innovation

For big results think like an Ultra Runner

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Key insights from Shajan Samuel, a corporate leader and an ultrarunner

For even the most experienced marathoners, running a 100 km seems like an impossible dream! But how do the ultrarunners are able to complete such long runs? 

Know from the ultra runner – Shajan Samuel himself! 

Here are his personal tips and strategies to stay determined and driven :

  • Condition Your Mind: Half the marathon is won when you set your mind to it. Mental Fortitude is key for the long run. If you are not mentally prepared for the race ahead, running for so long won’t be possible. 
  • Make Pain Your Companion: Embrace the discomfort; it’s your path to achievement. When you feel like giving up, constantly remind yourself why you started.
  • Look Forward to Challenges: When you decide to run, whether it’s for 5km or 100km, there are going to be challenges. Show up for the challenges, push yourself daily. Consistency is where the magic happens- remember one step at a time.
  • Rest Is Vital: Never compromise on sleep. Your muscles need those 7 hours to recover and rebuild.
  • Fuel and Hydrate Properly: Nutrition and hydration are your energy sources. Don’t neglect them during the run.
  • Set Race Day Goals: Break down the 100 km into smaller segments. Set achievable goals along the way to stay motivated.
  • Adapt and Adjust: Be flexible with your training plan. Life can throw curveballs, but don’t let setbacks ruin your motivation.
  • Celebrate Milestones: Recognize your training achievements, no matter how small. Each step is a victory in itself.

Translate these key points to your big goals. No matter how big, it is achieved one step at a time. Break it down and support your mindset and conditioning to get to the finish line!

Hope these tips will help you chase your crazy, mind-blowing goals.

p.s.: if you liked this, consider sharing it to friends.

Moneyball – the Smart Way to Innovate Better

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How to get your team to innovate on a consistent basis

Have your innovation projects yielded mediocre results? I have a fun solution. Go watch the movie Moneyball. It stars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Chris Pratt (before he became Starlord), Philip Seymour Hoffman, and is based on a book by Michael Lewis. The story is about how an unlikely team almost won the American Baseball championship, the MLB World series. But, what does that have to do with innovation?

Moneyball shows a different way of looking at a game.

If asked which team will win the championship in a competition, I reckon you will look at the team with the leading stars. Irrespective of the sport, we tend to look at the movers-and-shakers and the clutch players who win championships. In other words, the big names who are paid big bucks. A team with no marquee players almost has no chance against these giants.

When it comes to innovation, we often consider ourselves as the minors against the larger-than-life innovation greats in our organizations.

Who are we to generate ideas? And if we do, surely the inventors around us must have thought of them already. That’s where we look at the approach followed in real life by Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt in the movie.

Instead of being overawed by stars, it’s much better to look at the key elements which required to win a game. In baseball, it is about getting people onto the base and scoring the runs for you. The stars will hit their home runs, but that’s not the only way to get there.

You can score one at a time and still win the game.

The sport has enough room for people who keep things moving step-by-step instead of mouth-gaping moments, such as home runs, which are sporadic. If you keep things moving, you can create more scoring opportunities.

Innovation projects are similar, but they need a defining element. A goal.

Something as nebulous as “we need to execute on the new and different” is vague for most of us. Because it is ill-defined, we create a mental picture of path breaking discovery. But, why is that a problem?

It is because any idea suggested to get there seems inferior to this lofty goal.

We get in the rejection mode leaving a trash can of discarded ideas. I guarantee if you look at that bin again, you will find great value sitting there. Just reflect on the “I wish I’d done that” mentions around you. I am sure you have heard yourself or others wistfully wonder aloud of ideas they thought of but didn’t execute and others have made successful products on those.

Is there a solution? Absolutely. Else I would be totally boring you leading you to this point 🙂

Let’s start by defining our primary responsibility, which is to serve the consumer. Our success, as individuals and as organizations, hinges on how well they like our products and services. We need to know their tastes and preferences, their pain points, and what is their innate need. That is the golden question every company, every entity whether it’s a startup or the highest valued company in the world is trying to answer.

The best way to learn is by being in touch with the consumers themselves.

Larger corporations have an advantage here because they have more touch points through events, conferences, and a staff that engages further. What can an individual like you do at this stage? Even if you are working for a large corporation, it is a part of our duty to spot what the upcoming trends are.

Now, let’s go trend spotting.

