The Hindu Business Line : <I> Being a success </I>

Success formulas have been dominating writings on management for as long as one can remember. Google search engine lists 111 million items for books on ways of being successful! The contents of the writings are as hackneyed as the theme itself.

Pick up any article or book at random, and you are sure to be treated to the familiar fare: Discussion of personality traits such as self-motivation, self-confidence, loving what one does and being passionate about it, and the ability to grab the opportunity at the very first knock and to convert failures into stepping stones for success.

The latest book, Success Built to Last, to be launched shortly by Wharton School Publishing also covers oft-trodden territory (as far as can be divined from the interview with the authors excerpted on the School Web site), except that their tenuous model whereby success is derived from action based on thought built upon meaning comes close to the sequence of dream, thought and action on which President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has been predicating achievement. Only, he does it coherently and lucidly unlike the authors.

Prescriptions for success usually tend to gloss over the `affects' (to borrow a term from sociology) of two factors.

The first is perseverance against odds in what one believes in, whether a cause or a product of one's own creative endeavour. Robert Bruce is a classic example. Contrariwise, a quitter belongs to the dustbin of history.

The second is the role played by Dame Luck. There are four categories favoured by her: One, persons of the ilk of George Byron (later Lord) who woke up one morning and found himself famous. Second, those who are unremarkable and even bereft of ordinary talents but whom she makes resoundingly successful for her own mysterious reasons.

The third, those who hit the jackpot. And the fourth, those who are at the right place, at the right time, with the right product, service or solution — like Walkman!

B. S. RAGHAVAN