Praveen

Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference That Decides Success

When I was around seven or eight, there was a retailer who was in his early twenties and owned a electronic equipments store. Due due family disputes, he had just parted ways with his older brother who was in the same business for more than a decade . When he started his own store, he was young, had no idea of building a business and all he knew was, how the connections worked on a circuit board. Everyone in our neighbourhood thought he will not survive for more than a year or two without his older brother’s support and eventually he’ll go back to his brother.

However after a few months, his business started to grow. From just fixing things, he started to sell electronic products in his store and after few more months he became a major distributor of some of the products such as tubelights, bulbs, fans, geysers and many more and after a few years he started to take huge contracts from some of the real estate builders in an around our neighbourhood and fifteen years later, he became a major player in south Bangalore electronic equipments sales and had a annual revenue of more than sixty crore Rupees. Whereas his older brother, who had started around a decade earlier had wound up his shop and returned to his hometown.

The reason I remembered Ram Nivas (his real name) for this blog is because whenever I thought about him and his brother, I thought Ram was maybe more passionate, better with people, had better business acumen. But something I have realised after so many years that actually was the reason for this great trajectory is, Ram was better strategically. When he started his own business, he chose a neighbourhood which was growing and still developing. He chose the area where he saw a lot of vacant land and he knew there will be a lot of construction happening soon, which would mean that there will be a lot of demand for his services.

Richard Rumelt (considered as one of the best thinkers on the topic) in his book, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy writes, The first step of making strategy real is figuring out the big ‘aha’ to gain sustainable competitive advantage—in other words, a significant, meaningful insight about how to win.
And that “aha” moment for Ram was to rent a shop in the area where there was hardly anything at that moment but will soon start developing.

In today’s world, most of the organisations have made it a sort of mandate to have a vision and a mission for themselves which is important too, but the problem arises when the organisation and its managers confuse strategy to having a fancy vision and mission statements. A good strategy simply put is, Coherent set of actions designed to achieve a specific goal by leveraging strengths and tackling critical challenges. And a bad one is, Fluffy statements, wishful thinking, vague goals, or long lists of unconnected initiatives.

A good strategy has 3 components,

Coherent Actions – A sequence of moves that align.
Diagnosis – Identify the real challenge.
Guiding Policy – A chosen approach to tackle it.

If organisation A’s mission is to become the market leader (based on customer count) at delivering personalised gifts,
Coherent Actions – Every action of every employee of that organisation should be focused towards accomplishing that task. It would mean every effort, every project, every KPI of that organisation and its employees should be aligned towards achieving that objective.
Diagnosis – Organisation A has to figure out where it is leaking money or loosing its prospects. Could it be, the cost of its products, the quality or maybe their marketing team is not able to market the products appropriately.
Guiding Policy – It has to know the market trends and what the market demands are. Could it be something that the prospects follow on social media, a viral TV series or a song. In simpler terms, constantly doing market research and being on top of any recent trends.

A case study that peaked my interest and inspired me to share the learnings with you all is from the book I mentioned earlier, Richard Rumelt’s “Good Strategy/Bad Strategy” where he breaks down and explains Sam Walton’s strategy with Walmart,

In the 1960s, most big retailers focused on cities and large suburbs, believing rural towns lacked the population to sustain profitable stores. Walton spotted a different truth: these communities were underserved yet had the same appetite for low prices and quality products as city shoppers. The real challenge wasn’t demand—it was figuring out how to serve these customers efficiently at scale.

Instead of chasing urban markets like its competitors Sears or Kmart, Walton committed to small-town dominance. His strategic mantra was Everyday Low Prices (EDLP), not periodic big sales. This single-minded focus meant every operational decision had to align with cost leadership and accessibility.

Walton’s success didn’t come from ambition alone; it came from coordinated, tangible steps that reinforced his guiding policy:

Opened stores in clusters around distribution centres to minimise transport costs.
Built a centralised logistics system rather than relying on wholesalers.
Used computer inventory systems and satellite communications before competitors caught on.
Fostered a “save money for the customer” mindset across all employees

Good strategy almost always looks this simple and obvious, discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with them. Walton didn’t just dream about being the biggest retailer, he designed a system to make it inevitable.

“A good strategy includes a set of coherent actions. It is about action, about doing something.”

From a single rural store, this clarity of purpose and alignment of execution propelled Walmart into a global retail leader it is today.

“At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.” _{Richard P. Rumelt, Good Strategy Bad Strategy}

Now the exact opposite case, a “bad strategy” is of Big Bazaar losing the plot in Indian retail

Once the crown jewel of Future Group, Big Bazaar was India’s answer to Walmart in the early 2000s. It blended the feel of an Indian marketplace with the scale of a supermarket, quickly becoming a household name. But by the late 2010s, cracks in its strategy became too deep to fix—culminating in a collapse accelerated by debt, competition, and the pandemic.

E-commerce and organised competitors like Reliance Retail and DMart were building ultra-efficient, low-cost supply chains.
Customers were moving towards either high-discount formats (DMart) or convenience-focused online shopping (Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart).
Instead of recognizing operational inefficiency and pricing uncompetitiveness as the core problems, Big Bazaar doubled down on store expansion, assuming brand familiarity would keep footfall strong.

Big Bazaar tried to be all things to all customers – discount store, fashion destination, grocery bazaar, electronics seller – without achieving excellence in any one area.

As Rumelt warns:

“When you fail to choose, you try to accommodate conflicting demands and end up with a muddle.”

Big Bazaar’s actions often contradicted each other:

Excessive Diversification – Launched sub-brands like FBB (fashion), Food Bazaar (grocery), and eZone (electronics) without building scale advantage in any category.
Operational Inefficiencies – Complex supply chains, high rental costs, and poor inventory management meant they couldn’t compete on price with DMart.
Delayed Digital Pivot – Launched online initiatives too late, and they lacked integration with store operations.
Debt-Fueled Expansion – Opened large-format stores in expensive locations without ensuring profitability.

