AI Generated, Prompt Engineering by Sumit W

Think Differently and Think Again

GoodRead, Productivity, , , ,

Management attention is the ultimate constraint!

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

When it comes to new ideas and innovations from the team, the ultimate bottleneck is management. Their time and interest define whether the ideas are going to see the light of day! And as usual, words drown in various biases, and a billion-dollar idea will be killed without even realising its potential, just because the manager could not agree or find time to “rethink” his objections. Clearly, it’s not a new issue.

When iPhone peaches to Steve Jobs, he ridiculed it initially, believing that a mobile phone should focus on essential functions rather than extravagant features. It was he who was thinking differently while reviving Apple and avoiding bankruptcy, ultimately leading to the creation of the revolutionary iPod, which transformed how the world consumed music. However, it was his ingenious team, fueled by innovation and creativity, who dared to think again and found a compelling use case for the iPod as a phone. They envisioned a seamless integration of music, communication, and internet capabilities within a single device, thus paving the way for what would become the iPhone and revolutionizing the entire smartphone industry in the process. Through their collaborative efforts, they not only changed the way individuals interacted with technology but also set a new standard for what a mobile device could achieve in our daily lives.

For sure, each successful enterprise has an innovative founder, however it’s the team who make the enterprise succeed again and again and give the edge.

The book “Think Again” by Adam Grant, discusses the importance of rethinking and unlearning in a changing world. It emphasizes the value of being open to changing one’s mind and embracing doubt. Confidence combined with humility leads to better rethinking and learning. Challenging our own beliefs and seeking new perspectives can improve decision-making. Encouraging others to question their assumptions can lead to more open-minded conversations.

🦾 Modes of Thinking

It’s important to recognise the mode that we operate in while discussing an idea with someone. Especially when the ideas is not belongs to us, but we are the decision makers. The three modes quoted in the books are preachers, prosecutors, and politicians.

In each of these modes, we take on a particular identity and use a distinct set of tools. We go into preacher mode when our sacred beliefs are in jeopardy: we deliver sermons to protect and promote our ideals. We enter prosecutor mode when we recognize flaws in other people’s reasoning: we marshal arguments to prove them wrong and win our case. We shift into politician mode when we’re seeking to win over an audience: we campaign and lobby for the approval of our constituents. The risk is that we become so wrapped up in preaching that we’re right, prosecuting others who are wrong, and politicking for support that we don’t bother to rethink our own views.

🔬 One more mode “Scientists” mode

The mode which emphasis on questions everything is called as Scientist mode. For sure, it’s a methodology which researchers are trained to use, it’s not limited to white lab coats. This mode comes to action when we are in search of truth. The way to operate this mode is build the hypothesis, which you like to make it happen, and test this hypothesis by discovering knowledge.

The biggest hurdle of using Scientist mode is “ego”, and “we have done everything in past” a status quo bias.

✋Status quo bias

This cognitive bias leads people to prefer maintaining current practices or traditional methods, often resisting changes or new approaches. It’s driven by a comfort with the familiar and a perception that past methods are inherently safer or more effective.

In organizational settings, this bias can hinder innovation, as it causes people to dismiss new ideas by overvaluing past successes. Another related concept is sunk cost fallacy, where past investments in a particular approach make people reluctant to abandon it, even if it’s no longer the best option.

⁉️ How to “Think Again”?

It’s all really come down to acknowledging that we are prone to these biases, and overcoming this will truly bring innovations to organisation and will sustain growth long term. Few practices mentioned below, which I believed from my experience are really helpful. Also few of them are also aligned to over all theme of “Think Again” practice mentioned by Adam Grant.

1. Embrace a Scientist Mindset: Approach ideas like a scientist rather than a preacher, prosecutor, or politician. This involves forming hypotheses, experimenting, and being willing to change beliefs based on new evidence, which can help challenge assumptions about past practices.

