Saturday, July 6, 2019

Addition by Subtraction



"Addition by Subtraction" is a phrase used by coaches to mean that sometimes your team can get better not by adding more talent, but by shedding some people or practices that are interfering with or inhibiting your success.

In his book “Atomic Habits” author  James Clear mentioned about  an article published in the New Yorker titled “Better All the Time,” where in James Suroweicki writes: “Japanese firms emphasized what came to be known as ‘lean production,’ relentlessly looking to remove waste of all kinds from the production process, down to redesigning workspaces, so workers didn’t have to waste time twisting and turning to reach their tools. The result was that Japanese factories were more efficient and Japanese products were more reliable than American ones. In 1974, service calls for American-made color televisions were five times as common as for Japanese televisions. By 1979, it took American workers three times as long to assemble their sets.”

This strategy can be stated as addition by subtraction. The Japanese companies looked for every point of friction in the manufacturing process and eliminated it. As they subtracted wasted effort, they added customers and revenue. Similarly, when we remove the points of friction that sap our time and energy, we can achieve more with less effort. “

On personal front one has  to identify those habits and shed those daily routines which spoil the health,wealth and peace of mind even if they are providing the pleasure and joy.

Some companies ,sport teams , organizations  have to adopt this strategy well before the game is over for them ,they have to shed those people (even if they are super stars) if they interfere with the success of a team , company or organization.


“1 Rule All Leaders Should Practice: Addition By Subtraction, As a manager, entrepreneur or CEO, you have to move bad people out. Only then can your company truly achieve growth and success. “ - By Tom Gimbel ,Founder and CEO, LaSalle Network. Read more @ -https://www.inc.com/tom-gimbel/1-rule-all-leaders-should-practice-addition-by-subtraction.html

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Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Strategy of the aggregation of marginal gains …


Since 1908, British riders had won just a single gold medal at the Olympic Games, and they had fared even worse in cycling’s biggest race, the Tour de France. In 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won the event. In fact, the performance of British riders had been so underwhelming that one of the top bike manufacturers in Europe refused to sell bikes to the team because they were afraid that it would hurt sales if other professionals saw the Britsh using their gear.

It is worth spending some time and analyse how British cyclists turned things around and achieved which British could not do in last 100 years. The history and outcome is available in the following link


The fortunes of  British Cycling changed one day in 2003. The organization, which was the governing body for professional cycling in Great Britain, had recently hired Dave Brailsford as its new performance director. At the time, professional cyclists in Great Britain had endured nearly one hundred years of mediocrity.

Just five years after Brailsford took over, the British Cycling team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available. Four years later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they set nine Olympic records and seven world records.That same year, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. The next year, his teammate Chris Froome won the race, and he would go on to win again in 2015, 2016, and 2017, giving the British team five Tour de France victories in six years.During the ten-year span from 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world championships and sixty-six Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured five Tour de France victories in what is widely regarded as the most successful run in cycling history.

How does this happen? How does a team of previously ordinary  athletes transform into world champions with tiny changes that, at first glance, would seem to make a modest difference at best? Why do small improvements accumulate into such remarkable results,and how can you replicate this approach in your own life?

It is all due to “the aggregation of marginal gains” Strategy

 Brailsford had been hired to put British Cycling on a new trajectory. What made him different from previous coaches was his relentless commitment to a strategy that he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains,” which was the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. 

Brailsford said, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” Brailsford and his coaches began by making small adjustments  you might expect from a professional cycling team. They redesigned the bike seats to make them more comfortable and rubbed alcohol  on the tires for a better grip. They asked riders to wear electrically heated overshorts to maintain ideal muscle temperature while riding and used biofeedback sensors to monitor how each athlete responded to a particular workout. The team tested various fabrics in a wind tunnel and had their outdoor riders switch to indoor racing suits, which proved to be lighter and more aerodynamic.But they didn’t stop there. Brailsford and his team continued to find 1 percent improvements in overlooked and unexpected areas. They tested different types of massage gels to see which one led to the fastest muscle recovery. They hired a surgeon to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the chances of catching a cold. They determined the type of pillow and mattress that led to the best night’s sleep for each rider. They even painted the inside of the  team truck white, which helped them spot little bits of dust that would normally slip by unnoticed but could degrade the performance of the finely tuned bikes. As these and hundreds of other small improvements accumulated, the results came faster than anyone could have imagined.

