With around 8.5 million followers on Twitter, Anand Mahindra is one of the most loved Indian CEOs on social media. In the real world, he has been the guiding force behind the transformation of Mahindra Group from an Indian jeep and truck company to a multinational firm manufacturing utility vehicles(UVs), Multi Utility Vehicles (MUVs) & Sports Utility vehicles (SUVs). Today, the Mahindra group is a business conglomerate, operating in sectors like aerospace, agribusiness, automotive, finance and insurance, information technology, logistics, real estate, retail & more
Fortune Magazine included Anand Mahindra among the ‘World’s 50 Greatest Leaders’, and he was a part of the magazine’s 2011 list of Asia’s 25 most powerful businesspeople.
Forbes named him ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ for 2013. He was also awarded the Padma Bhushan Award, the third-highest civilian award in India, in January 2020.
As is often the case with people of such success and stature, young people look up to them with awe hoping to pick up traits that will help them achieve success. One of the ways to learn from such people is to get inside their heads and learn how they think. In an attempt to help our readers understand Anand Mahindra’s thought process, we collated 46 quotes by him, sorting them out into the following categories: life, work, business, Leadership, Humility, Innovation, branding, education, Environment, Car Industry, India, and government.
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Life
- “Life has an interesting way of teaching even the most powerful people that joy from wealth is fleeting at best.”
- “You have to treat every day as a new challenge, and you have to remain paranoid, as they say.”
- “Nobody understands how the world will change. The only way you can plan for the future is to have scenarios. You have to have the courage to take a leap of faith on one of them.”
- “There is a degree of freedom that creates aspirations.”
- “Brevity speaks. It forces you to convey complex thoughts.”
- “You go into the battle with your strength.”
- “I’ve been criticized for being an eternal optimist.”
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Work
- “Sometimes the only kind of innovation comes when you have some solitude; when you step away.”
- “When you set the right targets, aspirations, and you work efficiently and diligently, the numbers happen.”
- “Anyone who makes time frames beyond tomorrow probably isn’t pushing himself hard enough.”
- It is processes that are important.
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Business
- “In 2001, I did some research and identified four characteristics that successful companies share. One, they aspire to be leaders in their businesses. Two, they have global potential. Three, they are innovative. Four, they display a ruthless focus on financial returns.”
- “Whether in services or in manufacturing, the trick is to stay ahead of the curve. I believe we should not wait to be disrupted — we should become disruptors ourselves.”
- “Sustainability has to be a way of life to be a way of business.”
- “I have always said that, more than ‘big bang’ reforms, it is every day what is happening, changing on the ground.”
- . “You have to seed internal disruptors. You need sources of internal disruption. They don’t guarantee your survival, but you have got to try.”
- “The more you drive positive change, the more enhanced your business model.”
- “Can a person be inspirational? Does a person have global sensibility? That’s the hardest thing to find.”
- “I think a CEO lives or dies in whether he’s been able to hold on to elements of culture that are needed in the company.”
- “In a large bureaucracy, you cannot exercise the transformation of any situation without coopting bureaucracy.”
- “The term ‘niche’ is no longer pejorative.”
- “My aspiration is that M&M become one of the most customer-centric organisations in the world. If we focus on understanding our customers, we will be able to develop customer-centric innovations.”
- “Our credo says that, in the end, we want to drive positive change in the lives of our stakeholders and communities across the world, enabling them to rise.”
- We see ourselves as being people who want to take India to the world; we see ourselves as being aggressive, assuming risk.
- We have never shied away from making investments. Even during downcycles, we never stopped our investments.
- We don’t believe start-ups are the private preserve of only garage start-ups… The corporate garage is going to be the scene of a lot of action.
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Leadership
- “Leaders don’t look behind or to the side. Instead, they look ahead.”
- “Benchmarking is an ongoing exercise in any company that aspires for leadership.”
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Humility
- “Humility is non-negotiable. If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you.”
Anand Mahindra on Innovation
- “When people consume, they want more. Then they choose the best, and you suddenly get innovation coming in. Now combine that with desperation and people wanting to get a better life: you have a potent combination for innovation.”
Anand Mahindra on Branding
- “You cannot mean everything to all segments of the markets. You cannot have a brand straddling too many meanings.”
Anand Mahindra on Education
– “In India, we are forced to choose our specialisation very early, whereas in some other countries, this can be done much later in life. While the British have abandoned this approach, we in India seem to be struggling with the old British system of education.”
– “Education is like the pooja ghar for us. We are never going to become a for-profit player in education. It will be akin to selling the pooja ghar.”
– “You want educated women if you are going to have a modern society.”
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Environment
- “It is imperative for us to protect the flora and fauna around us.”
- “If you are planning to save the planet, it will not be Tesla that will do it, since only a finite number of people can afford to buy one, even a $35,000 Model 3.”
Anand Mahindra Quotes on Car Industry
- “The market will evolve into two segments: cars that provide ease of access to transport and are shared by many people, and cars that are exclusive, high-end symbols of the owner’s status and aspirations.”
- “A lot of people who can afford a vehicle are deciding against owning one. They just need access to transport. So, our job is to offer wider choices to consumers with more innovative models.”
Anand Mahindra Quotes on India
- “For too many years, we, as a country, have suffered from a poverty of aspiration.”
- “It requires a different holistic approach and a recognition that it’s not simply a question of stepping into China’s shoes. Our ‘Make in India’ has to be different from China’s in the sense that we have to do a ‘taal-mel’ or ‘jugalbandi’ of our IT skills that exist and our evolving manufacturing skills and become intelligent manufacturers.”
- “For India’s economy to expand as rapidly and yet more sustainably than China’s, we need to make our differences into virtues rather than vulnerabilities.”
- “India’s sprawling subcontinent can never become a plus-size Singapore. But perhaps we can weave together an urban web that is the equivalent of a thousand Singapores.”
- “India’s states must compete, not march in lockstep, if India is to develop its own path to sustainable prosperity.”
- “The best way to propel the economy may be to encourage different parts of the country to go their own way.”
- “There is a growing interest in team ownership and promoting sports beyond cricket in India. I always felt it is important to encourage other sports, especially those that bring communities together and promote active lifestyles to Indian youth.”
Anand Mahindra on Government
- “The Indian government is extraordinarily large, and it is difficult to try and believe that one leader can make all the change. This is a federal system.”
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