2. Rethink Familiar Practices: Grant suggests actively questioning the effectiveness of familiar practices and regularly asking, “What if we tried a different approach?” This helps counter the comfort of “we’ve always done it this way.”

3. Encourage Intellectual Humility: Recognize that being wrong is a natural part of learning. Leaders can set an example by admitting mistakes and valuing learning over being right, which encourages others to embrace new ideas and reduce reliance on the past.

4. Seek Diverse Perspectives: Invite input from people outside the usual circle who may offer fresh viewpoints. This approach helps expose blind spots and reduces the tendency to default to what’s been done before.

5. Focus on Small Wins: Trying small, low-stakes experiments with new ideas can make people more open to change. These incremental steps help build confidence in different approaches without overwhelming the organization.

🔖 Summary

The approach of “Think again” and “Think Different” is a practice which make us pause before getting overwhelmed by the newness of the idea.

A pause and change in perception will bring the focus back to this question of how to think differently and think again, for the concept which we may think not worth of our time.

Management being ultimate gate keeper of the funds and resources, are the responsible ones who should practice “Think Again” and allow team to “Think differently”.

I hope this small blog will bring some insights and will help you “Think Differently”

Good Execution – Strategy – a new possibility

GoodRead, Productivity, , ,


The three processes—people, strategy, and operations— remain the building blocks and heart of good execution. But as the economic, political, and business environments change, the ways in which they are carried out also change.”

Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck

Change vs. Inertia

Change or not change, that’s the constant tug of war an organization faces. Change being only constant, and our love of inertia (why to change), leads to this war within each organization. A successful company becomes successful, by knowing customer better than its competition, but then same company faces competition to safeguard its turf due to its ‘belief’ that they know customer! Customers are more prone to change, and they have fewer option to avoid it, and the organization which constantly tap such changes in customer’s expectations make it sustain and bloom constantly!

Recently I read book “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done”

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan emphasizes the importance of executing strategies effectively to drive success in any organization. The book argues that many companies fail, not due to a lack of vision, but due to a failure in execution. It breaks down execution into three main processes: people, strategy, and operations. The authors highlight the role of strong leadership in establishing a culture of accountability, aligning the right people with the right tasks, and maintaining a rigorous focus on the practical steps needed to reach goals. The book provides actionable advice for leaders to ensure that plans turn into results by consistently focusing on follow-through and engagement at all levels of the organization.

⁉️ The Question

With such challenges, the book help answer following three questions, these aspects not only enable a faster change but also help us being more dynamic and adaptive to constantly changing environment.

  1. How can executives effectively bridge the gap between high-level strategic decisions and the day-to-day choices made by employees at the front lines of the organization?
  2. In what ways can traditional strategic planning methods be reimagined to foster more creativity and innovation within a business?
  3. What role does fear of change play in preventing organizations from adopting new strategies, and how can this fear be mitigated to encourage more effective decision-making?

The thing is not always what we assume it is. Often, we get in our own way when solving problems with a new way of thinking, because we’re afraid it won’t yield better results than the tried-and-true methods of yesterday! We need a framework for thinking through the most common problems with a new lens on what might work to bring about the most effective, long-term solution

👂Where is the competition, who is listening?

In business, where competition is between products rather than companies, the line of sight between a CEO’s decisions and whether a customer will buy a product at any given time is much less clear. The individual outcomes of customers’ decisions are far from easy for executives seating in head office, removed from the front line, to predict and control.

If the judge of the value of any product or service is the customer who chooses to buy, not the provider, then it is the provider’s (Company’s) people at the front line, in front of the customer, who are best placed to determine what the customer values. It is up to the rest of the company to help the people in the front lines, where the revenues come in, to satisfy those customer needs. The lower level, in effect, is the customer of the level above it. And like a customer, it should expect to get more value from those services than it pays to get them.

Companies should build Cumulative advantage as the layer on its initial competitive advantage by making its product or service an ever more instinctively comfortable choice for the customer. Focus on helping customer make easy choice over making the product a habit.