The Inevitable Downfall :

By the late 2010s:

DMart offered lower prices.
Amazon/Flipkart offered unmatched convenience.
Reliance Retail aggressively captured urban and semi-urban markets.
Big Bazaar was stuck in the middle, with neither the cheapest prices nor the best experience.
The debt burden worsened, COVID-19 slashed footfalls, and in 2022, the brand’s assets were acquired by Reliance Industries.

Bad strategy is long on ambition and short on focus. Big Bazaar wanted to be everywhere for everyone, but ended up being nowhere for anyone.

To Summarise,

A good strategy is a clear, focused plan that identifies the real challenge, sets a guiding policy, and drives a set of coherent actions to overcome it. A bad strategy is vague, full of ambition without focus, ignores key problems, and scatters effort across unaligned initiatives.
In business, success comes from diagnosing the real issues, making deliberate choices, and aligning every action to reinforce those choices, turning intent into impactful results.

PS – If you are wondering what Ram Nivas is upto these days, he has moved on to become a major property builder, owns several rental properties and lives a content life with his wife and 2 daughters.

Be Great!
Praveen.

The Power of Learning: Lessons from a Caveman

There was a caveman who lived in a forest all by himself. He was leading a decent life and was content with whatever he had and whatever he could find to eat. Until one day, an explorer came by his cave and showed him a mobile phone. The caveman was initially scared then astonished and then started using it and eventually he started loving it. He watched videos on how he could cut tress efficiently, videos on how he could hunt better and he even learnt the concept of preserving food for the rainy days and finally returned the phone to the explorer as they said their goodbyes.

The caveman started doing the things the way he had learnt from the videos. The days passed and turned into week, the weeks became months and eventually months became years. After around thirty years, the same explorer was going through the same exact forest. Suddenly he heard a yell from the distance, when the explorer looked around he was surprised to see the same caveman running towards him and when they finally met, the caveman started thanking the explorer for saving his life. The explorer confused, asked the caveman how he could have saved the caveman’s life when they did not even meet for thirty years.

The caveman explained, before he met the explorer all he could do was live on a daily basis. He would hunt everyday, eat what he could hunt and sleep with an empty stomach on the days he could not. But after watching the videos thirty years earlier, he started to hunt better, he started to use wood and fire to his advantage, he started to store food better which he could use in rainy days and because of all this, he started to live a healthy life and his lifespan increased. His forefathers had not learnt the skills he learnt and due to harsh weather, hunger and illness their average lifespan was only only around thirty years, whereas he is now forty seven and still strong to live another twenty odd years easily. Had he not watched the videos he could have still learnt them from his experience or experiments however it would have taken years or even generations to learn them.

The story is my imaginary creation but the relevance and the moral of it is real and timeless. This is how we all are, this is how the human kind has progressed. One thing that sets us apart from all the other creatures is our ability to learn and implement those learnings quickly.

In today’s fast paced and ever changing world all of us are busy, busy with our jobs, busy with our scholastic work, busy with our daily chores and somewhere between all these, we have let go our ability to keep learning consciously, some think they have learnt everything there is to learn or worse yet, some think only they know all the right things and everyone else is in some way inferior or less experienced than them.

The capacity to learn is a gift, the ability to learn is a skill, the willingness to learn is a choice. _{Brian Herbert}

Learning can happen in different forms like reading, reflecting, observing, experiencing, listening, watching and the list can go on but the point is, we have to continuously keep learning no matter who we are, what we do or what stage of our lives we are in and we have to use the best effective means to do it.
If I am someone who spends a lot of time watching videos which don’t serve me in any way, I can start spending at least 10% of that time watching some quality videos on the new skill I always wanted to acquire. If I am someone who is thinking of taking up something which can help me get in good shape and I don’t like the idea of going to the gym everyday, I can enrol in a sport training which I like and still achieve my objective while also acquiring a new skill.

Some things can be learnt only through experiences and this statement while true, has been used by many of us to avoid learning anything at all. We resist learning through books or people. You tell them to pick up a book or a biography or watch a documentary and they say they rather deal with life themselves and learn that way. The truth is, while the statement itself is true and life teaches us a lot of lessons in its on way, the idea to pick up a book or watch a documentary is to learn from the other individual and his mistakes to do the things that must be done and avoid the things to be avoided. Let’s say, I read Steve Jobs’s biography I would not only do a crash course on how to become great in whatever I am trying to build but also I will learn what one must not do to be a good leader. If I listen to a podcast where the guest is Naval Ravikant or Ryan Holiday, I will not only learn the philosophical view of life but also will learn the effective ways to manage time, energy and get better at relationships.

Information is everywhere but its meaning is created by the observer that interprets it. Meaning is relative and there is no objective, over-arching meaning.” _{Naval Ravikant}

A lot of times, it also takes courage to challenge what we have already learnt. In his best selling book “Think Again” Adam Grant writes “We all have blind spots in our knowledge and opinions. The bad news is that they can leave us blind to our blindness, which gives us false confidence in our judgment and prevents us from rethinking. The good news is that with the right kind of confidence, we can learn to see ourselves more clearly and update our views. In driver’s training we were taught to identify our visual blind spots and eliminate them with the help of mirrors and sensors. In life, since our minds don’t come equipped with those tools, we need to learn to recognize our cognitive blind spots and revise our thinking accordingly.”

Finally, let us get back to our caveman (who was patiently waiting until now)

He could have remained scared and could have chosen not to learn new skills but to his credit, he did.
He could have chosen to do the things the way he and his ancestors always did, but he changed and changed for better.
He could have chosen to stick to his outdated learnings, but fortunately he challenged them and got new perspective on the things he had been doing for long.
He could have chosen to die young like all his ancestors, but he chose to live healthier and longer than all of them.

Be Great!
Praveen.

Rediscover Yourself: The Importance of Pursuing What You Love

Throughout our lives, we often design our personalities in a way where we are constantly trying to impress everyone but ourselves. It all starts with our teachers, our coaches, our parents, our siblings, our bosses, our social circle, our neighbours, our relatives, then the people whom we don’t even know, the list can go on.

