Disclaimer: I do not
claim to know it all but I do hope to share it all. This is a series of 11
lessons that I have learnt dealing with Entrepreneurs and being one myself.
Pintoo came home that evening, panting and puffing!
Profusely dripping of sweat. He stood in front of the main gate crouching, head
bent down, eyes closed and hands resting on his knees. He was tired but was
smiling. His wife opened the door and asked him worriedly about his condition.
Pintoo smiled back and said in a rather victorious and proud tone as if he had
just won a marathon, “I saved 20 rupees today!”
“Nice, but how?” asked the wife, bewildered.
“You see when I was walking to the bus-stop, I saw that my
bus was just leaving. So I thought of running after it to catch it. I ran but the
bus was faster and went on going. I did not stop. I told myself, Bhag Pintoo
Bhag. I kept running after the bus just to realise that I had run 10km and had reached
home.”
“So you saved twenty by not taking the bus but running after
it?” wife asked rather unimpressed. “I wish you had run after a taxi.”
“Taxi? Why?” Pintoo was shocked that his wife was not happy
with him.
“Well, you would have saved two hundred rupees!”
Pintoo learnt a lesson that evening. If at all you have to
run, run after a bigger goal. Make more money or save more money. Make your
Goal, your vision bigger.
In one of his lecturers, one of my heroes, Niren Chaudhury
(former head of YUM India) talked about the same concept. He said, while
explaining the concept of BHAG, that once you have figured out how to achieve
your goals, then just double them and see what you will do differently to
achieve them. Ask, ‘can you?’ If they answer is yes then go ahead and grow you
Vision, grow you Goal. Let it be BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goal.
I have seen many a times Entrepreneurs stop. And then fall.
I have also seen Entrepreneurs run everytime and everywhere. And yet fall. I
think there needs to be a balance somewhere.
LOW HANGING
FRUITS:
As a player in the commercial food service equipment
industry I often faced entrepreneurs without a vision. The whole model is
around making the margin and not on giving a value! Quote for a project, use
relations, clout and get the business pretty much based on low margins. Then go
back and cut corners! Have low paid staff, have low tech machinery, use lower
grade material and age old components, don’t pay taxes and then supply a low
quality product at a low price. The frustrating part of this whole business was
that even the customers, or at least most of them, did not care much!
Everyone was trying to pluck the low hanging fruits.
Don’t get me wrong! There is no problem in going after the
low hanging fruits. The problem is with going ONLY for low hanging fruits!
If there is no vision to climb the tree and there is a big
block, a blinder that does not let you set your eyes beyond then you will never
get to the top of the tree. Most of the players of this industry never grew out
of their region, forget nation. Most of them never even tried to work on value
creation and hence still continue to fight in the near commodity business.
May be it is a case of low aspirations or just fear.
However, the problem with no vision or going after the low hanging fruits only
is that soon your business model becomes a commodity business. If you never had
great aspirations and obviously no vision, then you might still do well for
yourself, but then you are not an entrepreneur! Imagine what if Dirubhai Ambani
or JRD Tata or Narayan Murthy thought like that.
VISION ON THE
CLOUDS BUT FEET ON THE GROUND:
Yes, vision needs to be high. But how high?
The problem with a huge vision that pushes you to the skies
is that you can’t build a stairway to heaven, looking up! Just can’t! You have
look at the road you are walking on, the steps that you are building and
treading on.
Vision should be large enough to never dissuade you from
your path and yet nurture your passion to keep pushing you hard to get you to
your place in the clouds, one day. This can happen only if the vision is broken
down into smaller goals. Annual, Quarterly, Monthly goals translated into
weekly tasks.
I am a huge fan of weekly task sheets. It serves many
purposes.
One, my weekly tasks are based on my bigger goals and hence
I know that I am taking steps or strides towards them. Secondly it allows me to
look at the goals broken down into smaller pieces. This helps as I do not get
bogged down by the enormity of my audacious vision. At the same time, thirdly,
it keeps me focussed on my goals.
Whenever I started a new business, a huge number of ideas
came flashing in my brain. It was almost like opening a big bottomless treasure
trunk. There is a sinister voice inside
me telling me that I can do this and that and that and then that one too. Well
I fell for it. Not once! The voice never stopped but I kept on getting smarter
at handling it. During one such “weak” moment I decided not to fall into this
trap ever! I made a policy for myself. I
made my Monthly Goals based on my vision. Every Monday morning I look at those
goals and make my weekly tasks. These tasks are like a checklist for each day
of the week. The voice kept coming. I didn’t mind it. However, I started putting
the ideas in what I call ‘the parking list’. Every once a month, I look at my
Goals and the parking list and see if I can push my goals for the month. The
voice continues. Grows my vision and gets me more passionate about what I do
but I never let it dissuade me from my path.
So in short, one needs to have a bigger vision and a huge
passion. In the words of Warren Buffet, “Passion builds enormous energy.
Without Passion there is not energy. Without Energy there is nothing!” Use your passion to build your BIG vision. Yet,
have clear goals. Smaller goals. Achieve them step by step, stride by stride,
leap by leap but never by a flight.
So yes Pintoo, BHAG or run. But not fly.
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