🎲 Customers are beyond Rationality

The common belief about competitive advantage is that successful companies choose a position, focus on certain consumers, and design activities to serve them better. The aim is to get customers to buy again by matching the value offered to their needs. By creating unique and personalized experiences, the company can maintain a competitive edge. This way of thinking assumes that consumers make careful and logical decisions. Although emotions may play a role in buying, many times these decisions come from a conscious thought process. A good strategy understands and responds to this thought process. However, research in behavioural psychology suggests that buying decisions aren’t always made consciously. Our brains work more like machines that fill in gaps: they take incomplete information and quickly complete it using past experiences. This fast thinking, known as intuition, includes thoughts and feelings that come to mind quickly and strongly influence our actions. It’s not just what we remember that shapes our quick judgments but also how easy and fast we can remember it. When we decide based on what “feels right,” it usually means our thinking process was smooth and effortless. Hence, one reason people often choose the leading product is simply that it is the easiest option available, as it stands out in the shopping environment.

😶 Customer Loyalty – Never take it for granted!

If consumers are slaves of habit, it’s hard to argue that they are “loyal” customers in the sense that they consciously attach themselves to a brand on the assumption that it meets rational or emotional needs. In fact, customers are much more fickle than many marketers assume: often the brands that are believed to depend on loyal customers achieve the lowest loyalty scores. So why do fringe brands like local competition survive? The answer, perhaps perversely, is that with big-brand loyalty rates at 50 percent, just enough customers will buy small brands from time to time to keep the latter in business. But the small brands can’t overcome the familiarity barrier, and although entirely new brands do enter categories and become leaders, it is extremely rare for an established fringe brand to successfully take on an established leader.

🫀Strategy not for faint hearted

Strategic planning often gets bogged down in numbers and analysis. This creates a sense of scientific rigor, but it can also lead to a lack of creativity. Many managers find that the annual planning process is time-consuming and doesn’t produce truly innovative strategies.

To break this pattern, we need to shift our thinking. As the saying goes, “In strategy, what counts is what would have to be true—not what is true.” Developing a winning strategy is like creating and testing scientific hypotheses. It involves imagining a new reality where our ideas would work and then figuring out what needs to change to make that happen. This creative process is just as important as the analytical one.

Few steps one can follow for such strategy building: A Possibility Based Approach

  1. Move from Issue to Choice: Conventional strategy-making tends to focus on problems or issues, such as declining profits or market share. As long as this is the case, the organization will fall into the trap of investigating data related to the issues rather than exploring and testing possible solutions.
  2. Generate Strategic Possibilities: Constructing strategic possibilities, especially ones that are genuinely new, is the ultimate creative act in business. To generate such creative options, you need a clear idea of what constitutes a possibility. You also need an imaginative yet grounded team and a robust process for managing debate.
  3. Specify the Conditions for Success: The purpose of this step is to specify what must be true for each possibility to be a terrific choice. Note that this step is not intended for arguing about what is true. It is not intended to explore or assess the soundness of the logic behind the various possibilities or to consider data that may or may not support the logic—that comes later.
  4. Identify the Barriers to Choice: Now it’s time to cast a critical eye on the conditions. The task is to assess which ones you believe are least likely to hold true. They will define the barriers to choosing that possibility.
  5. Design Tests for the Barrier Conditions : Once you’ve identified and ordered the key barrier conditions, the group must test each one to see whether it holds true. The test might involve surveying a thousand customers or speaking to a single supplier. It might entail crunching thousands of numbers or avoiding any quantifiers at all. The only requirement is that the entire group believe that the test is valid and can form the basis for rejecting the possibility in question or generating commitment to it.
  6. Conduct the Tests: Typically, at this step you bring in people from outside the strategy team—consultants or experts in relevant functional or geographic units who can help fine-tune and conduct the tests you have prioritized.
  7. Make the Choice: In traditional strategy-making, finally choosing a strategy can be difficult and acrimonious. The decision makers usually go off-site and try to frame their binders of much-discussed market research as strategic options. With the stakes high and the logic for each option never clearly articulated, such meetings often end up as negotiations between powerful executives with strong preconceptions. And once the meetings are concluded, those who are skeptical of the decision begin to undermine it. With the possibilities-based approach, the choice-making step becomes simple, even anticlimactic. The group needs only to review the analytical test results and choose the possibility that faces the fewest serious barriers.

