The Education of an Accidental CEO.........

The Education of an Accidental CEO by David Novak, Chairman and CEO of YUM Brands.

Just finished this book and really a good read and I really liked the book. I am not going to provide a detailed review of the book here but I am going to list some of the “take aways” for me from this book. One of the major reasons for me to read this book is that he is not from a business background nor am I and I wanted to see how and what he did to run a global highly successfully firm. Here are my takeaways in no particular order but if you want to get the best of the book, please read it – worth every word and every page of it.

Most business is white noise and you have to find a way to stand out and break the clutter.
Love what you do (MANJU: this is very common, actually I prescribe people “to do what they love” and there is a HUGE difference between the two even though both revolve around loving and doing)
You never know what you are capable of until you give it a shot.
Power of positive thinking – you become what you think you can become
Enthusiasm is infectious
You don’t get promoted until people already see you in that position
People watch the leader much more closely during bad times than good times and that’s when they discover what one is really made up of.
A company would get much better results and drive shareholder value by being focused on one type of business (MANJU: In doubt? Read Differentiate or Die)
Best ways to get people feel invested in their company is make them owners, literally (MANJU: Darn right. In S7, even our coffee boy and office boy has very good stake in the company)
When the student is willing, the teacher appears (MANJU: when the founders are willing, advisors appear)
The desire to be valued is at the root of every culture.
One of Glen Bell (founder of Taco Bell)’s innovations was the idea of saturating a neighborhood (MANJU: I guess that is what Star Bucks is doing it successfully and in our motherland, Café Coffee Day is doing too)
Wal-Mart’s sign board “TODAY’S STOCK PROCE IS X, TOMORROW’S IS UP TO YOU (MANJU: just love this statement)
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the PROBLEM
Will Roger’s Quote “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there”
The responsibility of the leader is to define reality and create hope
Numbers don’t lie (MANJU: I just love this and is very critical; Another one which is also very true is if you cant measure, you cant manage it)
A road to nowhere is hard to build (MANJU: Have a clear focus for your company on where to reach so that you can plan and construct everything to reach there)
Thinking BIG is CRITICAL but your goals have to be based in reality (else they be called fantasies)
These are some of the takeaways and if you like any on the above mentioned ones, read the book and understand the whole issue behind it and not just a saying or a sentence.

As they say, king is dead long live the king, so is my reading. I am done with this but have already started the other book : “The business of Software by Michael A. Cusumano”; My previous book was “Think and Grow rich” – OK book and didn’t like it that much.

More blogs later!!!

A quiet but interesting past two and half weeks............

It is almost 2.5 weeks since I blogged. Broekn finger didn't help much either but today it is far better and I can type easily now but will take another 4 to 6 weeks before it heals completely.

Since I could not type much, spent a lot of time reading articles and books. I am a avid business book reader and currently I am reading David Novak, the YUM Brands CEO's book - Very interesting book - different than many other biographies I have read as most were sort of founders who started ground up but Novak is more of a executive who made it to the top and his expeienced and learning which I feel is no less than any founder who created his company. Good read but haven't finished yet.

The positive aspect of my broken finger seems to be giving time to read a lot of articles of frost & sullivan, business week and economic times and there are many contradicting views and opinions of experts where in few say that we (US) is already in recession, waking up to recession and others opining that the whole recession is media made and are in the minds of the people and wont really happen and in India we already saw Sensex hitting rock bottom after all the Euphria and now Fed (in US) cutting rates and stock market showing signs of improvement. Been a crazy one hell of a roll-a-coaster ride for sure and I sincerely hope that US and India come out of this cloud of recession unscathed as soon as possible and prove this detractors wrong.

Either way we spent a lot of time tryong to analyze how the business will be affected if recession really sets in and how will S7 Software tackle and I feel we have come out with a good strategy which I am very happy about (wish I could share the strategy).

I am planning to return to active cricket tomorrow and probably has to bat with the gloves on. Good thing is I never missed by 7km jogs and hence I am as fit as I used to be and hope this three week layoff from cricket will not affect my form, keeping my fingers crossed. I still feel we are the only IT firm in Bangalore who play regulalry such a competative cricket. Anyone there want to have a game with us?

Should be back to Blogging very soon as we are all getting ready for the US trip and abot participating in the software2008 and interops tarde fair at Las Vegas.

Seven Stitches and 2 fractures

Nothing to do with S7 Software or in general with software but again to do with Cricket. Hopefully this will be the last about Cricket in a few weeks to come :-)

We at S7 Software play cricket regularly every Thursday evening and last thursday evening was no different and I am part of S7 warriors and we had lost last two weeks and we were determined to win this week at any cost. HHM (Har Har Mahadev :-) ) batted first and scored 81 I think in 15 overs and we batted second and we were very close to the victory and I hit the ball to the offside and started off for a very qucik single and god knows where the other person came on to the pitch but I collided headon, lost the ground fell flat on my stomach with my right hand middle finger getting crushed between the bat handle and the ground with all my weight behind it :-( Was not a pretty sight; finger tip turned completely blue and I think that nail is gone and I am off from the cricket for few weeks - very sad; Xray showed two factures; Anyway the match continued and we finally won with a SIX and a TWO in the last two balls of the game :-) Finally S7 warriors won kicking the S7 HHM in their.......

This was almost a replay of what happened a year back where I fell flat trying to steal a single and this time no head on collision but bat broke when I grounded and hit flat onmy head with a HUGE cut on my eyebrow which required 7 staples. Really scary but that is how we play cricket - we play very hard and no wonder we have this as our internal punch line at S7 Software - Play Hard Work Smart!!!! - 200% what we do.

We are not a big company (say like Infosys or TCS or WIPRO or not even as big as Aztech or MindTree :-) ) but on the way for sure and when we become one, I am pretty sure we will have our own cricket ground (and basketball, tennis, gym, shuttle, TT, Squash, Swimming pool, etc.). We strongly believe that a healthy mind is an able mind and we will surely create that atmosphere and than implement it rigourously so that we wont have those fields and equipments for decoration but for the real benefit of our employees. (I heard that one of the Biggies has a beuatiful cricket ground in their mysore campus but wont allow their employees to use it but rather a showcase piece for visiting dignitories and for renting it out for domestic cricket matches, not cent percent sure that this news is true but I have reasons to beleive that it is true).

Anyway one day we will have it too............ but exclusively for us only :-)