Executive Warfare - by David D'Alessandro

As you go higher up, the competition intensifies and to reach “the top” is gonna be truly tough. You may have multiple bosses to please, you have to manage some intricate network of relationships, people always judge you and its not always fair. You may be rising happily within an Organization for two decades and on a not so fine a day, you are backstabbed and ousted. Everything is possible.
At this point it is also not enough to be smart, hard-working and result oriented, because your competition would also possess these attributes. So it’s something like “What got you here, won’t get you there”. There’s a fundamental change in the game. You need to know when to take a shot at your rivals and when to react gracefully and importantly how to handle the many new influences on your trajectory.

Attitude, Risk and Luck:
Three things you’d need for this combat – The right attitude, a willingness to take calculated risks, and dumb luck.
Lets get to the Attitude part- Be the boss within. Feel like one, think like one. How do you do it?
1. Study, study and study. Study to the extent that you get a new dimension or perspective to the discussion. Ask questions about that dimension and you suddenly become the most valuable person in the room.
Eg. “ David once learned that his company was planning to invest in a joint venture with the Colombian govt. During the meeting, he asked “what happens to our investment if the guerillas destabilize the government or a civil war breaks out?”
A crucial perspective but ignored till then. The CEO was suddenly looking onto David for answers and he became the most valuable person in the room.
2. Keep your personal life, personal and do not embarrass yourself in public (avoid having a martini at a company event)
3. Get in a sense of humor.

Risk: Higher management is all about handling risks intelligently and in a calculated manner. Here, Risk is the name of the game.
“Every project in the world has a father or mother who decided to take the risk. AND Organizational memory is very sharp on this point as to who took that risk”
At the same time, the key is taking the risk in a calculated manner. It’s very dangerous not to be able to see the downside of something. You must know and see a project that you may want to kill. It’s like the stop-loss concept of the equity markets. Know when to exit and be bold about it.
Luck: After doing all the right things, one still needs the luck to get what you want. There will be times, when Luck is not by your side. So what can one do about it? There’s no real solution for this but the author believes that you can make your luck (at least partly).
In this context the author gives some tips to improve your luck.
If you are passed over for a promotion, think about trying a new instrument, like getting assigned to task forces across disciplines. Get exposure to different disciplines. Contribute in new ways. And to close this case for luck one very important closing point- Its critical to be at the right place. You stay too long at a place too rich in your skills, and you are giving a tough time for your luck to make you lucky. Whatever you may do, you stand a great chance of being neglected. So move on from such a place and find the right one.

Bosses: Make sure that you understand your boss’ goal (immediate goal and beyond that). It also helps to identify with your boss’ risk appetite. If he’s for safe play, then in all respect he’s gonna reward safe players over you. And assure your boss that you are loyal to him and discreet. It’s important to be the most trusted person in the boss’s stable. At the same time, you can tell him your needs and assure him your loyalty as long as he gives you the push you need. It’s ok to say “I’ll help you reach your own goals, but you have to do something for me, which is to push me along”.
Be the most trusted person but let him not get too dependable on you that will let him not leave you anywhere to explore.
Get into the right meetings: It is necessary for you to attend the right meetings. Whoever the powers are in your org. getting exposure to them is important.
In these meetings, if you’re able to answer questions that your boss may not know answers to- you have made yourself visible and your boss wouldn’t mind taking the credit for hiring a real smart person, like you.
Some other tips about your survival and your journey to the centre of the boardroom.
Tip 1: Don’t just hitch yourself with just one person. He may have a very short life span. Hitch yourself with as many people as you can.
Tip 2: Pay attention to the meetings you attend and try to understand the dynamics between your boss and the CEO/CXO. If from the body language you find some indifference or tension, it’s a signal that you are perhaps not under the best boss.