And in the process we slowly forget who we are and what we are meant to do in our lives. We could be great at singing but we keep our passion aside to impress our calculus teacher, we could be great at Tennis but we keep that aside to impress our parents and study hard to crack that engineering entrance test. We could even be passionate about making documentaries but we keep that aside to end up taking “more safer” jobs to impress the society. The cycle starts from there and in a matter of time we are lifting the weights of our family’s endless responsibilities and forget about what we were passionate about and what made us happy when we were young. Eventually a day comes when we have to leave everything and everyone, staring at our last moments.

The opposing but equally valid view is, most of us are not sure of our passion for the most part of our lives. Most of us take life the way it comes until a particular moment. So, passion is actually a made up phenomenon by the so called self help gurus who usually ask us to “follow our passion”.

In my view, both are partly right and partly wrong.

Let me explain, It is true that most of us do not really know what we could be good at for most part of our lives (except a few, who are really aware of it and are encouraged to pursue it from early days) However, it is important for our own satisfaction and fulfilment, we act on it once we do realise what we really want.

Let’s say, I was raised in a middle class family where all we know is to study really hard, get a decent and steady job , get married, raise family, build a house, have a bit of savings for my retirement and leave all that to my offsprings once it is my time to go. Though this life is ideal, it is not how it ends up being for the most part. Life has it’s own way to deal with every individual. It is not always all rainbow and sunshine and it is definitely not easy. We face heartbreaks, we face layoffs, we face financial emergencies, we face health emergencies, we face sudden loss of loved one’s, the list goes on. And in the midst of all this something else comes up and we really are tested beyond what we can handle and we somehow try to survive them.

Unfortunately, we really cannot avoid any of the challenges we encounter but we still fight them and come out stronger and in the process sometimes, we realise what our potential is and our real passion is. The objective then should be to act on the learnings and our realisation of the passion. If we discover what our true passion is, we must acknowledge and start working towards making that happen.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” _{Ralph Waldo Emerson}

Let’s say I am a car mechanic and usually spend most of my day at the workshop, I love coffee and I am usually told by my friends that I make great coffee. What I can do is, work 9-5 or even longer at my workshop to continue getting a steady income to support my family and on the weekends instead of spending time aimlessly, I set up a shop and sell coffee. This will get me started on the thing I am passionate about and I get to test waters before going all In on the business plan too. During this process, I also have an advantage of working on 2 separate things I am good at which allows me to be flexible with my future aspirations. Over time if I start liking mending cars, I can continue that for rest of my life or even set up my own workshop and become a workshop owner. And in due course, if I start to enjoy making coffee and liking the business prospects of it (probably it is starting to make enough money due to my weekend hustle) I can shift to this as a full time job. Either way, I am setting myself up for success because both will teach me something valuable. One will teach me getting better at fixing cars and the other the business side of things.

If I stick to just mending cars throughout my life I might end up being a disgruntled employee who just comes to clock hours and soon I’ll be staring at my end disheartened with a unfulfilled life. And on the other hand if I go all in on the coffee business idea, I might later come to know it is not enough for me to survive financially and end up getting frustrated and lose interest completely.

“Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.” _{Cal Newport – So Good They Can’t I}_{gnore You}

Now if you haven’t realised your “passion” yet, think of some of your life’s experiences. Go to your memory and try to remember something that you are good at. I can guarantee you that all of us have something that we and only we can do better than most of the people. Is it drawing? coding? good with people? farming? fixing cars? It could be something very small but you know you are good at it. Then make conscious effort to get better, be relentless in your effort and have lot of patience, because building something valuable takes immense patience.

I’ll conclude by saying this, no one’s life is similar to another individual. So, write your own story, own it, make changes to it when required. But most importantly do the things you love (even part time would do, if full time is not feasible)
Some might call it passion, some might call it a weekend activity and some might say it’s just work I am meant to do and will do with all my heart. If you do the things you love even for short intervals, the satisfaction of doing it will have ripple effect in all the other areas of your life positively and suddenly your life would seem (and will be) fulfilled.

Be Great!
Praveen.

Adapting to Life’s Obstacles: How to Thrive with a Positive Mindset

From the beginning of evolution of life on this planet if there was one thing which remained consistent, it was the challenges it brought to the group that was trying to survive and thrive.

If you are someone who believes (or does not) in the Darwinian theory of evolution, you will know how the evolution came about and how human beings ended up here. The mechanism that Darwin proposed for evolution is natural selection “Because resources are limited in nature, organisms with heritable traits that favour survival and reproduction will tend to leave more offspring than their peers, causing the traits to increase in frequency over generations“

Something that was felt by and survived by all the organisms who thrived were the same challenges that their environment and the conditions threw at them. And on the other hand, the one’s which did not survive also had to face the same exact challenges but could not handle them well or overcome them.

The bad news is, we will also face challenges (if not already, which I highly doubt) as our ancestors did, and so would our future generations without any exceptions regardless of we liking it or not. But the good news is, we can overcome it and we have what it takes to adapt, survive and thrive. Let’s find out how!

Challenges can be broadly split into 2 types –
Internal – Mental
External – Physical

While most of the external challenges we face every day, every minute in our lives are external but how we react to them is based on our mental state and how we deal with them. It is that mental state that decides if we will survive, thrive or perish.

With ever increasing challenges in the world, it becomes harder for an individual to get back to his normal state as soon as it is ideal to do so. The connected world keeps throwing things at him to keep him in that negative zone forever, if he does not become aware of where it is leading him and takes charge of the situation.
Take any social media for instance, you constantly are bombarded with all the so called “great” things people are able to achieve and do in their jobs, life, family. And looking at all that you start to feel that you are not “there” yet and start questioning your abilities and life.

