To my dear students,
You have been going through a curriculum to educate yourself on the management theories and tools to become successful managers in life. I could feel the ambitions that you all have and wanting to make a successful career. So I am taking this opportunity to speak a few words on 'being successful' in career and life.
As you enter the corporate world, you will start realizing that you also require a set of skills, which are highly essential to be successful. These are known as soft skills, namely team work, leadership, communication abilities etc. These are the human side of the management, which may not form the primary subjects that the management education provides. The management graduation is like a passport, but the visa to success will come through the soft skills.
Essentially, you need to master the soft skills for success in career.
Take out a little time to read some of the books on soft skills development . You may need to attend some short term courses in public speaking or communication skills. These would develop your personality to a level that people will sit up and start noticing you.
Another quality that you need to develop is positive thinking. Think positive and develop your self to a personality that gives an edge over others. Positive thinking people are always welcome in any group or a team. The negativity only brings gloom to the place you work in. A positive thinker changes the entire environment to a positive feeling. You will soon realize the amount of self-confidence that this quality will develop in yourself. Life can be enjoyed if you have a positive attitude. Even in your failure see humor, that is what the Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton did. In every failure he looked for a situation that failed him and laughed at that humour. That made him to be wiser in future occasions.
Believe in yourself. If you yourself do not believe in you, how would you expect someone else to do so? Positive thinking and believing in your abilities will bestow a unique personality in you. All you need to say to yourself that you can do it. Reinforcing the belief that you can attain great heights in life will lead to things that you would do to make your dreams true. Great men always followed this principle to come out successful in their endeavours.
Finally, holding a management graduation alone does not make you successful managers. There are thousands of them unable to differentiate themselves from the crowd. To be a shining star in a crowd, concentrate on the human skills, master such skills. Life will have occasions in which success and failures, both will come. The failure only delays the success; it does not take success away. Without failures, one would never learn. But learn quickly and work your way back again to success. Behind the success story of Sony Corporation, lies a number of failed products that the company attempted, like radio parts, rice cookers etc. But Akito Morita did not loose his confidence. He learnt from the mistakes, and quickly took Sony Corporation to the path of success. It is that quality in him that makes SONY what it is today.
In 1924 Thomas Watson Sr. changed the name of his company, to International Business Machines, when at that time it had no international business. But it showed his confidence. Remember, it was uncompromising self-confidence of Dhirubhai Ambani that has created the biggest private enterprise in free India.
With best wishes,

Dr. K. Venkatsubramanian