Annual Leadership Talk 2022

‘Take the stairs and not the elevator for a happy and successful life.’ said Prof. Ramesh Venkateswaran, Chairman, Board of Governors, IIT Palakkad, and former Director, SDMIMD, Mysore. He was speaking at the 13th Edition of the Annual Leadership Talk (ALT) organized by Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute for Management Development (SDMIMD) Mysore on campus. In his address to the students, he said that in today’s world, everyone wants to reach the top very quickly. Once at the top, they feel lost, and this results in a multitude of problems.

 

Prof. Venkateswaran said that all of us use several indicators of success like good education, a good job, a big house, etc. to define happiness. We work towards achieving success but once we get there, we are no longer happy. Expectations and envy become the reasons for our unhappiness, though we may have everything in life. ‘While we believe that being successful will make us happy, being happy will make us successful’ he said.

 

Prof. Venkateswaran shared the 5 steps to leading a happy and successful life from his book. They are the ‘five Is’: Integrity, Interact, Involve, Imbibe and Impact.  He emphasized that technology and social media have changed the way we communicate. While we connect with people far away, we are disconnected from people close by. The pandemic has only made matters worse. The speaker urged the audience to take stock of their lives in this very fast-moving and highly competitive world. He called on them to find ways and means of leading a meaningful and satisfying life by valuing people and spending time connecting with them.

 

Earlier, Dr. S.N. Prasad, Deputy Director, SDMIMD, welcomed the gathering and introduced the speaker. Prof. S. Kannadas, Faculty of Finance, SDMIMD, moderated the Q&A session. Dr. Neetu Ganapathy, Faculty of Business Communication and Information Systems, SDMIMD, presented a vote of thanks. 

 

Dr. N.R. Parasuraman, Director of SDMIMD, faculty members, students, and staff were present during the event conducted in hybrid mode.