PEERS:
Beware the consigliore (some really trusted people of your bosses and have unfettered access to your bosses). They can do a lot of harm behind your back. There are ways to tackle them. 1) Identify the possible consigliore and feed them with wrong and different information. So, depending on the info. That reaches your boss, you know the actual culprit. You may then further tackle this by constantly proving the info. Provided by the consigliore to be wrong. At the same time, once you know whom the consigliore is, you may deal with him in such a way that he passes on good inputs about you and that can really work for your advantage.
You will have enemies and they will be underhanded. What you really have to defend against are the water cooler campaigns (rumors about you). The really shrewd enemies will try to weave a theme using a series of stories about you.
You will have to tackle this wisely. If the rumor is a lie, calmly make the facts known. Also expose as little of your personal life as possible. Keep people who will not hesitate to give you candid feedback.
RIVALS:
The people above you are watching how you behave with your rivals. The top management wants to know how you tackle your rivals. It’s important to be an incremental player. Build your reputation steadily and dimensionally.
It’s good to know you rival’s weaknesses and it’s better when you show the world how you do not have the same weakness and how you can handle such situations better. In this book, David mentions of a case where the employee was an alcoholic and his rival decided to fire him whereas David gave the employee a helping hand and even sent him to a rehabilitation center at company’s expense, because the employee was a valued asset to the company, nevertheless keeping his bosses apprised of the case on a regular basis. This differentiation gives you the edge over your rival.
Ask your Rivals, pointed questions in meetings. They can disconcert your rival and will help you understand his weaknesses. “With one sharp, pertinent question you can raise the bar for your rival, open up a new line of inquiry that he will now have to face persistently’”
Organizational etiquette can be foolish at times; you should risk breaking it once in a while.
Appreciate your rival in front of the management if he has done a brilliant job.
If you have to shoot your rival, kill him- don’t leave him wounded and if you lose to your rival, leave the place or department or whatever. It’s not easy to work under your rivals.

The Team You build: I will not delve into this. I shall rather give it in a few points the gist of this chapter
a) Pick your own team
b) Be deliberate about bringing in outsiders
c) Hire people who are unlike yourself
d) Don’t be a bigot
e) Avoid hiring people who are mirthless
f) Beware of Yes- men
g) When it comes to Layoffs, some flexibility is only right.

The people you have to Motivate:
Respect their years of experience. Mere resentment will set in if you pretend to understand in a few weeks what they have spent half a lifetime learning.
When in doubt, simplify the issues, stay out of the details, and make sure your experts know that you will hold them accountable for the outcome.
Encourage your people to bring bad news to you individually so that they are not ashamed in public or not bring in the news at the right time for fear of ridicule.
Remove the blood clots mercilessly. Blood clots are the people who try to hinder your initiatives, rebel against your decisions, cut you out of the decision-making etc
As you move higher up. You will need to keep your door ajar (keeping em’ completely open will invite too many ppl unnecessarily and a lot of time waste). You cannot afford to listen to your employees pouring their heart out but at the same time, it’s not good to have an idea of their personal lives (whether or not they have kids and if so, how many etc)
“Loyalty is about gratitude, not Patriotism.” You build loyalty by helping each member of your team, individually, get where they want to go”
eg: You really need the services of an employee for 2 more years, but he’s now leaving the org. It really helps for you to know that all he really sought is an 80-foot boat and move to Florida in his retirement.
Yu can then say “ Look, I’l ensure you get your 80-foot bat. I’l bonus you, option you, or enhance your pension, whatever it takes for you to get your boat. But I’l need two years of your services” It’s a hard to resist deal. Isn’t it?
Many such examples as these. Another very important thing is to stand by your employees during difficult times. E.g. Flying down to pay your respects to someone dear to your employee or rending a helping hand for their family medical problems etc build a long lasting loyalty which does not happen over a cup of beer or cocktail.
Outsiders with Influence:
· Clients like babies need attention
· If an important client is at a meting in your building, drop in.
· Share your official and personal contact numbers
· Consigliore to them – advise them, listen to them, stand by them( never discuss your internal organizational issues though)
· Solve their problems, not just business problems but also their personal problems.. Do not however make it embarrassing by sending birthday greetings or lavish gifts etc.
· “Let your bosses know straight out that if they don’t promote you at some point, you will walk and much of the gold will walk with you”.
· Tread carefully with the extended family
· Try and be a part of the same club or share the same hair dresser etc. this kind of info. is very crucial
Culture:
Remain culturally sensitive and try and build a culture of openness, not a culture of fear.
The New Bosses- The Journalists:
Talk to your reporters regularly; do not however give interviews unprepared
Don’t soliloquize in interviews. Give short answers that cannot b taken out of context
“If you are getting really good press, some reporters will be contrarians just to stand out from the crowd. Pay heed to them and explain them, if possible meet them personally.
Be available to a reporter both when you have a positive story and a negative story.
Leave your plush office and visit their sparse govt. offices just to introduce yourself.
Show composure when aggressively questioned