Summary 🔖

It’s a new model, introduced in the ongoing dialogue about the existing frameworks we rely upon to enhance the effectiveness of our strategies. The essence of this discourse revolves around a fundamental truth: you are the master of your models. It’s vital to understand that if you find yourself constantly attributing failures to your model while simultaneously striving to harness its potential, then, inadvertently, you have granted it a monopoly over your thought processes. This situation creates a paradox where the model, rather than serving you, becomes an oppressive force, dictating your decisions and stifling creativity.

Imagine this scenario: you enter into an agreement with a model, believing it has the keys to success. You attempt to optimize your connection with it, tweaking here and there, but the results remain disappointing. Each setback chips away at your confidence, leading to a self-blame spiral. You question your abilities, thinking you simply have not mastered the model’s intricacies. This is a dangerous mindset; it breeds dependency and diminishes your agency.

In contrast, if you adopt an empowered position and hold your model accountable for its outputs, you take the reins of your intellectual journey. You evaluate its effectiveness in delivering the promised results consistently. When you find it lacking, instead of forcing it to work for you, you make the courageous decision to discard it and seek out better alternatives. It’s an exercise in discernment and strategic thinking—embracing flexibility and adaptability rather than a rigid adherence to a failing system. If a model does not meet your needs or align with your goals, there’s no shame in letting it go. After all, your primary objective is to cultivate strategies that genuinely foster growth and drive success, not to be shackled by ineffective tools. Embrace the autonomy of ownership over your models, ensuring they serve your aspirations effectively rather than the other way around.

Handling Complex Problems 👊

Productivity,

Applying complicated solutions to complex problems is an understandable approach, but flawed.”
–  Donald Sull

Is it really complex?
Complexity is what gives one an opportunity to exploit his expertise, really?

Recall the first and only apollo mission who has put man on moon, was operating on hardware had 32 KB of RAM, a 72 KB hard drive (ROM), and a processor that ran at 43 kHz. By comparison, the latest Apple watch, sports 32 GB of RAM (1 million times the RAM of the AGC) and a 64-bit dual processor in a thin rectangle as small as 40 mm high. Today’s cell phones have more computer power than all of NASA did in 1969, as do our smart toasters.

Evolution leads to complexity, we being born from single cell organisms and grown to become billion cell person, it self shows how nature loves complexity.

Complexity didn’t mean it can’t be simplified. The simplification comes from perspective and approach. Imagine that tight knot which sometime we come across, only when, we take deep breath and look closely we find that one thread, which unravels the full stock! 😊

How to look for simplicity 👀

I believe the easiest way to adopt a mindset that seeks simple solutions is to start by believing that a simple solution exists and that it’s only a matter of time before we discover it. By acknowledging the possibility of such a solution, we open ourselves to finding it.

Simple solutions found when we ask the fundamental questions. “The 5 whys” could be one easiest way to find the root of the problems and then an easy solution.

Golden circle which was made famous by Simon Sinek, puts Why at the centre, followed by how and what. again approach is once we know why, we can find out how and what part of it.

Some mental models comes handy to find the simple solutions to complex problem, I love the model first principle thinking. The approach is to break down the problem in fundamental elements, variables and then ask, “what happens if I remove one variable at a time?” This is a strong model, keep one variable change and other constant, and see the change or behaviour, look for pattern and recognising those patterns helps find the root cause. This works when we are focusing on finding solution for complex problem.

How to approach complex customer problem?

