Book Review: Shweta Punj -- Why I failed: Lessons from Leaders

The first thing that captures your attention as you hold Shweta Punj’s inspirational work “Why I Failed” is the book’s cover. It has a ‘thumbs down” sketch on it, with the words ‘Lessons from Leaders’ written upside down. You got it — when you turn the book upside down (which you will if you’re interested in perception puzzles), these words turn right side up, and the sketch becomes a “thumbs up”. It’s a simple enough design, quite obviously driving home the point of the book—it’s your perception that determines success and failure. And that you can, with a little bit of effort, turn that thumbs down right back into a thumbs up.

To illustrate her point, Punj has chronicled “sixteen failure aka success stories” in the book—sixteen well known people from different walks of life and their tryst with failure. The list is quite diverse, ranging from Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Narayan Murthy, Anu Aga and Prathap Reddy to the likes of Abhinav Bindra, Madhur Bhandarkar, Subhash Ghai and Sabyasachi Mukherjee. The stories are interesting and inspiring, both things that the book aspires to be. And you could be surprised at some of the ‘secrets’ that are revealed—you would have believed quite the contrary. Abhinav Bindra, for instance, attributes his miss at the London Olympics to his calm and relaxed state of mind. “In London, I was relaxed, composed and calm. Theoretically, it should have worked well. But it doesn’t work that way. You have to have rage. You have to be desperate.” And that’s when we thought being composed was the secret to success!

The book analyses various ‘types’ of failure, which Punj has neatly organised into categories, complete with ‘definitions’ of sorts. There’s ‘failure by design’ as in the case of Narayanan Vaghul,  one of India’s financial architects, who chose to fail in the eyes of the world rather than compromise with his principles and feel like a bigger failure.  And then there’s ‘perceived failure’ and failure of life’s circumstances. Punj has used another kind of failure – social failure – in the context of Sminu Jindal, the businesswoman who leads Jindal Saw – while in a wheelchair. This categorization however, feels a tad uncomfortable; can— and should— a person’s physical disability be termed as ‘failure’? Even if that was the reason for a whole lot of setbacks in her life, a world of hurdles that would not ordinarily be standing in the path of a ‘normal’ person, disability can at best be an obstacle, not a failure. In the zest to categorise the myriad reasons that cause people to stumble and fall, perhaps this tiny but important detail has been overlooked.

Punj’s background as a business journalist has played a big role in the shaping of the book, as company turnarounds and business decisions –both sound and unsound – have been discussed in much detail. Every leader’s story is a revelation of sorts, and there are those tiny nuggets of wisdom to be picked up from each. The ‘words of wisdom’ bit has been a tad over-emphasised, though. Each section is followed by bullet points under two headings, ‘Why I failed’ and ‘Advice’, almost in the manner of a school textbook on value education. But if that’s the author’s way of drilling it into the reader who’s looking for a morale-booster and a way to come to terms with failure, she’s bang on target.