At a small private gathering consisting of some of the veterans of the Advertising and Marketing fraternity, author and illustrious advertising and marketing leader of 40 years’ illustrious experience, Ambi Parameswaran, also a prolific author, released his latest book, SPONGE: Leadership Lessons I Learnt From My Clients. TVNEWS4U.COM’S Yohan PC was present at the launch of the book which is an insightful compilation of 25 inspiring leadership lessons Parameswaran learnt throughout his 4-decade-long career in Advertising. The book, a simple, flowing, engrossing and beneficial read for management student and practitioner alike. Parameswaran also opened up about the name of the book, and shared some interesting learning anecdotes. And more. Over to Ambi Parameswaran:
On the book’s title:
Basically, the word SPONGE in the book’s name is an acronym. But before we get to that, here’s something about the unique sea organism, Sponge. It has neither a digestive system, nor a circulatory system. So how does it grow? A sponge allows water to come in with nutrients, absorbs the nutrients, and allows the water to take out the impurities from its body.
From that sponge I have created something known as the SPONGE framework of learning. S: Super active listening, P: Probing and questioning, O: Observing and noting, N: new behavior which we can emulate, G: Getting to the goal, E: Expand and enlarge share.
The aim is to encourage readers to inculcate the basic traits of a sponge so they can become smarter and better professionals.
On sponging new ideas from clients
This book explorers the concept of sponging new ideas from various clients. The oldest story in the book goes back to the 1980s and the latest story is of 2004. The very common practice managerial pundits do these days is to solve a problem through crowd-sourcing — getting ideas from the crowd. In its own way, I believe, sponge sourcing is a way for all of us to become better managers, executives and entrepreneurs.
I remember this story about how Ratan Tata came to inspect the new Tata Indigo Marina just before its launch. The car was shown to Mr Tata by two engineers who had come down from the Pune plant. He then discussed the launch event details with me, spent some time with the engineers who had been working on the car, stood there observing the car, and left after some time.
So what makes the Group Chairman of one of India’s largest industrial groups drop all his appointments, come and spend about half an hour before the car launch? The lesson I learnt here was: A leader sets the learning agenda, and is committed to be with the team when the rubber hits the road. To build a learning organization, you have to look at personal mastery, mental modes, shared vision and team learning.
I remember, also, how Mr Kurienonce advised a young brand manager from Amul to not ask their advertising agency to make particular changes but pose the problem and let the agency do their job. Hiring your advisors carefully and letting them take the decision is a lesson that can be seen in Tirukkuṛaḷ, the old Tamil religious text which consists of about 1300 couplets.
Then, there’s another story I remember. In agencies, usually, body copies are left to the junior-most copywriter, but in this story, the MD of Thermax Limited, the late Dr. Rohinton Aga, wrote the entire body copy of a series of six print ads, which was pure gold! Dr Aga told me, ‘I will write something and you take a look.’ That was all he said. He did not force us to use his copy. But we did because it was brilliant, and the campaign went on to win a lot of awards back then in the 1980s. The lesson from this story? No job is too small for a leader who is driving the change agenda. With reference to the book Good to Great by Jim Collins. This is a sign of humility and the ability to take care of even the smallest of details.
While working on the Wipro corporate campaign about 15 years ago, I was supposed to go down to Bangalore and get some approvals on the creatives of the campaign from Mr Azim Premji. Due to some reasons I could not make the trip to Bangalore and someone had to go down to Bangalore for an hour, so the account director, Santosh Menon, was asked to go. After the meeting, Mr Premji asked Santosh about his return flight time, to which Santosh responded by saying that he was going to stay the night in Bangalore and take a flight next morning. Mr Premji said to him ‘Why do you want to waste time and money? It is just 7.30 pm, you can take the 10 pm flight back home.’ He very well understood the “concept of cost management” and discouraged people from staying overnight on a business trip when there are flights at night to take you back home. Mr Premji himself travelled economy while flying domestic.
Ambi Parameswaran’s book SPONGE – Leadership Lessons I Learnt From My Clients is a treasure trove of meaningful, inspirational leadership lessons, and a must-read for all.
Authored By: Yohan PC
