This is the acceptance speech by N Muralidharan, JobStreet.com India's Vice-president and Managing Director, on receiving the Indira Super Achiever Award.

Good Afternoon.

It is a great privilege and honour to be accepting this award. I am honoured to receive this recognition and would hasten to add that this has been possible only due to the undiluted support I have received from my staff, my partners, my peers, our customers and my family. I am accepting this award on behalf of everyone at JobStreet.com, recognising their support all through.

I would like to share with you a few thoughts under the topic "The spirit of achievement and what goes behind it". Consider these thoughts as strings of pearls and when put together is the necklace which is completed, thanks to the experience that I have gained while working with various colleagues and organisations. I hope you will find them useful.

Here are the eight points I would like to share and present to you. As I said before I have put these together, thanks to the good fortune of working with great peers, superiors and excellent organisations. We will look at each of these in some detail.

Knowledge - Key to success
Is Power
Widens your horizons
Readies you better than competition
Gives you self-confidence

Knowledge is the base on which you build the structure. The key to success is how well you are equipped with ammunition called "Knowledge". Knowledge helps you to address challenges that you will be ill-equipped to fight otherwise. When you are an executive the knowledge that is key then is "on and off the job"; when you move to head the organisation one day, what is key is the knowledge of industry, knowledge of markets, the dynamics of competition, etc. In today's world it is easy to access and acquire knowledge.

Think about what Socrates said: "There is only one good, knowledge and one evil, ignorance"

Be surrounded by youth and youthful ideas
Nurture and motivate the youth
Support their thoughts
Create the right environment

Youth are energetic, burning with ideas. They have a huge desire to excel. What is required for them is support, a deflection here and a deflection there, so that they fall into stream. Just need to guide and direct. Today I am on the wrong side of 40; the industry I am in is one which changes at a pace which is inversely proportional to age. We as an organisation have a lot of youth power and youthful ideas; I see my job as one which needs to create an environment for them to deliver glorious results.

Develop competencies
Anticipate changes
Stop routines from becoming chains
Promote flexibility
Develop processes

Change actually descends on everyone. It is just that some recognise it and some do not. Let me tell you a story.

It is the story of the frog in boiling water. If the temperature of the water is suddenly increased, the frog realises it and jumps out of the water. But if the temperature is very slowly increased, one degree at a time, the frog does not realise it till it boils to death.

In the glorious growth days of Sun Microsystems, their COO used to share with us that they spend more time discussing as to why they are doing so well and try and see if something is being missed when things are going right. In my career, I have done job changes within an organisation and sometimes changed organisations whenever I thought I was a bit too comfortable on the job - that is what is called getting out of the zone of comfort - that is when you develop competencies. When you deal with people and teams what is important is to promote flexibility and this in turn encourages growth. The value adds there on far exceed the output of anything conventional.

Non-stop learning
Challenge the status-quo
Learn - unlearn - relearn
Get into the next orbit

Challenge the known and embrace the unknown. Let me narrate another business story and you will understand what I mean.

In 1800 the thriving ice industry used to transport ice from Northeast of US to places as far as the west coast. Inspite of the melting losses, companies still made huge money.

They were then put out of business by companies which made mechanical ice making machines. No longer would any one wait for the ice to arrive but make it locally.

You and I know the refrigeration industry put these guys out of business.

The normal thinking would be that ice harvesters would see the benefits of ice making and invest in that, yet all that they thought was of the KNOWNS. Better saws, better storage, better transportation etc. The truth is neither the ice harvester nor the mechanical ice makers could jump their curve to the next orbit.

In our industry, the advertisement/media industry is what e Rec is targeting to capture. The classified businesses have to move into online. Yet it is not the newspaper industry which has looked at this that way.

People orientation
Bet on people - build trust
Build star performers
Build star teams

Build trust and confidence. Trust is what you give and get too. Look at our Cricket Captain Sourav Ganguly. To me, he bets on youth and trusts them completely. He clearly realises that while for certain situations you need a star like Sachin, for us to win consistently you need the Yuvraj's, Kaif's and Zaheer's.

Get into details
Worship it
Simplify - process
God is in details

This reminds me of another story about a man who had applied for a job as a telegraph operator. He replied to the ad and went to the office to await an interview. Inspite of his knowledge of Morse Code and him being qualified in every other way, there were also seven other applicants who were waiting in the large noisy office.

He saw customers walking in and out and heard the telegraph clacking away in the background. He also noticed a sign on the receptionist's counter instructing applicants to fill out a form and wait to be summoned to an inner office for an interview. He filled out the form and sat down to wait.

After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the inner office and walked right in. The other applicants were wondering at this bold behaviour. They talked among themselves and came to the conclusion that since nobody had been summoned yet, the man would mostly be disqualified for disobeying instructions.

However, the youth emerged in a while escorted by the interviewer. It was announced to the applicants that the position they had applied for had been filled. They were all surprised and one man objected saying that they had all not even got a chance.

To this the employer responded by saying that the telegraph had been ticking away the summon to walk into the room for the interview and appreciated the newly appointed man for his hearing skill.

We can see from this story that there are a lot of things in life we miss out. Wherever we are in life we must be present there physically, mentally and emotionally. We should be as attentive as possible, if not we can miss something very important.

God is in details. When you get deeper into the things you know what more needs to be attended to. For sure processes need to be simplified but cannot forsake the details. "After all even God took six days to create this world"

Raise the handle bar - Every time…..
Don't live on past laurels…. Look ahead
Drop complacency

You cannot live on past laurels. What is achieved is over and done. Today there is so much of competition in every sphere. Look ahead - past laurels are like foundations, but leveraging that is what will decide how far you can make it

I have heard this in one of my previous organisations that is one of the secrets of success of that organisation. "The biggest enemy of future success is past success"

Never compromise on
Ethics
Values
Integrity

Character is not just an ideal. It is the driving force. There is nothing like "in personal life I am very ethical but in professional life I am forced to make compromises". There is nothing like two sides to these things. You are either ethical or not ethical, that's it. It's important that as a leader these are repeated innumerable times and is part of the communication, so that these are built into the system and there is no compromise.

I am coming to the end of my presentation and I will leave you with this slide:

"According to recognised aerotechnical tests, the Bumble Bee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to his total wing area. The Bumble Bee doesn't know this so he goes ahead and flies any way."

This slide is something that I carry with me for the last 15 years and the multiplier effect that this has had on people who come in contact with me is something I have not been able to keep count of. It is amazing how you can achieve things just by deciding to go for it.

Let me end my presentation with this story which I read in one of Mr Premji's speeches.

A farmer's donkey fell into a well. The animal cried out piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided that the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway. He invited all his neighbours to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.

Initially the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he calmed down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down into the well and was surprised at what he saw. The donkey was doing something amazing. With every shovel of dirt he would shake it off and take a step up. As they continued shoveling dirt it would shake it and keep stepping up. Finally the donkey stepped over the edge of the well and trotted off.

Life will also shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick is not to get bogged down by it. We can get out of the deepest wells by not stopping and by never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up!

If at all I have been able to leave some useful points with you, that is due to my good fortune of working with great leaders and the blessings of my parents and the Lord.

Thank you for your patience in listening, and God bless.