HUMANS AS MORE SENTIENT SOCIAL SPECIES

CEO, Azim Premji Foundation

For many years, I was responsible for a high-precision manufacturing business. Soon after I moved to that role, I felt that either our Japanese competitor was cheating or had some secret source of competitiveness that blew away everything else, including our much lower labour costs.

We soon figured out what we should have known — competitiveness springs from outthinking others continually, not outsourcing thinking, or fleeting things like labour cost. This ‘outthinking’ was present not only in formulating strategy but at all levels, in every visible and hidden detail. Also, it was not about one day of good thinking, it was a culture of thinking. Such a culture of