Add Value - Amongst Smarties

Smart People - Yes, there are surely a lot of them around. We cannot know everything, in this World that ever existed. The understanding that becomes life line here is - learn and add value amongst them.

Like in the story of a Rabbit and a Tortoise - A tortoise cannot be as fast as a rabbit and rabbit has its own limitations. The rabbit and tortoise story extended to a race in water, shows the ability of a tortoise to swim. Hence, a belief that "I" can add value is a must. 

Next, a few important things that will be of great help - in working with SMART People ( Informed, Judicious, Skilled etc ) 

1. Know your strengths. Do extremely well in your craft, this is the bottom line. 

2. Ask the right questions. Be sincere to know and learn. Ask the right questions. 

3. Take time / Spend Quality time: Ask to be explained. 

4. Remember what is in your purview: Always do everything that is possible and within control. 

5. Read and educate yourself. There is no point trying to become an expert or compete. They are already miles ahead or they are much better anyways. Learn to contemplate. 

Finally, "Pedigree doesn't mean anything. Work ethic is everything".

Source: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-effectively-work-with-people-who-are-smarter-tha-1615880821

Jobs - A Paradigm Shift

Jobs - Just the name leaves me with goosebumps. An awesome man, who changed the way products and software was conceived. He made his mark, before he left. Some great qualities he got in, just are amazing. A small write up after reading a good article.

The year 1997 marked the return of Steve Jobs to Apple and a paradigm shift in the way World thought of what branding meant. Jobs simply changed the playing field. Till then people played with branding :
1. To make promises.
2. To display prices

What was not touched:
1. Customer Satisfaction
2. Customer Usage

Customer Delight would have been a far thought for sure.

Jobs merged the way business software thought, a man thought, a woman's desire and a child's playful innocence into branding. Jobs brand was associated with emotions and passion. The times changed to doing business with a vision and letting the customer know the passion.

He focused to tell :
No Strategy,
No Segmenting,
No technology
No Psychological Insight - can ever deliver a great brand. This is very true. I remember many people buying Apple products, simply driven by the desire to own an Apple device.

Jobs as a management topic, can be a bad example. Why ? Because Jobs broke conventions and did some really amazing things. This article of Jobs is here to simply exemplify the fact that nothing worth while was ever achieved without passion.

Let me leave you with a thought here. I am still thinking after reading the following line : " Jobs focused on the cart, yet even today, most marketers confuse it for the horse".

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232291

A Leader's - To Do

A Leader is one who has to take a lot of decisions. These decisions can go right or wrong. The process of taking these decisions, is what will help a leader gain the trust of his people.

These are applicable to any one who has to lead. This can be a team, a group or a family. Most are applicable at almost all places.

Some Golden Rules to be followed in the process :

1. Don't take every decision.
2. Make your people take a position.
3. Act Swiftly. Don't lose momentum, waiting for all the information.
4. Change bad decisions quickly.
5. Assign a Devil's advocate. ( A Devil's Advocate - Is one who will point the reasons or bring up points that can make an action fail)
6. Communicate what is being done.
7. Communicate why it is being done.
8. Support your people, unless they are wrong.
9. Do not overrule your people often. At times make a unilateral decision and move on.
10. Conduct an official postmortem.

Source/Inspiration: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235466

Good to Great - Introduction & Research Base

"Good is the enemy of Great" a wonderful quote that drove me to reading this book. The book is study that culminates research of 5 years by 21 researchers and the author. I am writing this to gather my thoughts, re-visit, share and also to gather some wonderful pointers from the readings. Hope it's good :)

The book " Good to Great " starts at a dinner table. The author Jim Collins and Bill Meeham ( MD of Mc Kinsey & Co, San Francisco) discuss about his previous book "Built to Last". Bill opines that the book was very well written, he loved it; but the book was "useless". Bill terms it as useless due to the reason that the book dealt with were great companies that for most part, they were mostly great.

The base of the research for the book are the publicly traded companies in the US in the years 1985-2000.
The examples that have been selected are companies that have an average cumulative stock return value of 6.9 times the market in 15 years. Few companies yielded this kind of results. To name a few of the selected ones: Abbott, Gillette, Wells Fargo and Kimberly Clark.

These companies were measured against two sets of companies:
1. Direct Comparison: Those that had same resources, same opportunities and belonged to the same industry. Ex: Wells Fargo and Bank of America
2. Unsustained Comparisons: Those that did rise and failed to sustain the growth.

Few black box research points, that was common in all the companies:
1. No larger than life / Genius CEO's.
2. Pay was not the criteria.
3. Strategies were not too different.
4. Focus was on  "Do what was important and immediate - you will be doing the impossible".
5. Technology can accelerate a transformation, but cannot create a transformation.
6. Mergers and Acquisitions - do not create great companies.
7. Concentrated on creating right conditions. Not on motivating people, managing change and alignment.
8. No launches or hung-ho about transformation. Revolutionary leap in results; not necessarily by a revolutionary process.
9. These companies did not belong to an industry that sky-rocketed in this period.

Brief of the figure: Concept from Chaos

• Level 5 Leadership: Quiet, reserved and even shy. For example: Lincoln and Socrates kind. 
• First Who Then What: Select the right people and then the direction. 
• Confront Brutal facts: Stockdale Paradox:- Relates to unwavering faith and an eye for reality. 
• The Hedgehog Concept: If the core business is not the best, the company cannot be one. 
• The Culture of Discipline: Hierarchy, Bureaucracy and controls are not needed in this environment. 

The flywheel and doom loop: No single defining action, no grand program, no killer innovation, no miracle moment; but relentless push of the flywheel turn after turn building momentum was the key. 

These are some points. The next chapters will deal with the topics touched in "Concept from Chaos". 

Happy reading ... I shall share as I read. 

Source: Good To Great - Jim Collins