Pankaj Dubey is Managing Director & Country Head at Polaris India. He is also Director, Eicher Polaris. A man of substance, he possesses the rare ability to turn negative aspects into positive. A contented person, he strongly believes in the motto, ‘you become what you think’, and preaches the same to his team. He invests time to motivate the youth through his guest lectures at IIMs and IITs and other leading business schools. In an interview with Corporate Citizen, he spoke on why one should dream big and various other aspects…
"The future is created by your dreams because you don’t know what is going to happen next. How do you create your future? You create it by having a dream. And when your dream has a set of timelines, you automatically become passionate"
I did my schooling from St. John’s School, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. I did my graduation in Economics, Philosophy and History from the University of Allahabad and post-graduation in Business Management from Motilal Nehru Institute of Research and Business Administration (MONIRBA), Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. As soon as I passed out of XIIth, I started tutoring students who were weak in maths and that’s how teaching became my first job. The students, who used to get marks below 40 in their prelims, would end up getting distinction in maths in just three months’ time. During my college days, I used to earn a lot of money that was enough to fend for myself.
Post my MBA, I joined Escorts as a sales officer. I worked there for about five years. I left it as a marketing manager. Then I joined Hero as a zonal head. After about a year, I was promoted to National Sales Head and later became Marketing and Sales Head. Post-Hero, I joined LML; I worked with them for three years. After LML, I changed my domain from automobiles to IT industry and joined Intex. I worked with them for about three years. I diversified Intex from an IT company into an electronics and telecommunications company. I was their sales marketing head and later, I got the additional responsibility to start up their telecom business as Business Head-Telecom. After Intex, I switched back to the automobile domain by joining Yamaha. I worked there for nearly four years and left as National Business Head and joined Polaris in 2011 as Country Head, and MD of Polaris India. We have a joint venture in India and I head that company too. I was given additional responsibility of CEO and Director of a company called Eicher Polaris Pvt. Ltd. At each of the companies I worked for, I got quick promotions and additional responsibilities.
While working, I kept on updating my qualifications and skill sets. I accomplished my first dream to become a sales and marketing head. Then, my next dream was to become the CEO. I felt that I should update my skill sets again so I did a one-year course with IIM-Kolkata called Programme for Leading and Managing. After joining Polaris, I got an opportunity to get global experience. There was a global programme at Polaris in the Carlson Institute of Management, University of Minnesota, USA, which is one of the top institutes in the US. I did a Leadership Development Programme on Global leadership from there. I keep on updating my skill sets so that I can deliver my best and continue to grow.
"I keep working hard and try to motivate youngsters to do great for themselves. If a person does great for himself only then can he/she contribute to the society. So start realising your potential, start becoming successful and then contribute to the growth of the family, society and the nation"
There are many challenges. We are now creating off-road vehicles—All Terrain Vehicles (ATV) industry in India. It is a big challenge to create an industry and business for the company. I use very innovative and creative techniques, not the usual way of marketing and business development. We have implemented some unique ideas to grow the business.
My advice to freshers is to think big, but dream big with timelines. Never forget to attach timelines to your dream. This is the most common mistake due to which dreams remain dreams.
India has a very rich past, and just as every individual has a unique personality, similarly, every company and country has unique personality. Our country has been referred to as ‘sone ki chidiya’. In the past few centuries many invaders came, looted our country, went back and became rich. Many others liked the culture so much that they became part of us. My advice to youngsters is to dream big and make India ‘sone ki chidiya’ again. I keep working hard and try to motivate youngsters to do great for themselves. If a person does great for himself only then can he/she contribute to the society. So start realising your potential, start becoming successful and then contribute to the growth of the family, society and the nation.
The most important quality that we look in a candidate is how the candidate looks at tough situations, does he look at them differently, and does he have varied perspectives. We also see whether the candidate has skill sets that we don’t have. For example, if we want to hire somebody who has social media knowledge and if we don’t have that talent in our company, we go for that. In addition, we generally look at people who dream big, who want to lead companies. If someone has big dreams then he/she would definitely work hard for it. So my favourite question is, ‘What do you want to become in life?’ and if I am satisfied with the answer, then it is a yes from my side. Then I go deeper into the aspect of the candidate, the position, whether it is a right match or not. Then the final decision is taken.
The human mind tends to see more negative and thus it is our job to keep doing more positive and optimistic activity to keep employees motivated. The most important thing is to keep a positive atmosphere in the office and keep on challenging the employees all the time, so we give them tasks that are a bit difficult for them, and when they complete the smallest part of the task, we celebrate. We keep doing this to keep the people motivated on the task. We interact with them; we celebrate with them and challenge them. These activities keep them focused on the task and they realise their potential and realise the goals that have been assigned to them. The challenge is to prepare a detailed plan as to how to achieve their goals and if they accomplish the goals, then we reward them. However, if they are not able to deliver, then we have a debate on what went wrong and how it can be achieved. We do a weekly review of all departments, where all heads are present in the meeting. The HODs share what is the current progress and what is the progress they have made and what support they need from other departments. We help them with it and if there is a gap, we try to bridge the gap during the meeting.
