Bangalore: Dr Devi Shetty, Sudhir Shetty outline vision for entrepreneurial leaders
From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Feb 1: Two stalwarts in their respective fields of healthcare and finance – Bangalore-based Dr Devi Prasad Shetty and UAE-based Y Sudhir Kumar Shetty – outlined their vision for providing affordable healthcare to the masses and the qualities that entrepreneurial leaders in the finance service sector need to follow if they were to make a difference to society and mankind at the second day’s session of the Entreprenet 2014 global convention of business leaders.
While Padmabhushan Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman and Consulting Cardiac Surgeon of the Narayana Hrudayalaya Group of Hospitals, gave an inspiring power-point presentation on the theme of ''Power of Purpose,” Sudhir Kumar Shetty, Chief Operating Officer, Global Operations, UAE Exchange, spoke from the heart on the ''Leadership Lessons for Entrepreneurs.”
Dr Shetty said it more important for all individuals, especially budding entrepreneurs, business leaders and professionals, to ponder over the key question before deciding on a career plan or any course of action on why they wanted to do it rather than what and how to go about it because that would help in setting out a clear purpose and chalking up an appropriate strategy.
Pointing out that he had done lot of work for the refugees and the poorer sections of the people, Dr Shetty said the worst thing that anyone could do was putting a price tag on human life. He illustrated his contention by pointing out that the first question that most of the rural and poorer women, who come to him for heart surgeries for their children would ask him was ''how much it would cost.” He added: ''When I answer a minimum of Rs 80,000, they would decide whether they could afford or raise the money and opt for the surgery. If the women could not, they would say I cannot afford it. Thus, the question of life or death for such women would be Rs 80,000. Is this right and just?”
Dr Shetty, who pioneered the Yesashwini Health Insurance Scheme for the poorer sections, which has helped in performing different types of nearly 4.5 lakh surgeries, including 66,504 heart surgeries over the last 10 years, said the sad part of Indian situation was that 20 lakh persons were estimated to require heart surgeries per year while all the hospitals were able to perform barely 1.2 lakh surgeries annually. It is atrocious that for every 10 minutes, a young girl dies during delivery, which should never be the case.
''India with its largest human resource base of doctors, para-medical staff and nurses in the entire world, could become number 1 in the world, if healthcare was disassociated from affluence,” he said pointing out that the crying need of the country was to harness technology to the basic healthcare needs. Entrepreneurs can make a difference to the healthcare solutions if they get together to address the basic needs of the healthcare system by utilizing the immense potential of technology not only to tackle the medical problems but also in providing basic training skills.
''It is necessary that all well established and budding entrepreneurs or technocrats must understand that a solution that does not become affordable to the most ordinary people is no solution at all,’’ he said while underscoring the need for doctors and all medical professionals to understand the concept of money, how it is raised and spent so that they do not unnecessarily go in for costly investigations when they know that such investigations were unlikely to benefit them in their diagnosis or treatment.
He passionately advocated the need for training rural poor womenfolk and providing them basic training in attending to some routine tasks in hospitals and thereby adding value to their lives and provide them a means of living. Most of the mundane jobs can be effectively handled by rural women with some basic training and credentials of an university degree were no guarantee that such persons will be capable.
''We need to challenge every norm and harness the potentials of children from poorer and rural background as such children if they enter the medical field are likely to become outstanding doctors as they understand the difficulties and problems of the people better. The children coming from rural or poorer backgrounds can transform the art of healing when they become doctors because they have fire in their belly and are ready to work 20 or even 24 hours a day if necessary,” he said citing the example of the Udayer Palley programme launched under his initiative in West Bengal for selecting and grooming 2000 rural poor children to become doctors.
Dr Shetty said the entrepreneurs, business leaders and professionals must be constantly prepared to challenge, innovate and ideate and make a difference to society and mankind by finding solutions. ''The world is not ruined by the activity of bad people but by the inactivity of good people,” he said.
The Chief Operating Officer, Global Operations of UAE Exchange Sudhir Kumar Shetty said business organizations and all enterprises, especially those involved the service oriented industry, must constantly evaluate and look to the future for opportunities for growth. ''Look to the future and see the organization not as it is but as it should be, if any organization must succeed,” he said.
''All organizations, especially those running it, must dream to become big and successful and also most admired. To achieve the dream, one has to constantly be awake, persevere and work for it and thereby reduce the dream to a vision. The vision cannot be achieved without committed people, who have to be prepared to be innovative and even be ready to risks after realistically making proper assessment. The vision must be communicated even to the last person in the organization because most often such person will be first person to deal with clients,” he said.
Leadership in any organization can be judged when the presence or absence of the key persons does not really matter as there will be many capable persons to run the business. But creating and nurturing such persons was the biggest challenge which starts the first step of recruitment, providing necessary opportunities for lateral or vertical growth, effective and task-oriented rewards and appreciation system in place. All the staff in any organization must be treated equally and fairly as also impartially, appreciating performance and providing incentives as also cultivating the art of giving and forgiving, caring and sharing were other important attributes, he said.
The morning session of the also had an interesting panel discussion on a vital subject of interest to all business leaders, enterprises and organizations, ''Succession Planning: Who will Succeed You,” with Agnelo Rajesh Aithade, Dimensions, Mumbai, as the moderator and senior advocate Aditya Sondhi, Secretary, Karnataka Chapter of Indian Law Institute, Prof Parimal Merchant, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research and Anil Sainani, Director, S&S Empowering Solutions Pvt Ltd and Chief Advisor, Grant Thornton India LLP, as the panelists.