No customer, including us, wants a complex solution, need to have educated guess or training to solve his problem. How many our us reads manual when we bought anything which is not manual 😊

One of the key bias one needs to be aware of is status quo bias a preference for the current state of affairs, where the current baseline is taken as a reference point, and any change from that baseline is perceived as a loss, and one avoids looking for change or finding better and easy solutions.

The solution has to be intuitive, and anything of this nature has to be simple. Just note 5 degree inclination of refrigerator, which helps closes the door automatically, not set properly, how many of us find those door getting half close or banging them each time. Simple solution like this needs to be institutionalised in product design. The approach is “design thinking”, one more framework helping us find simple solution.

Design thinking in nutshell 🌰

Many, many resources are available online, the soul of this approach is diverge and converge while finding the solution, and keep the end goal common, a simple solution. Empathy toward customer help avoid complex solutions.

Design thinking is a customer-centered, iterative approach to problem-solving that emphasizes empathy, creativity, and experimentation. It involves understanding the needs of users, defining the problem, generating a wide range of ideas, prototyping, and testing solutions. This process encourages collaboration across disciplines and focuses on creating innovative solutions that address real user needs. By embracing feedback and learning from failures, design thinking helps teams refine ideas and ultimately deliver more effective, simple, user-friendly products and services.

Do google and find some good reads on this topic.

Constrains are good 👍

Other way to find simple solution to complex problem is acknowledging constraints on resources or adding artificial constraints, to avoid excessive use. Common sense says, more resources, more complex outcome. Also more variables makes solution unsustainable or unreliable in long run. Hence constraints always good and help innovate solutions.

The most depressing part is not the product flaws themselves, but customers’ willingness to accept complicated interfaces as inevitable.

Take example of MP3 player in early years, customer took for granted the complexity in the player, for being MP3 player, and iPOD took them by storm.

A good read 📚

Came across this book, as name suggest it’s on Simple Rules for managing complex problems. The book talks about few such approaches.

Simple rules impose a threshold level of structure while avoiding the rigidity that results from too many restrictions. The resulting flexibility makes it easier to adapt to changing circumstances and seize fleeting opportunities. Simple rules can also produce better decisions than more complicated models can, particularly when time and information are limited.

Why simple solutions hard to find by? 🧐

  • Failure to accept the change, change is good, nevertheless finding good in a change is always challenging and human always tries to avoid change.
  • Cognitive dissonance, the moment we face the issue with implementation of simple solution, we fall back to usuals complex solution and struggle either with its implementation or go back to original state.
  • Surrounding. We are surrounded by complex solutions, we pay for them, and they get paid to get our attention, and we get distracted and fail to find that simple solution.

Summary 😏

Does this awareness helps? Sometime, and most of the time, depending upon how we prioritise finding simple solutions over applying existing complex solutions. It needs practice and awareness of our actions.

Distraction at work

Productivity,

There are many ways to be productive, many tools to use and many methods to follow. However, the tools which we use to be productive on our workstations and mobile, are all fighting for our attention. And the best way to get our attention is to brighten that screen when new notification comes or ping when it arrives first.

Ping for upcoming meeting in 15 min, ping for an email arrived in outlook, a ping someone put something in teams chat box, ohh a bigger ping, someone mentioned me in the chat! That’s cool, it’s all office and they want me on the top of all topics! Another ping from my mobile, this time my family is discussing something in WhatsApp group, as well as my “old school friend group” is on some topics. Let me not mention the constant screen popping from Facebook and Instagram! They all want me be around and participate to make me feel more socially connected!

For sure, both my workstation notification and mobile notifications are designed with good intent to keep me productive and be socially connected! But in second thought, too good is devil! There is no free lunch!

Desktop notifications are constant source of distraction
Teams made us more productive, specially post pandemic, however it’s also eating our focus time
Such mobile screens are not helping me with my productivity but bogging me down to be procrastinating more.

Fortunately I think under obligation all these platforms are offering to shutdown all these notifications! For sure these settings are difficult to find and enable. (We can guess why).

