I performed badly and had indifferent managers who did not support me. That was the first arrow. One way is to hit back and the other, is believing in yourself. After the initial period of struggle, I eventually got a role in the organization where I could prove myself. I was a poor performer one year, and the next year I was the highest rated employee,” he shared.
His parents and a teacher have been his motivation, who taught him values and never to give up in the face of any adversity.
The Humble Beginnings
Ray’s humble beginnings and rise to success prompted him to publish The Second Arrow, spurred by the encouragement of his friends and colleagues who knew him for long.
With his usual candidness, he spoke about his career, saying; “I have had a rather unconventional journey in the corporate world. I did not have an elite education; I was not even an engineer nor had the necessary skills to even dream of being part of the IT industry. Of course, I picked up coding skills and acquired an MBA from a not so well-known institute in remote Odisha.
“I was fortunate to have an excellent mentor, Prof Samir Sadhukhan, of IIM Calcutta, who inspired me to become a technology professional with an MBA. I wanted to share my story with young people; to tell them about my journey through all the levels of an organization – from the junior-most employee to a board member, of never giving up, and of staying focused on taking each day at a time and making it the best day of my life”.
Magnetic Leader
Ray joined Ericsson as Vice President and Head of Consulting and Systems Integration in 2010. His visionary leadership and organizational skills elevated him to the position of MD in 2014. Ericsson is the world’s leading telecommunication company in the industry providing equipment, software, and services. He heads the global service centres in India, China, Mexico, and Romania. His efficiency in delivering competitive advantage to Ericsson and its customers have been his USP.
Ericsson India has the maximum number of employees and has been awarded as one of the 100 Best Workplaces in India by the Great Place to Work Institute.
The Second Arrow is What Makes You
Coming back to his book, the second arrow is an ancient Buddhist parable that Ray has used to convey the message in his debut publication. “When we suffer a misfortune, it is life
shooting the first arrow at you. Being hit by the first arrow is painful, we cannot control it. The second arrow is how we respond to the situation, to our suffering; that is something we can control. Like the pandemic was the first arrow, how we united to fight it was the second arrow, our reaction to the sufferings,” said Ray.
The book is about his life’s lessons. Lessons that he learnt living through his corporate journey. “As I keep saying it is about understanding how important it is to be happy giving your best to any job that comes to you. I always say that it is about the outcome I deliver, not the income I earn. The most important thing I realized is that life is about choosing to do the right things and not always doing things right. I make a clear distinction between the two,” he added. Doing things right could mean following processes, being faithful to the rulebook, but doing the right things mean doing what we feel is right, even though at times it might not be what the HR manual says. “Let us not forget that compassion is the cornerstone of any management or leadership role, it is the lodestone that directs our moral compass,” affirmed Ray.
A Forceful Message
Through his book, Ray wants to convey a simple yet powerful message – failures happen when one chases winning with a single-minded intensity.
“I want to tell my readers that happiness is about giving your very best to every job that comes to you. If happiness is your objective, then success will be a default by-product,” he said. It is a simple formula – if you do the best job of every task, you will automatically get the next assignment. Just keep repeating the same recipe – each day at a time.
If one is obsessed with winning and sets career milestones, then that will be distractions from giving your best.
“I have always thought of what is good for the organization, instead of what is good for me. I have taken up projects, often those which were given up by others, because those were critical for the success of the organization. I never thought what would happen to my career if I failed,” he stated.
Need to Reform the Education System
Ray finds the education system in India leaves a lot to be desired, in the sense that students are not trained to handle failure.
“Many students commit suicide, and in most of these cases they failed to handle failures in school. To be a good student in school and college you need to be rather selfish. You need to be a smart student, compete with other students, and score better than the rest of the class to be on the top. It is all about individual skills,” he said.
“When we enter the corporate world, we find it is about collaboration, teamwork, leadership, etc. Our schools and colleges do not teach us life skills, the ones we need to survive and do well in our workplaces. I wish that I learnt at my school or in college how to articulate my thoughts, be good in communication, make impactful presentation, contribute to teams,” he opined.
