Every startup wants to grow and big a global corporation. Every global corporation wants to have the spirit of a start-up. Is it harder for a startup to grow or is it tougher for a large organization to be nimble? Both of them have their unique strengths. The giant enterprises have great brand awareness, a stable set of customers and presence across geographies and markets. They also find it easier to hire… maybe they find it easier to hire people who have a lower risk appetite. Who like things that are well defined with clear rules. Once hired these are the very people who will slow down what was once a nimble start up that was hungry and wanted to change the world. What slows down a once fast growing company? The Founders Mentality tells a fat corporation how to lose weight.
The idea in brief: Leaders have to manage the past, present and future simultaneously. The three boxes represent these three orientations. In the book The Three Box Solution Vijay Govindrajan draws a parallel to the triumvirate of the Hindu faith – Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. Vishnu is the god of preservation, Shiva is the god of destruction and Brahma is the god of creation. These represent the three roles of a leader.
Superbosses seem to be able to spot talent and hire them with unconventional means. They seem to see what the person is capable of doing even when the person does not seem to know how to do it right at that moment. They look beyond conventional resumes and qualifications to look at the ability to learn. Once hired the Superbosses have their own method of transferring knowledge and wisdom. Not just know-how they seem to pass on a way of thinking and a way of life. Even as they are doing that they seem to leave room for the protégé to develop their own style. To achieve this, they will often bend the job to leverage the strengths of the new hire or help the person overcome a developmental gap.
Entrepreneurs are those people whose dreams are larger than their resources. We watch them talk about their ideas in the pages of magazines. They seem to have the ability to find opportunities out of thin air. Some of them are college dropouts. Many quit jobs in dream companies to chase their own dreams. Even when they talk about their failures, there is a magical manner in which each failure seemed to nudge them towards their success.
In India we often refer to a confidence trickster or a con as a "420". The term “420” comes from a reference to Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code is used in India to refer to a confidence trickster. Even in neighboring Myanmar, term 420 persists in popular culture to this date. Psychologist and writer for NewYorker.com, Maria Konnikova has put together a great read on how the cons operate and more importantly, what makes us fall for these cons? Have you ever been tricked? I have. But have you tricked anyone?
The story of Wazir is supposed to have been brewing in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s mind for the past several years. When Chopra met his writer Abhijat Joshi in 1994, he told him about the idea of setting a thriller around two chess players.
Left to nature alone, the population on earth would be give or take 50% men and 50% women, according to what's become known as Fisher's Principle. But look at the statistics: US has just 15% women in C-suite, only 20% senators or law firm partners. Women surgeons represent only 21% of surgeons. For all those who believe that women are more than adequately represented in the teaching profession, remember that only 24% of full time tenured professors are women. How do we explain this?
Geoff Colvin’s book talks about the importance of what he calls the “Relationship Worker” who has a greater advantage in the new economy. Much more than the Knowledge Workers. While the machines will pull up information and data faster than any lawyer can, they cannot fulfill our need for social interaction. “Understanding an irrational client, forming the emotional bonds needed to persuade the client” will be the differentiators in the future.