Vivek Paul's elephant trick

One of the world's most respected business leaders owes much of his success to the failings of an elephant.

Vivek Paul, who recently decided to step down as CEO of Wipro Technologies to become a venture capitalist, says one key to his achievement is a sharp focus on improving business processes. The other major factor has to do with the "soft" side of management--he says people tend to limit themselves.

Encouraging Wipro employees to bust self-imposed boundaries may have helped Paul lead his business to ramp up revenue from $150 million in 1999 to $1.4 billion in 2004.

But it was his encounter with an elephant outside of Bangalore more than a dozen years ago that crystallized this philosophy.

Paul was curious why an elephant tied to a small stake in the ground did not yank it up and be on its way. The animal's handler explained that baby elephants tied to similar stakes learn they can't break free. As elephants grow older and stronger, they don't test the stake again--thereby remaining trapped by what should be an obsolete restraint.

"I said, 'By gosh! That's probably relevant to people as well,'" Paul said.