The challenge arise when you as an individual are already facing inner turmoil. Human mind has unimaginable potential to imagine whatever it wants to but is limited to its experiences, environment and situation at the time.
For instance, in his famous book “Man’s search for Meaning” Viktor Frankl writes “when someone becomes unemployed, they often suffer from their provisional existence, a deviation from the more well-defined path of an employed individual. This provisional existence can change one’s relationship to time, making days feel longer and filled with less meaning than the busy days of employment”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” _{Viktor E. Frankl}

**Percentage of adults in select countries worldwide currently experiencing mental health conditions (e.g. depression, anxiety) as of 2022** – Statista

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” _{Marcus Aurelius}

Our mental state is the ultimate decider. External factors such as financial instability, issues in our relationships, uncertainty in our careers, issues with our physical wellbeing or issues with the environment we live in, no matter what the situation is, it is our mental state that determines if those issues break us or we make them the building blocks of our strong characters.

Creating a strong mindset requires lot of practice and usually years of intentional work on it. Just like to maintain peak physical state one has to consistently put in the hard work at the gym.

It is easier said than done though!

And it is not all gloomy!

The good news is, as individuals we can keep trying to be better. We can try to be better professionals, we can try to be better parents, better spouses, better friends or better children and eventually we will be better than where we are currently at in whichever area we wish to get better in, and that’s a surety but…

It will take immense courage, courage to take the responsibility and own the situation we are in.
It will take immense planning, plan to get to where we want to get to.
It will take immense discipline, discipline to follow the plan we made for ourselves.
It will take immense adaptability, adapting to ever changing world and finally
It will take immense patience, patience to continue until you get what you want.

To make sure that this is just not another motivational rant you are reading and give you the the best ROI on your time, let me lay out 3 simple strategies (the ABC’s) to help you get started,
1. Acknowledge – Take a good hard look at yourself and come to terms with who you really are. Be true to yourself and acknowledge. You could be a good person or a monster, You could be a great communicator or a terrible one or you could be a great singer or may be its just a hobby. No matter what you conclude, make sure your are brutally honest with yourself.
2. Believe – Believe in whatever you concluded with in the previous step but also believe that you have taken the first step towards change already and now its going to get easier. Start by going back to your experiences and observe what you are good at, or even decent at. Let’s say you wanted to become a public speaker but are always shy to speak in front of large groups, you also realised that though you are shy, you have spoken in front of a group in the past and have received good or even bad feedback. The point you must focus on is, when you spoke, people listened and that’s why they were able to give you feedback. This should give you enough courage and belief to take up public speaking seriously.
3. Change – Change accordingly! Change your strategy if you have to, change your habits if you have to, change your environment if you have. The objective should be to adapt to the situation and change your response to it. If your objective is to become a good musician and you are already past your 50’s, you still can change your situation and become a good musician. Without changing your mindset or response or habits you will not be able to accomplish your objective. Take it from me in writing!

To sum it all, I will close this blog with C. W. Longenecker’s “The Victor”

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win but think you can’t,
It’s almost a cinch you won’t.
If you think you’ll lose, you’re lost.
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow’s will.
It’s all in the state of mind
If you think you are out classed, you are.
You’ve got to think high to rise.
You’ve got to be sure of your-self before
You can ever win the prize.
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

Be Great!
Praveen.

Lessons from Ratan Tata: Respected, Liked and Admired.

Lately, I am seeing a lot of posts, articles and videos on how being a “Respected” leader is more important than being a “Liked” one. After enough introspection on the topic, I believe at it’s core, Leadership isn’t just about being respected or liked, it’s about influence, impact, and how people perceive and respond to you. While some leaders are respected, others are liked, a few are admired, but the truly great ones manage to balance all three and it is imperative to strive for all three if you want better teams, organisations or even society in general.

So, what does it take to be a leader who is not only respected but also liked and admired?

While thinking of someone in my fresh memory who displayed all these virtues, I thought of Ratan Tata sir instantly. Having read his biography recently by Thomas Mathew and really looking beyond the media news, I was able to understand him as a person, as a Human.

This article is a summary of lessons I’ve learned in his biography (and in some parts some of the articles available online) on what makes a great leader.

Respected: The Foundation of Leadership

Respect is earned through competence, integrity, and consistency. A respected leader is someone who:

• Leads by example – They don’t just give orders; they embody the values and work ethic they expect from their team.

• Demonstrates expertise – People trust their decisions because they have the knowledge and experience to back them up.

• Holds themselves accountable – They take responsibility for mistakes and ensure fairness in their leadership.

Without respect, a leader’s authority is weak. People may follow them out of obligation but not out of genuine belief in their leadership.

One such vision was brought to life with Tata’s purchase of Land Rover and Jaguar automobiles and bringing it under the TATA umbrella.

Ratan Tata was (still is) respected for his visionary approach and commitment to ethical business practices. His strategic leadership transformed the Tata Group into a global conglomerate while setting high standards in transparency and corporate governance. His consistent, principled decision-making has earned the trust of stakeholders and industry peers alike.

Liked: The Human Connection

Being liked as a leader doesn’t mean being a pushover or prioritizing popularity over purpose. It means fostering genuine relationships and a positive work environment. A likable leader:

• Listens actively – They make people feel heard and valued.

• Shows empathy – They understand their team’s challenges and support them.

• Encourages a positive culture – They create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable, motivated, and inspired.

Likability helps leaders connect with their team on a personal level, making collaboration smoother and fostering loyalty.

Ratan Tata consistently demonstrated humility, empathy, and integrity in his actions. He listened to others, treated everyone with respect, and placed a strong emphasis on ethical business practices. His down-to-earth nature and commitment to social causes through initiatives like Tata Trusts have helped create a genuine connection with employees, customers, and broader communities alike.

“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together.” _{Ratan Tata}

Admired: The Mark of Inspiration

Admiration goes beyond respect and likability, it’s about inspiring people to be better. A leader who is admired:

• Has a strong vision – They articulate a compelling future and rally people toward it.

• Overcomes challenges with grace – They navigate difficulties with resilience and determination.

• Makes a lasting impact – Their leadership creates meaningful change, whether in their organisation, industry or society.

When people admire a leader, they don’t just follow orders, they believe in the mission and strive to emulate their leader’s qualities.