Whale Done

Whale done is about improving your relationships at work, and at home following the training methodology imparted to killer whales. We all know how life-threatening a whale can be. Yet there is a group of whale trainers who play with whales and make them perform breathtaking feats on a daily basis. Ken Blanchard( the author) takes cues from the whale trainers and depicts in this book as to how these techniques can be used to better human relationships.
Lets navigate and absorb the essence of this killer shark training techniques.
Two lovers at a dining table – enraptured in each other’s company, lost in each other’s eyes and ignorant of what’s happening around. – Undivided attention is whats present in this case. As relationships mature, most of us get into ‘Gotcha’ mode. The gotcha mode according to Ken is about catching people doing things wrong. This is the root cause of deterioration in relatioships. The final demise of a relationship begins when you do something right but you are still yelled at for not doing it right enough. You had to ask me...You should have done it earlier blah blah blah..So how do we avoid this Gotcha thing and move ahead? – Whale Done techniques.
I shall in the next few pages walk you through these techniques:

T1: Accentuate the Positive
T2: Redirect the energy when mistakes occur

What do these thing mean? T1 essentially is the opposite of Gotcha mode- the Whale Done mode. T1 is about focussing on the things done right( however small or even if it is slightly irrelevant to the task at hand).
How do we do T1?
a. Wake up and say something positive when everything is going well
b. Praise progress (don’t wait for the end result)
c. Praise immediately
d. Be specific about what they did right or almost right
e. Share your positive feelings about what they did
f. Encourage them to keep up the good work
g. Never assume you know what motivates a person (It is avoidable to motivate people with money and animals with food). There are very many other things to motivate people/ animals with. Eg. One thing animals like is a rub on their stomach or a pat on their head or a long ride in a car.
T2: is avoiding the gotcha. In case mistakes occur, redirect the energy and build trust.
How do we T2?
a. Describe the error or problem as soon as possible , clearly and without blame
b. Show its negative impact
c. If appropriate take the blame for not making the task clear
d. Go over the task and ensure that it is clearly understood
e. Express your continuing trust and confidence in the person.
You’ve gotta read the book, for some examples on using Whale Done!!!!

Whale Done, everybody.

The Power of Creative Intelligence - Tony Buzan

Choice Words/Phrases

“The brain divided its activities distinctly into Right Brain and Left Brain activities.” Right brain caters to- rhythm, spatial awareness, dimensions, imagination, daydreaming, color and holistic awareness while the Left brain is responsible for words, logic, numbers, sequence, linearity, analysis and lists. The radically different view that the book puts forth – right brain and left brain are more intricately connected while performing their activities and there is a cross impact and dependence on the activities between the right and left brains. It is the whole-brain that creates the difference. Not the two parts independently. Creative brain is the whole brain. The book gives creativity work outs through out and I will list down some of the most salient of the tips.
1. Take breaks – Some of the most interesting and brilliant ideas come out while in the bath, in the shower, before going to sleep, while asleep, upon waking up, while listening to music etc.
For the whole brain to work well, take breaks.
2. Go for Long Walks or Rambles: Solvitas perambulum (solve it while you walk)
3.Use both sides of your body. (brush /comb your hair with your left hand if you are right handed and vice versa etc)
4. Play Einstein’s creative games: Ask questions to yourself like “what would it be like to go for a ride on a sunbeam to an end of the universe?’ or ‘if I traveled at the speed of light away from somebody, would I be invisible?’
5. Daydream and night dream- both give your visual creative muscles added strength.
6. Use Mind maps

If you want to understand more about the Mind Maps, which in itself is a fairly lengthy study, read Tony Buzan’s book on Mind Maps.

7. Join an art class or visit art galleries.
8. Try cartooning
9. Sing, Dance, get you another instrument, take music classes, perform in clubs, parties.
10. Improve vocabulary
11.Take any two words and try to think of atleast five similarities between them, the wilder the better. If you can find 10, you are exceptional, 15 you are in the world’s top 1 % and if you find over 20, you are demonstrating creative genius in this area.
Eg of word pairs: Orange and Frog, Bird and beetle, spaceship and watch etc.
12. See things from different viewpoints (Alexander the great was brilliant at seeing things from other points of view- and not just from that of other humans, but animals too.
13. Act of reversal – simply take whatever exists and consider the opposite.
14. Learn to tell witty jokes
15.The Universe and Me game: In this game, put yourself at the centre of the Associative universe. Each day, pick one random concept or idea, and generate five or more ideas in which this random concept relates to YOU. Eg. The moon and me, Love and me, Earth and me, Laptop and me, Blog and me etc.
16. You and Animals: Compare yourself with the traits of as many animals as possible. Check out which animal you resemble the most.
17. Create short poems
18. Be a child (stare at things, listen to stories, play with children, learn to do new thngs, ask questions (why, what, where, who)
19. Ask why or how, five times at least, a day.
20. Read more of Tony Buzan and Edward Debono