Spend time and follow these links to disable those focus eating notifications from your desktops. I use them regularly for not only for myself but also for my teammates.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/get-distraction-free-computer-10-easy-steps/

https://www.hellotech.com/guide/for/how-to-turn-off-notifications-on-iphone/amp

https://www.nirandfar.com/hack-back-phone-distractions/

The theme I follow is, when I feel need to check something, I’ll go and check, I don’t want something to remind me to do that. Mostly these notifications are not life saving one, and can be ignored. Anything urgent, they will reach to you, don’t worry. Focus on what’s in hand.

The fear of missing out

The fear of missing out is major incentive for one to go on check all those notifications. But to realise that the most important thing is front on oneself and a commitment to complete that Tak’s at hand has higher returns than the activities which demand my attention!

It is the perception that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you. And this perception is completely false because it’s I’m who is creating the perception. So the way distraction works due to FOMO is the perception of missing out, followed by compulsive behavior to ensure one is not missing out. Hence the control over our feeling is very important to keep us on the track.

It’s not that easy as it said above. I understand. But the way forward is at least “awareness”’of the fact that such FOMO is impacting you and robbing you of your time and your focus. The realisation of this fact itself is a half war won! The rest half, is discipline and constantly reflecting on your journey of recovering your time and focus.

Visit following blogs and get yourself equipped with better tools.

https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/the-psychology-behind-fomo/#:~:text=Symptoms%20of%20FOMO,-Even%20though%20FOMO&text=Some%20of%20these%20symptoms%20include,mentally%20exhausted%20from%20social%20media

https://viableoutreach.com/the-fear-of-missing-out-20-examples-of-fomo/

What is organisational culture?

Productivity

Many times I come across statements like “hire someone who will fit our organizational culture”, “this will not work on our organizational culture”, “the culture in this organization is different, and you need to adapt to…”…. What’s the organizational culture?

If it means anything, culture should describe the day-to-day experience of the ordinary worker. Culture is what makes the experience working at one company different from doing the same work at another company offering similar services or products.

The culture mostly gets developed in something “below the surface” organization. Remember the iceberg, that we have been shown in multiple management presentations, imagine that, and the tip of the iceberg is “the apparent organization” and the one which is not visible but heavily impacting the “culture” is “the below the surface” organization.

Small tip of iceberg is an”apparent organisation” rest of below it.

The hidden “below the surface” organization is what impacts most of us at workplace and our experience around it. This informal organization has its unofficial leaders, even rules to join or get a membership, they have their communication channel (some time more effective than formal organization). The informal organization makes decisions that affect whether or how well the official decisions are implemented.

The higher one is in an organization is, it’s less likely to know or understand what the everyday workplace experience is for an ordinary employee. Even one who rose through the ranks is unlikely to get it. Therefore, managers and leaders are the least likely to understand the culture of their organization though, ironically they are the ones most likely to talk about it.

The culture I think is a three dimensional thing, with following three axis

  • How do I feel about my job (High-Low)
  • How do I feel about my workgroup (High-Low)
  • How do I feel about my company? Valued? Included? Proud? (High-Low)
It’s complex, but once you know what it is, you will find a way to influence the culture and align it.

Giving meaning, purpose, direction and focus to work is the quintessential leadership role, leader need to understand the culture from ordinary employee’s point of view and support the organisation environment to make “culture” more inclusive and supportive to make it a success.

Coaching and Mentoring… Thought and a Goodread

GoodRead, Productivity

Many a time we use this word quite interchangeably; however, a practitioner knows the Subtle difference between coaching and mentoring.

Mentoring is more personal, it’s one looking into the long future, focusing on improving one from a long-term perspective. A Mentor needs not to be a subject-matter expert, he needs life experience, which he will be sharing with us, and helping us with those life challenges. He for sure needs to share the same interests as the mentee, to be able to connect with the mentee and guide him for his success.

Coaching, on the other hand, is short term, focused on an immediate goal, highly domain oriented and the coach is a professional who helps coachee to identify the goal, and way to achieve it. A coach helps coachee to identify goals, develop plans to achieve them and helps them mitigate the risk with their domain knowledge.

