Notes on the book, Brick by brick

It is key to stay true to your core consumers or else you can lose your vision in indiscriminate expansion without a strong foundation.

Innovation without expertise can be more damaging than staying embedded in tradition. True innovation is built on the core foundations of a brand.

Disruption needs to grow organically from the core. Manufactured disruption can go horribly wrong.

Simplifying organizational structures and going back to foundational values can help clear confusion and offer direction when in a crisis.

Innovation is more than just product. It is a process and culture that needs to be built into an organisation to bring about real change.

Partnering with your consumers can be truly empowering both for innovation as well as building the brand image.

Diversifying the talent pool is about recruiting multicultural and multidimensional expertise to balance creativity with focus.

Encourage creativity but define parameters of time and budget to challenge ingenious minds and produce successful results.

The LEGO story shows everything that can go wrong with textbook “out of box thinking.” LEGO learnt the hard way that sometimes staying within the box brings fosters greater imagination and productivity by challenging the creative mind with limitations like cost or time.

It took two world wars, the Great Depression, and a spate of personal tragedies to make the iconic plastic brick that would change toy history, forever. 

Riding on its half-century-old success story, LEGO was completely blindsided by a cultural shift of interest in the market. This  shows how losing touch with your core consumer can lead to disaster even for the most successful firms.

Panicked by its first loss in over 50 years, LEGO went on a diversification overdrive. This offers a lesson in how innovation can go drastically wrong if not done right.

Not wanting to be demolished, LEGO tried to disrupt itself by entering into the digital revolution. It did wrong and proved why disruption can be tough even for the biggest corporate giants.

Nearly driven to the ground by its thoughtless innovation binge, LEGO found itself gasping for survival. Getting back to its foundational values, saved LEGO from extinction.

From ignoring the shift in its consumers’ interests to making customers co-creators for some of its most successful products, LEGO had indeed come a long way. The legendary toymaker partnered with its consumers towards profitability.

Going by the book, LEGO got all the diversification mantras wrong, until it got them right. LEGO got the right mix of creativity and discipline to regain its place as the world’s most-loved toy brand.

(Emeritus Insights on the book by David Robertson and Bill Breen)

I can be reached at gorask@gmail.com and whatsapp number 8800477973 for feedback, suggestions, ideas, collaboration, guest podcasts and other opportunities for working together.

My English Podcast "Lifebook" can be listened on the link https://anchor.fm/sanjay-gora7

My Hindi Podcast "Kitabi Keeda" can be listened on the link https://anchor.fm/sanjay-gora

Books written by me are available on Amazon, Flipkart and Notionpress sites.

https://www.amazon.in/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ASanjay+Gora&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

https://www.flipkart.com/search?q=sanjay%20gora&otracker=search&otracker1=search&marketplace=FLIPKART&as-show=on&as=off

https://notionpress.com/author/36667

Notes on Book - The Digital Transformation Playbook

Digital transformation is not about technological expertise. It is about changing your strategic mindset in five key business domains--customers, competition, data, innovation, and value. Transform your legacy businesses into digitally data-driven ones or scale and expand your existing digital business by rethinking some key strategic approaches in the five domains.

Since the dawn of the digital age, one-way communication with customers no longer works. The consumer now has a more active and influential role in marketing. Redefine ways of engaging with customers and leverage their role as influencers.

According to David Roberts, five core customer network behaviors tend to drive the adoption of digital experiences. Reconfigure your marketing strategy to enable faster and easier access to your digital data and create compelling, interactive, and bespoke content that offers personalized experiences.

It breaks down customer network strategy generation into five simple steps. Define your strategy objectives, identify relevant customer segments and establish which broad customer engagement strategy and concept you want to focus on.

The digital age has forced businesses to look at strategic ways to work with your competition to leverage each other’s unique strengths. Find strategic ways to work with your direct competitors and unravel areas where asymmetric competition could prove challenging.

Digital platforms are basically channels that enable two or more parties to create and exchange value through business. Identify a platform offering by recognizing the distinct value it brings to two or more customer types and how it plays the role of a facilitator.

Digital technologies afford a lot of benefits to organizations including new customer acquisition and location-agnostic access. Assess and leverage the huge competitive benefits digital platforms offer to businesses in terms of liability, rapid scaling, and economic efficiency.

David Rogers writes about two distinct types of network effects – direct and indirect. Shortlist who you need on board to make your platform work. Formulate ways to monetize and prioritize your customers by their importance.

As you rethink competition, you will invariably face challenges within your organization. Understand the value of moving forward in the face of resistance and building an open culture that encourages creativity.

The role and possibilities of data in the digital age need to be seen as an intangible business asset. Recognize the distinction and value of diverse data types you need to make informed decisions and apply to create innovative solutions.

Big data has been the buzzword of the data revolution, but how does it help businesses? Understand how to gather and organize a large quantum of unstructured data and employ it effectively to formulate innovative solutions.

David Rogers suggested four templates for value creation to use customer data to grow business. Be able to use data to reveal critical patterns and identify and segment your customers.