Outliers- by Malcolm Gladwell

Choice Words/Phrases

“This is a book about Outliers, about men and women who do things that are out of the ordinary”
The Matthew Effect: This chapter is a revelation. It tells us that our notion that it is the best and the brightest who effortlessly rise to the top is much too simplistic. What is and has been overlooked all the while is the big head start that these outliers got, an opportunity that they neither deserved nor earned. It is this great opportunity that made the difference and not just the extraordinary individual traits attributed to these personas so far.
Here on the book deals with bolstering this concept of the strategic opportunity that most of the super successful humans got in their lives.
The 10,000 – Hour Rule: Ten thousand hours is the minimum time that makes a genius and this is widely accepted in the intellectual world. But here the book does not argue against nor support this rule. It explains how the outliers got the advantage of being able to spend their 10,000+ hours on their passion.
Eg. Bill Gates: Bill got the opportunity to work on ASR-33 way back in 1968, when virtually most of the schools used the tedious computer-card system. Reason, Gates’ father was a wealthy lawyer and his mother the daughter of a well-to-do banker and he was put in a private school that catered to Seattle’s elite families and the school had an ASR-33 teletype, which was a time-sharing terminal with a direct link to a mainframe computer in Seattle. Bill Gates got to do real-time programming as an eighth grader in 1968.
There are examples of Beatles, Bill Joy, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, Eric Schmidt, and Steve Jobs, each of them with the extraordinary opportunities they had been bestowed with.
IQ vs. Practical Intelligence: Termites the ones with extremely high IQ deemed the intelligentsia of the world were considered the logical successors to the corporate world. However, that was proved to be untrue and a new type of intelligence called the practical intelligence is now attributed to the overall success. What is Practical Intelligence? To Robert Sternberg a renowned psychologist, practical intelligence includes things like “knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect”. Lets now look at what classes of people have superior practical intelligence. The answer: middle class and the elite. The middle-class parenting style also defined by some as ‘concerted cultivation’ attempts to proactively foster and assess a child’s talents, opinions and skills. While the poor parents tend to leave their children to develop on their own. Middle class encourages their kids to a bit of casual incivility and entitlement. They are encouraged to reason, negotiate and ask for what they are entitled to and these are key skills for success in today’s world.

The factors:
Some of the factors that the book outlines for the outlier advantage, which is the core point of the book are listed and detailed below:
1.New York Law firms: If you had to be an uber successful law firm in the 1960’s, you had the outlier advantage had you been Jewish. This is how the story turned. The Jewish lawyers that set foot in New York in the 1960’s were subject to work and pay discrimination. They were therefore forced to take up cases that were disdained by the white-shoe firms, such as hostile takeovers, proxy fights etc. Then came the 70’s. Federal regulations were meeker, markets globalize, easier access to cash and this lead to a surge in controversial takeovers and litigation cases. Who else was best prepared for these? The Jewish law firms of New York who were handling these forsaken cases. They are now experts in these with more than 10,000 hrs of experience. The tide was in their favor. So, if you were a Jewish lawyer in the 60’s, you had the opportunity to become big in the 70’s.
2.Demographic Luck: Most of us know about the baby boomers. There is another important trend in the American demography and that was in the 30’s, the demographic trough. The 1930’s saw a sizeable decline in the population growth compared to the preceding years, thanks to the great depression. Families stopped having children due to the economic hardships. What does this mean to the Outlier theory? For children born in the 1930’s, there was lesser competition for education, jobs etc. For a young would-be lawyer , being born in early 1930’s was a magic time, just as being born in 1955 was for a software programmer.
3.The garment industry and meaningful work
4.Legacy
The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes & Korean Air:
Korean Air had a very disturbing trend of plane crashes.
The crash of Air flight 801 headed for Guam on August 5, 1997.
The crash of KAL 801, that wandered into the Russian airspace and was shot down by Soviet military jet in 1977. The Korean Air Boeing 747 crash in Seoul in 1979. Another Boeing 747 crash near Sakhalin Island, in Russia, followed by a Boeing 707 that went down over the Andaman Sea in 1987, two more crashes in 1989 in Tripoli and Seoul, and then another in 1994 in Cheju, South Korea.
The average loss rate for an airline like the United Airlines in the period 1988 to 1998 was .27 per million departures, while the loss rate for Korean Air at 4.79 per million departures- almost 17 times higher loss rate.
Korean Air’s crash sequence continued unabated and this trend was worrisome. In April 1999, Delta Air and Air France suspended their flying partnership with Korean Air. Korean Air’s fate was bleak.
Now for the analysis: Power Distance (PDI). PDI is concerned with attitudes toward hierarchy, specifically with how much a particular culture values and respects authority. High PDI means the subordinates maintain a distance to their superiors, hesitate to challenge them, carry on their orders with little resistance, and speak using conversational mitigation and Low PDI is just the opposite.
The flight –deck design is intended to be operated by two people and when on of the pilots’ is a Korean and communicating with the traffic control of a low PDI nation, the gap turns out to be a fatal gap. The problem is Korea is very high on PDI and US very low.
As some of the black box studies showed after a plane crash, it’s this gap between the two pilots that caused the crash. A cultural issue. Even in case of an emergency the Korean would try to indirectly hint at things like ‘how about trying it this way” or “what if it does not work” etc, instead of simply saying “it’s an emergency, we need immediate clearance “
A series of interesting black box conversations are illustrated in the book.
Culture also expounds the reason why Asians are better at math. Eg. Chinese number words are quite brief. Most of them can be uttered in less than one-quarter of a second( eg. 4 is “si” and 7 is “qi”). Their English equivalents four and seven are longer, takes around one third of a second to pronounce them. This difference extends to two digit and three digit numbers as well.
Eg.eleven, twelve etc The number system in English is erratic while in China, Japan and Korea it is more logical. Twelve is ten two and Twenty-four is two-tens-four. This difference leads to Asian children learn to count faster than an average American. Chinese on the whole abets easy understanding and application of maths and hence the advantage.
So far in Outliers the point made is that success arises out of the steady accumulation of advantages: when and where you were born, economic status of your parents, and what the circumstances of your upbringing, the Power distance of your culture, the uncertainty avoidance of your culture and a host of other cultural issues, all make a significant difference in how well you do in the world. – The Outlier Advantage.