Typically, a business needs more coaching at the operation level, and Mentoring at the management level. No rule, but an experience. I see myself using coaching as a constant tool to help make my team more effective and make them deliver the result, to boost their moral but also help them align to achieve long – term professional goals.

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

This book is really a compact and focused book toward making a more effective coach. It’s basically a focus on asking effective questions.

These powerful questions not only help get more insights on the problem which coaches want (or May want to, as he may not be clear what he wants), but it also helps him to explore more, be more aware of various opportunities to meet the expectations. Wonderful book, highly recommended read.

  1. The AWE Question >And What Else?
  2. The Focus Question > What’s the real challenge here for you?
  3. The Foundation Question > What Do You Want?
  4. The Lazy Question > How Can I Help?
  5. The Strategic Question >If You’re Saying Yes to This, What Are You Saying No To?
  6. The Learning Question >What Was Most Useful for You?
Book Summary

Task Vs. Project

Productivity, ,
Task without Projects?

What qualifies as Task? And what as Project?

“I see many people juggling with their pocket diary, todo list and many other reports, breaking down each activity as task, and ending day with a longer list than seeing few getting crossed off.”

Its depressing and deflating to see the to-do list growing, and no respite to already busy schedule.

the whole reason to maintain a todo list is making us more productive! right?

yes, in essence, its right, but its all depends on how we are making this list. and one of the key differentiation is identifying which items qualifies for being in task list and items which can be part of a project

So what is TASK : a task is something, which you can get it done in one seating, in one go, no follow-up to complete the task

and PROJECT : any thing, which has concrete outcome and a specified timelines. a Project will have many task (> 1 task)

Make a tea for spouse can be a Task if you go in kitchen and make tea in one go, but if you want to make that special Aasam tea, which needs some shopping list and some over night preparation, it qualifies for a Project with multiple tasks, e.g go out and get the special tea, get some special herbs, prepare overnight the water for that wonderful aroma etc…

I know, once we say Project, the fear of getting is complex crips in. But don’t worry, Project is only helping us to have them special focus, that it. It helps us declutter the great big to-do list. It make us see logical structure behind the reason of getting things done.

Once you are done with this, focus on how to make your todo more impactful.

While making a todo list there are many ways to make it light and compact, few of them are making [[Important and Imperative]] list, following [[Urgent and Important]] list

some good reads

Do This Now! List of Imperative Verbs – INK (inkforall.com)
The Eisenhower Matrix: Introduction & 3-Minute Video Tutorial

GTD – Someday List, a thought

Productivity, ,

I’m fan of GTD, in its spirit. GTD stands for getting things done.

GTD way of working ask to put some task in “Someday/ May be” list. The Someday/Maybe list is a big creative resource that can provide big adventures to your life and work. This list gives you permission to write down anything you can think of, without any kind of restrictions. Later you will have enough time to analyze what you have captured and eliminate it if it doesn’t make too much sense.

I had Someday list for quite a while. With day to day focus on actual ToDo with deadlines, this list is the one which I never opened. 👎

And reading some books on GTD, it’s seems something without any deadline goes to the back hole.

“Someday” is a curse to your dreams, because you’ll take your dreams to the grave.

Life is about moving and getting things done. We live in a giant rock with water and dirt, and we walk around like bags of meat and bone. What is really life about?
Leaving a legacy behind. Being remembered. But to achieve this we must work, work , work.
For that reason, don’t postpone something just because the timing isn’t right, if it is important to you and you want to do it eventually just go it and correct the course along the way of any obstacles if you find.

Take away: Deadlines are important to make sure your dreams are not dead 😊 !

Even if it’s not immediate, try to put some deadline.
black pencil on white printerpaper

Strategic Planning – an Oxymoron?