**Padma Vibhushan (2008):** The country’s second-highest civilian honor, awarded for his exceptional service in advancing Indian industry and philanthropy

Striking the Right Balance

Not all leaders manage to achieve all three. Some are respected but not liked, leading to a culture of compliance rather than enthusiasm. Others are liked but not respected, which can lead to inefficiency. True leadership requires a balance, earning respect through competence, being liked through genuine connection, and inspiring admiration through vision and impact.

Start by leading with integrity, building authentic relationships, and strive to leave a lasting positive impact. Leadership isn’t about power or doing just the so called “right” things. It is about the people you influence and inspire in the process.

Artificial Intelligence: Transformative Challenge for Humanity

Through the course of history, we have seen multiple changes in the way we work. Until now we have seen 3 major revolutions in the form of Agricultural, Mechanical and Digital. Human beings have been able to adapt to these changes and in-fact, thrive during and after these transitions. However, we are now at a cusp of another Revolution which is different from all the previous one’s.

This time, the technology not only makes our life easy but also learns from us, adapts to us and possess a unique challenge which might question the very existence of us, the Humans. But before we delve deeper into the “buzz” word AI, it is imperative for us to look back and reflect on the previous shifts we experienced and understand how they played an important role in deciding where we are currently as a society and how the future might look like.

The Industrial Revolution has two phases: one material, the other social; one concerning the making of things, the other concerning the making of men _{–Charles A. Beard}

Agricultural Revolution

The Agricultural Revolution, also referred to as the Neolithic Revolution, was a significant turning point in human history that occurred around 10,000 B.C. This period marked the shift from nomadic hunting and gathering societies to settled agricultural communities. Humans began to cultivate crops and domesticate animals for food, which led to a more stable food supply. Common crops included wheat, barley, rice, and maize, while animals such as goats, sheep, and cattle were domesticated.

As agriculture provided a reliable food source, people began to settle in one place, leading to the development of villages and eventually complex societies.As societies became more complex, social hierarchies began to form. Roles became defined, leading to the development of specialised professions and trade. The shift to agriculture had profound effects on culture, religion, and social structures, paving the way for the rise of civilisations.

The Agricultural Revolution laid the foundation for modern society by enabling population growth, the development of cities, and the rise of complex social structures.

Mechanical Revolution

The Mechanical or the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, marked a period of significant technological advancement and industrialisation. This revolution was characterised by the transition from hand production methods to machine-based manufacturing processes.

The Invention of machinery and Steam Engine made our lives much easier and contributed to the rise of capitalism, as industrial production led to increased efficiency and profitability. The growth of factories led to mass migration from rural areas to urban centers, as people sought jobs in industrial settings. This contributed to rapid urbanisation and the growth of cities.
It also resulted in changes in labor practices and the nature of work. While the revolution created jobs and increased wealth, it also led to harsh working conditions in factories, child labor, and environmental degradation, prompting social reform movements.

The Mechanical Revolution laid the groundwork for modern industry and fundamentally altered social, economic, and cultural aspects of life, setting the stage for the technological advancements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Digital Revolution

The digital revolution refers to the shift from analog, mechanical, and electronic technology to digital technology that began in the late 20th century and continues to transform various aspects of life. This revolution encompasses the rise of digital computers, the internet, and related technologies, and has dramatically changed how we communicate, work, and access information.

The widespread adoption of the internet has revolutionised communication, enabling instant access to information, social networking, and global connectivity. The way we consume media has changed dramatically with the advent of digital streaming services, online gaming, and digital publications. The digital economy has led to the rise of new business models, such as e-commerce and gig economy platforms, altering traditional economic structures.

The digital revolution continues to evolve, with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and augmented reality further shaping the future.

the Future, ArtifIcial Intelligence

Over the summer of 1956, Claude Shannon, the begetter of information theory, and Herb Simon, the only person ever to win both the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and the Turing Award awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery had been called together by a young researcher, John McCarthy, who wanted to discuss “how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts” and “solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans”. It was the first academic gathering devoted to what McCarthy dubbed “artificial intelligence” and it set a template for the field’s next 60-odd years.

The following decades saw much intellectual ferment and argument on the topic, but by the 1980s there was wide agreement on the way forward: “expert systems” which used symbolic logic to capture and apply the best of human know-how. The Japanese government, in particular, threw its weight behind the idea of such systems and the hardware they might need. But for the most part such systems proved too inflexible to cope with the messiness of the real world. By the late 1980s AI had fallen into disrepute, a byword for overpromising and underdelivering. Those researchers still in the field started to shun the term.

A decade ago, the best AI systems in the world were unable to classify objects in images at a human level, AI struggled with language comprehension and could not solve math problems. Today, AI systems routinely exceed human performance on standard benchmarks.

In his book, “Work” James Suzman argues that we are in the midst of a similarly transformative point in history, Suzman shows how automation might revolutionise our relationship with work and in doing so usher in a more sustainable and equitable future for our world and ourselves.
But that was in 2020, when he wrote that book and a lot has changed since then. The dramatic rise of AI in last couple of years has been unprecedented and has caused a lot of fear among all the individuals who happened to hear about it and understand a bit of what it is capable of. But this goes without mentioning that the current AI technology still has significant problems. It cannot reliably deal with facts, perform complex reasoning, or explain its conclusions.

AI enables workers to complete tasks more quickly and to improve the quality of their output

Some key takeaways from Standford Univerity’s Annual AI Index Report are,

A survey from Ipsos shows that, over the last year, the proportion of those who think AI will dramatically affect their lives in the next three to five years has increased from 60% to 66%. Moreover, 52% express nervousness toward AI products and services, marking a 13 percentage point rise from 2022. In America, Pew data suggests that 52% of Americans report feeling more concerned than excited about AI, rising from 38% in 2022.
In 2023, several studies assessed AI’s impact on labor, suggesting that AI enables workers to complete tasks more quickly and to improve the quality of their output. These studies also demonstrated AI’s potential to bridge the skill gap between low- and high-skilled workers. Still other studies caution that using AI without proper oversight can lead to diminished performance.
AI beats humans on some tasks, but not on all. AI has surpassed human performance on several benchmarks, including some in image classification, visual reasoning, and English understanding. Yet it trails behind on more complex tasks like competition-level mathematics, visual commonsense reasoning and planning.

