Life is too short and it's important to make more friends than enemies

“It is wonderful when people believe in their leader but it is even more
wonderful when the leader believes in the people,” goes the famous saying. This
is the cornerstone of Sunil Dutt's philosophy, who continues to inspire people
through his learning and belief of over twenty-three years of professional
experience in organizations like Philips India, Wipro, Whirlpool, Barista and
Nokia. Currently he is the country manager of Samsung Mobile. Prior to joining
Samsung, he worked at Nokia India as director, sales, where he was responsible
for driving sales and building the strong distribution and retail backbone for
the company. In his present role he has been actively involved with the growth
of the Indian mobile industry and has been one of the pioneers in building the
channel distribution for mobiles, driving penetration and retail development for
mobile handset business in the country. In a close encounter with Voice&Data, he
reveals interesting facets of his life. Excerpts

What is your mantra for life?

My mantra for life lies in doing what I want to do. You never know what will
happen next. If you want to experiment, don't wait, just do it. Go with
happiness. Live life to its fullest. Life is too short and it is important to
make more friends rather than enemies. For the first twenty five years, you are
a student you don't even know what you are doing and what you end up doing. In
reality, 99% of people do not ultimately follow what they want to follow. Most
of us stumble from one thing to another. The last twenty-five years, if you are
going to live for eighty years or so, are going to be maintenance. You are going
to maintain everything whether it is relationship, family, assets, lifestyle,
etc. So what are you left with? Thirty years, that's it. So live it to the
fullest.

How do you maintain your work-life balance?

I am not denying that work-life balance is not important. However, anybody
and everybody has to personally drive it. It is up to me to define and balance
it. People working in organizations crib that they aren't able to give enough
time to their family. I am a firm believer that this whole question of work-life
balance is dependent on the mentality. I try to spend a couple of hours in the
morning or evening with my family, they are important for me. Right from the
first job onwards, my philosophy has been very simple. Work hard and live life
like a king.

What are your stress busters?

As a person you have to figure out what relaxes you and its kicks up your
passion. For some, it's going out with friends, relaxing and having a drink, for
others reading a book, traveling or driving. What used to work for me ten years
ago does not really work for me now. Spending time with my family, playing golf
and long drives are things that relax me a lot. On the weekends, I love to play
golf and catch up with friends. I am not one of those who focus on very heavy
reading but tend to read once in a while.

What works for you, hype or hardwork?

Hype can only work for some time. It is like you add a certain flavor to a
good dish to make it even better. But the fact is that the dish itself has to be
good. If the taste is not good, the flavor doesn't work. You need to create hype
around certain things or objectives. Though it is important to a certain extent,
it cannot alone guarantee success if the basics are not good.

What is your style statement?

Anything that makes me comfortable is a style statement. For anyone it is
important to be comfortable in what you wear and what you showcase. However, I
have a very strong association with brands because of the less amount of time I
spend on shopping. This way you tend to make lesser mistakes in choice of
dressing.

Are you an open book when it comes to emotions?

It is difficult to be an open book completely. However my team knows that I
am a human being and not a machine. In my shoes one has to be able to absorb a
lot which includes ample amount of pressure. I try to do it effectively. I make
sure that my own emotions and pressures do not go down to my team. At the same
time, I am a human being and people do get to know my emotions. But I try to
strike a balance between things.

What does religion mean to you?

Religion is a very private affair for me. I am neither an atheist nor am I
an agnostic. I start and end my day with prayers. There is a pooja room in my
house which relieves me of my tensions and negative energy. I don't say I
meditate but I try to concentrate. I have tremendous respect for every religion
and diversity. I am a human being first and then of any religion. It is always
imperative to work honestly and respect all human beings equally. I have very
close friends of different religious beliefs and am really lucky on that part.

What is your kind of food?

I can eat everything under the sun. As a matter of discipline, for the last
several years, I eat only vegetarian food for at least three days a week. When I
eat non-vegetarian food, I completely focus on that. At home I like to eat
mutton curry and rice. I like sea-food. I also like Chinese and Thai food.

What are your major strengths and weaknesses?

My biggest strength is that I am a human being first and then a manager. As
a result of which I think I am able to work with my people very well and
motivate them to the extent of performing beyond themselves. The second biggest
strength would be my ability to listen. I firmly believe that young people can
give you very good suggestions that help in an enormous manner. What matters is
how you listen and what you pick up. On the weakness side, I am still learning
how to say no. Also, my attention span is very less and if something doesn't
make sense to me swiftly enough, I quickly lose interest in it.

What has been the greatest challenge in your professional career?

Nothing has been able to daunt me in life. Whether it is Whirlpool, Wipro,
Barista, Nokia or Samsung, I have learned to apply things as per the needs and
requirements. It is how you divide the load that makes the difference. At every
stage I had objectives, targets, tasks and from all of them I picked up a lot of
learnings.

Being a country manager, how difficult it is to motivate people?

A lot of CEOs face challenges on that account. However, I haven't faced any
major challenge there. Right from the early stages of my working career I have
been blessed to work with good teams. I find it very exciting to be able to
motivate my people. I don't get into everybody's affair all the time nor am I
breathing down their neck. I give a lot of freedom to people to think and act as
per their own conviction and to speak their mind. We might have differences in
opinion or disagreements but that doesn't stop my colleagues or my team from
expressing their views or speaking their mind with absolute freedom.

Jatinder Singh and Gagandeep Kaur

jatinders@cybermedia.co.in