Productivity

Nothing against strategy planning, many companies do, many entrepreneurs do it, and seems part of lingo for business consultants. But as I think more on this word ‘Strategic Planning’, the word it-self start making me more confused. Typically under strategic planning, is something organization takes as a list of activities, e.g. improve customer’s engagement, start new talent development program or launch a new product! off course good intention, but hardly meeting the end goal, as its mostly made without a strategy!

Strategy is how much value we create in first place,

  • value for customer,
  • for employee and
  • for supplier.

Strategy is what one come up with to over cum VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity). Strategy is an set of choices, that position us in our chosen playing field in a way, that we will win. Strategy is a theory, it tells us why we should be in this playing field, and how we can do better on this playing field, and how we can be better on this playing field to better meet and exceed customer’s expectation. The strategy should be coherent and doable, and it should be easily translate to action!

Planning is what typically we do, set of doable activities, list of todos. The plan need not be coherent, its really works in silos, its difficult to make a plan which encompasses company’s goal.

One thing to note, Strategy’s end game is external customer’s satisfaction (to take on market), however Planning’s end game is internal customer’s satisfaction, mostly the guys who make plan, and will be happy to make it success, invariably tweaking plan on its way to make it work somehow.

As planning is completely with internal set of resources and cost, which organization owes, its easy to control, and get it done, e.g how many people to hire? how much we should expand? how many product to launch etc..? Here, we are the one to decide ‘how much’ based on our control over cost and resource, hence a favourite tools for leaders.

Strategy is for external customer, which we can’t control, we can’t control the revenue or the outcome. Its not possible to tweak customer’s need to get the end result match our expectation. And hence its a difficult activity to pursue. Its very easy to say for example, I’ll launch a new product, however its not easy to say ‘customer will end up liking my product over my competitor. While we are working on planning to make customer happy, chances are alteast on competitor we will find out about this plan and figure out how to win.

Lets take example of budget flight operator e.g. Indigo or Southwest vs premium operators American airways, Lufthansa and ex Air India. When these people are busy in planning and optimizing their routes to make business more profitable, in journey missing most important aspect ‘customer’s satisfaction’, Indigo and Southwest moved away from hub and spoke design to point to point design, ensuring customer across 2nd tire cities now get easy access to destinations, the strategy here was ‘Substitute for local bus service, and prices are substantially lower prices than premium carriers, and focus on one air craft, and be specialize in short haul service’.

Sotthwest Airlines airplane on sky
Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash

As a manager and leader, we taught to do thing, of which success we can prove in advance, to minimize the risk of failing. However in new business, a new strategy demands ambiguity, and old experience may not help build a strategy, to which we can’t prove the success in advance. We should be clear about our theory, if theory is right, this will put us in the playing filed which will put us in excellent place to exceed expectations from customer. We need to accept the fact that we can’t be sure the Strategy will work in advance, or we will succeed. By accepting this fact, we also accept the angst and anxiety to make it work, which is a good thing.

Not knowing for sure,

isn’t bad Management,

it’s a great Leadership.

To make Strategy to work, few suggestions

  • Layout the logic behind strategy clearly
  • Strategy is a journey, with clear logic, its easy to make changes, if logics are not matching with real word scenario. As we know why and which logic is failing, we can tweak strategy to adapt to new and more relevant logic.
  • Keep the Strategy simple. One pager -> where we are choosing to play, How ware choosing to win, The capabilities we need to have in place, and org structure to support this.
  • Accept the worry and angst during the journey .

Some good reads:

Brainstorming – multiple positions blade

Productivity, ,
Various concepts and finally easy solution out

Typically, Brainstorming session with multiple people leads to multiple ideas, but for this use case, it was only me, Saturday morning and paper and pen.

I dreamed about many complex ideas to get solution to the problem statement last night, and started putting them on paper in the morning. Constrains was, the blade (triangular piece) should be able to adjust angle, should hold the position under force and pressure and should be easy to manage.

Post this session the simplifying various concepts and removing complexity from each on of them , got a simplified version. Just bolt it thru. Will share updates once I get 3D done.