AI models can neither create nor solve problems on their own. They are merely elaborate pieces of software, not sentient or autonomous.

AI models can neither create nor solve problems on their own (or not yet anyway). They are merely elaborate pieces of software, not sentient or autonomous. They rely on human users to invoke them and prompt them, and then to apply or discard the results. AI’s revolutionary capacity, for better or worse, still depends on humans and human judgment. Researchers are still getting a handle on what AI will and will not be able to do. So far, bigger models, trained on more data, have proved more capable. This has encouraged a belief that continuing to add more will make for better AI. Research has been done on “scaling laws” that show how model size and the volume of training data interact to improve LLMs.

Regulations

Advances in the past few years have prompted a growing concern that progress in the field is now dangerously rapid—and that something needs to be done about it. Yet there is no consensus on what should be regulated, how or by whom.
The EU has created an AI Office to ensure that big model-makers comply with its new law. America and Britain will rely on existing agencies in areas where AI is deployed, such as in health care or the legal profession. But both countries have created AI-safety institutes. Other countries, including Japan and Singapore, intend to set up similar bodies.

Meanwhile, three separate efforts are under way to devise global rules and a body to oversee them. One is the AI-safety summits and the various national AI-safety institutes, which are meant to collaborate. Another is the “Hiroshima Process”, launched in the Japanese city in May 2023 by the G7 group of rich democracies and increasingly taken over by the OECD, a larger club of mostly rich countries. A third effort is led by the UN, which has created an advisory body that is producing a report ahead of a summit in September.

Summary

AI can automate repetitive tasks, increase productivity and efficiency in various industries. It can analyse vast amounts of data quickly, identifying patterns and insights that might be missed by humans. In healthcare, it can assist in diagnosing diseases, predicting patient outcomes, and personalising treatment plans. AI-powered tools can analyse medical images and detect abnormalities with high precision.

On the other hand however, AI systems can act on existing biases if they are trained on biased data. This can lead to unfair outcomes in areas such as hiring and law enforcement. The extensive data collection required for AI can raise privacy issues due to the potential for misuse. AI systems can be vulnerable to attacks, such as attacks where inputs are manipulated to produce incorrect outputs. This can pose risks in critical applications like cybersecurity and autonomous vehicles or possible future warfare.

Balancing these advantages and disadvantages is crucial as AI technology continues to develop. Responsible development and deployment of AI can help maximise benefits while mitigating potential risks.

Human Attention Span & Technology: Strategies for Focused Work

Internet, Smart phones and Social media have all made our lives easy in unimaginable ways and they have made it really hard for anyone trying to focus on one particular task for a lengthy period of time too. Exploiting these technologies and the way human mind works, we are constantly bombarded by the things which are designed for us to stay glued to the screens for a very long time.
Needless to say, organisations spend millions of dollars every year just to come up with the products that are habit-forming and addictive. In case of social media for instance, it has gone beyond a point where we now see that most content producers on most (if not all) of the platforms are more interested in creating habit-forming, high-intensity contents than focusing on the quality of the message they deliver.

When we were introduced to the internet in the late 80’s (the official DOB of the internet is Jan 1, 1983), little did we imagine that it would change the way we work, spend time, and do pretty much everything.

Number of internet users worldwide from 2005 to 2023(in millions)

^{https://www.statista.com/statistics/273018/number-of-internet-users-worldwide/}

Then on February 14, 2005, came a video streaming platform called YouTube, which revolutionised the way we killed our boredom and learnt new things. It made watching videos so easy and fun, that almost everyone who has a mobile device or a computer, uses YouTube as a primary mode of entertainment.
According to Statista, as of April 2024, the United Arab Emirates was the country with the highest YouTube penetration, at approximately 94.2 percent. Israel ranked second with a reach of 93.6 percent, followed by the United Kingdom with a reach of 90.6 percent. The global YouTube reach in April 2024 was approximately 38.1 percent (the average number 38.1% might look odd to some but please know that, almost 90% of the world has penetration of more than 75% and the countries where the penetration is not on par are also the one’s with higher population) Approximately, YouTube users view a 1 billion hours of video each day. That accounts for around 5 billion YouTube videos being watched each day!!!

Most popular YouTube videos based on total global views as of January 2024(in billions)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/249396/top-youtube-videos-views/

Around the same time we saw the birth of many social media platforms, some of which have ceased to exist and some have become a part of our everyday habits (every-minute in actuality)

https://postfity.com/blog/history-social-media

As of 2024, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 143 minutes per day, down from 151 minutes in the previous year. Currently, the country with the most time spent on social media per day is Brazil, with online users spending an average of three hours and 49 minutes on social media each day. In comparison, the daily time spent with social media in the U.S. was just two hours and 16 minutes.

Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2024 (in minutes)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/433871/daily-social-media-usage-worldwide/

Currently, the global social network penetration rate is 62.3 percent. Northern Europe had an 81.7 percent social media penetration rate, topping the ranking of global social media usage by region. Eastern and Middle Africa closed the ranking with 10.1 and 9.6 percent usage reach, respectively.

According to one report that analyses mobile unlocking behaviours, Gen Z smartphone users in the United States unlock their devices on average 79 times daily. Millennials ranked second, averaging 63 unlocks a day, while the Silent Generation had the lowest number of daily unlocks at 18 times per day.

^{https://www.statista.com/statistics/1050339/average-unlocks-per-day-us-smartphone-users/}

Now with all these numbers, one must be feeling overwhelmed and maybe to free themselves of this guilt they might reason themselves to be masters of multitasking.

