Monthly Archives: March 2016

Articulating the why

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You can be successful today only if you know what you’re doing and why
 
The most important part of being successful is understanding why you are able to be successful. Success comes with lot of factors – Luck, Connections, Knowledge and being at the right place and at the right time. Apart from all these factors, there is one key ingredient for success – your ability and passion to perform.
I read a fascinating book quite sometime ago – What got you here won’t get you there. It is a fascinating read. At each phase of our life we need to understand that expectations change and it becomes very important.
When you start your company, expectation is that you bring your product to market. When you bring your product to market, the expectation is to expand, after your expand, expectation is to increase market share and when you increase market share, expectation is to keep the company at the top and derive value to share holders.
Each of these phases come with different expectations and you need to constantly monitor these expectations from each stakeholder and this will help you to be where you wish to be.
For all this to happen, the underlying question is how to articulate the why of what you are doing and how you are doing. You can be an entrepreneur or an employee in a organisation. Understanding what the market or your company needs and developing the why in you to deliver accordingly is what makes you successful.

Attitude towards Error

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We all make mistakes and we learn from them. Only when you understand and analyze the error can you incorporate into your life and the mistake never comes up again. But, if it is a one off fix, be rest assured that it will come back.
Toyota is quite famous for their Quality and how they incorporate their learning’s back into the system without it occurring back. This is the reason they are epitome of success and many organisations try to incorporate this style into their organisations.
On the Toyota Production Floor, when there is flaw in the production, the employee immediately switches off his machine and all the other machines come to a halt. Managers and other personal gather at where the production stopped, analyze the error and incorporate their learning’s into the system so that they are prepared for it the next time.
As entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs what we need to develop is the attitude towards the error. When we find a flaw, how do we react to it? How do we incorporate our learning’s into our system is the most important aspect of execution.
When there is an error next time, don’t ignore, but study and incorporate into your framework.

The last mile

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Knowledge does not progress merely by gathering data, but by looking for contradictory data. 
 
Many a times we like to make decisions based on available data. You want to buy a car and you start looking out based on your budget and interest. In the process we ask our friends as to what their recommendation is and take in their suggestions. We go with the popular choice and then make our own decision.
In this process, we usually would like to hear only the positives of the observations and do not ask what the potential problems might be in the maintenance of the car.
Five years ago, when I was looking to change my car, I walked up to the Honda show room. The Civic was one of the possible product I was looking for, but I did hear about the low ground clearance and the problems it might give over the period of time when the chases keeps hitting the ground at Speed breakers and bad roads. I shared with the sales person about this observation which I found to be disturbing. The sales person immediately took me to his desk, and told me “I will give you contacts of 20 people who own this car across various regions in the state. Call them from here and even if 1 person says that they faced problems because of this, I suggest you don’t buy this car.” I really liked the confidence of him and chose to call few numbers. I did call and no one gave me any negative answer.
My impression on the car and the reviews changed completely and I was ready to buy. I never picked it up for other reasons, but was completely convinced with the car.
Knowingly or unknowingly I used contradictory data to challenge my assumptions and today, I can correlate to this aspect.
When you are working on an idea, help identify the contradictory data – what if this does not happen, what if this market analysis does not work etc. This gives the power for you to be prepared in case if things don’t go as expected.

Contradictory Data

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Knowledge does not progress merely by gathering data, but by looking for contradictory data. 
 
Many a times we like to make decisions based on available data. You want to buy a car and you start looking out based on your budget and interest. In the process we ask our friends as to what their recommendation is and take in their suggestions. We go with the popular choice and then make our own decision.
In this process, we usually would like to hear only the positives of the observations and do not ask what the potential problems might be in the maintenance of the car.
Five years ago, when I was looking to change my car, I walked up to the Honda show room. The Civic was one of the possible product I was looking for, but I did hear about the low ground clearance and the problems it might give over the period of time when the chases keeps hitting the ground at Speed breakers and bad roads. I shared with the sales person about this observation which I found to be disturbing. The sales person immediately took me to his desk, and told me “I will give you contacts of 20 people who own this car across various regions in the state. Call them from here and even if 1 person says that they faced problems because of this, I suggest you don’t buy this car.” I really liked the confidence of him and chose to call few numbers. I did call and no one gave me any negative answer.
My impression on the car and the reviews changed completely and I was ready to buy. I never picked it up for other reasons, but was completely convinced with the car.
Knowingly or unknowingly I used contradictory data to challenge my assumptions and today, I can correlate to this aspect.
When you are working on an idea, help identify the contradictory data – what if this does not happen, what if this market analysis does not work etc. This gives the power for you to be prepared in case if things don’t go as expected.

