Adapt: Your First Step Towards Success That Lasts

By: Raghavan Venugopal
Publisher: Leaders Press
Publication Date: November 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1637352199
Reviewed by: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Review Date: December 19, 2023

Combining his real-world experience in the vast and rapidly changing realm of engineering technology with a clear gift for engaging storytelling, author Raghavan Venugopal creates an allegorical tapestry of vibrant and vital connections between work life, family scenarios, and inner contemplation in his debut work, Adapt: Your First Step Towards Success That Lasts.

Venugopal’s tale begins when his central character, Ram, working in the lab of InfraT, micromanaging each step of the processes assigned to him, finds himself in a quandary. He has been successful in bringing the latest project to profitable fruition; but should he apply for a management post? Bearing in mind the ambitions he has nursed for some time, to improve life for his family – Gita, who has an important career of her own, and their two children, Keshav, an active-minded schoolboy, and baby daughter Diya, Ram takes on the career challenge. He slowly but surely arrays his group and assigns their tasks to achieve remarkable improvements at InfraT. It isn’t easy – some of those in his charge have scant respect for his visionary ideas, and working almost around the clock can sometimes affect his ability to be with family as much as he would wish – but he still finds time to talk with Keshav, encounters that provide more metaphoric material for Venugopal’s larger picture. Ram is seen as someone coming to know himself more completely as he moves into higher spheres of work and as his devotion to family is also on the increase. Not everything Ram presses for will be met with unquestioning enthusiasm by his cohort, but he knows that if he maintains his resolve, others will follow, and goals hoped for will be met. Importantly, Ram’s father/son relationship gradually builds to a series of profound revelations, leading to an event in Keshav’s educational path that will give Ram reason to more thoroughly question his career trajectory.

As the reader will sense, Ram’s experiences are in some significant ways a shadow of Venugopal’s career trajectory, similar in many details, such as college education and the field of technical IT in which both are immersed. Yet the author has deftly composed his book for any corporate worker, in any field, because the scenarios depicted are widely symbolic, and may appear in almost any workplace grouping. The author carefully avoids describing the tasks assigned to Ram and his cohort as specific to only certain fields of employment, so that anyone may identify with his central character. A helpful Appendix serves to elucidate Venogopal’s management philosophy – Integrated Growth on the path to Unite with a purpose to Serve, or “iGUS”, which bears his trademark.

Quill says: Venogopal’s lively drama pitting complex bureaucracy against human needs and aspirations will appeal to anyone who has ever worked in an office of any kind. It is the first in a series, leaving the reader hoping to learn how the next phase of Ram’s ambitions will play out.

For more information on Adapt: Your First Step Towards Success That Lasts, please visit the author's website at: raghavanvenugopal.com