To disprove the myth of multitasking, here’s the finding of an experiment published in 2001,
Joshua Rubinstein, PhD, Jeffrey Evans, PhD, and David Meyer, PhD, conducted four experiments in which young adults switched between different tasks, such as solving math problems or classifying geometric objects. For all tasks, the participants lost time when they had to switch from one task to another. As tasks got more complex, participants lost more time. As a result, people took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Time costs were also greater when the participants switched to tasks that were relatively unfamiliar. They got up to speed faster when they switched to tasks they knew better.
According to Meyer, Evans and Rubinstein, converging evidence suggests that the human “executive control” processes have two distinct, complementary stages. They call one stage “goal shifting” (“I want to do this now instead of that”) and the other stage “rule activation” (“I’m turning off the rules for that and turning on the rules for this”). Both of these stages help people to, without awareness, switch between tasks. That’s helpful. Problems arise only when switching costs conflict with environmental demands for productivity and safety.
Although switch costs may be relatively small, sometimes just a few tenths of a second per switch, they can add up to large amounts when people switch repeatedly back and forth between tasks. Thus, multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.

What can we do to solve this?
While I mostly struggle to focus on a particular task for long myself, for starters, I’ve come to realise that an individual should be aware of his shortcomings which will eventually allow him to take necessary actions to get better and start his journey of being more mindful and more productive in whatever he does going forward.

Cal Newport in his book Deep Work argues that deep work is rare in today’s world, yet it is essential for mastering complicated information and producing high-quality results. Those who cultivate this skill can thrive and differentiate themselves. He sets forth a few rules that help us in making our life a bit more clutter-free and a bit more productive, and they are:
Rule 1: Work Deeply: Create rituals and routines that promote deep work. This can include establishing a conducive workspace, setting defined work blocks, and using time management techniques.
Rule 2: Embrace Boredom: Train your brain to handle boredom by resisting the urge to seek distractions. This builds focus and resilience.
Rule 3: Quit Social Media: Assess the tools you use (especially social media) to determine if they are significantly contributing to your goals. If not, consider quitting or limiting their use.
Rule 4: Drain the Shallows: Reduce the time spent on shallow work. Set strict limits on the amount of time you dedicate to these tasks, allowing more room for deep work.

Additional tips to enhance Deep/Focused work :
Prioritise Tasks: Identify the most important tasks and tackle them during your peak focus hours.
Set Time Limits: Setting up time limits for each work type can drastically increase your chances of focusing on the task at hand and the one which matters.
Create a Dedicated Workspace: Set up an area for focused work that is separate from spaces associated with leisure or distraction.
Practice Mindfulness: Techniques such as meditation can enhance your ability to concentrate and improve overall mental clarity (I am yet to try this personally)
Limit Multitasking: Focused work thrives on single-tasking. Attempting to juggle multiple tasks can dilute focus and reduce overall productivity.
Reflect and Adjust: After focused work sessions, reflect on what strategies were effective and adjust your approach as needed. The more you adjust the approach, the more you will be able to understand what works best for you.
The objective is not to be perfect, it is to get better every single day as we move forward in this journey.

Conclusion :
The numbers, facts and statistics tell us that we humans are spending quite a lot of time being connected to the network and social media, which is definitely decreasing our attention span and our ability to focus deeply. By cultivating the ability to focus deeply, we can produce more meaningful work and lead a more fulfilling professional and personal life.

The question is, will we be humble enough to accept the facts and take corrective actions or continue to stay in the realm of “online world” ? Will we loose our ability to focus deeply altogether and surrender to sudden bursts of motivation or shape the future of humankind due to long lasting inspiration?

References and Further Reading :
On Attention Deficit – https://time.com/6302294/why-you-cant-focus-anymore-and-what-to-do-about-it/
Research on Multi-Tasking and it’s cost – https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking
History of Social Media – https://postfity.com/blog/history-social-media
Book – Deep Work by Cal Newport

Be Great!
Praveen.

The Power of Taking Responsibility and Dreaming Big in Our Careers.

All of us, regardless of our identities and differences desire to achieve more and desire to get to the objective of having our dream job. Some of us, start to think of it seriously at the beginning of our adulthood, some of us start to think of it in the early stages of our careers and some of us little later. But as human beings, we all start to think of that ultimate role or the objective sooner or later which we think will be our life’s purpose.

However, only few of us plan and strategise for it and most of us end up being who we currently are, even by the end of our careers and some times by the end of our lives too. It is also really important to note however, that all of us blame everyone around us or the circumstances or the environment for not being able to achieve what we always wanted to achieve. Whereas the fact is, only we are responsible to what happens to our careers or what we achieve in our individual lives.

When it comes to achieving anything in our lives, it is no secret that we need to have a plan, a strategy which will help and guide us in the right direction.

After carefully thinking (and obviously researching) about that ultimate plan for few months now, I have come up with the four step process which I believe will definitely help all of us in getting closer to our goals in our careers and our lives.

Take Responsibility
Think Big
Plan
Execute

Taking Responsibility There are obvious reasons for me to put this as the very first thing to do. If we want to achieve anything not only in our careers but also anything in life, without taking full responsibility of our current situation we would not be able to be truthful to ourselves and without being truthful to ourselves, we would not be able to really see our opportunity areas or in simple terms, the areas where we can get better.

Firstly, we should take a good hard look at ourselves and see who we truly are. See our strengths but at the same time, see our weaknesses. We might be great at coding but probably might not be good with people. Likewise, we might be great with people but probably are not a natural programmer. There are chances that we might be great at both but probably are not good with understanding the business or with time management or probably might not be a good at delegating tasks. The point is, to be crystal clear with ourselves on our strengths and weaknesses. Because without knowing who we truly are, we would not be able to choose the right career path or a business partner or even our life partner.

Don’t be confused between what people say you are and who you know you are. _Oprah

Think Big I know most of us would have heard or read this somewhere in some form or the other. However, translating it to our individual lives can get a little challenging and a little overwhelming. But, how about “thinking big” keeping small actions in mind? How about thinking of the house we want to build but focussing on the wall that has to be built first?

Let me break it down for all of us, when we start our career or even in the midway, our objective is mostly to get a high paying job, to get a job where we will be respected, where we matter. However, how about adding another criteria to it? How about understanding where this job or the role will take me in long term? How about understanding, what the organisation is trying to achieve and how that would be a value addition for my long term vision for myself?

