Today marks an year since I started my journey as the CEO of Infosys. One Year. One spin of the earth around the sun, with my life's work centered around the Infosys planet. There has been a ton of interest about my first year. This, of course, is a good thing. I feel privileged to be in this position, and feel ever more aware of the weight of the responsibility. But I don't understand the significance of the one year mark. I never did. Anniversaries and artificial ritualized celebrations of the sort, beyond the uniquely personal aspects of these, somehow always seemed to me to be pointless constructions.
We posted a good quarter recently. Our Q1 results saw the best revenue growth in 15 quarters. Most of this was due to great execution by our sharply focused leadership teams, and some of it due to the innovation seeds that we've sown over various points last year, that are starting to bear fruit. But again, the 90-day cycle, an imposition largely constructed by public markets around the world, seems to defy any meaningful purpose. Indeed, arguably, focus on 90-day performance, can often distract us from longer-term progress. When we look at many emerging and flaring crises in the broader economy around us, we can see the results of some of the short-term gain oriented decisions and mindsets. Whether in the debt matter between the Eurozone and Greece, or Italy, or the stock market situation in China or even many industries' responses to the disruptions they face, etc... We all see large-scale phenomena over the centuries that are collaborative in nature, whether agriculture or science or long-term research or some forms of democracies, and the fruits they continually yield, and yet we, by and large, make like hunters and gatherers and force ourselves into local minimas, knowing that the right things to do have far longer cycles than 90 days. There are far too few examples of long-term innovation, and waiting for fruits to be borne over longer lifecycles than our attentions and our senses can stay tuned for.
And yet we too are governed by our cycles. Our life cycles. Earlier this week Prof. Kalam passed away. An extraordinary, and extraordinarily humble and grounded human being, one that set an almost incomparable example of what a human can do, and at the same time showed us that a human can do so if we get ourselves to. While doing something he loved, his amazing life came to an abrupt end. Once again, a reminder of the fragility, and yet the finality of our lives. We shine, sometimes brightly, for a while, usually an all too brief a while, and then we fade away, into the same grand void the same grand dance that creates us.
So all this got me thinking this weekend, on our moments, our anniversaries and our lives.
I was in Munich yesterday and the day before, visiting some clients and meeting our team. Had some amazing sessions and discussions. But the visit with our onsite team was what stayed with me. Young kids and experienced Infoscions. Full of passion and energy. Inspired. Of course there were the selfies. But it was the glint, the gleam, in their eyes that I found inspiring, and awesome. They were all bringing innovations to their day-to-day work, and were excited about sharing these. I asked them about their lives in Munich, the long summers, the harsh winters, the language, the food. Most of the colleagues were young, a lot of them singles, yet to marry. Living away from families and loved ones. One young male infoscion said he's had to learn to cook. That there is a local grocery store (called Bollywood!). But their energy, the human energy, was palpable. And on my way back to the hotel, I thought this was what it was all about; this urge to innovate, to do more, to be more, to do something beyond us, to improve the lot around us, every day, every single day. To wake up every day and to work to improve things. To deal with the struggles and stresses of our lives, and yet to work to endure and to improve. To renew all we are and all we do, and yet bring some new in addition. To marry our natural daily cycles, with longer-term improvements and patience. Living in the moment and yet not being blinded by instant gratification. So the most heartening bit of all was to see this basic duality at work in our teams, and that lifted me up. I found that to be the most fitting realization for today. And if today is anything like yesterday was, anniversary or not, it will have been a worthwhile day, a day to remember for all the right reasons, a great piece of our extraordinarily fragile, immortal, lives.
