Corner stones

Business and management books are destined to be boring. Most authors would claim they are super interesting, though. But a big chunk of such works are a tedious read and they all look, feel and read the same and, without fail, they would end up stating the obvious.

Very few books stand out in the crowd. Inside the C-Suite: 21 Lessons from Top Management to Get Your Way in Business and in Life by Jayaram Easwaran, alumnus of IIM Bangalore and director at Casa Blanka India Consulting, belongs to this rare breed.

One of the most striking features of Easwaran’s narrative is it doesn’t state the obvious. It respects the intelligence of the reader, and the narrative’s simplicity makes it easy to read, comprehend and put into practice.

Easwaran has more than three decades of experience in leading companies such as Aricent Technologies, Punj Lloyd, Sutherland Global Services and Eicher. He has put this wealth of boardroom experience in all these instances to make a case for a particular C-suite doctrine.

Evidently, the author believes in the power of simple, aphoristic writing to drive home the point. Sample this: introducing the book, the author says there are four kinds of people in every organisation. The first: the insecure ones; they often compete with their subordinates. Then the political beings. They forever compete with their superiors. Next is the mature folk: They compete with their peers. And, lastly, the true leaders who compete with themselves. The book has plenty of such terse, insightful maxims.

Easwaran blends the personal with the professional so deftly that most chapters may leave the readers, especially managers and other C-suite aspirants with a startling sense of déjà vu. The book reads like an anthology of short stories. And you come across a series of familiar characters who you instantly connect with — entrepreneurs, technicians, managers, investors, analysts — and most instances that Easwaran sketches out are also familiar — from accepting a job offer to taking bold business decisions to managing crises. Each ‘secret’ is explained through a story, detailing the underlying C-suite philosophy in simple and elegant prose.

Easwaran’s solutions are in no way overtly pragmatic. There are many hard choices. But what makes these choices unique and meaningful are not just their (positive) outcomes but the ethical, all-encompassing ways in which the author presents these choices.

The author does not want the C-suite aspirant to go the necessary-evil way. On the contrary, he throws open to the reader a world of magnanimity, compassion, care and ethics which can take them to the corner office, sooner or later, on the back of their hard work and personal integrity.

On that note, this small volume (a little over 180 pages), which is neatly edited and packaged, is a philosophical handbook for managers, students of business management, C-suite holders and wannabes, and anyone who’s interested in the discipline of business leadership. The book can easily connect with the readers, even without the many sweet-sounding endorsement lines that decorate the beginning of the book.

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