Consistency of 3 P's

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle November 2003)

What is it that distinguishes between a successful person and an unsuccessful one? Consistency. Flashes in the pan may create media hype for a brief spell. But if they don’t perform, the newspapers unceremoniously push them to the margins. And if they don’t deserve to be even there, they are simply kicked out of news.

It is consistency that separates a Tendulkar from a Laxman. Sachin Tendulkar is not credited with a VVS Laxman-like high score. But when it comes to quite-high scores, you can bank on Tendulkar. More often than not, he comes up to your expectations or even surpasses them.

It is consistency that separates an Amitabh Bachchan from a Hrithik Roshan. The former never tasted the overwhelming success of Kaho Na Pyar Hai. Getting catapulted into stardom even before the advent of his first film could not have entered his dreams. And yet years later we deem the Big B as a pole star no one can miss. While darling Hrithik gropes for his place in the filmi firmament.

The consistency of performance seen in a Tendulkar or a Bachchan cannot be had unless there is consistency of purpose. It is here that goal-setting assumes enormous significance. You can’t remain attached to something that you don’t have in the first place. So before choosing a goal, you must take into account the various aspects of your life — your likes and dislikes, your nature, your surroundings, the likely impact of change in these, etc. If these are carefully analysed, the goal that is churned out is one that is attainable.

It is very difficult to be a cricket player and writer at the same time. Your knowledge of the game out there in the middle may help you become a cricket columnist. But going beyond that needs writing skills that are difficult to have with cricketing skills. Ramchandra Guha and Rajdeep Sardesai had to give up their bats when they picked up their pens.

Most of the writers we know about are teachers, academics, journalists or publishers. Exceptions are few and far between. TS Eliot, the renowned English poet, worked as an executive at Lloyds Bank when he published “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” and worked on The Waste Land. American poet Wallace Stevens had a successful career in insurance industry. While this year’s Nobel laureate, JM Coetzee, had a stint with the IBM. But the very fact that such information makes news proves how rare the phenomenon is.

The point I am trying to make is that the goal or purpose needs to be carefully chosen. If a person by chance sets a romantic goal, consistency of purpose will be difficult to have. Like the Indian economy. Planners here set an unrealistic target of 8 per cent growth. This does not conform to the logistics available or possible. The result: sheer desperation.

Consistency of purpose, however, is only the prerequisite to success. This will help you develop your qualities and shape yourself into a product. But this product now needs to be marketed. Quality alone does not guarantee saleability in today’s grab-your-attention world.

You can easily know how marketing has become aggressive from what Scott Adams has to say about ads in The Dilbert Future: “Hundreds of years ago, advertisements were created to generate awareness. Then they improved to the point of being persuasive. Now they’re downright manipulative. The next step — and we’re almost there — is where advertisements are so effective that you will be compelled to buy whatever they tell you to buy.”

The conclusion: You have to be so effective that you compel your customers to buy your product. So, let’s put it this way. First, you need consistency of purpose. Second, and in logical progression, you need consistency of performance. And last, but not the least, you need consistency of pushing the product.

The winning formula: Consistency of 3 P’s.