IMT Ghaziabad students told ‘Pursue your passion - not a paycheque’ by Mr. P. V. Ramana Murthy at the Foundation Module 2012

“Don’t run after money, but after your passion and natural talent.” This was the key theme of the talk that P.V. Ramana Murthy, vice-president of human resources at Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd, gave to the students of the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad .

“If you pursue your passion,” he continued in the same vein, “you will do a good job and money shall flow in.”

Murthy was addressing the Foundation module for the PGDM students at IMT Ghaziabad, a first-of-its-kind program launched for the class of 2012-14.

Addressing the class of 2012-14, Murthy noted that within the next 10 years there would be a shortage of skilled labour in India and he spoke at length on the theme of ‘I, You, We and the Extended We’.

He told students to know themselves, identify their passion and natural talent and quoted Gandhi, saying, “If you want to stimulate change, then be the change.”

Giving priceless advice to the students, he also told them that they would have to know about the people they would be dealing with, connect with people and network well.

Murthy further pointed to the need for teamwork within an organisation and told his rapt audience about the four things that make good managers: business knowledge, people management, speed of execution and flexibility.

Talking of the lows that are part of any career, he said that any setbacks and failures they may encounter were just lessons learned and noted that the one thing he felt Indian managers lacked was flexibility.

P. V. Ramana Murthy ended on a theme: “While Indians possess strong intellect, we haven’t historically focussed on developing leadership skills as much as some Western countries. That’s now changing very quickly.” And the new IMTians would be that change in the times to come!