The Escape

He was a first generation entrepreneur. As such he never thought of himself as an entrepreneur. What others called as entrepreneurship was a way of life for him. His business was his passion. His business was his life. He couldn’t imagine himself doing any other thing than the one he has been doing all through the years. He had made sacrifices for his success. Others in his life had to make sacrifices for his success too. He doesn’t think much about others in his life. At one time he had wondered if he was a loner. But the idea didn’t occur to him again. That was his strength – some called it his hardheadedness, some called it his maturity. One teacher in his college days had even called it his insensitivity. He doesn’t know what it should be called. It was simply his ability to keep himself unaffected from other people and other things. What mattered to him was that he was making progress in life. Today his business was of 200 Crores. All made and done in 20 years.

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He looks worried. There is a reason to be worried which he has ignored enough. The business environment has changed to an extent he had never imagined. There are competitors in his business who are using IT and automation to an extent never thought of. And he finds a handicap in this area. For twice he gave assent to his manager’s requests for new IT packages to improve productivity. But unfortunately, both times the project didn’t give the desired results. Two years back his son had joined business after he finished his studies in the US. He is energetic and enthusiastic – and more importantly – young. He offers to turnaround the IT experience under his own guidance. But what is the guarantee for success? The dilemma is acute. Should he allow a free hand to his son and do some investments in technologies which have been adopted by competitors? Or should he continue his previous ways and continue to take his company forward by labor intensive methods?

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He is 65. May be he will live for another ten years. Of the few times in his life when he has feared things; the current is definitely the most critical. When he imagines giving free reigns to his son a kind of fear grips him. What if his son has a different line of thought than his? (he is sure about this) What if his son outgrows his business many times and then looks down on him for his comparatively slower and conservative rate of growth? These matters sum up into one question: What would be his life without him sitting on this chair?
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He wonders how this feeling of insecurity and fear is something that he is not used to. He has been avoiding thinking about these issues for long. Today when he was confined in his house as he underwent a minor surgery, these thoughts clouded him and urged him to take a decision…

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Could decision be anything that changes his present and future? While all alone, he could easily see the future. But when he thinks of his son taking up the reigns, the future looks jumbled. He would rather settle for less with certainty, than for more with risk. The irony is that of all the risks he has taken in his life, which he has taken countless, this one was simplest as the onus lied on his own son. But while he took the other risks by the horn, this time he was choosing to escape. It doesn’t matter if he was a paranoid to do so. He never cared what word fitted him best. Today he would escape the future.

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Every year, thousands of businesses settle for less than potential growth because their proprietors don’t know how to pass on the baton.

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- Rahul