Uncommon Sense Required To Win

Who Wins?

New Insights & Unique Data

over

Scale and Experience.

Markets are Imperfect

Discovery, Enterprise & Differentiation

over

Processes & Systems

Profits?

Practices drawn on Insights

over

“Best Practices” drawn from economics and social sciences

Differentiation?

States of Knowledge

over

Forms of Ideology

In a nutshell- A Trek!

Market-based competition is a discovery process

Objective is asymmetric knowledge

Explorer in an Effective Organization

1) Winners & Losers

“Dare to think for yourself”

There is no standard way of winning

Strategy is the art of first-hand thinking

Theories cannot replace Insights

Firms outperform their competitors by

aiming to be different, not better

“Don’t be the best of the best.Be the only one who does what you do.”

- Jerry Garcia

Losers look to competitive

benchmarks than to their own imagination

“Best practice is not the best strategy”- McKinsey & Company

Losers define strategy as cost competitiveness

& seek efficiency through cost reduction

“Be a price-maker, not a price-taker”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Winners are motivated more by

meeting a need than a target

“The purpose of a business isto create a customer”

- Peter Drucker

The difference is less your aims and more

your methods

“Performance is a return on right beliefs, not right intentions”

- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

The greatest threats to corporate

performance are internal, not external

“We are what we repeatedly do.”- Aristotle

It is better to be first than it is to be better

“Losers are typified by the catch-up strategy of a better product

at a lower price”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Success is its own multiplier

“I’ll have what she’s having,”- Meg Ryan

Most marketing efforts serve only to

reinforcethe status quo

“Buying habits die hard,”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

2) Strategy & Tactics

Competitive Advantage=

Corporate Individuation

Individuation =Inventiveness + Discovery

A strategy is not a plan of attack but an

idea under study

“A strategy is a purposive sequence of decisions inferred from a unique belief

system or world view.”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

The measure of a strategy is not its

ambition but its truth

“Pioneering practices become best practices, which in turn become

standard practices.”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

The greatest barriers to competition are

personal & cognitive

“Winning strategies are best protected by their own heretical status.”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Wealth-creating actions are driven more by curiosity

than by targets

“Go beyond the prevailingstate of knowledge.”

- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Effective strategy is as likely to flow from action as to lead to

action

“What comes first- thought or action?”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Strategic breakthroughs are more likely to arise from adhocracy than a

formal planning process

“Success has many fathers,failure is an orphan”

- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Creative people give themselves more time

to solve problems

“Poet, Artist, Logician and the Scientist,”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

Strategy is more dependent on

courage & humilitythan

talent & charisma

3) Organization & Management

Stereotypical responses to pressure serve only to increase the pressure

Balance the virtues of Control & Learning

Beliefs -> Targets -> Measures -> RewardsBeliefs -> Questions -> Ideas -> Experiments

- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

The internet is disintermediating

management

“Draw upon more diverse talent pools,Co-create with customer & user groups,

Relinquish control & work practices”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

The need for extraordinary

management suggests a poorly designed

organization

Companies underestimate the power of intrinsic

motivation

“Autonomy. Mastery. Connectedness.”- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

“Find LeadersBuild Teams

Engage EmployeesForecast Outcomes

Pricing OptionsDetect Waste

Pick Winners”

- Jules Goddard & Tony Eccles

References

Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense(Jules Goddard and Tony Eccles)

Mashable.com

TheMuse.com

@sushrutmunje

Founder & MD

Hammer and Mop