Source: “Atomic Habits” by James Clear

One can call this a compound effect, kaizen or strategy of the aggregation of marginal gains the results are going to come with much higher probability in a faster manner than one could guess.




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Friday, June 28, 2019

You get in life what you tolerate





When you’re creating an environment to support your goals, remember that you get in life what you tolerate.

This is true in every area of your life—particularly within your relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. What you have decided to tolerate is also reflected in the situations and circumstances of your life right now. Put another way, you will get  in life what you accept and expect you are worthy of. If you tolerate disrespect, you will be disrespected. If you tolerate people being late and making you wait, people will show up late for you. If you tolerate being underpaid and  overworked, that will continue for you. If you tolerate your body being overweight, tired, and perpetually sick, it will be. It’s amazing how life will organize around the standards you set for yourself. Some people think they’re the victims of other people’s behavior, but in actuality, we have control over how  people treat us. Protect your emotional, mental, and physical space so you can live with peace, rather than in the chaos and stress the world will hurl upon you.

Source: “The Compound Effect”  by Darren Hardy 



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Monday, June 24, 2019

Is it always not necessary to make it to the TOP?

Infamous Traffic Jam on Mount Everest ,Photo Credit : Climber Nirmal Purja, 19th May 2109

In an interview to Times of India Vamini Sethi who attempted the climb Mount Everest too caught in the jam and decided to return after making it to within 500m of the peak said “ For me , my life matterred most than the summit; many don’t understand that. And she said  successful summit involves you coming back in one piece, safe and sound. At the airport and official who saw my bags and Everest T shirt asked me if I made it to the top. I told him I couldn't. He showed me two names on a sheet. He said ‘Both their bodies are going on the same flight as you. They have made it to the top. You made it here’ . That send shivers down my spine, but it also reassured me that I made the right call’’.

Every one has  their own Mount Everest to  in their life to climb.

Think whether is it really essential to make it to to the top of every Mount Everest you are climbing in life  ? Are you prepared well?

Give a thought is it always necessary to make it to the top .

Source: Times of India



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Saturday, June 22, 2019

Sheer innovation is not enough



In 1912, Otto Frederick Rohwedder  an American inventor and engineer who created the first automatic bread-slicing machine for commercial use. It was first used by the Chillicothe Baking Company.What a great idea: a simple machine that could take a loaf  of bread and...slice it. The machine was a complete failure.

This was the beginning of the advertising age, and that meant that a good product with lousy marketing had very little chance of success. In 1927 Rohwedder successfully designed a machine that not only sliced the bread but wrapped it. In 1930 Continental Baking Company introduced Wonder Bread as a sliced bread.

It wasn’t until about twenty years later the first innovation first automatic bread-slicing machine – when a new brand called Wonder started marketing sliced bread – that the invention caught on. It was the packaging and the advertising (“builds strong bodies twelve ways”) that worked, not the sheer convenience and innovation of pre-slicing bread.

Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth noticing,exceptional, new. Interesting-  It’s a Purple Cow.

-Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.

In the book “Purple Cow” the author Seth Godin talks about why you need to put a Purple Cow  into everything you build.

Source: “Purple Cow”  by Seth Godin  

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Don’t try to be the ‘next’


“Don’t try to be the ‘next’. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.” -Seth Godin

John Francis "Jack" Welch  is an American business executive, author, and chemical engineer. He was chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. During his tenure at GE, the company's value rose 4,000% .

