“The 21st century is about moving business leadership from Profit to Purpose,” Sadhguru said while kickstarting Isha Leadership Academy’s business leadership programme — “Isha Insight: The DNA of Success.”
The four-day programme, designed by Sadhguru to help entrepreneurs prepare for the next stage of their leadership journey, was attended by entrepreneurs, CEOs and CxOs from 20 countries across the world.
Talking about having a clear purpose in business, the spiritual leader told the participants, “The most important thing is to cultivate a burning desire in your heart. If this occurs, you will notice that plans will come a plenty.”
Advising the participants not to become fixated on their plans, Sadhguru said that "plans are only tools to execute the purpose. How many lives you've changed, how far you've reached... these are the factors that will determine your success. You must show a purpose larger than yourself."
Sadhguru said, “If you're a conscious human being you’ll never have a purpose of your own. Your purpose cannot be anything different from the fundamental purpose of life itself.”
The four-day Isha Insight themed on “Reimagining business in this decade of accelerated change” saw riveting real life success stories from business leaders.
On Day 1, Nithin Kamath, the Founder and CEO of Zerodha, India's largest stock broker, spoke about the company's "unconventional" journey.
“You can be a business that lets the product do the talking, that thinks about giving back. A conscious business. I think India needs that. India needs a lot of big businesses which are conscious about what is happening around them,” the 41-year-old entrepreneur said.
On Day 2 of Isha Insight, Dr. RS Sodhi, Managing Director of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation, which owns the Amul brand, spoke about the ideals taught by founder Dr. Verghese Kurien, also known as the ‘Father of the White Revolution’ in India. “Value for many, value for money. How passionately you adhere to your value systems and business objectives will determine the success of your business,” said Sodhi.
"Whatever value system we have, it was instilled in us by our founders. When I say value for many, I mean providing a very stable price to the millions of farmers who produce milk day after day, so they are encouraged to invest more, produce more, grow more, and similarly provide the best-made food products," Sodhi said.
Dr Pawan Goenka, Chairperson of Indian National Space Promotion Authorization Centre (In-Space), on Day 3 of the leadership programme taught participants the value of humility and the need to always be on “learning mode”.
“You have to learn and to learn, you must have humility. Unfortunately, there are too many people who think, 'I know it all'. Nobody knows it all. Everybody has to be in a learning mode no matter how high you are,” the former Managing Director of Mahindra & Mahindra stressed.
On Day 4 of Isha Insight, Isha Vidhya team shared its fulfilling journey from being a start-up in 2006 to being 10 schools strong, educating students in rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh as a case study for participants of the leadership programme.
Sadhguru has always stressed that businesses need to be transformed and become more inclusive. To present this inclusive approach, a case study of Isha Vidhya schools was presented. Isha Vidhya's 10 English-medium schools in rural Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh use innovative methods of teaching for the overall development and blossoming of each student.
Sharing the journey of Isha Vidhya, Vinod Hari, Project Director, Isha Education shared, “For the first 10 years of Isha Vidhya, we ran like a start-up. Funds were difficult to find, we had difficulty finding, training and retaining teachers to build the infrastructure.” “Today we run 10 rural schools. We have 9,330 children and 49% of them are girls. 62% of these children are on full scholarship, the rest pay a very nominal fee,” he added.
The business leadership programme aimed at empowering the entrepreneurs also saw participation from 30 Resource Leaders, all veterans in their respective fields with over 30 years of experience.
Sadhguru established the Isha Leadership Academy over a decade ago with the goal of providing the highest quality leadership education by merging external skill sets with wellbeing techniques. Delving into the science of business growth, Isha Insight was founded to assist entrepreneurs in navigating a fast changing market. The program provides attendees with an exclusive opportunity to evaluate their journey through the experiential lens of successful leaders.