Ten Secrets of Worlds Greatest Communicators- by Carmine Gallo

Choice Words/Phrases

Speak with passion: Unless the audience sees that you, the speaker is totally involved, enthused and passionate about what you are speaking the audience might just ignore you. The book introduces a new quotient similar to IQ or EQ and that is PQ (Passion Quotient) . PQ increases as your enthusiasm increases and also as your energy increases. So be energetic and be enthusiastic and be more passionate as you speak.
Inspire: Inspiration and Charisma is the key to inspiration. The author defines charisma as “a personal attractiveness that enables you to influence others, an ability to arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm”.
Seem human and paint a picture to your audience. Tell them where they are and where you are going to take them to. Show them that this is the compelling vision you have for them and that you are going to take all of them towards that vision.
One of the very effective ways of selling your vision is through a story. A good story appeals to the audience like a magnet and conveys the message in the most lucid and straightforward way. However, keep the story original and personal. Copying someone else’s story could have an adverse impact.
Sell a mission to the audience. Steve Jobs told the then CEO of Pepsi Sculley “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or Change the World”, in a bid to convince Sculley to join Apple.
Prepare: Prepare, prepare and prepare thoroughly before a presentation. Most of the world’s greatest communicators prepare thoroughly before the presentation. Some of them prepare to the finicky extent of when to pause, what joke to crack and when to smile.
People prepare by watching themselves the recorded practice sessions and improvising on the presentation.
It is also cardinally important to know your audience. Their background, their history, their interests and what kind of humor they’d like and what they are looking for in the presentation and what they actually care for.
And
Don’t read from your presentation…Speak.

Start Strong: Powerful beginning and end will leave the audience speechless. Some of the experts feel – get your audience’s attention in the first 30 seconds or perish. Try the 30 second pitch, where the gist of your message needs to be addressed in nothing more than 30 seconds. What makes a good 30-second pitch? The one that answers
1.What is my service, product, company or cause?
2.What problem do I solve?
3.How am I different?
4.Why should you care?

Clarity: Lose the Jargon or Lose your Audience. Keep it simple. Express the Wow in your message clearly.
Eg. for a Simple and Clear message. “Fix, Sell or Close” by Jack Welch.
Here’s what you can do to work around the jargon. Use Story enhancers
Story Enhancers include Analogies, Anecdotes, Endorsements, Examples, Statistics and Testimonials. `
Brevity:
Long is Dull. Are you dull?
Keep the presentation small and sweet. Avoid too many slides in case you are using a PowerPoint.