When Jack Welch remade GE, the most fabled decision he made was this: If we can’t be #1 or #2 in an industry, we must get out. Why sell a billion-dollar division that’s making a profit quite happily while ranking #4 in market share? Easy. Because it distracts management attention. It sucks resources and capital and focus and energy. And most of all, it teaches people in the organization that it’s okay not to be the best in the world. Jack quit the dead ends. By doing so, he freed resources to get his other businesses through the Dip.

The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery. A long slog that’s actually a shortcut, because it gets you where you want to go faster than any other path.

Quit the dead ends- Avoid distraction of attention

Source: “The Dip: The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit (and when to stick) ” by Seth Godin  

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WHEN TO STICK AND WHEN TO QUIT


Think of those who, not by fault of inconsistency but by lack of effort, are too unstable to live as they wish, but only live as they have begun. SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND

In his book The Dip, Seth Godin draws an interesting analogy from the three types of people you see in line at the supermarket. One gets in a short line and sticks to it no matter how slow it is or how much faster the others seem to be going. Another changes lines repeatedly based on whatever he thinks might save a few seconds. And a third switches only oncewhen its clear her line is delayed and there is a clear alternativend then continues with her day. Hes urging you to ask: Which type are you?

Seneca is also advising us to be this third type. Just because youve begun down one path doesnt mean youre committed to it forever, especially if that path turns out to be flawed or impeded. At that same time, this is not an excuse to be flighty or incessantly noncommittal. It takes courage to decide to do things differently and to make a change, as well as discipline and awareness to know that the notion of Oh, but this looks even betteris a temptation that cannot be endlessly indulged either.

Source: “The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living: Featuring new translations of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aureliusby Ryan Holiday

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Thursday, June 20, 2019

Make the Ordinary Come Alive



Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
 but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting  tomatoes,
apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
 when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
 in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.....
  
You will have to constantly contend with the pressure for ever more, and ever bigger,that culture seeks to impose on your children and you.It takes courage and discipline to go slow, live simply, and see clearly.But the rewards are great.What ordinary thing can you do together today?

Source: ” The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: A New Interpretation:Ancient Advice for Modern Parents “  by William Martin

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Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Name without fame is like a fire without flame


Always wondered why some people make controversial statements in public, wear unconventional dresses, pick up a fight uncalled for..

The air is cleared by a lesson from 48 laws of power by Robert Greene..

“Draw attention to yourself by creating an unforgettable, even controversial image. Court scandal. Do anything to make yourself seem larger than life and shine more brightly than those around you. Make no distinction between kinds of attention — notoriety of any sort will bring you power. Better to be slandered and attacked than ignored.”

As someone appropriately quoted -  “Remember all publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right” 

A wasp, named Pin Tail, was long inquest of some deed that would make him forever famous. So one day he entered the king's palace and stung the little prince, who was in bed. The prince awoke with loud cries. The king and his courtiers rushed in to see what had happened. The prince was yelling, as the wasp stung him again and again. The courtiers tried to catch the wasp, and each was stung. The entire royal household rushed in to the room; the news soon spread and people flocked to the palace. The city was in an uproar, with all business suspended. Said the wasp to itself, before it expired from its efforts, "A name without fame is like a fire without flame. There is nothing like attracting notice, at any cost."

An actor, who steps into this brilliant light, attained a heightened presence. All eyes are on him. There is room for only one actor, at a time, in the limelight's narrow beam; do whatever it takes to make yourself its focus. Make your gestures so large, amusing and scandalous that the light stays on you, while toe other actors stay in the shadows.

Burning more brightly than those around you is a skill with which no one is born. You must learn to attract attention. At the start of your career, you must attach your name and reputation to a quality, an image, that sets you apart from other people. This image can be something like a characteristic style of dress, or as a personality quirk that amuses people and gets talked about. Once the image is established, you have an appearance, a place in the sky for your star.

Court Attention At All Costs….

Source:  The 48 Laws Of Power" by Robert Greene 

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