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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
Wild card entry
I have been extremely lucky in life to be part of tribes that I wasn’t deserving of, in the first place.
ISB – got through with less than 2 years of experience.
Kearney – got through despite not being a top ranker.
Entrepreneur – became one completely by accident
Rocket – got through after a 15 min meeting
Groupon – was asked to lead with no such prior experience or exposure
Fortune – can count 100 more people who could be part of the list instead of me
I am the wild card entry in all these. The guy on the fence. The not so obvious choice.
Here is the deal with wild card entries
No one expects you to win.
No one knows about you either.
No one expects you to contribute.
And the only direction you can go is up!
The only thing you can do is to observe the obvious entrants and learn
And perhaps someday you won’t be wild card anymore
I am a nightmare dressed like a day dream
Reading people is an art
Reading them right is a blessing
Misrreading people is lack of practice
Misreading people to suit your bias is a habit
The key to read them is not to classify them as adjectives. Rather to figure their probable reactions to situations.
Everyone has a good side and a dark side. Capable of loving and hurting. Capable of being loyal and back-stabbing. Capable of being thoughtful and selfish.
Question is: when do they behave which way?
We are all we need
Being comfortable with just yourself is a blessing.
The first 1.5 days of Beijing – I communicated with the world only through my lens and pictures on my phone. Didn’t speak a word. Simply walked the streets in the bitter yet sunny cold. Capturing faces, structures and culture. Occassionally singing to myself. Not missing where I came from because I know I could always go back to it when I wanted. While this new world will only last for 3 days.
It would be amazing if we started each day as if it were in a new city. You don’t know anyone or anything. And you only have yourself. Would you live it differently?
Scaling up
Fascinating conversation with an industry colleague, this morning.
Key take away
Companies don’t need to scale up in numbers, to scale up
They need to scale up in mindset!
What heals
Time heals
Love heals
Money heals
Music heals
Travel heals
Meditation heals
There is nothing that can be bigger than your will to heal.
Everyday when you wake up, it will the first thing you think about. Until one day it will be the second.
Teach me something
A fascinating interview question, especially for product managers, is
Assume you are a teacher. Teach me something I dont know of
In one stroke this exhibits several important traits of a successful product manager
Ability to structure thoughts
Communicate clearly
Ask for feedback
In the past 2 days alone I have learnt
Why acute mountain sickness happens
How to make kulfi faluda
How do you control directions when paragliding
Why do cars need gears
2 interviews a day
25 days a month
That’s 600 new concepts in a year!
I love what I do!
Note to self
What you eat in private
You wear in public
And I am not talking just food…
Pick one
Here are my favorite interviews questions
1. Speed or perfection?
2. Spontaneous or calculative?
3. Money or power?
4. Starting things or finishing things?
5. Institute or course?
Neither of them have a right or wrong answer. But here is the worst response – “both”
Life doesn’t always give you both. Most of life is about picking one option, one path. Even if you don’t want to.
Only on 3 occasions have people come back and said – neither. I have a third one for me.
All 3 of them are top performers at Groupon today.
They didn’t accept the choices life gave. Chose to create their own path in some way!
Pick one
Better still, create one!
Are you solving the problem, or so you think?
Admit, rectify and never repeat mistakes
Commandment 8 of the Groupon India Bible
If I had to make one for managers, the same would read
Identify the cause and solve, to ensure no repeat problems.
The biggest mistake that managers make which they are unaware of, is that they don’t solve problems. They only address them tactically – at a individual level, circumstantial level, momentary level. They don’t solve the problem. They solve the situation.
Ask yourself – will this problem occur again within the same set of individuals? If yes, you haven’t solved the problem.
It takes a lot more will. A lot more time. Definitely a lot more attention. Imagine the returns, though.
A course on people management?
A conversation with Ankur Singla this weekend set me thinking.
The hardest part about running a company are not the technical issues. Most of those are binary. Capability and perseverance will get you there. If something doesn’t work, you find the solution and fix it. And it mostly works the way you expect.
People don’t work like that.
We are unpredictable. We have varying emotions based on what we had in the morning. We have varying reactions to the same situations. And we expect different things at different times.
Handling people should then be the hardest role of a manager. And it is.
But nothing is codified. There is no Bible. No course. When Singla asked me a few questions, I couldn’t articulate the response despite living those problems everyday (and successfully handling most of them).
And it’s obvious why. Because I am a person myself. The way I handle the same situation is also not standard. It varies.
Crazy!
I wouldn’t pay as much to hear how founders came up with their idea and made it successful
As much as I will pay to hear how they handle people
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