Say It With Style:
Develop your individual style.
There are some good tips to make a good style in a presentation.
1.Vary your tone
2.Have a reasonably good pace
3.Pause (at important points)
4. Punch the key words – for that extra stress
5. Clearly utter each and every word. Don’t mumble

Command Presence:
Don’t stand just at the same place throughout your presentation. Move around the stage and move around the audience. As you move around the audience, keep
1. Open Posture
2. Make Eye Contact
3. Use well placed Hand Gestures


Wear It Well:
Clients are flattered when you dress up for the occasion, because dressing up for an occasion shows that you care for the occasion and that is a positive sign. Great dress catches peoples’ attention. So Wear It Well.
Stay in Style when it comes to dressing. Update your closet with the latest in the market.
Get the Right Fit and Right Color. The color of leadership is “Dark Blue (solid or with fine pinstripe) Suit, White or baby blue shirt and burgundy tie “ according to De Paris. De Paris is an authority in dressing design and has made suits for some of the most popular US presidents such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Bush Senior and Junior etc. All this, however with the disclaimer that one needs to dress for the occasion. No point wearing De Paris’ style for a Valentine’s Day outing.


Reinvent Yourself:
Curiosity is the key word. Always be prepared to reinvent yourself, with new skills, new ideas, new vision, new slogan for your business etc.
AND
The 11th Secret – Believe, deep down that you’re destined to do great things.

Mc Kinsey Mind

Choice Quotes

Chapter Sequence
1. Framing the Problem
2. Designing the Analysis
3. Gathering the Data
4. Interpreting the Results
5. Presenting Your Ideas
6. Managing Your Team
7. Managing Your Client
8. Managing Yourself

Framing the Problem:
Generate your initial hypothesis: Every client faces the temptation of taking the clients’ diagnosis of his problem at face value. Resist this temptation. You generate your initial hypothesis by drawing conclusions based on the limited facts that you know about the problem in hand without doing a lots of additional research.
If something leaps out at you immediately, congratulations; you’ve just formed a hypothesis. Your next step is to figure out which analyses you have to perform and which questions you have to ask in order to prove or disprove your hypothesis. One way to layout these questions is the issue tree, in which each branch of the tree is an issue or question, bridges the gap between structure and hypothesis. By answering the questions in your issue tree, you can very quickly validate your hypothesis.
As a first step you need to figure out the top-line issues, the issues that have to be true for your hypothesis to be true.

Issue Tree
Let us now look at how to plan an analysis to prove or disprove the hypothesis

Designing the Analysis: To prove or disprove the initial hypothesis
Initial hypothesis is like solving the problem at first sight. However, the analysis that backs it, eventually either proving or disproving the hypothesis is what is discussed in here.
Designing the planning in McKinsey is termed as ‘Work Planning’. Many successful managers have developed highly accurate instincts that allow them to reach good decisions quickly.
Analytical course:
· Identify the key drivers
· Look at the ‘Big Picture’
· Don’t boil the Ocean
· Sometimes you have to let the solution come to you.
· Focused analysis is more important than volume.
· Pluck the low hanging fruit
· Follow the 80/20 rule
· Back of the envelope is quite useful because it lets you know if you are in the ballpark. At times all I want to know is if a new product idea is going to be worth $5 million or $ 50 million or $ 200 million. I don’t always need elaborate details.
· Implementation guidance: when designing your analysis, you have a specific end product in mind: your work plan. A comprehensive work plan begins with all the issues and sub issues you identified during the framing of your initial hypothesis. For each issue or sub issue you should list the following elements
· Your initial hypothesis as to the answer
· The analyses that must be done to prove or disprove that hypothesis, in order of priority
· The data necessary to perform the analysis
· The likely sources of data(e.g. census data, focus groups, interviews)
· Brief description of the likely end product of each analysis
· The person responsible for each end product(you or a member of your team)
· The due date for each end product

Whatever it is put it on paper.


Gathering of Data, McKinsey’s principles for research:
· Facts are friendly. Don’t accept ‘I have no idea’- people always have an idea if you probe a bit. Ask some pointed questions and you’ll be amazed to know what people know.

· Specific research tips: Annual report, look for outliers (is to look for ratios or calculating key measures such as sales per salesperson by region) paying particular attention to high and low performers, look for Best practices.

