Serendipity and Learning

This bright green book with a yellow title has always caught my attention, but I had never read it.  Imagine my surprise that when I finally picked it up as part of a preparation for a workshop that it was such a fantastic book. Playing to win by Alan Lafley and Roger Martin is one of those books that is up there when it comes to learning about how strategy can be crafted and implemented in real business. There is much in the book - and unlike other books - this book is really a leaf out of P&G, but with frameworks and models that can be applied anywhere. Image from here . It is these 5 questions played in a loop (well, iteratively) that are the juiciest part of the book and as simple and obvious as they are, it is this place where the strategy play happens. So, yes, simply put a great book to be read by anyone who is anywhere close to strategy...

A conference is a place where there are sages on stages giving you gyan. Notorious among them are certain types of conferences where the same topics is discussed year on year. So, the net result is that conferences are places where people go, not to really get any knowledge, but to network. I had a chance to be a part of a 'Flipped' conference - Transformation Dialogues, where the audience asks questions and the panels go based on audience questions - under the larger umbrella of the topic. The topic at hand was strategy and every table worked (seriously) using the given framework and got their questions answered (by and large). It was fun to be a table facilitator and take the audience through the process, answer their questions and guide them through the framework. More power to the Flipped conference. PS: the flipside of the flipped conference is a ton of background work, so beware...

Clash Royale is back in the centre at our home. After saying no to the algorithm, we are now back with gusto. And I have learnt some interesting lessons. In Clash Royale, one tends to fall back on certain strategies that work. And like most strategies in the real world, they reach their sell-by date quickly as opponents adapt or levels change. And like most strategists in the real world, we tend to get stuck in our own world view. In the latest edition of our on off relationship with the game, it is with inputs from my son that I have been able see a different world view (and if I may add  - vice versa to some extent as well). This has led me to trying different combinations and trying out things that I otherwise would not have tried out. Why? Because it was working. It was after a lot of permutations and combinations that it began to work. Why should I change now? Because one, it is not working and two, it is good to change - was the advice I got. I also got the advice that...

Of late, we have been racking our brains on Strategy (we are busy cooking something).  It is in this context that our strategic lenses are ON.  Most of the time we think strategy is for the CXO suite and somewhere in an airy-fairy land. But, the fact is strategy is all around us. See this picture from Vasudev Adigas - a typical Bengaluru fast food eatery. At one end of the spectrum is a Starbucks and Cafe Coffee Day. Add a few other brands and local cafes - and there is solid competition at every 'road' or 'street'. On the other hand are the numerous 'sagars' that dot Bengaluru. Some of them have gone upmarket like Vasudev Adigas. Sure, they are not as upmarket as the Starbucks or coffee houses, but they are a level up over the rest of their ilk. Again, there is competition at every half street in this range.  And mostly, the clientele is interchangeable - few exclusively go to coffee shops.  And VA knows this. Their USP is fresh food - not...

As someone who follows Business Strategy quite closely, I l oved this article which states that Google is not safe from Yahoos fate. And as preposterous as that might seem, the article tells us why. Do read i t, if you are anywhere in the tech space or just working anywhere! Having seen this from the inside in many firms - I can agree to it. BPO jobs which were seen as invincible - are slowly being eaten by the bots. Software services - which was the main job giver to the educated Indians - is being rained on by the cloud. Start ups are disrupting every sphere one can think of. And in every place - the top team thinks they are invincible, that their business model is here to stay and there is no real need to change. Well, no, this is the internet age - and every industry is one disruption away from oblivion! Now I need to find that disruption in order to make a mark with my own company :)

Recently, I had to chance to attend a session on "Strategy" by two people. Let us call them Professor and Trainer.  (No, the ending is not what you think it is) The Professor had a lively interactive discussion - as did the Trainer. The Professor spoke for the same time as the trainer - but the Trainer was more interactive, had exercises for us to complete and had reading material. The Professor spoke about experiences from his work and around the world including historical examples- the Trainer spoke about data points around the world. The Professor was not the most suave, articulate - the Trainer got all his accents right and could speak like a dream. So, whose talk do you think we enjoyed? If you thought that we enjoyed the Trainer, you got it wrong. The Professor beat the Trainer by a wide wide margin. And therein lies an important lesson for me. That is about understanding the audience. Sometimes, we focus on making trainings interactive, lively, fill it up...