Book Review: Ready, Steady, Go! By Deepak
Mehra
Book: Ready, Steady, Go!
Publisher: Jaico Books
Author: Deepak Mehra
The
‘Stockdale Paradox’ refers to the observations presented by Admiral James Bond Stockdale, who was a prisoner of war for eight long years during the Vietnam
War. Despite regular torture and the miserable conditions in the prison camps,
Stockdale survived to tell his tale, while so many of his fellow-POW’s did not
make it. The ‘Paradox’ I referred to was the Admiral’s recounting of how it was
the most optimistic of soldiers who died in those camps, while the realists (or
pessimists, as they may be called in this firmly happiness-obsessed world) made
it. To quote Stockdale itself:
“They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to
be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then
they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and
Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again.
And they died of a broken heart.”
You'd expect James Bond to survive Vietnam, somehow. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons |
It sounds
counter-intuitive. Surely the ones who held on to hope would be the ones who
survived, while those who did not would lose the will to live. Conversely, as
Stockdale pointed out, he was still convinced he would get out, but he did not
try to deny or sugar-coat the brutality of the conditions he lived in. And this
healthy dose of realism is the reason why he and others like him survived eight
years in the ‘Hanoi
Hilton’, as it was called, and and
came out to go on to become a decorated Admiral and Vice-Presidential
candidate.
But why am
I writing about the Stockdale Paradox in a review of a self-help book for
corporate climbers?
Well,
because the modern corporation can be as much a prison of the mind as the Hanoi
Hilton was for the body and souls of its unfortunate guests. Inflicting
needless torture, denying nourishment and periods of isolation were how the
North Vietnamese tried to break down the resolve of the soldiers who fell into
their hands, and if you have spent much time in an Indian corporate, your brain
might find the proliferation of pointless and illogical work and lack of tasks
requiring actual creative thinking and application of mind to be not very
different.
And because
Ready, Steady, Go! is the Jim
Stockdale of Corporate self-help books.
Self-help books
A typical
corporate self-help book is page after page of relentless optimism. Cheerily
the book’s cover promises to ‘empower’ you, the reader, to ‘change your career
trajectory’ and ‘unleash your potential’, as though it were a dog that just
needed to be let loose upon the world. This is followed by a lot of philosophical
verbosity of a fluffy, light-on-substance variety, invented anecdotes that
appear to have gone through a protracted hostile divorce from reality and then
a series of motivational quotes by CEO’s who are at least twenty years removed
in terms of careers than the readers of these books.
But this one is different
None of
that for Ready, Steady, Go! Mr.
Mehra’s work is grounded in realism, its tenets firmly practical, readily
implementable and, as far as I can tell from my own experience in Banking,
entirely valid. No ‘corporate gas’ or philosophical murmurings here. Ready, Steady, Go! is an
illusion-breaker, very down-to-earth, and reads like genuine advice being given
by an older, wiser professional to his juniors.
In short,
they won’t teach you this in B-school. Or in corporate trainings, motivational
seminars, personality development classes, spiritual meditation sessions and so
on.
What’s in it?
The title
is also used as the headings of the three separate sections of the book.
Ready is the first section, and deals with helpful
tips for making the transition from academics to corporate life. From dress
codes to the importance of maintaining a clean desk, from managing your
immediate superior to minding your body language, this part of the book tries
to inject a healthy dose of reality into the lives of young white-collar
employees.
Steady, the second section, deals with the pointers
for making a mid-level employee able to maintain his standing and continue to
make forward progress up the career ladder. The importance of keeping your
personal and office lives separate, of being not only working hard, but being
seen to do so, of needing to always keep your game face on, is consistently
emphasised here.
Go! Is the final section of the book, and tries to
take the reader through the essential characteristics for rising above the
mid-level and breaking into upper management. Here Mr. Mehra speaks about the
importance of being known to your superiors, focussing on return on investment,
creating a positive work environment, embracing the solitude that comes with
being at the top of the corporate pyramid.
Decoding the Corporation
There are,
in my opinion – and I have had a fairly long corporate career that was
successful by most metrics to back it up – two ways to survive corporate India.
One is to
become a cultist – to actually believe you are doing something significant,
that every situation you face is a life-and-death one, and to do what it takes
to rise up in the cult. If that means sacrificing others –or yourself - at the
altar of corporate greed, you will do it, fully believing that what you do is
holy and just. Unfortunately, like most cultists, only the one’s at the very
top actually get anything out of it, and they are jealous of their privileges.
The other
is to become a cynic, detaching your personal opinions - even your innate
sensibilities – from your workplace, wearing a slick mask for the ten or twelve
hours you spend in the workplace, and allowing it to come off when you get
home, hopefully in time to retain your sanity.
Ready, Steady, Go! has the potential to be an invaluable tool
for those of us in the second category. It is crisply written – each point gets
not more than three to five pages – and clearly expressed. Anecdotes appear to
be realistic and as I have said before, the author has avoided coming across as
a empty talker.
Some of the
suggestions in the book will appear trivial – waking up on time, organising
your calendar, embracing being ‘boring’ – but far too many people seem ignorant
of them.
Perhaps a
weakness of the book could be it’s orientation towards the non-creative
industries; the inherent biases towards outward appearances in firms operating
in advertising and media-related industries would make Ready, Steady, Go! rather out-of-place over there.
Would recommend this for every irrationally exuberant youngster who is embarking on corporate life.
Would recommend this for every irrationally exuberant youngster who is embarking on corporate life.
The Author
Deepak
Mehra is a banker of long standing, having worked with Commercial bank of Dubai
and Credit Suisse among others, in a long career. This makes him uniquely able
to understand the realities of working in financial services, which is one of
the dominant sectors in the world today.
Links
Available here
on Amazon
Thought-provoking review though it doesn't make me want to read the book. Maybe because I'm not in the banking industry and have experience in both creative and non-creative industries. I found your preface story and opinions at the end more interesting in fact and debatable. I don't necessarily agree but they do apply inversely or directly to my experiences.
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