Category: Strategy

Leadership, Strategy

Progress Doesn’t Always Follow a Straight Line

In an interesting blog post for Strategy+Business, Adam Kahane shares his perspective about solving tough problems. Tough problems or wicked problems are difficult to solve precisely because there is no one right answer and there are multiple root causes and motivations at play. It is wicked for the precise reason that there are seemingly contradicting interests at play, which makes it difficult to solve these problems permanently.  In the post, Adam talks about the fact that trying to solve a complex or a wicked problem as if it were a simple problem will always lead to making the problem even […]

1000Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Strategy

How to be Happily Busy

Time is the most precious commodity that we have. Attention is the second most important. And we need to trade both of these (depleting, non-renewable) with other people and organisations. This is almost non-negotiable (of course, we can go to the Himalayas for a retreat or become a Buddhist monk, but I am sure people who read my blog have neither of those intentions). That being the case, we don’t have a choice if we want to trade our time and attention but the choice is what do we trade it with.  If you are like any of my average […]

Ideas, Innovation, Strategy

Feeling Stuck When Solving a Complex Problem?

When we are working on a complex problem and are stuck, one the best ways to find inspiration to unstuck ourselves is to move away from our regular environment where we got stuck to a different novel environment. Here is a great post from IDEO university that talks about an activity that could help us find inspiration outside our context – https://www.ideou.com/blogs/inspiration/an-activity-to-help-you-find-inspiration-outside-your-context. The post talks about a three-step process: Step 1: Start with Emotions Step 2: Identify Analogous Experiences Step 3: Reflect and Connect This is one way to find inspiration. We could also find inspiration to solve a complex problem […]

Leadership, Strategy

What is better – Being People Centric or Being Process Driven?

One of the decisions that every business needs to make, in order to continue to grow is to put in place processes that can provide enough stability,  predictability and consistency of experience. Without the right processes, the growth is chaotic and can strangle the business itself. On the other side, there is this whole conversation about how it is important to be people centric in order to do well. People do business with other people and not with processes or bots. So, it is important to treat people (employees, customers and partners) well and thereby create the foundation for them […]

Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Strategy

What Do You Do when you are stressed

Premise: We all live in a world where we have stressors all around us and our ability to manage stress becomes an element that determines how successful we are in whatever we do. Managing Stress: As with everything else in life, stress also has two faces. One kind of stress allows us to be alert and in the moment and leads us to be at our best. The other kind of stress takes a toll on our abilities and leads us to perform at far lower levels than we are capable of. The truth of the matter is that it […]