Women are much more capable than men. They are great at multitasking. They are very sincere and dedicated to their work. We have many female staff in the office. We don’t distinguish between a male’s job and a female’s job. If a female employee comes and asks for a job which is male-dominated, we do not hesitate to assign it. We also encourage female riders to ride our 1,000 cc and 1,600 cc bikes and lead on that front. Our marketing, finance, India HR teams are dominated by females. On women’s empowerment, we feel that we gain more when we hire female employees because of the contributions that they make to the organisation. I believe in ‘Yatra Nariyastu Pujyante Ramante Tatra Devta’—God resides where women are respected—so if one wishes to progress, women must be respected.
My joining an IT hardware company and making big contribution was the trigger point for my career, along with the turnaround of Yamaha that I am credited with. I have always been in the auto trade and when I was offered a position in the IT industry, I was not sure, but the CEO of that company, Mr G. S. Maheshwari was very sure that I would be able to contribute substantially. When I joined Intex, it was a totally new field for me. I was heading sales and marketing functions, I was able to contribute to the organisation to grow, and finally moving them into the telecom field. I am also credited with the revival and turnaround of Yamaha in India and thus these two, I would say, were the turning points in my corporate life. I started believing very strongly in my abilities and I felt that I could face any challenge confidently.
"The most important quality that we look for in a candidate is how the candidate looks at tough situations, does he look at them differently, does he have varied perspectives. We also see whether the candidate has skill sets that we don’t have"
It is important to spend time with the family. I firmly believe in work-life balance. In today’s world, where everything is available on the internet, you don’t need to be physically present everywhere all the time. You do most of the work on phones and laptops, which can be done from anywhere. I encourage that in office. People should not work late. When I am leaving for the day, if my team has not left, I want to know the reason behind it. When I reach home, I feel excited to meet my wife, daughters, relatives and friends, so my approach is that I am going to spend good time with my family and enjoy life. We go out together, have fun, watch movies, and take a couple of holidays in a year to spend time with the family. I believe that if you balance work and life and are happy on the home front, you would contribute more to the organisation too.
It was a huge transformation. At Yamaha, I used to have a big, strong team. At Polaris, I was the first employee and at times, if I did a great job, I had to pat my own back; if there was a mistake, I had to scold myself. It was a big change, but in this process of establishing Polaris, I learnt many things—how to create a company and not only just create a company but also to create an industry. It has been the most satisfying journey of my career so far and I feel very happy and delighted with the kind of work that has happened in the last few years at Polaris.
Polaris makes ATVs, which are very useful where there are no roads. We have supported various initiatives during natural calamities. As I told earlier, I used to teach maths right after my XIIth, during which time I was teaching a judge’s son at Allahabad, who later became the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. When the Uttarakhand tragedy took place, we donated ATVs to the Uttarakhand government. Thereafter there was the Srinagar flood, where we supported the National Disaster Response Force with our off-road ambulance. They used our vehicles to rescue and save people. We donated vehicles to the Nepalese army when the earthquake occurred there.
We also pursue a social cause under the banner ‘Wheels of change’, an initiative of Indian Motorcycles for girl-child education. We go to various parts of the country with our Indian Motorcycle riders group and encourage, motivate and support people who are doing great jobs on girl-child education. We feel this single activity—educating the girl child—can eliminate poverty from the country, and are thus pursuing it very strongly to spread the message.
My hobbies are singing and astrology. I feel that whenever you are immersed in your hobby, you are in a perfect state of mind. I feel the human mind is very negative. To get out of negativity, you must do meditation. The best form of meditation is pursuing your hobby.
I live by two philosophies of life that are the core of everything. First, always think about the future, and what are you doing today, but do not worry about the past. The future is created by your dreams because you don’t know what is going to happen next. How do you create your future? You create it by having a dream. And when your dream has a set of timelines, you automatically become passionate.
Secondly, nobody can change the past; even God cannot change the past. You can take learnings from the past so that your future becomes better, but never get stuck in the past. What is important is what you are doing today and what you will do tomorrow.
Pankaj Dubey is not only a successful corporate leader but also an encouraging and inspiring individual. At a business symposium at a management college in Pune, Pankaj inspired students who will step into the corporate world by his personal experience. He talked about how to be successful in life, how passion is necessary to succeed and much more. Corporate Citizen brings the excerpts from the session…
I have learnt a lot of my things from my guru. First thing my guru told me was human mind is negative; all our minds are negative. We are all forms of energy; the biggest myth is I am this body; I am not this body, because if I die tomorrow, people will come and say that this is Pankaj Dubey’s body. Then the question arises is who is Pankaj Dubey? Pankaj Dubey is the form of energy, that energy is inside that body, and the definition of energy according to physics is, energy cannot be created and cannot be destroyed. Therefore, you and I cannot be destroyed. Now in different religions there are different views that come into picture but in this aspect, there are no issues, Christianity calls it as Soul, Hinduism calls it as Aatma and Islam calls it as Rooh. Energy is what you are therefore you cannot be destroyed or created.