Consolidating your understanding of data concepts and looking at ways to generate value from it. Earmark the area of impact and identify specific indicators to measure and evaluate progress.

Internal organizational challenges you might face when you initiate a shift towards a more data-driven approach. Identify the right skills and expertise for moving ahead with a data-led strategy. You will also be prepared to ensure data does not get stuck in departmental silos.

David Rogers draws attention to the ease of innovation in the digital age and offers seven principles that ensure you make the most out of your testing. Ensure cost-effective experimentation, keep your focus on the customer, and build leverage from fast iterations.

Rogers offers four broad paths to scale up your innovation in this episode. Choose and plan your next steps towards a phased launch or a full release of your offering into the market.

You will face internal organizational challenges when you try and build a test-and-learn culture. Recognize what it takes to build a culture of innovation in an organization. You will also discover the power of celebrating and learning from failure to foster creative thought.

The digital world with ever-evolving customer needs has meant that companies need to continuously adapt their value to meet those needs. Chart your route to adapt to new, challenging, or even shrinking market conditions.

Book offers a strategic six-step tool that will help you carve out your value proposition adaptation strategy. Detect potential threats and identify opportunities to build your value with your key customers.

Even as digital forces are transforming the way we do business, it does not mean you need to become a tech expert overnight. Identify and execute strategic changes that will help your business to adapt and succeed in the face of digital disruption.

(Emeritus Insights on the book by David Rogers)

I can be reached at gorask@gmail.com and whatsapp number 8800477973 for feedback, suggestions, ideas, collaboration, guest podcasts and other opportunities for working together.

My English Podcast "Lifebook" can be listened on the link https://anchor.fm/sanjay-gora7

My Hindi Podcast "Kitabi Keeda" can be listened on the link https://anchor.fm/sanjay-gora

Books written by me are available on Amazon, Flipkart and Notionpress sites.

https://www.amazon.in/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3ASanjay+Gora&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1

https://www.flipkart.com/search?q=sanjay%20gora&otracker=search&otracker1=search&marketplace=FLIPKART&as-show=on&as=off

https://notionpress.com/author/36667

Notes on Management 010222

 By VR Ferose

Innovations happen when different kinds of people come together and do fundamentally different things. We can get inspired by social entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of innovation and they do so under extreme conditions for a cause.

Surround yourself with people who are better than you in at least one aspect, create a team, not a coterie. A misfit in a certain role could be a perfect fit in a different role.

The best innovations always happen under constraints of resources, time, and money. Challenge people to find radically different solutions and speed up processes.

Sometimes the best decision you can make is to not make one, wait to get more clarity before deciding. Good leaders can look at data and analyze it in novel ways. The role of great advisors is vital.

Look at failure as feedback. If you want to improve, you will have to do things differently and also do different things. The ability to take risks without excessive worry about failures is important. Start-ups don’t always do well but people who do start-ups always do well.

The best learnings come from looking at completely different and unconventional sources. So keep challenging the traditional way of viewing things. The most innovative companies are going to be those which have people who are good at different things.

The future workplace will have more managers on contract, and employees will be able to decide what they work on and who they work for. People will play a key role in running organizations, so it would be a more top-down structure.

Notes on Management 210122

Sometimes you need to show the change, rather than tell it. This will get the emotional brain of the decision-maker to act.

Find out how to make small tweaks to the environment to facilitate change. Also, disallow bad behavior and drive the desirable one.

BY Mukul Deoras
Delegation and empowerment lead to trust. Transparency in relationships and freedom of expression without fear of reprisal are the outcomes. Humility encourages and generates trust.

Trust enables businesses to build strong relationships with stakeholders. Empathy, understanding, and giving value for money are key to building trust.
To get into somebody else's shoes, we have to first take off our own shoes.

A simple vision statement, shared with all in the organization, repeated often, and aligned with performance indicators creates the most impact. A leader needs to check if this mission statement is simple enough.

Today a width of experience is more important than depth of experience. The present generation likes to collect different experiences to create a whole new world. Gen Y is like butterfly, previous generations are like bee.

Instability takes you out of your comfort zones and fuels change. Your ability to unlearn old patterns and learn new things are vital.

To stay on top of the game, do these more often: 1. Keep challenging yourself, 2. Constantly renew yourself, 3. Keep someone in the team who views things from a different perspective, 4. Never think defensively, push the boundaries instead, 5. Be consistent.

Sometimes it is important to set aside old habits and egos and be adaptable to learning from fresh talent who can offer a fresh, objective perspective on things and foster collaborative growth.

A partnership will be successful only when it is founded on complete trust and there is absolute clarity on roles. These can be achieved with open and transparent communication that helps leverage the strengths of both parties.

Use multiple sources of information to make an unbiased assessment about talent and create a development plan based on their core and strengths to nurture them into future leaders.

Some skills are not taught in business schools. It is sometimes important to trust your gut, always communicate clearly and collaborate and always be open to learning in order to be an effective leader.

Intuitive innovations work, if it is not simple enough, it is bound to fail. It also has to be economically lucrative.