I like to use social media a lot to learn where the trend is coming from or in other words where the wind is blowing. You can use LinkedIn, or X / Twitter for this. Reddits are a good place to look at some of these subreddits to understand what people are talking about.

Seek out the highly passionate ones who are giving an opinion.

It’s also important that some of these opinions to be different than yours. Because the true, passionate ones will have a no filter approach. Your job is to study them and determine for yourself which of these would make sense or not. For example, you will find plenty of people who claim that the economy is going to tank in the next six months. Do they back it up with reasons? Do they explain well enough to determine if their assumptions are remotely valid or not? If there is merit in what they are saying, they will teach it well.

Another way to learn is by seeing other product launches.

ProductHunt, Kickstarter, Gumroad are some for startup or indie projects. I like these because these are tailored for a niche, a very small set of people. Quite likely, a larger company has not offered it yet. It’s a signal of the times to come ahead.

At this stage, you have a finger on the pulse of YOUR customer.

You know what to deliver for their pressing need. Addressing that may not need a multi-year budget and an army of the best talent around you.

You have moneyballed your target.

Achieving your goal is a much easier journey. You will have a greater confidence of what needs to be done.

Your solution will also find more acceptance with the customers and will change the trajectory of your innovation projects!

Have fun!

Emotional Atyachar: Cricket World Cup Final and Decision Making under extreme states

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Like many Indians, I am ruing the loss to Australia in this year’s Cricket World Cup finals. It displayed a tactical blueprint and execution from Australia. Interestingly, the Aussies had tasted this medicine in the past.

We have many lessons to learn as leaders, strategizers, and innovators. Let’s dive in!

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The 1996 Cricket World Cup final featured a surprising move by Arjuna Ranatunga, the Sri Lankan captain, in shooing away tradition and ensuring a dramatic victory.

The venue was Lahore and the Aussies were the favorites with a very strong team. The unlikely Sri Lankan team had surprised everyone in the tournament. Even if they lost in the ultimate game, it would be a tremendous achievement. Like every cricket match, this too began with the toss of a coin. Ranatunga won it and in a jaw-dropping decision, he chose to field.

Here’s what he went against when making that call:

  • Sri Lankans always preferred batting first. Their record in this world cup was particularly strong due to their openers Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharnana.
  • There’s an element of history too – previous World Cup finals had featured the chasing team on the losing side.
  • In a high-pressure game, you want to go with what works and follow tradition.

What led Arjuna to believe chasing i.e. batting second might be better?

Day-night ODI matches start late afternoon and end in night. The team batting first usually has plenty of natural sunlight. The chasing team has to bat under floodlights. By that time, the dew sets in and the ground could be soaking wet. In those conditions, it is hard to grip the ball making the job extremely difficult for bowlers.

That’s where Sri Lanka scored over Australia.

In the days before the final, Sri Lanka practiced under the lights. They saw plenty of dew on the field. In comparison, the Aussie team never practiced in those conditions in Lahore.

This was a game-changing factor that Sri Lankans knew. Yet, it was not a sure-shot decision for Arjuna.

No matter what data indicates, sometimes emotions and traditions lord over our decisions.

That’s what Ranatunga faced. He believed in his strategy and selected chasing. The Australian team struggled, understandably, in bowling with the wet ball and Sri Lanka won the ultimate game in cricket.

Emotions have a place but don’t let them overrule hard data.

So, how should we take decisions under emotional influence?

I recommend two approaches.

  1. Decision Frameworks
  2. Six hats approach

Decision Frameworks are based on pre-defined metrics. You can use a Risk:Reward ratio. Some stock traders I know prefer to take positions only when they get a 1:3 or better ratios. Other approaches are based on firm-specific metrics that cover business impact, differentiation, moat size, and others.

A Six Hat thinking approach works best with a team. Each hat forces you to evaluate the situation from different perspectives including factual, negative impact, emotional, and optimistic viewpoints. Because you acknowledge emotions, it helps bring everyone on the same page.

The six thinking hats approach needs time and everyone to participate over a few iterations.

Decision Frameworks are better for real-time situations and more frequently used.

It’s important to acknowledge that this is a process approach.

It doesn’t and cannot guarantee results. The Sri Lankan team could have lost in the 1996 Finals and they still would have be respected an excellent team. Like the 2023 Indian team 🙂

They lost to a team that executed well on plans in real-time. That’s how I am at peace with the outcome 🙂

As a bonus, you should listen from Ranatunga himself.

