Fasad Ki Jad in Corporate India

"Padhoge likhoge banoge nawab, kheloge kudoge banoge kharab"

No, the idea is not to elucidate or challenge this famous phrase. That debate can be left to the makers of the MS Dhoni movie released recently.

Very simply put, it is Cause and Effect mechanism at work. Although it is a very basic concept but it is applicable just about everywhere - in business, inter-personal relationships, sports,  anything under the sun you can think of.

Consider this

Scenario 1

Fact 1: Sachin Tendulkar was then and (still is) the most prolific Indian cricketer and had a huge fan base across the country. He retired in 2014.
Fact 2: IPL viewership  came down in the subsequent editions for the next 2 years

Question: Does it mean the IPL viewership got affected primarily due to the retirement of the legendary batsman?

Not necessarily true(although I must confess for me it was). It could be largely attributed to an overdose of cricket and also the novelty factor of the IPL fading away.

Scenario 2

Fact 1: Maruti enjoyed first mover advantage and was able to convert this into a sustainable market leadership position
Fact 2:  General Motors entered the Indian market in the late 1990s and was able to establish a fairly good network

Question: Given that GM entered the Indian market at a relatively early stage, was GM successful?

No, GM was not, despite having the early entrant advantage in their favour over several other companies. Companies such as Hyundai quickly took the No.2 spot and leaving behind a considerable gap over GM and even Tata Motors.

Scenario 3

Fact1: To increase sales in a particular month, the sales team plans carnivals every weekend through the month
Fact 2: The sales increased in the corresponding month.

Question: Can the increase in sales  be attributed to the weekend carnivals?

Again it may not necessarily be true. Sales could be higher due to higher discounts/new product launch,etc. One cannot attribute with certainty without examining all the causes.

"Fixing the blame vs Fixing the problem"

Often we jump the gun and put the blame on a person/team/department/incident. This is something corporate India is really good at. Before someone can question you, you fix the blame on someone else. It is a brilliant strategy and many of us have mastered this art.

The outcome of all this is that amidst all the noise, often root cause(s) gets missed out. Strategy/counter action plans are made that look great in the PPTs in conference rooms but in reality are a far cry from the problem at hand.

Find the cause(s) and you are half way there....almost!!

Early Bird Catches The Worm

1. Wake up alarm : (snooze the darn thing thrice and then off goes the backup alarm which again takes the snooze route)
2. You overslept  and therefore you skip the planned early morning walk with your wife
3. You read the newspaper leisurely and by the time you leave your home, you know you are behind the clock to get to office.
4. You get into the car and put your foot down - 100 ft of driving and lo behold! Traffic jam greets you sooner than you think. Colourful expletives is what you can think of!
5. On the way to office you get calls which you would like to take after you have opened your laptop, checked some MIS reports.
6. Each traffic light is programmed against you or so you feel. The red light durations  feel excruciatingly long
7. By the time you park your car in the office parking, cursing the fellow drivers,  the roads, most of the morning positive energy has already dissipated
8. You have planned to make a To do list but you get a call and a new task even before you could start planning on the list
9. In all this, the time you had planned on planning the day is gone and you are just playing catch-up for the best part of the day.
10. It is 6 PM and you still  havent started on the presentation for noon the next day. You feel you have done a lot of work but when you think over the day's proceedings over a cup of tea, you can barely remember a few simple tasks that you have done.
11. It is 7 PM and you get a call from your wife to get medicine on your way back.
12. It is eight thirty on the dials of your watch and still a long way to go. You say to yourself -Well i shall go home and finish the work left.
13. By the time you are home, it is 9:45 and you are exhausted. You watch TV while having dinner and the "home work" gets pushed to the next day.

Much like the tennis serve - if your ball toss goes haywire, your balance goes haywire to reach the ball, you don't watch the ball closely enough as you normally would and the contact point goes wrong and the serve gets buried in the net. The root cause - one of the links -the ball toss went wrong.

"Early bird catches the worm" - Need not be true - what if the bird is dumb and doesnt take advantage of the start.

Early Bird Likely to Catch the worm - that makes more sense. More on this in the next post.