Recognizing that it is impossible to attain ‘invincibility’

David Glass summed up the new challenges facing Wal-Mart “For a lot of years, we avoided mistakes by studying those larger than we were – Sears, Penney, Kmart. Today we don’t have anyone to study… When we were smaller, we were the underdog, the challenger. When you’re number one, you are a target. You are no longer the hero”

David Glass was the CEO of Wal-Mart and what surprised me here was the fact that this comment was made way back in 1993 (April 1993, USA Today). Having grown the company from USD 16 billion in 1987 to USD 67 billion in 1993, the CEO had every reason to assume the invincibility of his company and relax. It takes an extraordinary leader to realize that stagnancy will surely be challenged and develop strategies to reach the next level (Currently Wal-Mart clocks USD 400+ billion per year and continues to be #1 in its business !!). This reminds me of “Continuous Dissatisfaction with Continuous Improvement”.

Drawing from my own experience – It is very easy for the leader to assume invincibility and keep himself busy by focussing on daily operations and have a myopic view, while forgetting all about the direction in which we are moving, the speed, what lies in the horizon and what is the competitor doing. It is very easy for the leader to continue to be busy but without drawing strategies for the long term. Let me elaborate further in my next post.

“continued improvement with continued dissatisfaction”

It was a moment of epiphany when my Prof declared “continued improvement with continued dissatisfaction”. I realized that I am hearing the survival mantra of successful businesses. Once a business is successful, it is very easy to conclude “and then they lived happily ever after”, but the story does not stop there right? There will always be a moment when the customer realizes that our products/services are predictable and boring.

Even the most successful business cannot hope for a fairy tale ending and instead should always look for ways to improve. It will be a challenge to ensure that we do not stagnate, that we are not boring and that we are not stale. Can one extend this argument to the individual level? Is that why I am pursuing PGPX at IIM A? I only hope so!!!!

It has been four months since this full time executive MBA course (PGPX) started. This course has provided a structure for the content that I possessed – content that was created from 11+ years of experience. There have been new learnings as well but the WOW moments have been when I found a way to express my past experiences.

I have been recording my thoughts in twitter for the past few weeks – I chose twitter for the reason that it is only 140 characters and hence I can save some time. But now when I revisit some of the tweets, I realize that I have been very cryptic and hence no use might arise to the reader!! So my first goal will be to elaborate further on those tweets. After that, I intend to continue recording my learnings and insights and experiences here at PGPX. I hope that the hectic college life does not come in the way!!