Want to differentiate yourself from the competition?

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The three step process to carve a unique offering.

How should you carve a differentiating message? I am sharing a framework to be used whether you are trying to communicate a message for yourself, a product you are building or if you are making a case for a new initiative. Imagine three circles which are intersecting.

Circle of your Strengths

The first circle is what do you bring to the table. This covers your strengths, your USP, your team’s abilities and everything under that.

Circle of Customers

The next circle captures what your customers really want. What are their core needs? Separate the must-have from the nice-to-have. Customers can be the people you interact with. It can be the team right after yours that depends on your work.

Circle of Competition

Here we capture what is the competition not giving your customers. Your competition could be other people – in the event you are vying for a job, and know similar candidates. What is it that they are not doing? What are they not communicating to the same customer base? Important to state that you are not putting yourself on a higher pedestal. You are just being factual that this is what they are not giving.

The intersection of these three is where your unique differentiation lies. And that’s what your message should focus on.

To sum it up, here are the key action items to carve your differentiation:

  • Reflect on your strengths and the value your team brings.
  • Conduct research to understand customer needs and desires.
  • Analyze the competition to identify gaps in their offerings.
  • Brainstorm ways to align your unique differentiation with customer needs.
  • Develop a clear and compelling message that highlights your unique differentiation.

The Simple Approach for Achieving Complex Targets

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Sufiya Sufi is a mind-blowing Indian runner who has three World records to her name. These include Fastest Female runner from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Indian Golden Quadrilateral (6000 KM) Running Challenge, Himalayan Ultra Running Challenge (Manali to Leh), and the Siachen-Kargil Running Challenge. The most surprising part is that she doesn’t come from any athletic background.

How does she attain insurmountable goals?

Covering these great distances appears an inhuman task. It is natural to think that to traverse and to achieve such a milestone, you need to be born with crazy genes. Sufiya shares a very simple mindset in how she has gone about achieving her goals.

She breaks them down into very simple, measurable targets like light poles.

A run of 42 km, which is a full marathon distance, is incredibly long. For an average runner, it can take anywhere from 4 to 6 hours of running without injuries. The finish line is a long way out and the terrain varies through the distance. Contrast this with a 100m race where everything from the track, distance, competition is ultra visible.

Long runs are games of endurance. Much like our careers. 🙂

I like Sufiya’s approach of small steps. Instead of being fixated on the finish line, she focuses on what the best target in front of her. If that so happens to be a traffic light, so be it. What’s the parallel we draw with her approach?

We have setup ambitious goals for our careers.

This includes titles, revenue targets, product launches, or awards. Targets are good but the trouble is that we don’t have a clear path towards those. The meaningful ones are not a 100m race but instead like one of Sufiya’s long-distance runs.

Instead of shooting for that huge goal, I recommend that you break it down into these smaller targets.

Let’s say, you want to improve the efficiency of your product by 30%. This is achievable after a fair amount of trials and tribulations. Complex projects don’t present a clear picture (and hence, the complexity). Quite likely, when you start working on ambitious targets, you may not get initial success leading to demotivation. Here’s how we go about these situations:

Ask yourself, what is it that could get me 1% improvement?

That’s an incremental goal. Let’s attain that and then shoot for the next 1% level of improvement. Why will this work?

You are racking up some basic momentum, some initial wins.

If you add up these tiny wins, that can take you to this much larger target. This is how long-term investment works where you use SIPs to achieve your target. The same principle applies here.

To sum it up:

  • Break your target into small steps
  • Take action to rack up early wins
  • Leverage the momentum to reach your much bigger goals.

To learn more about Sufiya, watch my podcast episode with her (it’s in Hindi).

Do This Before The Year Ends

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A Highly recommended activity for Professionals

Many years ago, I learned a fabulous tip from Sanjay, my mentor. We used to catch up for lunch in San Diego. I was early in my career and being the wiser one, Sanjay would share insights from his career. During one meeting, he suggested updating my resume during this year-end break. I was happy with my role and scoffed at the suggestion to which he patiently explained his reasoning.

You need to find time to tune your compass.

Resumes are updated when people are looking for jobs. There’s not much time for internal reflection there. How will you know if you are making progress toward your goals?

We all have work goals, learning goals, and areas we want to collaborate with others.

