Author: Mukesh Gupta

Ideas, Leadership

When someone says “why reinvent the wheel?”

When someone says “Why reinvent the wheel?” , I am tempted to think that the person is trying to maintain the status quo and avoid change, change that is inevitable, change that is better embraced than resisted. I do agree that there could be times and situations where you really do not need to reinvent the wheel.  However, I believe that if you put your thoughts on a topic, you can always find ways to improve upon your previous attempts. It is even more important if you are talking about any of the important functions in your organizations like sales, […]

Leadership

3 things you can do daily to become a highly successful leader

I have come to believe that the things that matter most in any relationship, this includes your relationship with your direct reports as well, is the small things that you do daily. Here are 3 things that you can start doing today to improve your relationship with your team: Talk to everyone in your team at the start of the day. Everyday. This can be for a minute or 5 minutes. But do this as a ritual. You can say hi or ask them how did that meeting go or how was their day yesterday or even inquire about their family if […]

Ideas, Innovation, Leadership

Leading a culture of Innovation

I came across this great video where Kevin & Jackie Freiberg talk about how to lead with a culture of innovation. One thought that stands out for me from this video is one question: What happens if we start a culture of planned obsolescence of all our products? I think this one question will differentiate between companies that will thrive and those that will lose their way! First, lets listen to what they have to say.. [youtube=http://youtu.be/7XGlwdiyMdA] Now, I have tried to summarize what the Friebergs talk about below: Innovation happens when you learn to “be comfortable being “uncomfortable””. This […]

Ideas

How do you innovate “Innovation” ..

A couple of days ago, I submitted my entry for the HBR/McKinsey M-Prize Challenge run by Management Exchange. This challenge is about “Innovating Innovation” and will be judged by some of the greatest thinkers in innovation. You can find below my submission for the challenge. If you like my thoughts, request you to vote for my submission here. SUMMARY Its not the lack of ideas that stops organizations from being innovative, but the way resources are allocated & employees rewarded that is the key. We need to change the way we set and manage KPI’s, the way we allocate funds (quarterly budgeting […]

Business Model, Leadership, Sales

The Challenger Sales model & its relevance in the selling models of the future..

I recently read the book – The Challenger Sale and would like to share my impressions from the book. My personal opinion on the relevance of this model: In order to succeed this model requires a change in the culture of the sales organization (from top to bottom), which we have observed is a very very difficult thing to achieve. Very few organizations have leaders who are capable of driving such a change initiative to success.  As this book is based on the research on reps that were successful in selling when everyone else was failing, this assumes that what […]