Challenges which cannot be overcome

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We encounter situations which we feel that it cannot be overcome in any way. We are struck and nothing can be done. One thinking is that this is never the case. All situations can be overcome and all it requires is applying our learnings and experiences. At the precise moment, what we need is the ability to think and how we can think different.
In 2009, US Airways flight 1549 was hit by goose while taking off and the pilot’s had nowhere to go over the skies of the densely populated New York City. Captain Sullenberger III maintained his calm and guided the flight to safely land on the Hudson river. This is not the first time an airplane is landing on water, but this is the first time everyone survived the landing.
What is different? In all situations where a flight landed on water, pilots followed the same checklists. Why did other situations fail and this was a success?
Pilot Captain Sullenberger III not only followed the checklist but ensured he was calm and focusing on the task at hand – to land the plane. Since he lost both the engines, his capability of flying back to Newark or any other runway was out of option. When he had no other options, he focused on the available option. Utilized all his skills and brought the plan down in water in the best way possible.
There is no challenge which cannot be overcome, it is the thought of how you can manage the situation and focusing on what is available is what makes the different.

Competitive Spirit

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I couldn’t help but admire the advertisement from Mercedes celebrating 100 years of BMW.

Merc

This is the power of competitive spirit. Mercedes in this advertisement is playfully complimenting BMW for their competition and also criticizing that they did not bring out any innovative products in the last 30 years.
Complementing competition is something which will flourish. Accepting and acknowledging the presence of our competition is which will allow us to do better. Identifying competitor strategies, decoding their innovation is what helps any business co-exist and also make a mark in the world.
What we experience in the real world is also same. Only when there is competition and co-existence there is Innovation. Only when there is Innovation is betterment of the society.

Revisiting Expectations

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All of us have expectations. Be it at home, work, with friends and family. Everywhere and every time.
The most important aspect of expectations is that it becomes the root cause of our disappointments.
So, should I not have expectations? You should. We should. All of us should have expectations. But, these expectations should come with the reality. The reality of realizing the expectations. What is happening is that as times change, our efforts come with an automatic interest of expectations. I have done this, so, I should get this. I put in these efforts in my relationships, and I should get this in return. Honestly, life does not run this way. Even though we have not learnt this formally, it became part of our lives.
So, what can I expect? Expect to enjoy the beauty of life. Expect that the world is waiting for your deliver your duties. Expect that there are no returns for anything for which you do. Expect no one is thinking about you.
You need to set expectations based on what you agree with. When you set these expectations for yourself, you start to be living a life. Your life becomes happier and the world around is more happier.
People say the world has changed, it has become a cruel place etc. But, the world has not changed. It has remained the way for millions of years and it will continue to be so. What has changed is the way we think and act. The moment this is taken care, everything falls into place.
Whatever you do, do it with Passion and what has to come back will come back.

Dosha Vs Personalized Medicine

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I shared my thoughts on Personalized Medicine being the future of medicine earlier. Recently, I saw a TEDx Talk by Dr. Russ Altman on the topic of Personalized Prescription.

What Dr. Russ talks about is how medications works differently on various kinds of bodies and he uses examples to demonstrate how Codin works on different people. For few, it works like a magic and for few others, it does not help at all.

Our body is made of molecules and medicines are a combination of various elements working with these molecules to bring down the pain which our body is going through.

Now, let us look at the Dosha’s in our body as described in Ayurveda. The human body is categorized into 3 Dosha’s (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha). Ayurveda is the science of handling ailments based on the body type and customized treatment.

I am looking at comparing and contrasting as to what Dr. Russ is saying and what we already have in India.

A combination of Personalized Prescription and Ayurveda is something which will benefit the human kind.

What can we do next?

Blackbox Thinking

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Every flight is equipped with a Blackbox, which records all the conversations in the Cockpit and each and every instruction given to the plane. There is no debate on how this is helpful to track how the plane has been operational.

Our brain is our blackbox and it records each and every instance of our life, making us what we are and how we behave and handle our thought process. What if we decode our brain from time to time and look at how it has been processing our experiences?

Many a times, our mind takes over our thoughts. It clubs our emotions to our feelings and gives out instructions on how we react to situations. Only few of us can actually note these reactions and understand the instructions from the brain and then take action. This comes out of practice. The practice of thinking and practice of handling instructions from brain and mind.

When it is a good news or success, we celebrate. But, when there is failure, we allow our mind to rule over and react according to what it feels. Success comes from managing this reaction. This is the reason successful people become successful. They look at their failures and downtimes, practice thinking and understand the reactions from the brain and then take action.

So, the next time you experience failure, evaluate what your feelings are and act according to what the brain says. This will give you the required result rather than a

Creating an Experience

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Creating Experience in Healthcare is focusing on building personal relationships with clients. How do we incorporate the personal connections into technology?

When you enter any showroom or inquire for a house or participate in any event, they collect your personal details and then based on the assessment of the sales person, they categorize you for what kind of potential client you are. Based on which category you fall into, the system will keep reminding the sales person for timely follow up’s with you for a potential sale.

In a similar way, incorporating the patient experience based on what category they fall into (Inpatient/ Outpatient / kind of treatment they come to the hospital etc.) can help the administration provide the experience. Over the period of time, providing experience becomes a habit.

In their book Patient Comes Second authors Paul Spiegelman and Britt Berrett highlight how Healthcare organizations are developing the habit of cultivating experience in various places across America.

In countries like India, where we have challenges for various reasons, along with building a culture of experience, technology should also help to cultivate the habit in the workforce by incorporating experience into the workflow.

What do you think?