Business to the Buddha

Tag: Game changers

  • Change is the only constant!







    Long back, I was thinking about the common wealth games (CWG), the news around that and what can I learn from that. I generally don’t want to comment on politics; nevertheless I learnt from these events and therefore I am trying to put my opinion on the same.

    When the news of corruption in CWG preparation started surfacing the Prime minister’s office (PMO) took control of the situation. The following events taught me few lessons such as be patient and do what makes most sense.

    The decision of the PMO was to tackle the core issue at a later stage, and therefore the management of CWG was not changed immediately. Delaying the decision is the best way of tackling certain situations. Therefore the business was moved from incapable hands to those hands which could complete the project on war footing basis. This transition was smooth and the event was successful. This was the best example of change of management, in recent past, in a dire situation.

    I was talking to my friend Romit Gupta and he suddenly made a statement – “Change cannot be given to you every time. You have to bring your own change”. This statement made perfect sense to me. Yes! If you need change, YOU have to be the catalyst for the same. In business either you change the rules of the game or the competitor changes it, better you change it before anyone does.

    The statement was made by a BEST bus conductor in a bus in which Romit was travelling long time back. Romit heard it passively yet he could not forget. He restated the same verbatim almost 6 years later. Why, because if someone is willing to learn he/she can learn from anywhere and anytime. My learning from this blog has been multi-fold – I am seeing dots being connected and changes being made. The dots are my earlier post on – ‘game changers’ and ‘Learning… and possibility thinking’. I took these cues and have decided to change the design of my blog. You see! Change is the only constant.

  • Game changers…







    You need to know the rules of the game to change the rules of the game. The rider is – you should not be engrossed in the game such that ‘the obvious becomes ignorable and thus a lost opportunity’. You should have birds-eye view and worm eye view on the game simultaneously. Sure, you might or might not know the complete rules; however, knowing the boundaries within which players are playing can help redefine the boundaries themselves and changing the rules. At times you may come up with a new game altogether, who knows?

    I know generally people talk about i-pod, Tata nano and other famous products when they talk about “Game Changers”. I would state a different example here – Freej. Freej is a famous animation series in Middle East region. This animation series is a tale of four old Emirati women living in a secluded neighborhood in modern day Dubai. The concept of Freej moved the animation audience from kids to adults and from translated Disney characters to local, people next door type of characters. This picked up very quickly – a move from translated animation to ‘our own animation’.

    It is not necessary to connects everything to Business and the Buddha together, that is what I wrote in ‘Why the title?’ blog. This entry could have been one on business only; nevertheless since I know about the lessons the Buddha learnt during his search I think there is a direct connection.
    The Buddha, in his quest for enlightenment, went to many different experts of the time. He mastered all the arts/procedures from them quickly and realized something is incomplete. In the end he made his own path. Later on his belief and knowledge became foundation for one of the oldest religion on the earth. He knew what is useful, important and contemporary for the society and what should be the path. He reinforced few things, refuted others and added more to the existing knowledge. The Buddha was also a game changer in that context.
    My point of contention always has been, it is good to know the rules, understand the approach normally players need to take and know the boundaries of the field. At the same time, one has to be ‘traditionally unconventional’ to move out and come in to defy the rules and pave a way forward. I foresee two approaches to do this
    1. Doing different things and
    2. Doing things differently.
    Both these approaches involve “questioning assumptions”, and this is what I trust in. One may appear as irritating, fool or excessively inquisitive person but that is important to do something different.