Pune outskirts, a late October evening. A nip in the air, muted bird trills and an indefinable ozone fragrance of the verdant grasses drifting in through the window. Sudarshan was pensive and reflective; rather mellowed, I was thinking. We were meeting after five years. In this time, he had quit his cozy job to set up a small software company. Sudarshan was part of the core team that set up and steered one of India's large and very reputed software houses a decade ago. He had now chosen to tread this path all over again. One reason for him to set up a new company was because he wished to create an Indian company dedicated to making software products - few exist. He believes that it is time Indian brand names featured on world-class software products.

Sudarshan also believes that the way to set up a world-class organisation is largely to apply common sense to business decisions dispassionately; and to invest passionately in building people. He works with a team of about 25 young software engineers; and invests considerable time personally with each of them. He would like each of these persons to nurture a dream; of charting a new path; of becoming a business leader tomorrow.

The organisation has thus been architected to offer this role space to potential aspirants. There is little bureaucracy or hierarchy, leave is availed when it is really required; apart from a 10-day annual break that is mandated for renewal. There are no administrative rules; a petty cash box is kept at a handy location with a little notebook at hand. Thus, employees are exhorted to behave as if they are co-owners and co-shapers of the organisation. This is then mentored through appropriate decision counseling. To quote an example, an employee who was writing a users guide put in a line on the last page asking users to contact so-and-so at…. between 9-5 Mondays through Fridays. Sudarshan offers his own name and cell number to be inserted: he can be contacted 24 hours.

This example in a sense holds the key issue – how does one get a young engineer to accept a responsibility to himself to shape and assume control of his action space; respect resources and act on every available opportunity for growth and success?

I asked Sudarshan to trace the source of his own courage and his willingness to embrace and learn from failure. Ah, this had been a family trait, exemplified by a father who threw up a very plum job and stayed unemployed for 8 years rather than compromise his principles!

Unfortunately, in our country, such role models or educational grooming are not available to today's graduates in any discipline, be it engineering or management or medicine. Where is the preparation or 'emotional intelligence' training that invests young adults with the resilience and tenacity required to truly discern and shape life choices? How could they learn to handle crisis and conflict, to stand for their core beliefs and even question these when required? Would they dare to dream and build differently, to lead? Even to weave human compassion, knowledge of the world and a desire to contribute to greater human well being into their future dreams?

And how does one prepare and convert young graduates, full of skills and knowledge but lacking in daring and emotional richness, into future leaders? Serendipity: that same night, I spend time listening to a dreamer, who had charted new vistas in applied architecture, bemoan the same lacunae in the Indian architecture education. Most youngsters who joined his firm (as many small consultancies and businesses experience) break away to set up a similar shop; making it impossible to harness the strength of a larger entity to handle bigger challenges in the field. He dreams of building a vast architecture consultancy, of creating new knowledge, forgo the dependence on the West to lead; and for an Indian firm to design at least one large hotel or airport in our country.

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