Notes on Management 190122

By Deep Kalra

Finding someone willing to bet on you is tricky. When you talk to the investor, understand if they are decision-makers who will also sit on your board. Earn their goodwill with honesty and over time, their friendship and support.

Making the interview process multilayered by getting the aspirant to meet as many people as possible allows for a wide-ranging opinion on finding the right fit. Try to meet them more than once but in different settings to assess their true character.
There are several cues to understand if a candidate is a team player: reference checks outside the list given by the aspirant, and checking the language on the resume to see if it is dominated by "I" and not "we" are just some of them.

Entrepreneurs should never count on promised outcomes and investments. Know when to pull the plug. Assess by metrics such as the health of the business, ability to sustain, and how valuable is your offering to customers.


By Rajan Anandan

Consumer-focused innovation for India is different because a majority of Indians have low incomes. To innovate for India, companies need to reimagine business models, products, and services, while designing products to meet the needs of a very distinct market.

Artificial Intelligence will dominate and shape the future of the workplace. Man and machine will collaborate and supplement. Prepare for a tomorrow where learning to be relevant, irrespective of industry or role, will be the norm.

An entrepreneur and a manager have similar mindsets yet are different. One focuses on creating and the other has maintenance and growth on their minds. Every start-up of worth faces at least five near-death moments, it is a rite of passage. Not enough managers take up tough assignments where one is likely to fail but learn exponentially too.

Having audacious goals for your business and team forces you to reimagine the approach you are going to take. Google calls it moonshot thinking which is 10X as opposed to 10 percent. Think of new approaches to get things done. Learn how to come up with these ideas and have the courage to execute them.

Big skills required for success today: curiosity, creativity, adaptability, and agility. Since what you are doing today will not be relevant in five years, invest more in training in the next generation of technologies. Companies and employees need to make a concerted effort to learn new skills to be relevant.

Internet is democratizing and enabling people to access resources that used to be the purview of a privileged few. Learn what technology can do for you and your company.

Understand how to keep millennials engaged at the workplace by providing: Inspiring mission, empowerment, and flexibility while creating internal mobility.

Notes on Management 170122

 By Sandip Das

It is possible to make the consumer a partner in your campaign if your advertising focuses on making an emotional connection with the client, rather than on making tall claims.

Empowering your customer service employees will inspire them to come up with magical solutions by going beyond the call of duty, which will go a long way towards enhancing the reputation of your brand.

To be authentic, it is important for managers to lead by example and walk the talk on the cultures and values they want to infuse in their organization.

Technology, speed, and agility are forcing us to rethink the way we approach innovation today. We cannot afford overly long development times or slow decision-making if we want to create a culture of innovation.

The best way to nurture and motivate young managers is to allow interaction with senior management to understand the strategic vision of the company, such that they hear the message directly and can contribute with fresh, innovative ideas.

To penetrate into a strong, competitive market, sometimes you need to challenge all conventional thinking in order to reimagine your brand.

Companies must understand that technology is just a means to enable the needs of human beings and they can anticipate challenges before making decisions by asking human-centric questions to drive the future of innovation.

When pioneering something new that customers do not know they want, and where you probably do not have a blueprint to work with, you must build the right environment by creating a need for your offering and expounding on its benefits.

Companies must understand what they stand for, and what they strive for and then deliberate on every aspect of the brand--from aesthetics to service--and embody it in the brand to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.

It is key for businesses to embrace age-, gender-, and rank-agnostic digital transformation in order to survive and maintain their competitive advantage in a fast-changing world.

Observing your potential customers and picking up on their likes and dislikes, even before they become actual customers, is a smart marketing move by brands, as it allows them time to plan meticulously years ahead, getting the edge over competition.

An effective way to inspire and train people is by inviting speakers from outside of your industry to speak about their experiences and different aspects of their business. This forces people to think of solutions beyond what is intuitive and take a leaf out of other industries.

Notes on Management 120122

Create an atmosphere of well-being around you, where employees are as invested in an organization's success as the entrepreneur is.

Accepting no limits, alternative thinking, and driving positive change are at the heart of innovation.

Focus on your USP and lead by example for the people who work for you. This will empower your team to be the best version of themselves.

Two key asset set apart good managers from great leaders: One is empathy. The other is the ability to balance right and left brain thinking.

Passion is the not-so-secret sauce to success. Doing what you truly want to do in life enriches you as a person and gives you the confidence to excel.

The immediacy of response, transparency of the dialogue, and information intensity of social media make the new-age platform an imperative for all business leaders. intensity of social media make the new-age platform an imperative for all business leaders.

Clarity on what you are looking for makes analyzing data easier. Put brightest people on insights and data and leave the sifting through data for analysis to technology.

Strategize to win but focus more on honing the right culture that allows you to evaluate if the strategy is working. The first can be copied, but the latter is unique. Organizational culture defines teams.

Organizational culture defines people long after they have moved on from a company. Focusing on leadership development is about driving change. Welcome change in a volatile world. Know your customer well to understand when to change.

Nurture several interests but specialize in at least one of them. Recognize your core competence and use it as your safety net. Think of culture, industry, and domain as three dimensions, and with every jump in career, change one dimension at a time.