GREAT MANAGERS ARE MASTERS OF JUGAAD

GREAT MANAGERS ARE MASTERS OF JUGAAD Talent Helps You

Manage. Jugaad Helps You Find a Way When the Usual Way Stops Working.

What do you do when the resource you planned for is suddenly unavailable?

When the supplier fails? When the machine stops? When the employee

doesn’t arrive? When the door is literally—or metaphorically—locked?

Do you stop? Do you complain? Do you wait for perfect conditions to

return? Or do you look around and ask: WHAT DO I HAVE? Great Managers

Are Masters of Jugaad began with two ordinary incidents in Dr.

Abhishek Gilara’s life: milk was unavailable for an early-morning Shiv

puja, so he used curd; on another day, a locked dressing room could have

ruined a Sunday outing with his son, until he stopped concentrating on what

was inaccessible and started using what was available.

Those small moments opened a much larger management question: When the usual way stops working, does your

thinking stop with it? In this book, Dr. Gilara explores Jugaad not as a culture of shortcuts, but as common sense

working under constraint—the ability to protect an important objective by intelligently using available resources

when the normal route becomes temporarily unavailable. But he also draws an important boundary. Jugaad is not

laziness. It is not poor planning. It is not compromised quality. It is not avoiding investment. It is not bypassing

safety. And it must never become an excuse for dishonesty. Jugaad should rescue a system. It should not become the

system. Through practical management thinking, everyday observations and lessons drawn from work and life, this

book explores how managers can distinguish a genuine constraint from an excuse, separate the objective from the

route, identify what is truly non-negotiable, create alternatives under pressure and convert temporary workarounds

into permanent organisational learning. The book ultimately moves beyond solving emergencies. Because the greatest

manager is not the person who personally performs the most Jugaad. The greatest manager builds an organisation

full of people who can think when the answer is not written in the manual. Plan well. Build systems. Train people.

Protect your values. Expect reality to surprise you. And when it does—think. Because a closed road does not always

mean a lost destination. Sometimes you simply need another way. Talent helps you manage. Jugaad helps you find

a way. Systems help you repeat the way. Wisdom helps you improve the way. Values tell you which ways you must

never take. And perhaps that is what great management really is. Not having every resource. Not predicting every

problem. Not controlling every circumstance. But when everyone around you says— “We can’t.” having the

common sense to ask— “WHAT DO WE HAVE?”