Remembering CK Prahalad
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Image: Kent Coston Horner / AFP for Forbes India
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CK Prahalad, Paul and Ruth McCracken Distinguished University Professor
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all me at 11.30 PM India time today,” said the brief email. I was over the top with joy. For the last two months my story on the India research centres of global business schools had been stuck – it lacked the big-picture perspective, the editor said. And this one interview would solve it all.
For two long months, I had hounded CK Prahalad, the person behind University of Michigan’s India research centre, for an interview. My initial emails went unanswered. I sent polite reminders. They probably landed in his trash folder. Desperate, I tried calling. My phone calls went into voice mail. The man was simply elusive. But I persisted – and kept sending unsolicited email into Prahalad’s inbox until he finally relented. For a rookie reporter like me, this was the biggest interview of my life.
I decided to take the call from home but my cellphone didn’t have an international dialing facility. So I asked my local grocer-cum-phone booth operator to connect me at 11.30 via a conference call. Perched in my 10th floor flat, I called him at 11.30 sharp. No sooner had my grocer-cum-phone booth operator connected me than I realized that the interview was nothing short of disaster. I couldn’t hear a lot of what Prahalad was saying. I took down notes of whatever I could. For the rest, I prayed to God.
They say that Bombay is a city that never sleeps. And for some reason, people don’t think it odd to buy grocery at midnight. The ambient noise from my local kirana shop started trickling into this highly-cerebral interview making matters worse for me. “Oye, ek kilo kaanda tolna!” yelled a voice, loud and clear. I froze. Prahalad froze. The hair on my neck bristled and I turned red in the face. “I think we should end this interview now,” said Prahalad rather curtly. The ‘now’ in his sentence was a rather firm, no-nonsense, NOW. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I pleaded and said it had taken us so long to finally find a time to talk and we ought to finish the interview despite the noise. He relented unhappily. But only for five minutes. Ever since my grocer had mentioned onions, Prahalad had switched off and simply didn’t want to talk.
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I calmed myself down. This was my first – and last – brush with Prahalad, I told myself. I would avoid him from now on. Or so I thought... Two months down the line the editor walked up to me and said we needed to interview Prahalad for a special issue on marketing. I was scared of approaching him again. After that disaster of an interview, he had become the kind of guy you can’t afford to goof up in front of – and I already had for no fault of mine. But I started hounding him again. He ignored me for the next four months. The special issue came and went but Prahalad remained his usual elusive self.
Meanwhile, I changed jobs. Once again, I was asked to interview him. By now I was becoming a pro at hounding him. I knew the drill. Drop an email request. Drop a reminder in two days. Call and leave voice messages. If he is in town, figure out which hotel he is staying in and leave messages for him at the reception. If he is speaking at an event, be there and try and get to talk to him. Armed with my recorder I walked into a CII seminar where Prahalad was speaking about his now-famous innovation sandbox. As soon as he got off the stage I ran to him and told him that I wanted to interview him. He remembered my name – he had not replied to them but he had noticed all my persisting emails. “I thought your article on the Thinkers 50 ranking was first rate,” he said. “Call me at my hotel tomorrow after 8 AM.” I was shocked. He not only remembered my name, but had also read my article!
“But can’t I simply come and meet you?” I asked. It sounded rather silly to do a phone interview when we were in the same city.
“No. I have some other engagements. Phone is better,” he said curtly. So be it, I told myself. This would be the interview of my life.
Morning was another story.
“No, he still hasn’t come back. When he does, I’ll ask him to call you,” said the friendly voice on the phone sensing my exasperation. This had been my fifth call since 8 AM in the morning and it was close to 12 now. Since 8 AM I had been sitting by my phone armed with my recorder, pen and writing pad. And nothing happened. First he was in a breakfast meeting. After that, he got into a never-ending Hindustan Lever AGM – the one where Doug Baillie was inducted as CEO.
The voice on the phone jolted me back to reality, “I need to shop for my son’s wedding. Can you tell me where I can buy good saris?” Having got so many calls from me since morning, Mrs Prahalad had warmed up to me. “You could try Dadar perhaps,” I say. “Thanks. I’ll go there rightaway! And yes, I will tell him you had called,” she said excited and hung up.
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Unfortunately, CK's death has not received much media attention in the US.
