Passion to Articulation

 I have often felt that it is the passion of the entrepreneur which he is able to portray as  a vision and translate it into  mission/ goals and objectives. Whenever this passion is not articulated properly, there is a generic struggle in envisioning and the statements of vision lands into being a string of words of numbers and targets;

While, I have gotten into  a debate on this a few times, I  would like to take up an example of how it can possibly be done without much fuss.

Firstly I believe the core of the organisation's vision has to emanate out of the prime mover who mostly is the owner/chairman or the CEO. He is at the centre of matters and interpretation of his /her thoughts/ words and sentences are key to the clarity in communication and goal setting.  Thus his/her passion  must be   profound and as open as possible  and be subjected to so many positive interpretations. Secondly, it must be  understood by the key leaders of the organisation and enable them to  subsequently work towards achieving this goal through  the business cases/plans  for the organisation for that year.

Thus the first round of leaders need to know exactly what the interpretations of the vision for their respective businesses need to be.

In my example , I would like to consider a media/entertainment house which is where I have spent most of my time.

What could possibly be a passion for the entrepreneur who has come to be in the entertainment space.

Thus he could start with a mantra  of  "We entertain"

One could interpret this by answering :

Who to entertain?
Demographically it could be a global market or say India or Indians all over. What it has given you is your target market /audience.

How do we entertain? Domains get defined when you say through Motion Pictures/ Broadcast / Internet/ Mobile

Thus your entire spectrum is covered. Now , if you put in saying Movies, soaps, Music, Games.

 etc, You have the via media ready.

This has instantaneously decided your devices of consumption: Theatres, DVDs, TV, PC, Handhelds, Mobile and others.

Which has further told you the formats of production of the content and possibly the pricing too.

Now lets say we extend to quantifying this.. (  25% of the Indians will be entertained by year xxxx). This leads to identifying how and what modes? ( Immediately distribution and devices take priority).. territories, theatrical, home videos, TV, Internet,  console, Mobile etc.

All of them start looking at how they can contribute to 25 % of their respective target audiences.
Theatrical says I will get 25% of theatre audience to watch my movies, 25% of TV audience will watch my programs, 25% of the games will be mine, 25% of the music listened to will be from my stable etc.

Now, it becomes that much easy to know where the company is headed and all strategies from, forming your slate, preparing your catalogue, the distribution network expansion, resource planning and funding will fall in place.

Most importantly, every single worker of the organisation knows where he is headed and how his profile and deliverables are quantified and what his contribution means to the company.


Year on Year, the quantifiable mission of the company changes from  entertaining 25% to say 30% and so on. The rest of the questions are answered automatically. You automatically add new businesses in the space, new distribution methods in the space, newer audiences in the space but the vision and communication is never changed.

It is even an easy decision to include or drop an emerging opportunity, lets say news or sports if the vision is clear.

I see quite a number of the new age companies working with unbridled passion but not well articulated  mantra/vision. It takes a bit of the Boss's  time and resource and certainly lays  the foundation for any initiative of the company in future.

Focus on the processes

We have so many times in the past year or so heard from the cricketers and the coaches that the key to their success has been to focus on the processes. Even after several astounding successes we still hear some of the younger generation players remind us of their effort to get the processes right and focus on the same.

This is not a word - "Process"-  only in the  cricketing domain but in several other sports and my provocation of this piece of logging thoughts today was when Dre in the Karate Kid also mentions to his friend on focussing on the process and the rest will follow.

It is true for our wards too. We have to enable them evolve a process for their eventual objectives of life -whether in studies or hobbies or sports that they pursue . Why , even in being a human being who respects others and evolves into being a respected human also has a process to focus on.

It is not often that companies do this ( focussing on processes)  , surprisingly , even while they speak about the same. they are too impatient in the end result fructifying and not in  how it happens consistently.
So whats needed to build processes?

A clear goal, an achievable and realistic timeline, a well defined way to reach the goal., an extraordinary belief from a team who will achieve .

Is that all?

Well, nothing that is not measured is achieved. Thus a performance metric for each of the processes. It helps in assessing where one stands as against the goal in each of the processes and lets you improve.

Easier said than done. But when done, there is success waiting.

Reversal of the Digital colonisation

The last couple of posts have been fairly popular with whoever has been devoting time on strategy. I have received some personal mails and a healthy debate and dialogue is ensuing. I am thankful to all who keep this going.

One of the mails doing rounds last 10 days is the further slide of Nokia's market share.

I was made to think about the trends and patterns on several aspects of what came across my life or what I learnt from them. However, some of the patterns that emerge are too good to be true  and ever more disbelieving is the way we as humans react so differently to the situations at two different times and eras.