· Lessons of strategic data gathering for your orgs:

· Diagnose the data orientation of your org
Ø IS the culture of your company more or less fact based?
Ø Do colleagues present their ideas with factual support?
Ø Do the decision makers explain you the rationale for their decision? Wrt facts

· Demonstrate the power of good facts:
Providing fact based insights using info. That had previously not been shared across business units

· Interview tips:
Ø Have the interviewee’s boss set up the meeting
Ø Interview in pairs
Ø Listen, don’t lead
Ø Paraphrase, paraphrase, paraphrase
Ø Use the indirect approach
Ø Don’t ask for too much
Ø Adopt the Colombo tactic

Other interview tips

Ø Write a thank u note after the interview
Ø Post interview follow up also adds value to the interview process.
Ø It is usually safe to begin with a big picture of what you are trying to accomplish and why you are meeting with that particular person.
Ø Consider an ice breaker for eg. I don’t think I could ever spot defective widgets with my eyesight. How perfect does your vision have to be to do a job like yours?

· KM: knowledge is a mix of info, experience and context in a value adding process.
· Don’t reinvent the wheel
· Develop a rapid response culture
· Acquire external knowledge (GE way)
· McKinsey’s consultants realize that clients don’t at the eod pay for fancy docs and pretty slide shows. They pay for advice that will add value to their businesses; this Is the end product of the consulting process and, by extension of business problem solving in general.

Interpreting the Results -Data interpretation:
· Always ask ‘what’s the so what?’
· Perform sanity checks
· Remember that there are limits to analysis
· Consulting isn’t about analysis, its about insights.
· While some like to think of intuition and data as polar opposites, they actually work together.
· Generating then ‘end product’: By end product we don’t mean collection of charts, slides, images etc.
· End product for our purposes, means the actual message that you will communicate.
· Make sure the solution fits your client.
Ø See through your client’s eyes
Ø Respect the limits of your client’s limitations
If you ask a McKinsey consultant what they do, the most common answer is ‘We help our clients make change happen’.

Presenting your Ideas:
· Be structured
· Elevator test (Its the time you have with a top brass of a company, in case you encounter them in an elevator, 2 mins, perhaps 4 mins if you are lucky. You gotta impress them with your idea within this time span. Gist: Have the gist of your entire plan/idea explainable in 2-4 mins)
· Keep it simple, one message per chart (When you present the idea in a powerpoint/chart)
Support your ideas with a solid structure.
We recommend starting with your conclusion. Having your conclusions or recommendations up front is sometimes known as inductive reasoning. We might have only 20 mins with the mgmt, but only the first 2 count.
If you are presenting data, always document your sources.
BUY-IN
Prewiring and tailoring: prewiring means taking your audience through your findings before you give your presentation. Tailoring means adapting your presentation to your audience, both before you give it and if necessary, on the fly.
Managing your team:
· Recruiting McKinsey style – hiring smart people vs. hiring people with tons of experience in a given area.
· Bonding: It is important to bond with the team
· Take your team’s temperature to maintain morale
· Obtaining Clients: We believe that the best selling is done by not selling. To build relationships, the firm markets: it publishes books and articles; it performs extensive community service, sponsors topical presentations and workshops.

Self-management:
· Find your own mentor
· Hit singles
· Make your boss look good
· Aggressive strategy for managing hierarchy

Selected few Choice Words/Phrases from McKinsey MindRecco: Very good read if yu are interested in IT Consulting

Captain Cool- by Gulu Ezekiel

Choice Quotes from 'Captain Cool

Facts and Notes: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (MSD) was born in Ranchi on 7 July, 1981. Mahi was naturally talented at sports, excelling at hockey, table tennis, badminton and football. He was a football goal keeper.
His tryst with cricket was quite accidental. It happened when he was in class VII when his sports instructor Keshab Ranjan Banerjee asked him to try his hands at wicket keeping when the then incumbent of the cricket team was not available for a match. The logic was, goalkeeping and wicket keeping are similar and since he was good as a football goalkeeper he would be able to adapt to wicket keeping. Could this be called, ‘Cricket’s’ gain and ‘football’s’ loss!! In 1998 Dhoni joined the Central Coalfields Limited where he received a monthly stipend of Rs.2200. It was with this money that the 18yr old bought his first second-hand bike. Later on, he took up his first full time job in 2001 as a ticket collector in Indian Railways.

Dhoni and National Cricket :
The innings that shot him to national prominence was the Deodhar trophy match against Central zone in 2004 while he was working for Indian Railways.
After this, Dhoni rarely looked back. He went on to his second game against Zimbabwe Select 11 in Harare where Dinesh Karthik played as a specialist batsmen while Dhoni donned the keeper’s gloves –It was the first time he wore India colours.
The match against Pakistan on 16th August 2004, in the tri-nation tournament in Kenya involving India ’A’, the hosts and Pakistan ‘A’ marked Dhoni’s first International century. His ODI Debut was in the India vs. Bangladesh match at Chittagong, 23 Dec 2004.


