The billionaire Gautam Adani, India’s second richest person and Chairman of Adani groups speaking at YPO ( Young presidents’ Organisations) Bombay chapter event this week shared five mantras for young Indian entrepreneurs . He shared his journey talking about his ups and downs. He talked about how his company faced all the challenges when Hindenburg’s report shook them and how they overcame that tornado of report. Gathering all his learnings and experiences of his 40 years long journey, he laid out five mantras for young CEOs and entrepreneur. Let’s look at them one by one:
Table of Contents
Be Resilient
“All success will come with his challenges and challengers. The greater your success, the bigger you will be as a target and the true measure of your success will not be in your achievements but in your ability to rise through adversities that will come with your achievements. Every fall comes with its pain but every rise comes with its gain. This gain is called resilience. In the game of resilience, your mind will be both the battleground and the weapon.
Let me elaborate with the recent example of the shorting that Adani group had to go through. As most of you know, last year on 24th January we were subject to massive attack by US short-seller. The objective was not just to destabilise us but also to politically defame India’s governance practices. Despite the efforts to shake our foundations, we stood firm and not just safeguarding our reputation but also ensuring we remained focused on our operations.
While there were several learnings, this episode also gives us confidence in our own resilience. Our recovery highlights the essence of bouncing back stronger, symbolising the spirit of rising after every fall”, Mr. Adani said.
Embrace complexities better than others
“We live in a complex world and it is easy to be sold on a theory of simplicity. While simplicity may be the goal, it is the ability to manage the complexity that will differentiate you and can make you the one that can navigate the deep waters as against those remains on the shallow shores.
Every business that I have built has been far more difficult than I had anticipated and over the years I have become wiser in my belief that only if I’m able to embrace complexity better than others I will be able to differentiate, be it in building the largest renewable energy park in a record time and spread over 750 square kilometres to generate 30 Gigawatts of green energy or taking on the world’s complex and a largest slum redevelopment project at Dharavi, Mumbai. Our commitment to projects like this are just recent examples”, said Mr. Adani.
Local Models
“The dynamic model of a fast growing nation like ours it requires a flexible approach that is rooted in our local models as against models that often emphasised on specialisations and core competencies. The crux of a strategic differentiation often lies in recognising the limitation of a bookish knowledge and a western centric models. While it is important to source ideas from books and literature, keep in mind that these are after all opinions of brilliant storytellers with a great influence.
 In our case, leveraging strategic adjacencies has been a key to our corporate evolution enabling a seamless transitions across a spectrum of industries. Starting with a coal trading and ambition guided us towards support development. This foundational move not only expanded our operational capabilities but also sought as a spring broad into the power generations sector. Recognising the inter-connection of these sectors, we ventured into power transmissions. Subsequently leading to our expansion into the power distribution networks.Â
The progressions did not stop there, we continue further into power intensive industries and cutting edge technology sectors including data centres and diversified our energy portfolio int LPG and LNG businesses and augmenting our capabilities by building terminal at our ports”, Mr. Adani said.
Remain strong in your conviction
In the fourth mantra, Mr. Adani said, ” resilience often requires the ability to withstand criticism. The higher your rise the more you will need to prepare yourself to handle criticism. But instead of allowing it to deter progress, you must be willing to misunderstood and yet stay resilient. Therefore, it is about cultivating at an inner strength that allows you to remain strong in your conviction even in the face of severe opposition.Â
An example of this was our Carmichael coal mine project in Australia. The rational to go to Australia was to get access to a better quality coal that India needed to light up millions of homes. Even in a country known for its massive coal exports, we faced formidable opposition from multiple groups that did not want to see us succeed and continuously targeted our reputation. Some of it was political, some was ideological and some was just vindictive yet it was my conviction in the project’s critical role in augmenting India’s energy security that draw my ambitions and willingness to take the criticism.Â
For me, it was a testimony to the commitment of the Adani’s group to take India forward in energy security ambitions. A pledge to ensure that no Indian is left in the dark.”
Stay Humble
“Stay humble. Your own success will push back on your humility but the humility is the biggest differentiator you can build. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself a little less. True leadership lies in acknowledging your achievements without letting them overshadow the value of self awareness. My dear friends as I wrap let me paint a picture in your mind.Â
Imagine for a moment, standing at shore of vast ocean your dreams on the far shore across the waters. The waters are turbulent, the journey is uncleared yet here you are ready to build a bridge to cross it that is leadership and that’s the spirit that defines each and everyone of you here today. As a fellow entrepreneur, I can only tell you that in the days to come, try to never be in a situation where you are did not build and did not explore the new source. This is the way lasting legacies are built. I wish you all the very best as you are reshaping our ‘Matribhoomi’ . The new India awaits you.Â
Thank you, Jai Hind.”
These were some valuable insights that Mr. Adani shared during his speech at YPO. You can watch his full speech by clicking on the below video.
