Category: Strategy

Ideas, Personal Growth, Strategy

How do we know when to quit?

A young student recently asked me the following question: How do I know it is time to quit something and when to persist with it? Here is how I answered the question: There is no one answer that fits everyone. There are many ways to figure this out. For me, the best way is to go back to the reason why I started something. If the reason I started something is still relevant and important, I know that I would like to continue to engage on this topic. Then the next question to ask is if the activity is taking you towards […]

Personal Growth, Strategy

Reading or Watching with your own Filter on

I read this interesting post by Robert Twigger in which he talks about how he is trying to watch the NEWS with his own filter – a filter for creativity. He also shares a bit about the results. You can read his post here. This is interesting in many different ways. What he has done is make that which is hidden, obvious. Each one of us looks at the information that comes to us with a filter on. I say this on many occasions and also in my book Thrive, that the human brain is a large pattern recognition engine. […]

Innovation, Strategy

Does Deploying Technology Lead to Competitive Advantage?

In a recent post for Gartner Blogs, Scott Nelson talks about how IT leaders obsess about not using a technology that their competitors use for a given business function. The key reason that they seem to think about is around “competitive differentiation”. As Scott rightly points out, the differentiation doesn’t necessarily come from the technology or the solution that they deploy. The competitive differentiation comes when we focus on “How” and the “Why” and not on the “What”. The reason (Why) a business might deploy the exact same technology or even product can be very different. Some might want to […]

Strategy, transformation

6 Levels of Commitment to Change

Premise: Every change or a transformation effort needs the support and commitment of people who will either be affected by the change or who lead the change or who could influence the success of the change effort. Hence, it is important for those who want to drive or lead the change effort learn how committed they are to the change. The commitment can vary from people wanting to outright sabotage the change on one extreme to co-creating or co-owning the change on the other end of the spectrum. Along the spectrum, there are 6 levels or stages of commitment that […]

Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Strategy, transformation

Four insights on Achieving Resilient Growth Consistently

The best selling authors of the book – Blue Ocean Strategy, recently sent an email in which they speak about the 4 pieces of advice they give to their customers on how to build resilient growth for their organisations. Here are the 4 pieces of advice. 1. Focus on building a healthy, balanced portfolio of market-competing and market-creating strategic moves. Both are important. While market-competing moves generate today’s cash, market-creating moves ensure tomorrow’s growth.   2. Don’t wait for growth to slow to make market-creation a strategic priority.Prepare in advance. You’ll be buffered by your market-creating move in a downturn cycle […]