There are brilliant behavioural science wizards across the world unfortunately employed with companies that have them busy finding behavioural science tactics to quickly build trust among customers. And maybe it works sometimes. To my knowledge though, the cleanest way to build trust, is to go with trustworthy intentions, and be absolutely transparent in matters. What…
What if the analytics you obsess over isn’t even close to the whole picture? Put differently, what if you ignored it and focused on something better? I took a leap, disregarded the pressure of numbers, and focused on quality over consistency—and it made a difference.
Choosing Business Opportunity to Avoid Change As an individual, if you have a habit your core doesn’t fully approve of, you’d find a disconnect that you might, either align with, or from time to time try to fix. It could be diet, fitness or even ethic related. And often, between control or restricting something for…
Don’t be Kupamanduka When someone just joins your organisation, get their first impression of their experience within a few days of joining. Then, after you run them through the standard tour and the paces, and get another view within a month or two. See if there is a significant drop in the ‘illusion’. And if…
The Non-Financial Side of Business A call with an industry colleague last week set in motion, thoughts on how we measure individual or business success. As a kid growing up in India in the 80’s, studies used to be quite a tricky part of life. Studying history, for instance. We had a ton of dates…
Why Design Thinking is Here to Stay A close friend recently shared this article titled ‘Why Design Thinking will fail’, written in 2013 by Jeffrey Tjendra. Jeffrey is a designer entrepreneur and strategist. Among some of us friends, there was were points of disagreement on the article. Jeffrey does seem to have a good understanding…
Venture Capital Elevator Pitches I left my job at a venture capital (VC) firm in 2010. After freelancing for a bit I then worked with a high-technology company in the robotics space. I then started my own strategy consulting practice, which over the years has matured into an interesting blend of design thinking, management strategy…
What the Customer Wants There has been the occasional debate between two schools of thought: You need to ask the customer what he/she wants; and, The customer doesn’t know what he/she wants until we show them (remember ol Steve Jobs?) A bulk of the views I’ve come across so far lie on the side of…
Many b-schools in India are tilting less toward business, management, and ethics; more toward finishing skills. With a strong (and often desperate) focus on placements, they go an extra mile to add superficiality to students. From a scary importance on cracking interviews, having a cocky attitude, and the ability to fib-on-the-fly. Unknowingly, they’re doing the students a great…
Image: source When starting one’s business, a set of people will advice you to keep a sharp focus when it comes to offerings or purpose. Another group might suggest offering as many products or services as possible, to minimize risk. And both groups could defend their views till the cows come home. However, in most cases, it…