Another thing we often miss in planning our career is, we mostly know what we need to be in next five years and not what we need to be, by the end of our careers. Life is long and we will have long careers, then why just think of next five years? How about knowing what that role will be, by the end of our careers and then planning our next five years which will help us get there.

If the role (wall) does not help you build your ultimate vision (house) what purpose would it serve?

“Start small, think big. Don’t worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. Put a ding in the universe.” _{Steve Jobs}

Plan Once we have taken the full responsibility of who we truly are and have thought about that ultimate role in our careers, this part is one of the easiest things to do.

The reason why I say it is the easiest part is, you just have to look for the person who is in that role currently and learn how he got there. You would also want to learn how someone else in the similar role got there sooner. You would also learn the mistakes they made, the sacrifices they had to make, the learnings they took from their experiences and pretty much everything they had to do to get there (you get the idea) and coming up with your own version of it. You take all those learnings and avoid the same mistakes, you make it better, you customise it for yourself and you plan better for yourself.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” _{Benjamin Franklin}

Execute Most of the execution will depend on the kind of work we have put in the planning, the plan we have come up with for ourselves. It is following through with that plan every single day, it is that consistency which might soon disappear specially if we encounter a challenge or difficult task.

Execution in simple terms is, you do what you planned on doing until you get to your objective. If a mentor has recommended you to do a training course on LinkedIn learning or elsewhere, you make sure you do. If you have noticed that the person in that role is good with people, you make sure you do not miss an opportunity to learn and understand human behaviour. If you’ve observed that to become a CTO (chief technology officer) one must be good at understanding the technical language, you learn it and keep up-skilling your technical skills on organisational infrastructure.

If we have noticed, I spent a lot more time on “Taking Responsibility” and “Thinking Big” sections compared to “Planning” and “Execution” sections and it is by no means just a coincidence. This happens in our careers and lives too. We spend quite a lot of time to achieve our objectives and sometimes get frustrated too, because of it. That is primarily because either we fail to take the full responsibility or we don’t have anything big to achieve and we loose interest.

“When you establish a destination by defining what you want, then take physical action by making choices that move you towards that destination, the possibility for success is limitless and arrival at the destination is inevitable.” _{Steve Maraboli – Life, the Truth, and Being Free}

One thing that I did not mention explicitly is Patience. Because it is given, that in most of the cases in our lives, things would not work out the way we would like it to. May be the situation was not right, may be the timing, may be and many more may be’s… But trusting ourselves to follow the process and believing in ourselves will get us where we want to, eventually.

To summarise, we will be able to achieve anything or get to any role regardless of who we want to be by the end our lives or our careers only if, we take full responsibility, dream big, plan well and execute it really well with a lot of patience.

The Importance of “To Don’t” List

All of us love to be organised and disciplined however, only some of us are really good at being organised. Be it our professional lives or our personal lives, we crave to have a plan for everything. We plan our lives, our years, our months, our days and even our hours and minutes. For all our goals, we have “TO DO” lists where we write down what we would want to accomplish at that particular moment which will help us achieve our objectives in short term and long term.

However while listing our To Do items, we forget an important factor which is, what are the things we won’t do at that particular moment.By neglecting this factor, we often end up doing everything except what that To Do list had and even if we are able to complete that task, we end up spending a lot more time and energy it should have taken.

As long as you have discipline, you can be a success. Discipline is what makes you do everything you need to do. _{Anthony Joshua}

I personally struggle with keeping up with the plan I have for myself for that particular hour, let alone the plan I have for myself for the year. However, along with the other numerous things COVID has thought me is, the importance of having a “To Don’t” list too. It has helped me personally to remove all the unwanted and unproductive things I do while doing something productive. For instance, in the “to don’t” list I wrote, Do not use mobile phone, no music, no social media while writing an article. Which happened while writing this very article. By doing this, I told myself what are things I would not do while I write this article. Which helped me in focussing on my thoughts while I write, this automatically took care of an item I had on my “to do” list for the week (which is, post one article per week)

I’ve been applying this principle for some months now and it has allowed me to stay away from all the non-productive things I was getting used to. It has made me stay focused and concentrate on what I was working on and what I really loved doing. The more I started applying this in my everyday life, the more I felt I have lot more time than I thought and I felt my life is getting better. For instance, I made a note of what I won’t do after work hours (which used be, watching news endlessly, watching random movies or series which never really were of “my kind”) This automatically shifted my focus on spending quality time with my 2 year old daughter, reading books, listening to audio books or podcasts or even spiritual songs (Bhajan’s) which sprouts positive thoughts in my mind. Because now, I have all these hours for myself which I can invest on productive things where as, I used to think I never really have time for books or podcasts or even spending quality time with my daughter.

Focus so much on the productive things that you don’t find time for the unproductive one’s. _{Praveen (Me)}

Let me break this down further, let’s say, you are driving on highway at 80 KM/Hr, am sure along with all the other important to do things, we also know what we must not be doing. Things like, don’t drink and drive, don’t look any where else except the lane ahead, don’t try to cross and overtake a vehicle especially if you don’t have the complete vision of what’s ahead and obviously don’t take your hands off of the steering wheel. Another example I can give is, If I have “Wake up at 5AM” in my To Do, It is important to have “Do not sleep later than 10PM” in my To Don’t.

Similarly, If you are a leader or an organisation, you have all the things you would like to be known for and what you must do to get there. Subconsciously, you also know what you would not do to get to your objective or the goal. Usually, these things are the one’s which might question your integrity, your ethics, the quality of the product or the service. As an organisation, you would never want to do something unethical to win that billion dollar contract, you would never want to be complacent with the quality of your product or the service to beat your competitors on the price.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. _Buddha

To summarise, “To Do” lists are important however, “To Don’t” lists are equally important. To Do lists tell you what needs to be done and To Don’t lists tell what you won’t do while working on your To Do’s. To Do’s are the goals and To Don’t’s are your plans to achieve those goals.

Note: By no means I am telling you that I am an expert at this and my life has changed completely after following the above principle. However I promise you this, my life has definitely become better and I am loving it 🙂

Be Great!