Good is not good enough

Every four years, there is a festival happening for sports lovers across the globe – The Olympics. And every four years, I see the Indian contingent winning the minimal tally of medals in the Olympics. I wonder what is it that is so wrong with Indians? We are a country of a billion and we are not able to win even handful of medals. I realize that we have good sports persons but here, good is not good enough.

                A recipe needs perfect ingredients and I believe it is the same for all things. A sports person needs talent, motivation, infrastructure, guidance, will and above all the perfect attitude. When all of this becomes available, then it will be the perfect time to ask “Why India is not winning medals in Olympics”. Till then, we have a good system and good athletes and we will continue not to win the Olympic medals. In this context, good is not good enough, what we need is only the best.

                Coming closer, the best Indian software brands we hear are Infosys, Wipro, TCS, etc. Sharing the same fate with the Indian Olympians, these brands pretty much live in the shadows of the Microsoft, Google, Apple, Oracle, etc. Drawing the analogy with Olympians, do we have what we need to succeed in software space? We have examples of Indians like Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai reaching US and now heading these very best companies. Being in software industry, I can advocate we have outstanding talent. It’s definitely not a talent issue. We are good, probably better. But, good is not good enough.

                I had read a beautiful definition of Leadership a few months back – “Leadership is driving people towards a goal while minimizing friction and maximizing fun” and another beautiful quote I have heard is “Attitude determines the altitude”. India is a relatively young country in current context, being independent since 1947, but it’s a grand, old phenomenon, which has seen the best of times. It has seen some exceptional times and witnessed some brilliant leaderships. We, as a country, are probably just going through the ageing process, accumulating the necessary ingredients for that perfect recipe, that perfect process, which will take us from ‘being good’ to ‘being best’ because good is just not good enough.