Just want to share a couple of thoughts that have been on my mind the last couple of days. It started with a talk that I was giving to young people and one of the questions I was asked by a youngster was, "Does my past play any role in my present or my future?"
I think basically he was talking about some of the things that had gone on in his past which were not positive influences. But I looked at it from a larger viewpoint and realized as I answered him, that our past always plays a role in our present and shapes our future, in the sense that the past is equal to the experiences that we have. Our experiences can always have lessons that can be good for us in the things that we do in our present. His question began to percolate in my mind and over the last two days, I've been thinking about that.
When I walked into the office this morning, I was looking at Forbes India and an article by Ashish Mishra caught my attention. It says, "Nissan's Indian Gamble with Datsun." Basically it was talking about the resurrection of Datsun, a brand that has been dead for almost 27-30 years, which is key to Nissan's revival in India and three other markets. Now I am old enough to remember Datsun. It was a great brand name for Nissan in the seventies and early eighties. It was only in 1981/1982 that they decided to stop it and to stop using that brand name.
The article went on to say that Nissan had taken a conscious decision to reach into their past and revive this particular nameplate. It will be unveiled in India on July 15 by Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan Motor Co. it's coming to India to challenge the Hyundai i10 and the Maruti A star. It is positioned slightly under Nissan's Micra in the 3 to 4 lakh range.
It got me intrigued about reaching into the past and pulling out something that had seemed dead and buried, and realizing that there was value some 20 or 30 years later in our present. I thought that there is value in the past. In fact, some other articles began to catch my attention about how other heritage nameplates were being resurrected like Toyota 86, or the Hachiroku sports car, Chrysler's Dodge Dart and Fiat's 500 – all names that had stopped, now being brought back. It piqued my interest in that I wondered about the role of things in the past, coming back and shaping a future, years later. Datsun is coming back 30 years later, other names are coming back 15 or 20 or even 5 years later.
My thoughts went back to a talk I had with you a couple of weeks back about different CEOs who are coming back Рtheir companies realized that one person who was at the helm in the past was necessary again to lead the company in the present scenario into the future. Seagate's Stephen Luczo is the latest CEO to be brought back, but we talked about Howard Schulz of Starbucks, Steve Jobs and then our own Narayana Murthy of Infosys. People are finding that there is value in experience and in the past, and they don't have to be relics or icons that sit on shelves. They have a value even today. The old clich̩, "What goes around, comes around," is so true. We don't need to reinvent the wheel; it's there already, why don't we use it?
Thinking about all that made me wonder about our own selves. What is it that's in our past that we may have stopped thinking about but which has great relevance for us today? What part of us needs to resurface from our past? Our past is also our experience, which is crucial to us. Nobody else has our experience. Only we have our experience. As we look at our lives today, can we bring that back to the table? Can we make it relevant in our present so that our future gets shaped in different ways because of it?
Having asked the question, I need to throw out things that could be possible things in our past; just to tweak your memories as you look at yourselves. Maybe some of you have written in the past, you've been a writer before and haven't written anything in the last so many years. Maybe today is the time to begin to write again – to write in the in-house magazine or other economic magazines or even to have a blog. Maybe you've been a good listener in the past but the demands of corporate world have made you change and force some of your thoughts on people rather than listening. Maybe it's time to go back. Maybe you used to stay on task before and now you find yourself meandering a little bit. Maybe you were a good dresser before and now you've got a little shoddy in that respect – shoes go unpolished, shirt pulled out. Wonderful family person before and today maybe you've no time for that and that's something to bring back. Or maybe you had a spirituality, you were God-fearing and that needs to be brought back. Or maybe you were a great innovator, you thought creatively and suddenly in these days, you've lost that edge; you just go by rote and the things that are happening around you and you're no longer creative. Maybe you had great enthusiasm but that's been robbed from your life.
I wonder as we look at ourselves, is there something of the past that needs to come back today? Do we need to dust off those memories, reminisce just a little bit and see what needs to be resurrected in our lives? Just a thought for you to ponder. Companies are doing it in terms of model, in terms of people. Maybe it's time for us to look at our own lives and saying, "What's worth pulling out of my past that is good and noble and can bring change and value to my life today?" Maybe we need to have the confidence, the conviction and the courage to bring it into our present. I hope you will think about it through this day and in the days ahead.
Can I pray with you? Almighty God. On each one of these precious ones on this call, pour Your Spirit in beautiful renewing invigorating ways. Help us to see the things of the past that needs to be in the present, things of value, things that are positive, things that are good for us, that shape and mold us as we look at the future. I pray for that wisdom to rest upon each one on this call. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
• Siddharth Philip, Anna Mukai & Yuki Hagiwara, "Nissan Revives Datsun Afrer Three Decades to Boost Sales," http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-20/nissan-to-revive-datsun-brand-after-three-decades-to-boost-sales.html
• Ashish K Mishra, "Nissan's Indian Gamble with Datsun," http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-20/nissan-to-revive-datsun-brand-after-three-decades-to-boost-sales.html
• Team-BHP.com http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/117744-nissan-revive-datsun-brand-india-6.html
• Other resurrected brands: http://beta.livemint.com/Companies/faSOnbpxl1yoySwB7VxE7O/Nissan-reviving-Datsun-brand-in-India.html
Comeback CEO's: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/02/0202_comebacks/
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