Predicting the Past

Everyone is an expert on the past.

They can explain why something has worked, why something was unique/successful and path breaking.

The challenge is not in predicting the past but seeing a future that many miss today.

From the kid who saw the opportunity to sell mobile recharge on a street corner, to the specialist who supplies 'cut onions' in bulk to the street hawkers in Mumbai, someone who saw that there is money in platforms and not traditional hard assets...  all of them have seen a future that millions missed.

That is one critical skill that no school/college/university/curriculum teaches. How to see an opportunity before others?

Some starting points...

- be open

- ignore all assumptions/rules/general practices. also what people call 'risk'

- think disruptively and not incrementally

-  be ready and able to pivot

The experience of a failure makes you much stronger than any 'teaching' can!

Stop holding the safety rail.

Simpli fly

Changes in business and technology are not just disruptions anymore but continuous permutations!!   Coupled with the information overload, it's easy to get lost or get 'busy'!!!

Will getting busy this way make business sense? 

Mostly not. It is likely to cause distractions, money and time losses and poorer quality of life in general.

The right thing to do is to simplify. Choose very very few ideas and pursue them to be the best in class. 

For entrepreneurs and leaders, this will result in the following:

-  Expertise and IP that's hard to replicate and will give the true 'moat' to business 

- Quality revenue growth

- Better quality of life for the people involved since you are not chasing 1000 things to be busy all the time!!!

Good luck with that ' one in a million idea'!!!

Ideas to Unicorns

Everyday tons of ideas on generated ,copied ,experimented  and go through their own life cycle. 

Very few of them scale up, become big enough to make an impact, sustain themselves. 

Every Hype cycle idea creates hundreds of startups ,many of them wither and fall by the wayside.  Why is the mortality rate so high?

With no shortage of funding and societies' newfound respect for startups, shouldn't more of those be thriving? 

Ideas need passionate teams to commit, pivot, persevere and focus deeper. With sustained focus comes expertise, innovation , differentiation and business survivability. 

It's a long term game. Learn from Amazon!

Power of Open End

Many people open a thriller and first read the end, before starting the book.

Corporates put up quarterly goals and make their employees work towards a known end.

People read reviews/see photos of the place they want to visit, well before they even leave their home.

Stock investors punish a stock/country that does not have 'predictability'!

Humans ( most of them ) by nature do not seem to prefer surprises and want a known end.

There is a flip side. The power of open end.

Its the power of 'Open Endedness' that lets creators make something none imagined before. 

It enables algorithms with 'unsupervised learning' to identify patterns that none thought existed.

It enables travellers 'discover' places/people that they never read/seen before.

It enables 'seekers' to delve into the 'little known' in their search for truth and self inquiry.

Do not be 'close ended' all the time! You might be replaced by a Robot very soon!!!

Innovation at fringes!

Organisations spend tons of money to keep innovating - to stay ahead of competition, win new deals, get more efficient and in some cases just to survive.

There is no analyst call/management review/press release /advertisement that does not speak of innovation by companies.

Then why is it that it is said to happen at fringes?

Is it organisational lethargy and comfort with the status-quo?

Is it urgent overtaking the important?

Is it the pressure for quarterly results ( there are no 3 year or 5 year results apparently :-) ?

Is it the gap between intent and execution?

Is it the gap between the senior management vision and ground level appreciation ?

Perhaps its all the above.

Organisations encourage innovation at floor level but most tend to be incremental improvements that shine in pockets/ are known in small corners/ have marginal impact on the mainstream revenue engine.

An Amazon has taken over a decade to perfect itself and is now beating not just competitors but industry categories altogether ( Brick and Mortar retailers, Fashion stores, Groceries, Book shops, Music and Entertainment industry.... ).

A platform like that has billion customers who can easily be provided services such as financial services at little or no cost of acquisition and maintenance.  What will that do to traditional large established banks and financial institutions?

What would it take Amazon to become an insurance service provider ( offering the same level of customer orientation minus the complacency ) ?

True disruptors need time and focus to develop into killers. Those disruptor ideas need different mindset and unleashed creativity to pivot and perfect. The expectations from all stakeholders including the creators/stakeholders are different.

Are the traditional organisation structures/models amenable to these disruptors?

Faith vs Evidence

Science suggests that we approach life in a rational, rule driven thinking.

Religion suggests a faith based approach.

which is correct?

Rationality helps bring order and predictability to life . Its also helping us automate /templatise lot of behaviors reducing cost, risk and time. Its constantly helping technology automate rule based behaviors be it in personal life or professional life.

However as people encounter trauma ( personal tragedies, wars, unexplained ill health etc) ,  rationality is unable to help.

Also logicians find themselves with more questions than answers.

It is faith based approach then that helps tide over toughies, explain the 'un-explained' , spurs creativity and offer hope.

Compartmentalisation - Box it in

Just like the spelling which is a mouth/earful, its a difficult skill to master. 

It is about keeping emotions regarding specific items into specific categories/compartments so that they are only picked upon when thinking about the specific category.

Soldiers who come back from war, having seen terrible tragedies/trauma are taught this skill to handle Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Why is that relevent to us?

Each of us go through tough situations in life and business that make us feel weak in the knees/unable to address the stress they cause/find them to be all -encompassing.

It only debilitates us to the extent that we cannot attend to other facets of life.

This is why compartmentalisation is such a key skill. It teaches you to 'box them in' so that each box is separate and you are still opening other boxes of life and not be stuck with one.

while its not easy, its a better alternative to getting defeated by a single box!