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We believe that we can do with people, who do not have experience in a particular role, but we cannot do with people who do not have basic competence. Absence of experience can be made up through training and on-the-job performance, but lack of basic competence can never be made up. We encourage - indeed, expect-each one of our people to have a sense of ownership in whatever they are doing. As a result, Reliance is run by thousands of owner-managers. We strengthen our organization, every day, bringing in the brightest talent. We firmly believe, the smarter our people, the better our organisation will perform. So, we surround ourselves with high performing people ! We firmly believe - Do not be afraid to recruit people who are 10 times brighter, or more intelligent, than you. This leads me to another important attribute for success as an entrepreneur - the necessity of dealing with people, in every walk of life, at a very human level, building and nurturing relationships, preserving one's humility, and never losing family and social values. It may surprise many of you to learn that, despite all my travel and exposure, I remain a vegetarian and a teetotaler, and I am a God-fearing individual. I often say, that more than my academic education, my biggest education was at home, from my loving mother and father, where I developed an abiding commitment to our traditional value systems. What is important, is that these lasting value systems should be extended to the professional and business side of our lives. I have found, during the last 20 years of my working life that relationships, both, internal and external, built on the foundations of these value systems, have contributed immensely, to my success as an entrepreneur. I now move on to the "harder" attributes required, for success as an entrepreneur. I believe the greatest need is to guard against a sense of complacency - the usual organisational response to any major achievement. Dhirubhai used to put it in his own way - "Growth has no limit. You have to constantly reshape the boundaries of growth".
I believe successful entrepreneurship demands constant raising of the bar to achieve higher and higher levels of performance, encouraging people to stretch and sweat, to venture where few others would think of stepping out, to take calculated risks to achieve growth on an exponential scale, to never give up, to take every obstacle, or setback, or even outright failure, as a learning experience ! Successful entrepreneurship is a high-octane, high-energy business ! And it is this constant and infinite flow of energy that differentiates the most successful entrepreneurial organisations from the rest of the pack. Of course, successful entrepreneurship is not just based on brilliant and innovative ideas, powered by a constant flow of energy! What is ultimately required is hard action and results. Good entrepreneurs have the ability to execute - to effectively marshal resources to achieve end objectives - to ensure that there is no gap, between what the entrepreneur wants to achieve and the ability of the organisation to deliver it. Entrepreneurship also involves, taking what most people might consider to be big risks - cutting across accepted boundaries, going against the status quo, defying conventional wisdom !
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