Ray observed that our curriculum also needs to adapt faster to a highly dynamic environment where technologies are changing at laser speed. “We need to teach students to be creative, to
be critical thinkers, to become problem solvers and to communicate effectively. These are skills that will help us to always stay relevant even when most of our jobs will be automated”.
He regretted that our current system tests our memory capacity, instead we need to learn how to learn. This is important as we must understand the big shifts taking place in technology, in business, in industry, in society. “We are in the age of continuous learning and therefore we must master the art and science of learning how to learn,” said Ray.
Education should be about making students curious about the world around them, about constantly asking the right questions, about learning how to break down problems to their core and then trying to find answers to each part of the problem. If learning is connected to imparting skills that students will use to stay relevant in this fast-changing world, then it will be useful.
“As a society, we need huge change in education system and values. The US has maximum number of start-ups because they are less affected by failures. We, as a society, do not accept failures. Suicide is the second largest reason for death after heart attack. Most of these people could not handle some or the other failure in life. We must give moral support to those who need it. Abroad there is a subject in school – It is okay to fail. We don’t take risks because we fear failure,” Ray argued.
His advice to the youth – Take care of your mental health. I ask young people to enjoy what they have.
Reaching out to Help
It is in his nature to try to do whatever he can for people, and it gives him solace. Coaching, guiding students gives him lot of strength and his feel-good comes from that. He connects with students and that inspires him even more. Each interaction with young people, he feels is an amazing learning experience and helps him to stay in tune with what today’s generations are thinking.
Technology and Creativity
Ray felt that technology and creativity were connected dots. “We are working to use technology to increase productivity and efficiency in agriculture in a sustainable manner. We have programs to connect every school, and leverage technology to deliver remote healthcare; this is technology for good,” he emphasised that more such initiatives are needed to help people and create a better world.
Observations of the Present and Vision for the Future
Talking about the future, Ray said that it came even before we could think about it. The pandemic struck us with a sledgehammer, catching most of us unprepared. It triggered a massive wave of digital transformation, crushing years of technological advancements into months; the pandemic also made us realize the fragility of our lives.
No organization, no leader was prepared for something as overwhelming as this crisis, there was no playbook, or a template of response for this once-in-a-century event.
“Yet, we fought back together and succeeded. We understood the importance of being compassionate. Companies prioritized health, safety, and wellness of employees above
everything else. Societies rallied around and stepped in; volunteerism became the norm. Yet, we could maintain our commitments to our clients. Our deliveries did not falter despite working from anywhere,” he said.
What also struck him was the huge inequalities exposed by the pandemic wherein the rich became richer, the poor became impoverished, underprivileged students dropped out of schools and colleges as education went online. They were left out of the system because they could not afford connectivity or devices. Rich nations cornered vaccines.
“Unless we tackle these inequalities, future of the world will be at stake. We must address these issues with a strong sense of purpose. Our purpose today must have a clear human focus, and we cannot go wrong with it. This crisis is a key leadership moment for all of us to help others. This is a time when we must illustrate the belief that business is a force for good during crisis. We have all spoken of lofty ideas and visions, it is time to show how we walk the talk,” he asserted.
Passionate about the environment as well, Ray noted that we see breakthrough technologies in energy storage, in the shift from hydrocarbons to renewables, each worth trillions of dollars in economic value and at the same time a step towards a cleaner planet. He added that food loss and waste were responsible for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and nearly 30% of the world’s agricultural land was currently occupied to produce food that was ultimately never consumed; yet the world was getting hungrier. Global food prices rose close to 20% between January 2020-January 2021. “A purpose would be to achieve zero waste and hunger. This should be our audacious aspiration,” Ray said.
Half of India do not have access to Internet connectivity and therefore denied the benefits of a digital economy. Providing connectivity from new technologies like 5G can empower people, raise living standards and help combating poverty.
“It is time to use purpose to defeat the evils of inequality. Above all, we must win this battle together, because the challenges are common to every one of us who live in this blue dot,” Ray said signing off.
People like Ray are rare, and we are sure that you too have drawn some inspiration from him and his book like many others did. Do not forget to grab that copy of The Second Arrow!
