If you feel you’re going through hell…

Posted on October 8, 2008 by dd

The title of this post is from a Winston Churchill quote that I came across a few days ago. I thought this is a must-have on the desk of every entrepreneur in the current times to look at every day, maybe several times each day.

But why only entrepreneurs? Any one and everyone who has been touched or fears being touched by the economic downturn needs to keep this thought in mind.

A few days ago I heard an impassioned monologue from an entrepreneur, founder of a mid-sized listed brand manufacturer & retailer in India, when the first two of the big investment banks in the USA collapsed. He repeated one theme of despair several times – “How can there be wealth / money available at the closing of the business day, and then suddenly in the morning such a well-established institution is no more – all the wealth seemingly lost overnight? Is nothing certain?”

Sometimes an important part of building a great business may just be having the ability to live through a downturn.

Here’s another quote from a Forbes article titled – “The Greatest Risks They Ever Took”: …Kit DesLauriers, the first person to ski from all seven summits. Of her descent from the top of Mount Everest, she says: “There were no safety nets, no fixed lines established, freezing winds. We had to spend an unplanned night at 26,000 feet, with very little food and water. The next day, we skied the Lhotse Face, 5,000 feet of blue ice on a 50-degree slope…At one point, we ran out of oxygen. I kept telling myself: “Don’t sit down and die. Just keep going.’ It’s really easy to let your mind get a hold of you, but the journey taught me we are much more than our minds.” (The whole article is available here.)

Times like these are mainly about mind-games that we play against ourselves – the daily newspaper, the stock ticker on TV, the conversations in the hallway all contribute to the feeling of helplessness. But the biggest freefall is within us. So, remember Churchill’s thought: “If you feel you’re going through hell…just keep going.”

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What Wins – The Team or the Strategy?

Posted on September 16, 2008 by dd

Those of you who have read Jim Collins’ “From Good to Great” know that he really stresses on getting “the right people on the bus”, before you even decide where the bus is going.

Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and president of Pixar & Disney Animation Studios, has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review as saying, “If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will make it work.”

Here’s a thought that I came across that is quite the contrary, and therefore provocative, written by Christian Mayaud of the Verticom Group: “A Mediocre Management Team with a Great Strategy will outperform a Great Management Team with mediocre strategy EVERY TIME”. (His blog is http://www.sacredcowdung.com/ – the name sets the tone.) According to Mayaud:

  • “A competent move in the wrong direction will destroy a company faster than an incompetent move in the right direction.” (True.)
  • “A mediocre management team with a great strategy is often called a great management team.” (Hmmm….probably true.)
  • “So, even if there were such a thing as a ‘Great Management Team’, how would you know if you found it?” (Ouch, that hurts!)

I was playing with these thoughts, and came up with this (pardon the extremes, but sometimes it takes extremes to clarify your thinking).

  • Great team, great strategy – We have a winner!
  • Poor team, poor strategy – Don’t even wake up for that thought.
  • Poor team, great strategy – Given the finite window of time, either they will beat the hell out of the competition or beat the hell out of each other.
  • Great team, poor strategy – well, at least they’ll all be great buddies, nursing each others’ wounds after the battle is over.

(That’s just my thought for the day, and tomorrow’s another day. Don’t take it too seriously. )

Work at your idea, and work at your team – that’s the only real way to win.

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Immortal = I + M + Mortal

Posted on June 10, 2008 by dd

Why do entrepreneurs start companies? Why do individuals form organisations?

An obvious reason is that they cannot do everything themselves. Another is that they don’t have all the resources / skills that are needed to grow the business. If they work well, teams can certainly achieve more than individuals alone.

However, another compelling reason comes to mind for creating an organisation – the concept of immortality.

All living beings are susceptible to the phenomenon of “death” at some point of time or the other, and immortalise themselves through producing the next generation through reproduction.

Just as reproduction is a way to immortalise the genetic code of the species in our next generation, organisational development is a way to immortalise the “genetic code” containing ideas, principles and philosophies.

However, this can only happen if the leader / founder / entrepreneur faces the Big Reality: “I am mortal”. Once he or she faces that fact, there are two choices for him / her – the organisation / business can die with him or her, or there can be another generation to carry on the genetic code.

Mortality is the root / route to immortality. If one is truly wedded to the principles of the organisation, one will create the framework and the environment for the next leadership to emerge, and will nurture the next generation to the leadership position.

The route / root to Immortal is “I M Mortal”!

A couple of great resources come to mind, both from Jim Collins and his co-authors: “Built to Last” and “From Good to Great”. (A great concept from the latter book is that of “Level 5 Leadership” which is well worth a read.)

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Getting to Your Goals

Posted on February 9, 2008 by dd

The gap between ‘vision’ and ‘results’ can only be tangibly bridged by ‘action’.

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Entrepreneurship at the grassroots

Posted on February 7, 2008 by dd

For those who are familiar with Kutchh, and its people, there is no doubt that it is one of the most active hotbeds of entrepreneurship. A lot of the business in India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is in the hands of the ‘kutchhis’ (those from Kutchh). Many of India’s largest companies and financial heavyweights are from this region, while Surat has been a force to reckon with in the global diamond trade. Amidst all this, one of the most interesting group that I have come across are the craftspeople and artisans working with traditional methods of craft – textiles, metal, wood, leather etc.

Beyond the timeless creative wealth that traditional craft creates, a conversation with one such craftsman – a handloom weaver – highlighted to me the value of crafts as a force of entrepreneurship. While talking about the world in general, his choices in life etc., he said that the strongest reason for him to stick to his family’s handloom tradition was the fact that he was an entrepreneur. He was his own boss, not reporting to anyone else, and his fortunes not subject to the whims and fancies of some better-educated higher-up in “a company”. To him, the sense of dignity from creating his own products and running his own trade was far more important than ‘earning more in a safe job’. An important learning to keep in mind during these times of hectic corporatization of Indian business.

The other aspect that is specifically important to the fashion / lifestyle products sector is the diversity of product base and the product development edge it provides the industry. The product development, design and merchandising capability is a backbone for the lifestyle / fashion / soft goods industry in India, that keeps it in the global competitive arena despite wheezing infrastructure, rising costs and other competitive inefficiencies.

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