The Irresistible Rise Of The How To

In 1936 Dale Carnegie wrote How To Win Friends and Influence People. And with that he started an entire industry. What began as a succession of how-to books on various matters has now proliferated into videos, training programmes, workshops, portals, apps and even whole companies devoted to the subject. But more than just creating the industry, Carnegie also gave it its name—‘How To’—which David Ogi­lvy, that shrewd manipulator of people, called one of the most powerful phrases in the language.

The fact is that because how-to books push such a fundamental emotional button in us, something suggests that perhaps they have actually been around a lot earlier than Dale Carnegie, although exactly how much earlier is a matter of debate. Was the first how-to book Samuel Smiles’s Self-Help, published in 1846? Or is the genre even older? As we go back into history, we find several examples that appear to fit the bill. One could even argue, for example, that the oldest how-to book is the Bible itself: its subtitle might so easily be ‘How To Go To Heaven’. But then, there are other contenders that go back even farther in time.

And now, a quick browse through Amazon reveals that today there are how-to books on a bewildering array of subjects, right from How To Attract a Man and Find True Love Using 3 Scientific Keys That Work Like Magic all the way to How To Tell if Your Cat is Plotting To Kill You. Indeed, the oeuvre is evidently so lucrative that there is even a book titled How To Write How To Books. Take the example of those quintessential how-to books, the Dummies guides. The first one, MS-DOS for Dummies, was written in 1991; in 2001, just ten years later, the Dummies brand was bought for nearly $100 million by Wiley Books. And today they have over 2,600 how-to guides in print, from Quantum Physics for Dummies to Islamic Finance for Dummies (I kid you not).

One of the most important subsets of the how-to book category, of course, is the How-To-Succeed-in-Business book, which can range from the substantive (eg On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis or The Innovator's Dilemma by Clay Christiansen) to the sub-literate (How to Make $1,000 Per Day Clear Profit on Amazon With One Single $35 Product You Choose). And now here comes the latest addition to this category, Mantras for Success: India’s Greatest ceos Tell You How to Win—which, word for word, must be one of the persuasive book titles I’ve come across for a long time.

Mantras for Success is a collection of twenty CEO profiles, from Ratan Tata to Atul Singh with, at the end of each profile, a collection of quotes or ‘mantras’ uttered by the honcho concerned: a total of 117 in all. These span observations like, “A positive streak, combined with a sense of speed, will allow organisations to find opportunities worth exploring, even in the most difficult of times” (Mukesh Ambani) to “People are your biggest asset. Set them up to succeed. Trust and empower, demonstrate genuine respect and concern for them” (Kumar Mangalam Birla) and “Trust in the innate goodness of all, but be wise, discerning and on guard at all times, as their motives may be different from your goal” (Naresh Goyal, who else?)

However, some mantras are more insightful than others. Like, “Remember: sales is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is reality” (Adi Godrej). And, “The legacy I want to leave behind is for people to say, ‘I discovered the best in myself when I was a part of Mahindra’” (Anand Mahindra). And “Everything else is like a rubber ball and can bounce back, but four things are made of glass—family, friends, health and spirit. If you drop one of these they would break and you’ve had it” (Aditya Puri).

Mantras for Success is a nifty thing to read as you manoeuvre your way up the career ladder (or even as you survey the company you’re supposed to be running). What few quick words could Sunil Mittal, or Rajeev Memani, whisper into your ear that could give you an ‘aha’ moment, and lead to a nudge in your pay cheque (or your company’s market cap, as the case may be)? At 117 mantras and a cover price of `500, it works out to approximately `4.27 per mantra, which is not bad value for money, regardless of your cost-to-company.