Don’t Manage Your Way To Irrelevance.
Edition #173
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best. It also enables you to draw a blueprint for what it takes to get extraordinary things done. You can share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation here.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession, to drive peak performance.
When The Mismanagerial Class Destroys Great Companies.
The book Good To Great outlined, with detailed research and insights, why only some companies take the leap from ‘Being Good to Great.’ However, what brings some of these great companies down, and understanding the reasons they go into an abyss, can also provide an interesting perspective and lessons for us. Great companies don’t remain great forever, and some of them lose their way.
This article by Marko Jukic from Bismarck Analysis provides a fantastic perspective as a starting point. It makes you think about the vulnerabilities of these great companies and the possible reasons why this happens. Marko writes about what can be learnt from the failures of Intel, Boeing, and Sony.
Here are some key highlights from the article that can trigger your thoughts on this topic:
As you observe these failures, you can see one common thread - “Failures can be traced to bad strategy or structure, the mistake’s origin might already be decades in the past.”
“…the problem seems to stem from a particular way of thinking about what a company even is, what its goals are, and what measures are or are not appropriate to achieve those goals.”
“Without attentive, zealous, and knowledgeable leadership from the top, even the most well-resourced companies will quickly devolve from innovation and functionality into stagnation and dysfunction.”
“The company becomes not the organization itself, but the financial product wrapped around it. Such companies demonstrate a strong tendency for regular acquisitions, mergers, divestments, spinoffs, rebrands, and internal reorganizations, as executives tear apart and stitch together new combinations of brands and divisions in the quest for the ideal bottom line.”
“The most impressive, dynamic companies look not like portfolios, but disciplined squads with a single-minded, laser focus on achieving one clear mission…”
“The difference between a holding company and a conglomerate is that a holding company is optimizing for passive financial performance, whereas a conglomerate is optimizing for strategic autonomy.”
Read the entire article here.
Why Understanding The Difference Between A Job And A Career Is Key To Your Success.
In the ContraMinds ‘Be Extraordinary’ Podcast Series, the conversation on why it is essential to understand the difference between a job and a career is brought out with some very lucid examples and insights. It has the potential to ignite and help you make a mind shift in reimagining your current job and re-architecting your thinking around a career mindset.
Here are some key takeaways from the conversation:
“A job is what you do today for money with a short-term focus, while a career is a life journey requiring a 15-to-30-year vision and imagination of where you want to be professionally.”
“Extraordinary professionals build capabilities beyond their current job requirements by studying what skills they’ll need for their dream role.”
“Job-focused people stop learning and eventually lose relevance in their 30s and 40s.”
“Learn to say no to attractive but misaligned opportunities, and pivot to stay ahead of industry trends.”
You can also listen to the entire episode on:
Spotify | Amazon | YouTube
Philosophy Eats AI: What Leaders Should Know.
In this video, authors Michael Schrage and David Kiron explain how the philosophical frameworks of teleology, epistemology, and ontology shape what artificial intelligence systems prioritize and produce.
They ask a fascinating question “ If software is eating the world, and AI is eating software, what is going to eat AI?”
There are some very powerful thoughts that they speak about:
“Your business philosophy will transform your AI strategy”
“Competitive edge isn’t in having more sophisticated models, but in thinking more clearly about what they should accomplish.”
“If you are not learning as much as your AI models are, something is wrong with your human capital balance and human capital portfolio.”
“What kind of virtuous cycle do we want to enable and empower between machine learning and human learning?”
You can click on the above link and watch this video.
Don’t Manage Your Way To Irrelevance.
Taking off from the brilliant quote in the article ‘Great companies don’t remain great companies forever, ’ it may also be worthwhile to give some thought to the following quote, which is an extension of the same idea - ‘Great leaders don’t remain great leaders forever. Great professionals don’t remain great professionals forever. Great managers don’t remain great managers forever.’ Have you ever explored the possible reasons why this happens?
These are reasons this possibly happens. And each one of us needs to watch out for the following symptoms or root causes and avoid them at any cost:
Complacency -We tend to become too comfortable with how things are and rely overly on what worked for us in the past. Therefore, we stop questioning our biases and assumptions and forget to refine them continuously. We rest on our past laurels, underestimate change, and build a false sense of security in our heads. This leads to stagnation in our skills and capabilities, which hurts us over time.
Lack of awareness of the changing environment—The ‘Intel’ case is an excellent example of a lack of understanding of the shift in mobile phone operating systems and hardware. Success tends to breed an ‘echo chamber’ effect as you lose a sense of the underlying shifts till they become a crisis much later.
Infallibility myth —Most people overestimate their success and take undue credit for it, as if it is because of their individual contributions or decisions. They tend to underestimate other contributing factors such as the right team members, timing, supportive environment, etc. This leads them to develop a sense of infallibility, leading to poor judgment and, therefore, wrong decisions or bets.
Skill Decay — Due to rapid changes in the marketplace, continuous technological disruptions, and fast career growth, refreshing ourselves with new skills is vital. These have a lag effect vis-à-vis our professional growth. Growth sometimes blinds us into believing we have all the skills until we hit a roadblock, but by then, it is too late. Ironically, our organisation too pays little attention to this till it becomes blatantly apparent, as its success and growth blinds it too. Being a lifelong learner and being aware of the shifting skill mix is vital.
Comfort and Growth cannot coexist. For us, comfort and growth are at the two ends of a spectrum. We need to come to terms with this contradiction. Comfort is all about knowns, familiarity, predictability, and relatively few risks. Growth is all about uncertainty, volatility, stretching and taking an untrodden path. Trying to achieve a delicate balance between both is critical.
‘Yes Man’ Effect - As you grow senior, you will hear and be exposed only to ‘filtered’ information. People around you will want to feed you with information you want to hear. Also, leadership and authority lead you to be surrounded by people keen to impress you for personal gain. You need to develop the ability to differentiate the ones who can speak ‘the truth to power.’ This will stop you from making decisions due to wrong judgments and biases.
Staying grounded, aware, flexible and adaptive are vital for sustained growth and leadership.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
Failures of the world’s greatest companies can be traced to strategic mistakes made decades ago.
Understanding the difference between a job and a career is vital to building professional excellence.
Your business philosophy has the potential to transform your AI strategy.