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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  Gabriel García Márquez and the manager
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Gabriel García Márquez and the manager

A tribute to a great teller of tales that tells managers and CEOs how to imbibe messages from the author's book in to their work life

Reading Nobel literature prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez can be inspiring. Photo: Yuri Cortez/AFPPremium
Reading Nobel literature prize-winner Gabriel García Márquez can be inspiring. Photo: Yuri Cortez/AFP

NEW DELHI :

Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, and arguably the greatest storyteller of the past century, died last week. I was greatly saddened when I heard this news, because I admire his writing, and his books are the most spellbinding and imaginative stories I have ever read. I have read and reread his epic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude more than a dozen times, and yet wholly new and magical visions leap out of its now musty pages on every single occasion.

Executives in cubicles are generally far removed from the world of Spanish literature to which Márquez belongs. Yet I think every manager should read Márquez, alongside tomes written by management gurus Peter Drucker, Stephen Covey, et al. If these gurus feed your intellect and mind, Márquez feeds your imagination, heart and soul—all of which are the essence of great corporate leadership. While Drucker and his tribe give useful management frameworks and theories, Márquez gives compelling visions which can transform a manager’s view of people and the world at large.

Imagination

The first lesson I have learnt from Márquez’s books is that imagination has no limits. One Hundred Years of Solitude, which chronicles the misfortunes of a family over seven generations, narrates countless imaginative incidents, ideas and philosophies packed into one magnificent tale. Set in a village called Macondo, located in the jungles of South America, it narrates tales of gypsies and magnets, colonels and conflicts. Here is an imaginative Márquez description of what magnets do, from the very first page of this book: “Things have a life of their own. It’s simply a matter of waking up their souls." Managers will perhaps say exactly the same about various inanimate things they deal with, such as brands, or technology, or the creation of new products.

Reality and fantasy

Books by Gabriel García Márquez teach us that reality and fantasy often blur into each other, quite seamlessly

A million stories

What strikes you when you read Márquez is that each of his novels holds a million stories and more. His books are rich with stories big and small, all woven into a single broad sweep. There are extraordinary events, big discoveries, and then there are simple, moving human stories. The small stories are written in a manner that they are as important as the big ones. And the collective impact that these stories make on your mind is enormous. When managers read Márquez, they will recognize that the companies they are part of also hold a million invaluable stories—of achievement, failure, resilience, determination and passion. It is their ability to paint these stories on to a single canvas, and narrate them to a wider audience across the entire organization, which will inspire companies and teams—much like Márquez has inspired millions of readers worldwide.

Prosperity and decay

Márquez tells great stories of prosperity and decay. He speaks of vibrant, happy villages and towns in South America which are eventually swept into “extremes of inactivity", consuming themselves from within. This is quite often the cumulative result of the unfortunate actions of their own inhabitants, stretching over several decades. Managers will be struck by the parallels between these tales and the stories of great companies which also decay and die. After all, very few companies last for more than a century, and the average life expectancy of large multinational companies is 40-50 years. Márquez’s books thus bring to life, for chairmen and directors of companies, the big question of the longevity of their corporations, and what specifically will ensure that the organizations they build today stand the test of time.

Changing lives

Márquez does this by making us think and rethink our realities, even as he disarms and delights us with new and charming stories on every single page. This delightful and powerful combination of human philosophies, comedies and tragedies is quite magical in its effect. Managers are, therefore, quite likely to emerge from reading his books with at least one or two philosophies or ideas which they have taken to heart, and which will help them look at people and events through a fresh new lens. Which is always an excellent beginning for all of us as we seek to connect and engage even better with our colleagues and teams.

Harish Bhat works with the Tata group, and is the author of the best-seller business book Tata Log: Eight Modern Stories From a Timeless Institution. He thinks managers should read at least one very good work of literature each year, because this can potentially transform both their thinking and approach at work.

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Published: 18 Apr 2014, 06:53 PM IST
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