Business and Finance

No Uppercut, No Hook.

A simple message, communicated across the ranks; from the streets of Bhiwani, to the boxing rings of Mumbai. This simple message is the single most important reason for Indian boxers coming to fore in the Beijing Olympics.

The shortest distance to land a punch is to go straight. It is also the easiest way to score a clear punch & register a point. When the Indian Boxing Federation realized that, they executed this strategy ruthlessly by banning uppercuts & hooks. A penalty was imposed on any boxer who tried an uppercut or a hook.

Continue reading ‘Simple Message Drive Great Strategy Execution – Example of India's Lone Boxing Medal’ »

Often during the process of strategy execution, the implementers start getting early feedback that the strategy is way off the mark. This feedback comes from the front lines : from employees, customers, suppliers, associates.

Given a bad strategy, a great execution will only speed up a business failure. What the implementers need is a mandate or a license to kill bad strategy without wasting precious resources and time. However there are reasons why a bad strategy is never shot down before it is too late .

1. Implementation is done by the lowly grunts or junior level managers and there is no process through which the ‘grunts’ or ‘hands and legs’ can communicate their feedback. Even if there are means to relay feedback , the feedback does not have the necessary credibility.

Continue reading ‘The Licence to to Kill a Bad Strategy’ »

Akbar was a really powerful king.

He had an empire that extended from the mountains of Hindu-Kush to the Bay of Bengal. As an emperor he had the sheer might to crush his opponents, to smash their kingdom into rubble. Like they do ‘a hostile’ (takeover) these days.

Akbar, however, preferred to integrate. He married into the Rajputs , his fiercest & most tenacious opponents. His favoured queen was a Rajput queen Jodhabai. He gave Rajputs a lot of respect, important jobs in the army and bestowed on them a lot of honours.

It was a wise thing to do. While Akbar was an uncontested Emperor, the Rajputs remained kings of their small kingdoms. So while Akbar had a vast empire he saved a lot of his time from martial pursuits. Instead he worked on pursuits of a different kind like ideating about a new religion.

Continue reading ‘Integrating an Acquired Company – Lessons From an Indian Emperor Called Akbar’ »

It is something that I spend a lot of time on; convincing the CEO to think from the customer standpoint, talking to the department head about what will deliver results at the frontlines.

It requires a lot of thinking to make something ‘dumb’ and it is never simple to make anything ‘simple’. Companies are often caught in a situation where they are terribly excited about a slew of product launches or service upgrades which they think is going to be terribly exciting to the customer. The customer may indeed be excited, only if somebody told him about it or better still answered all his queries.

Continue reading ‘Make it Dumb and Simple. or Forget About Scaling a Business Idea’ »