LEST WE FORGET…

write to convey my appreciation of your selection of Deshabandu D. S. Jayasundera, along with the likes of leading international figures such as Nelson Mandela, Lee Kuan Yew and so on, as one of your role models, to celebrate LMD’s 10th anniversary (August 2004 edition). I concur fully with your writer M. V. Muhsin that Jayasundera is without peer among corporate leaders in Sri Lanka. Like Muhsin, I came under Jayasundera’s influence early in my working life. Now, after 25 years of living and working in Sri Lanka and overseas – including several years at Sri Lanka’s leading blue-chips – I have yet to encounter a business leader who comes close to his stature. Above all else, he was gifted in his ability to identify talented people and inspire them to extraordinary heights. He truly believed that leadership is bestowed by those who are led. He was a visionary leader who constantly rose above the mundane and focussed on the bigger picture.
We need to perpetuate those of the likes of Jayasundera, so that the lessons of their lives are not forgotten. I would propose that Foster Lane – the small, modest lane that winds through the bowels of Hayleys – be renamed after him, so that future generations do not forget him.

Sujiva Dewaraja
Colombo 2.

VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

I have read with much interest a recent series of articles in LMD (August 2004 edition) on the exemplars whose achievements have moulded their lives. It is odd that in a country peopled by Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims, none of the articles mentioned the Buddha, Christ, ‘God’ or the Prophet. What is this separation between business and personal worship that seems to be the vogue among some?
At Harvard Business School, an eminent professor of business studies popped the question: “Who is your archetype?” Up went a babble of voices in which the names of eminent business leaders from America, Europe and Japan were mentioned. However, a lone student in the back row remained strangely silent. Puzzled, the professor asked the student: “Have you no archetype?” “Yes, I do,” replied the student. “Well then, tell us. We are anxious to know,” said the professor. With trepidation on his face, the student looked around at his classmates and uttered in a diffident tone: “Jesus Christ.”
Laughing derisively, his classmates looked at him. The student was upset by their reaction, and the professor – momentarily – looked blank and unreceptive to the student’s remark. However, the professor’s next move surprised everyone. He walked up to the student, shook his hand and said: “Hold fast to Jesus, and never let him go.”

Horace Perera
Lake Road,
Boralesgamuwa.