Book Review: Connect the Dots by Rashmi Bansal

Before reading the book Connect the Dots, I thought “Why to learn from success stories when the greater learning lies in failures?” However, when I read a few stories in the book, I realised that the book doesn’t go about mentioning successes of the entrepreneurs, rather it mentions about their failures which ultimately culminated in success stories for them.

Rashmi Bansal’s new book – Connect the Dots, at least in my opinion, is a sequel to her National bestseller in non-fiction category – Stay Hungry Stay Foolish (SHSF). There are many reasons to believe that it is a sequel:

• Connect the Dots caters to the aspirations of budding entrepreneurs like SHSF.
• Both the books have classified the entrepreneurs into 3 categories.
• In both the books, after each story follows the advice to young entrepreneurs.
• Connect the Dots has a similar cover design, page design, layout and typesetting as that of SHSF.
• Even the website layout and design of Connect the Dots is same as that of SHSF. (Browse www.stayhungrybook.com and www.connectthedots.in to know more)

Connect the Dots covers inspiring stories of 20 non-MBA entrepreneurs unlike Rashmi’s first book which had stories of 25 entrepreneurs who did their post-graduation from IIM-A. When you see the cover of the book, the first thing you’ll notice is that the title of the book has been written upside down. The one who hasn’t read the content of Steve Jobs’ speech or hasn’t gone through the below note given in this book, fails to understand as to why the book’s title has been written upside down.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust… in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life”

~ Steve Jobs, Commencement Address at Stanford University (2005)

Rashmi herself mentions as to how she connected the dots in Author’s note section in the beginning of the book. She was passionate about writing from the very beginning. During her course of study, she often asked herself during her miserable first year at IIM-A as to why she came to study there. After around 14 years of passing-out from IIM-A, one fine day she got the opportunity to write on IIM-A entrepreneurs and she grabbed it which later became a bestseller in the form of SHSF. She was on campus for her 15^th reunion in Jan 2009 when sale of SHSF crossed 50,000 copies. To celebrate this, the dean of IIM-A presented her a silver plaque in the same classroom where she occupied a seat during her first year on campus. That day she was able to connect the dots!

The book has a diverse and interesting mix of entrepreneurs. The age was certainly not a bar for choosing entrepreneurs (for the fact that book covers people as old as 56 years old and as young as 25 years old) as long as they could fit into one of the three categories viz. Jugaad, Junoon and Zubaan of the book. One of them-Raghu Khanna, with whom I have personally interacted also, is even younger to me.

Some of my Supply Chain concepts of Postponement and Modularization got revisited when I read Prem Ganapathy’s experience of offering 108 dosa items in menus of Dosa Plaza using mix-and-match of 5-6 sauces, 5-10 chutneys and vegetables. These entrepreneurs know by virtue of their real life experience many things which are taught at the B-schools today.  As correctly outlined in the book, whether you are selling tea or servicing a Fortune 500 client – the principle is always the same.

All in all, the book serves a wonderful means for anyone interested in pursuing entrepreneurship as a career option.

Mayawati: Love her or Hate her, but you can not ignore her!

Now a days, there has been a lot of fuss about none other than the honourable Chief Minister of UP, Behen Mayawati. A lot of bad mouthing about Kumari Mayawati is doing rounds in the social media. According to Behenji, this is the handiwork of people with ‘manuwadi’ mentality. But see, these manuwadi people never mention about Behenji’s achievements. There are so many of them that I don’t know where to start with. She has authored two books which are available in both Hindi as well as English editions. May be these books have grown so much in popularity that the profits earned from these books have been used in part to make a currency garland reportedly worth Rs. 5 Crore to welcome Behenji in Maha rally to mark the BSP’s 25th anniversary celebrations.

But let me remind you, writing books is not her key skill.  Her key skill lies in organising mammoth rallies. It is this very skill only which has made her enter into Limca Book of Records. In 2006, Behenji brought BSP into Limca Book of Records for organising largest political rally comprising of over 5.76 lakh people! I wonder if she has so good human mobilization skills, why doesn’t ISB, XLRI and IIMs invite her for guest lectures in subjects like HR. May be she is so much pre-occupied that even these B-Schools recognise it. What I feel is that when there are lakhs of people to listen to Mayawati in her rallies, why should she go for a guest lecture in ISB, XLRI or IIMs where there will be an audience of at most a few hundred people.

One shouldn’t get complacent with one’s success. Perhaps, it is this very mantra only which has kept Behenji going. That is why she wanted to outdo her past record of organising gathering of over 5.76 lakh people, by planning a Maha rally with an expected turnout of 20 lakh people on March 15, 2010. The UP government had declared March 15 a public holiday in view of this expected turnout. But much to everyone’s surprise, only two lakh people turned up, if media reports are to be believed. May be weather conditions were not that suitable for a rally at this juncture, otherwise, she would have made BSP enter into Limca Book of Records again by outdoing her own past record. But mind it, this figure of 2 lakhs doesn’t include the swarm of bees that kept hovering around Behenji’s rally! We could see the inconvenience caused by their unexpected arrival as due arrangements were not made for them. May be from next time, functionaries of Mayawati’s party will make arrangements for bees also.

But probably, this time she made another record of being the only Indian politician to be welcomed with a garland of currency notes reportedly worth Rs. 5 Crore (Who knows, the garland may be worth more than Rs.5 Crore also!). Instead of making entry to Limca Book of Records, Behenji’s BSP made an entry to the books of the Income Tax department this time. I think it’s only a matter of time before Mayawati enters into Guinness Book of World Records. I wish Behenji good luck in all her future endeavours and sincerely hope that she will not disappoint her followers as well as detractors with manuwadi mentality!

Love Behenji or Hate Behenji , but you can not Ignore Behenji !