A Myth that People Strive to Make More Money

In his opening remarks to a roomful of GSB students at the Hyde Park Center May 11, Krish Prabhu used the word “challenge” at least five times to describe his motivation in his rise to the top of the corporate jungle. “I think it’s a myth that people strive to make more money. I really believe that,” said Prabhu, CEO and president of Tellabs in Naperville, Illinois, who spoke to students at the “Road to CEO Conference” hosted by the Corporate Management and Strategy Group.

“Even if you tried very hard, it would be very difficult to spend $5 million, $10 million—at least for me. If I have $5 million, I don’t have to worry about money,” Prabhu said. As a trained scientist with no formal business training, he never thought he would become a CEO; he just kept looking for new challenges.

The difference between success and failure is how people read strategic situations and the judgment they use in making choices, Prabhu said. It may take 12 to 15 months to find out if a choice was bad or good, but as time passes, most people get better at making those choices, he said. “If there’s one bit of advice, it’s: ‘Whatever you’re doing, be involved.’ You are the best judge for whether you’ve done a good job,” Prabhu said. “If it passes your test, it’ll pass your boss’s test.”

As a native of India, Prabhu believes the best way to crack the “old boy network” is to convince its members that you’re so good, you’re going to go somewhere else if they don’t accept you. “As a minority, it’s always easy to think that someone or something is working against you,” he said. “If you are good, it really doesn’t matter. In fact, if an organization doesn’t recognize how good you are, there’s some other organization out there that’s going to recognize it.”

 

 Phil Rockrohr