The tour of Pakistan 2001:
There were four centuries in Pakistan’s massive 679 for 7 declared. The Indian response was a massive opening partnership of 410 runs, Sehwag with 254 , Dravid with 128 not out and that’s where the test ended.
The next test at Faisalabad: India’s bowlers were thrashed to the tune of 588 as captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and Afridi made went on a rampage. Indians lost 5 wickets in a heap. At 281 for five, the Indians still needed more than 100 runs to avoid the follow-on. It was a nervy time for Dhoni to walk to the crease. Akthar bowled with a terrifying speed with the second new ball. As Akthar bowled to Dhoni – the first ball of the over was heading straight for his temple. But in Dhoni's mind the decision had already been made. On such choices are careers made or broken. The ball was smashed over square-leg for six. There was a touch of Viv-Richards style arrogance to it. Akthar roared in, striving for more and more pace and losing out on accuracy. Dhoni grew in confidence and smacked a few more daring shots till the bowler conceded defeat and walked off, head bowed.
In the one-day match at Rawalpindi, Dhoni took the bowling to task. Dhoni tore into the bowling. His smashing 72 from 46 deliveries earned him the ‘Man of the Match’ award and led Wisden Cricketers’ Almanac to describe his batting rather chillingly as : ‘hooligan stuff, casually violent and full of chauvinistic machismo’.
As he started making headlines in the cricketing arena, he spearheaded into the ad world as well, with Exide batteries, Cherry Blossom shoe polish, GE Money, TVS bikes, Pepsi, Reebok, Bharat Petroleum and Videocon Electronics being the early brands he signed on.

A small peek at his personal life - at home in Ranchi it is his dogs, black Labrador Zara, and pug Sam that he loves to spend time with. Asked what kind of girl he would eventually marry, he stated categorically that she should be an animal lover. Hope it rings bells for his die hard young lady fans :)

The World Cup fiasco and aftermath:
India crashed out of the world cup at the opening stage and the World Cup was a financial failure… Rumours floated around that companies sporting their logos on bats had clauses offering bonuses linked more to the time the player spent at the crease than actual runs scored. The BCCI had reacted to these in a haste. The board decided that players’ personal endorsements would be restricted to three products and not more than two players could endorse products other than those contracted to the board. Indian cricket was at its low and bitterness was in the air. Just 6 months from then things were to change…

The 20-20 world cup match between India and Pakistan at Durban: The match ended up in a tie. Bowl-out was employed to decide the winner, Cricket’s equivalent of football’s penalty shoot-out. The first three Indian bowlers – Sehwag, Harbhajan and Uthappa- hit the stumps while the Pakistanis all missed. India had won the match by the football-like score of 3-0. Dhoni revealed that the Indians had been preparing for such an eventuality during practice sessions.

The Critics: Dhoni’s 100th ODI catch was caught out on a technicality. Former wicket keeper Ian Healy, spotted that Dhoni’s specially manufactured gloves had extra webbing between the thumb and the forefinger and reported it to match referee Jeff Crowe. The gloves were deemed illegal as according to the rules the wicket keeper’s gloves should have no webbing between the fingers except joining index finger and thumb. Dhoni was let off with a warning and was asked to change the gloves immediately. But the controversy blew over when Australian wicket keeper Adam Gilchrist sprang to his defense. Dhoni has since switched to custom-made gloves with a green camouflage design reflecting his passion for all things connected with the military.

There’s lot more to the Dhoni story- be it his captaincy leading to the 20-20 world cup win or his performance at the 20-20 Indian Premier League or his love for pets and passion for military… All this and more , but can he be termed a legend as yet??? Well, that's debatable.
Lets Learn a few things from ‘Captain Cool’: Time to see what one can take away from this book. This book being a biography , the main learnings come from the characteristics of the protagonist- our Captain Cool in this case.
Some of the super features of MSD are his:
· Unconventional appeal
· Positive mindset
· Desire to Perform Consistently and Perform Greatly
· Casually violent nature
· Silent yet a strong Presence
· Level-headedness in a crisis
· Attitude to do what he is good at and what he thinks is right
& the
· Arrogance and attitude with which he Crushes his opponents All these are great management and life lessons indeed…..

CHOICE WORDS/PHRASES

MORE QUOTES

Recommendation: A decent read.