Dr. Promod Batra(1936-2016) was born on 15 October 1936 in Sargodha a city in the Punjab Province located in modern day Pakistan. He was the eldest of five children and his father was an officer with the railways. As a child he was not exceptionally meritorious academically, but was blessed with the talent to learning on his own, think and find simple answers to questions on life. A habit which became his passion and then gave birth to his company – Think Inc.
Dr. Batra studied B.Com. from Shri Ram College Of Commerce, New Delhi (1957). Therafter he pursued MBA from University Of Minnesota, USA in 1960. Dr. Batra was honoured with D.Litt. by Rani Durgavati Vishwavidalaya, Jabalpur, MP in 2007.
On completing his MBA, Promod Batra got his management training with General Mills Inc. including a study tour around the world on behalf of Soybean Council of America. He was with Escorts for 33 years where during his seven assignments from 1963 to 1996 he learnt a lot in regard to conducting attitudinal seminars and management writing and self-publishing Management Books with the blessings of Escorts. For him Escorts became his College of Practical Learning to benefit him after retirement! He had many opportunities to travel to various collaborators of Escorts in Europe, USA and Japan. The travels were with the objective to learn from the various foreign collaborators and then to impart the learning effectively to the Escorts family of employees and dealers.
During his tenure he took dealers of Escorts on “Mini MBA” trips to Ford Motor Company of USA, objective was to train the dealers to learn new ways of thinking and doing. He also served as the Chief Administrator of Escorts Heart Institute for six years. The experience at Escorts Heart Institute allowed him the opportunity to learn the critical aspects of crisis management and stress management.
While working with Escorts, he started to write and compile attitudinal and management books. He made the uncommon progression from being a writer to a self-publisher of management books. He is actively pursuing publishing. One of his books Management Thoughts sold over 3,00,000 copies in India and abroad. Promod Batra conducted over 800 training programmes and published 15 books while working at Escorts.
When he retired in 1996, Batra was ready to be reborn as a Management Guru and Delhi’s corporate were happy to embrace him in the new avatar. Delivering his message in a lively mix of English, Hindi and Punjabi, Batra was star speaker of Think Inc – the company he founded and ran with his son Vijay. He extended his repertoire to include family-oriented subjects like ‘how to keep your wife happy’ and ‘how to enjoy your grandchildren’. The septuagenarian was a veritable Dr Feel-Good and said, the focus of his programmes was on keeping a positive attitude. Otherwise, there’s too much negativity in life.
In 2005, he started focusing his energies on writing about success stories of Indian entrepreneurs. Being himself a tiny entrepreneur, and successful at 75, he wanted to share with the professionals that when they are working they can learn a lot which they can use after they retire or get “fired” or become an entrepreneur. He researched several foreign entrepreneurs, but later only Indian, and published “Profitable Passion at Work” in 2005. In 2010, he published, “Walk on Sand before You Sleep on Silk”. Every year, he researched from the media, and published an annual Management Planner which contained over 100 entrepreneurial stories. Each story illustrates the fact that in today’s India anyone can be successful. The theme of Management Planner 2011 was: “The Education, Knowledge, Wisdom Creates WOW Factor In Our SUCCESS STORIES”. And for the year 2012 he had selected the theme by Abraham Lincoln -“That Some Achieve Success Is A Proof To All That Others Can Achieve It As Well”. Along with planners, Dr. Batra was also committed to creating and marketing items that further positive thinking like the Wall Planners, Posters, Playing cards, Thinking kits and many other innovative items.
Promod Batra had been an avid trainer and conducted over 100 one-day training workshops per year since 1996. His approach was simple, but well thought out. He had the unique advantage of being able to conduct training workshops for all the levels of the organization in English, Hindi and Punjabi. In October 2007, he was honoured with D.Litt. by Rani Durgawati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur M.P.
Dr. Batra’s simple yet profound picture message through which he spreads the message of positive thinking was fondly referred to as “Sukhiram” and “Dukhiram”.