This one emerged the first time in my mind  in one of the training programs a few years ago, when the third wave was being cited with reference to context of training.

What caught my eye was that during the Industrial revolution and subsequent colonialism under the precinct of international trade the Europeans did move the world, exploited it and made many a nation and its citizens subservient. was the cause of many a revolution and shouts for  indigenous  growth /production etc. The way people reacted to this invasion was more  adopting but never adapting . almost always hostile or subservient under fear.

The Europeans moved out of their respective countries as markets there saturated  and moved towards the East and Africa and upon either saturating these markets or a complete loss to local pressure and protest had lost their ground and retreated. Two markets they could not do much - China and Korea - were probably informing the world of something.

It may not be so evident to many but somehow the GSM era is witnessing a similar pattern; especially in the handset market. The Nokias and Siemens and Ericssons  of the world have looked beyond their states and beyond Europe and into the Asian markets and then now hoping for the African markets. The absolute dominance they had on the Asian markets and the subsequent rise of the eastern brands- Chinese and  Korean .

While in the earlier invasion cycle, their exit was more geographical and with violent local protests, their digital colonisation was welcomed in many ways with open arms. Eventually the retreat here too is as eventful and dramatic if not as violent - physically. If market shares are compared to the stretch of the kingdoms, then the erosion and shrinkage of the pie is for all to see as did the kingdom. Again, two kingdoms they never dominated even in this digital invasion is China and Korea are informing soemthing.

A reversal of the digital colonisation by the european brands has long set in.  Do I perceive it as the end of that as the beginning of  colonisation by our Asian neighbours ?

From protesting any foreign influence in the past, today in a truly global village, the citizens react prudently and adopt to their benefit. They allow any invasion, digital or fashion to happen as long as its meeting their developmental goal. However, they can be as ruthless in dictating an exist even in this era.

Such trends or reversal of trends , am sure is visible in many a field. If there are interesting ones pl do share.

Team Building: Cricketing Lessons !

I will have to set aside the cooking analogy that I promised to write about for another day as the IPL IV lessons seem to have more currency.

There are two key messages  that I have come across when it comes to team building.
One is  who you choose  and two is who you retain.

This is very relevant when we start new ventures and how you plan to scale. For a button start situation , we need to figure who the best and affordable are and make sure we get them. Just have a look at Chennai Super kings or for that matter Mumbai Indians. They did their best in picking and retaining their biggest bets. And they went all out in making the most in getting their combo in consistent winners.

Building the senior management team for yourself is also as important. Go behind the ones who you have trusted and make sure they believe in what you start and you showcase your belief in them.
It is not as easy as it is made out to be. Very difficult to meet the pay standards, very high degree of emotional connect needed, not easy to meet many unsaid expectations.  But as long as the vision is shared, there is success waiting to happen.

Retaining your team: This is even more difficult, especially if you have a investors who either do not understand the business or  are eternally impatient on progress.  It is not a rule to assume that each time there is success it is the product and each time there is a setback its the people.

Maintaining the team, allowing them to make their mistakes and adjustments and bringing them to alevel where you are sure they know what they are supposed to do takes time and does not come by nature to many and comes by nurture only to a few.

One of the success factor for consistent performance is a solid team which knows the job , each other and is retained for long. Slice and dice, cut and chop does not work.
In IPL IV, we can see the reason why CSK runs a consistent form, WHy RCB suddenly hit a consistent form,  Why Mumbai performed till they started shuffling and eventually dropping team mates.


It may just a sport but lets know that captains are running the company equivalent which is the team and their performance/wins is the equivalent of revenue and they also appraise members like companies do.

This is really dicey and difficult. But with a bit of care and shrewdness it is achievable.

Start Small, Plan Big, Grow Large!

In my last few assignments I have  been a victim of too many too soon. While I would partly attribute this to the management style of the owners and their inherent maverick approach, I would also attribute this to the way the industry in which I functioned.

A key agenda for growth that many companies  (especially at the start) would have is push many products and services, be present in all categories, get a virtual spread, de-risk, etc... Tell me , while most of us landed up doing all this, it is very late in the day that we realise that we had done one or two of this correctly and hence we are where we are today  in success terms and we did not have the plan and resource to do the rest well and hence we are where we are today.

My own personnel experience of the latter has had its own consequences.. Pushing for many things in parallel is essentially a result of
 a. lack of clarity on what we need to do
 b. A paranoid mind which keeps telling if you are not there then you will miss out.
 c. Your organisation does not have the key strengths to make it and hence you are all over the place.

The resultant effects,  multiple focus (de-focus) areas,  poor or incomplete planning, no growth period for any of them, highly burnt out team and resultant loss of steam in the products.