Tracking them on a weekly basis is not always possible. Ideally, a six-month reflection works but we get caught up. Instead, just like your annual health check-up, we need to make time for it. But, doesn’t this get captured in work reviews? It depends on how deep you get to reflect – we capture the highlights, sort of like your resume.

We need to make time for detailed introspection. Allow it room to expand and the time of the year is perfect for that.

People are in a relaxed mood and many are taking time off. You will have fewer interruptions and can devote time for deep reflection. Let your mind run free and take notes.

What do I recommend as the plan for action?

Take a notebook – online or offline doesn’t matter. Have pages that cover the following:

  1. Work Goals
  2. Learning Goals
  3. Collaboration Goals
  4. Family Goals
  5. Health Goals

Add more as required.

For each page, you want to capture near and long-term goals.

For each goal, ask yourself two questions:

  1. Where am I today?
  2. What actions should I take?

I like to keep it free-flowing. More details, the merrier.

How much time to devote?

This exercise takes days. The first day usually gets the brain dump out onto your notebooks. Give yourself a day or so to let latent thoughts emerge. Brainstorm with your partner or a mentor if you’d like. After a couple of days, your thoughts are completely out onto your notebook.

From there, determine the near and long-term actions you will dedicate time to.

If you would like a template, just shoot me a note.

The Goal Setting Trap and a Dhoni Story

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Goal setting comes with a trap we need to avoid. Let’s learn how MS Dhoni got India out of one such situation.

In last week’s newsletter I asked you to track how you’re doing on your inner compass. Are you making progress towards areas you desire to be the best at?

I like to set goals for both work and personal areas in an environment where there’s no pressure. However, there’s a trap of over efficiency we need to avoid.

This is a situation where we keep working on incremental steps mainly as a continuation activity. It’s kind of like continuing to let all investments ride on fixed deposits. Your returns will be limited but safe.

If your purpose is to break out, we need to switch something up.

That’s the lead to an India Australia cricket match where India was bowling well. Jadeja (left arm spinner) bowled with his metronome accuracy, not giving up much runs. It was clear that the Aussies were trying to play out his overs without giving a wicket. That’s when Dhoni quipped “Jaddu, chakka kha ke dikha.” He was challenging his lead bowler to flight the ball and challenge the batsmen. The captain was ok if he gave up a few sixes!

Dhoni wanted his bowler to take a risk even if it cost some runs. Why?

Tried and tested well-known approaches give expected results. We are caught in a state of tiny progress. To get to a better state, we need to take a few leaps of faith.

Evaluate your goals and see if there’s room for an audacious goal.

The cost you incur is the experiment not working out. Like Dhoni, you’re giving yourself the permission to take a hit. The upside is well worth it.

Just like your portfolio, your goals must have a mix of safe and some ambitious projects.

Take a risk. Go out of your comfort zone. Learn something new. Only if you try that, will you get a better result.

Happy Goal Setting!

Hemang.

How to Up our Game in 2024 and ensure career success in the age of AI

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Hello on the last day of 2023. Today we’ll touch upon what we need to better for 2024 and beyond.

Safe to say 2023 has been about AI. Generative technology has introduced great possibilities and also a huge overarching concern that is it going to take all our jobs. Will it?

Let’s go back 20 years to 2002. I was a placement coordinator for my college. One of my key tasks that we had was to bring companies to recruit engineering students graduating that year. We were the batch right after the dot-com crash. Placements were a stark contrast to the previous year where almost anyone got a job offer. The situation is akin to what we are seeing today.

What changed is the process – from math/reasoning to prompt engineering.

Back then, it was common to see people studying mental mathematics to save five extra seconds and cram in all the questions. These skills also helped for entrance examinations such as the GRE, GMAT, and CAT. Countless hours were devoted by students across India begging one question.

How many of these folks consider mental mathematics as a differentiating skill today?

Across my network, these tools have been overshadowed in the long scheme of things. Successful careers were built on other factors such as curiosity, learning ability, persistence, and willingness to take on complex projects. The folks who stayed relevant learned new toolkits but what got them further was their inner desire to get better. This brings us to how we should approach AI.

We have to up our games – with AI as a tool.

We need to get better at learning. Expand our circles of competence. Dive deep. Explain better. Else face a song we won’t like.

Approach AI with optimism with a swad anusar sprinkling of concern.

The tinge of fear will help us innovate and lead us to exciting opportunities. If you are in the mood to read, I highly recommend So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport.