When you think of yourself about growing in life, then you will grow in life, if you think of the growth of your company, you will grow slightly more, if you think of the growth of society, you will grow even more and if you think of your country, you will grow even more. Your growth, your trajectory depends on you.
Respect: Respect yourself; if you don’t respect yourselves then you cannot expect others to respect you. If you don’t respect your boss or any individual, you will not learn. If I love a person, what does happen? I listen, when I listen, I improve. When I don’t respect the person, I am not bothered what the person is talking about, I am not listening, if I am not listening, I will not pay attention. Respect women—your mother, your sisters, your colleagues. I have two daughters. When my first daughter was born, I was very happy and gave sweets in my office, my friends and relatives, and the world was telling me ‘Koi baat nahi, agli baar ladka hoga’ (not to worry, your next child will be a son). When the second daughter was born, and again, everybody was expecting a son, and I gave sweets to the doctor who operated on my wife and I thanked her. When my first daughter was born, I got three promotions in a single try. I had a dream when I was a student to be Sales and Marketing Head. I became Sales and Marketing Head, within a month when my second daughter was born. I feel direct correlation of respecting females with success. We call women as ‘Lakshmi ka roop’ but when it comes to practicality, it is different. Respect yourself; respect your boss, respect women in order to grow high in life.
Dream big: People say that whatever dreams you have, you should dream big. I am adding another dimension to it, you should dream big with timelines. Most of our dreams don’t get fulfilled because there is no deadline for our dreams. When I was a student, I had a dream to become a Sales and Marketing Head in about 8-10 years’ time. In interviews you will be asked, what is your dream in life, I told the interviewer that my dream is to be a Sales and Marketing Head, and as a result, I was rejected in most of the interviews. Because they said, it is an impractical goal. Nevertheless, I never changed my answer and I had the same answer until I was selected. The person who selected me laughed at me saying that “Please change your goal; otherwise you are going to be suffocated in life. You are saying after 8-10 years but I have 20 years of experience and still I am not the sales and marketing head”. Normally, you don’t go against the person who interviews you, but I said, “Sir, I don’t know about you but I will become in 8-10 years’ time.” I achieved my dream in seven years.
After a few years, I realised that I didn’t had a new goal so I created a new goal. In 2010, I wanted to become a CEO. I have promised at the time of marriage that I will buy my wife a Mercedes. I had no money to buy Mercedes then and she used to say, ‘You come on a scooter and talk about buying a Mercedes’. But when I had promised her that in 2010, I will become a CEO, I said that I will never buy a car, my company should give me a Mercedes. In October 2010, nothing happened and people said that change the goal but I said to them, ‘I will change my goal on 1st January 2011’. Fortunately, I was on a flight to US to join as a CEO of Polaris India and I got the Mercedes from my company. If you have a dream with timelines, then you should be passionate.
Be passionate: If you want to be passionate, then have a dream with a timeline, which is tough to achieve, but if you are able to achieve it, then you will definitely be passionate. Your destiny comes from your thoughts, your thoughts become words, and your words become destiny. I firmly believe in that, if you want to be happy in life, then your thoughts, words, and actions should be synchronised. Your thoughts and your words should all be in sync with each other in order to succeed the dream.
"If you want to be passionate, then have a dream with a timeline, which is tough to achieve, but if you are able to achieve it, then you will definitely be passionate"
When most of the time you hear success stories of successful people, they have failed more number of times than they have become successful. You have to learn from your failures. If you want to be successful, then you will have to do something extra. If you talk to a successful athlete, businessman or a politician, they will surely have something extra in them, try to inculcate that in you.
Indian Motorcycle is an American brand of motorcycles originally produced from 1901 to 1953 in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. Hendee Manufacturing Company initially produced the motorcycles, but the name was changed to the Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company in 1928.
The Indian factory team took the first three places in the 1911 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. During the 1910s, Indian became the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. Indian’s most popular models were the Scout, made from 1920 to 1946, and the Chief, made from 1922 until 1953, when the Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company halted the production.
In 2011, Polaris Industries purchased Indian Motorcycles, moved operations from North Carolina, and merged them into their existing facilities in Minnesota and Iowa. Since August 2013, Polaris has marketed multiple modern Indian motorcycles that reflect Indian’s traditional styling. In 2014, Indian Motorcycles Company launched three models, namely, Indian Chief Classic—cruiser, Indian Chief Vintage—soft bagger and Indian Chieftain—faired hard bagger. In later years, Indian has launched various other models in Midsize, Bagger, Cruiser and Touring categories. Indian Motorcycle sells a wide range of cruiser motorcycles, ranging from the Indian Scout Sixty Rs.10.99 lakh (ex-showroom price) to the top-of-the-line heavy-duty Indian Roadmaster. All Indian bikes are manufactured in the US and brought to India as full imports.
By Vineet Kapshikar