The lesson here is focus on one key initiative and make it big. I understand the need to have a portfolio of services and the de-risking etc. But don't worry about the portfolio in the first few years of your growth. Make that one thing happen and then  start pushing for many.

Once again Cricket has come to help in reminding the basics of Business. Steve Waugh the great Australian  Skipper once said on his belief in  on-field strategies and tactics," If you don't stand for one thing , You will fall for everything".

What a  depth in that statement!  Very true for any one in today's age and time when specialising in your domain is more important than being a jack of all trades.




In my next post lets figure out  how cooking teaches philosophy!

Parallels from Cricket

It is often that I try and bring analogies from either food/culinary skills or from Cricket. My madness for both has more or less been imbibed into my blood . However, some of those examples and parallels that I have drawn to motivate myself and simplify complex tasks have been absolutely effective.

One of the key complex tasks of any organisation is the achievement of sales targets. Every time a sales target is set either top down or bottom up , discussed, consultative or handed down it eventually lands up with one question ," How is it possible to achieve this? We do not have the time to do this. " etc.

The primary pressure point in achieving sales targets or for that matter any target is TIME. It just flies off as we discuss target and puts pressure on us.

One way to beat this pressure is to look at an one day international match a little more closely.  While every one in the world from viewers to critics to commentators to scorecards  keeps talking about run rate per over and analysing it, the only one who does not really bother about these metrics and focusses on the next ball and sees what he can score off that is the batsmen.

The ODI has 300  legal balls and give and take a few wides and no balls and a few extras , it may be about 310 balls. Any financial year has about 365 days and give and take the sundays (non earning and holidays) and this boils to about 300 revenue earning days .

See it is that simple.

Look at the sales targets from the point of view of the salesman on the street.  What is his overall target? Break it down to his daily target. Score of every ball and wait for the next. Score of each day  that days target and wait for the next day.

No batsmen ever overloads his mind with what he will do in the next ball. He focusses on the current. and waits for the weak bowler or the power plays.

Similarly focus on each day's target, wait for the big festival season, holiday offers, new pdts, big ad campaigns etc to score a flurry and push ur target up.

There is no way you can fall way behind target if you try something like this.

( Those who have been or known the way yellow pages slaesmen function would vouch for this approach)

While in cricket there is a win loss situation, in real life it is only a win as  you did all that you could, focussed on the current, didn't build castles or fool yourself on the big landslide you will achieve on a new product, you worked on a realistic timeline which you  are in control of (today) and still had a lot of time for yourself.

Any big target looks manageable in this approach. Well, it may not need cricket to teach this for many. But for me thats what taught this rule.

Did I land up achieving my targets. Well, every time I followed this method I did.  Each time I played a pre determined stroke ( meaning not assessing the situation and trying to do what had already thought was right strategy or an extravagant move), I failed.

However, when you have a good solid team strength, the chances of most of your team succeeding is very high. One or two falling short is recoverable with a little bit from those over achievers.

And the Managers' job?

Just sit back, relax and manage those daily metrics.

Care and let Care

I distinctly remember when the head of ad sales kept bringing in the erosion of sales personnel to the CEO in review meetings  but never once had any strong recommendation coming forth from the Boss.. Except that  he would say, "I understand your concern. Make sure you do something about it".

How many times in our growing professional life would we have lost personnel at ground level or at the immediate subordinate level  or really had tough situations in tackling them and found ourselves in a whining mood to our bosses. And many times the only support from the bosses would be " You need to handle it".

 Well, its true.. But while we realise this truth in a calmer mood do we really know why our boss said so.

I have been observing this situation in many organisations and have fallen into this cycle myself  though very early in my career.  While , each one can do a bit of an observation to understand what I am talking about, it is imperative to understand the real meaning and method how to convert this into an advantage.

One absolutely sane superior of mine did bring it to my senses the following:

1. As the ultimate boss, he /she is only interested in only in the interests of his immediate reports.  So the first level needs to worry about his next level. and so on. 

2. Encourage your first level to care about their first level.

3. Anticipate and make sure a you have a plan to handle it.

4. Guide to take action but keep the  interference minimal.

Try and not interpret this approach as non- committal or an hierarchical issue or lack of concern for lower levels..

What it means is while your first level knows you care for them , they also learn to do the same by mirroring to their next level. Really, my own experience of retention has been good but at the same time and definitely helped in developing able managers. 

It also gives your direct reports a sense of non-interference from you which I feel  is most critical in  handling personnel. 

Yes, it helps in building effective managers  and strong organisation structures and also lets each managerial level focus on their respective jobs.