So here’s looking to 2024. I wish you all the very best for the New Year.

See you soon!

Hemang.

How do you know if your strategy will work?

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Imagine you are captioning a cricket team and have set amazing plans for the opposition. You got their best batters out for cheap. Your plans worked. There are the tailenders to deal with, but these folks don’t really know how to hold a bat. How certain are you that you can dismiss them quick?

You may be confident but can never be sure. How many times have we seen totally unexpected players rise up to the challenge and take the game away? This is when your strategy is tested to the limit.

Plans that rely on only one approach are bound to get upset.

Today we will dive into a core aspect of ensuring your strategy will work and be bullet proof. A strategy is usually formed when you want to attack a new problem, or when you want to enter a new marketplace. How will you know if your approach is robust or not?

The price for failure is high – let’s see how we can avoid paying it.

Why does that happen in the first place? The reason is that we haven’t factored everything at the planning stage. During execution, we realize our assumptions may not be correct. Or the market may throw us a new challenge – like a bowler showing amazing batting skills! We are caught up in a cycle of reacting instead of responding.

In other words, we are not operating from a position of strength. How can we change that?

Scenario Planning to the rescue. This calls for building a situational awareness session as a part of your planning process. We want to address all possible factors that may affect our product or service. Bake in both internal factors such as team ability or budget and external factors such as customer adoption or competing products.

This is best done via a What-If exercise with a team.

As a lead, ensure each team member is aware of the problem being solved. Ask them for their thoughts on how to solve it. What are the factors they can think which may help and hurt the charter? What are the other scenarios that could be considered?

Give people that time to think. Maybe a couple of days. After that, assemble as a group and ask people to submit their top suggestions and concerns. This is a great starting point to address the applicable ones.

How do you avoid over-thinking this process?

There are several ways. One approach is to limit the entries per team member to top 2 or 3. Another approach is to group all submissions and categorize them. Tackle the top categories. Even if you don’t address unlikely scenarios, it will be a conscious decision.

This exercise ensures your entire team knows all variables and hence, they are better adapted to the task.

This article is inspired by The Four Ways to Pressure Test Your Strategy by Rick Lynch and Jay Galeota.

In this video, I dive into a longer explanation:

Happy Ideating!

Hemang.

Moving Ideas Forward: What to do after Brainstorming Sessions

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A few years ago, my friends and I decided to go to Phoenix on a Thanksgiving trip. We decided on the destination after throwing our bags in the car. It was a long weekend and we had about four or five destinations but couldn’t pick. So, we brainstormed the activities, pros and cons, and used the audience poll to arrive at the destination. We arrive in the evening only to find most places were shut because of the holiday!

My friend, that is a lesson on what not to do after a brainstorming session.

With friends who don’t care much for plans, anything is salvageable. That is not the case for your innovation or strategy projects. However, the reason why many a project fails, is that we jump too soon into action.

Brainstorming sessions are high energy events – very stimulating and inspiring!

To choose a single direction at that point of time is natural. It’s like deciding to sit on the front row of a roller coaster. Fun at first but you know the feeling when the train reaches the top.

So, what should we do?

Insert – a – pause.

Wait at least a day. In some cases, give it a week especially for critical projects. If you are deciding on a multi-year strategy, a longer time is suggested before you take the decision.

The pause allows you to reflect on all fronts.

During the ideation sessions, it may be natural to get swayed along a train of thought. The group energy may be such. Some ideas may feel like the best thing since chocolate filled cookies. And yet, marching forward at that time may get you stuck. We haven’t had time to flesh out all perspectives especially the execution details.

After ideation, you should move one or max two ideas for prototyping to confirm the merit of each solution.

Here’s how you get there after the brainstorming session:

  • Summarize the discussion grouping ideas together.
  • Highlight the ones that had the group salivating.
  • Ask the group to think and reflect on each highlighted one.
  • Use a framework, example SWOT, on all. This should be done after the pause duration.
  • Select the ideas to prototype ahead based on your considerations.

The ideation session feels like kids in a toy shop. Everything seems fabulous and possible.

After that, we put our adult hats and determine what to take ahead forward.

That’s it from me for today.

Happy ideating!

Hemang.

p.s.: Our Phoenix trip ultimately turned out very memorable. We visited many surrounding places, went on hikes, discovered historic towns, and had good fun!