“With sheer consciousness and responsible action, businesses can not only ride the pandemic storm but rise above it,” said Sadhguru as he launched the first-ever online session of “Isha Insight: The DNA of Success”, a three-day leadership intensive programme that explores what it takes to lead through uncertainty. For the past eight years, Isha INSIGHT has been running as a unique onsite leadership intensive programme for CEOs/CXOs, exploring the science of scaling up one’s business and one’s own self as a leader.
At a time when the disruption caused by Covid-19 is so profound that thousands of businesses have shut down, the first day was marked by topical sessions with a plethora of insights from the founder of Isha Foundation and BigBasket CEO Hari Menon. To examine practical solutions and help businesses hit by the global pandemic, this leadership programme brought together over 300 business leaders and top CEOs from nearly 30 different industries.
Sadhguru started off the programme by addressing the participants LIVE from the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences in Tennessee. The mystic inspired the participants, saying: “Human beings have to realise that only with conscious and responsible action can we rise through this pandemic.”
Offering invaluable insights, Sadhguru said, “As a leader, you need insight. You can get all the people who know the subject and do the business. Insight will happen when you see something not necessarily in the logical perspective of the data in your mind. For this, you have to bring Clarity of Perception.”
He encouraged the participants to continue to rise above the challenges presented by the pandemic and the economic fallout. “You must be behind the wheel, putting your shoulder to the wheel, so that it goes faster and creates possibilities. If you’re on the other side of the wheel, you’ll get crushed.”
Sadhguru’s session was followed by an honest interaction between BS Nagesh, Founder, TRRAIN, and the CEO of BigBasket, Hari Menon. According to Menon, his company lost 80 percent of their workforce within two days of the nationwide lockdown announced earlier this year in March, but with the sheer resilience of the team to bounce back, the organisation hired 12,300 people in 16 days to turn their fortunes around.
“After losing 80% of the workforce for two days we were really dumbstruck as orders poured in and we hired 12300 people in 16 days- through this we demonstrated the power of resilience,” Hari Menon said, adding that communication is “the only way to solve every problem is to be there.”
He further stressed on the importance of being a learning organisation. “An organisation needs to be a learning organization and the first thing we did at BigBasket was set up an excellent training and innovation function. Learning elements of culture and managing people is more critical than being a technocrat and understanding technology, since that can be outsourced as long as you know where your organisation is headed,” Menon added.
The second day of the three-day Isha INSIGHT programme will see Sharad Sharma, Co-Founder, iSPIRT Foundation/Product Nation about “Transforming Healthcare in India and emerging opportunities”. In addition, Varun Berry, Managing Director, Britannia Industries, will be in conversation with Ajay Kaul, Former CEO, Jubilant FoodWorks. The session will see Berry sharing his insight on focusing on the core in an uncertain environment.
Isha Leadership Academy, part of the Isha Foundation set up by Sadhguru, has been established with the intention of providing the highest quality of leadership education in India. The Academy has been conducting leadership forums focused on scaling up, leadership, talent management and innovation with C-level attendees.
In recent years, this programme has also featured prominent business leaders and industry experts including Padma Bhushan recipient Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, industrialist Ratan Tata, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy and KV Kamath, the former chief of the New Development Bank of BRICS countries.