Can you actually teach culture at your company? How about putting the company’s core values in places where everyone can see? And what exactly is culture?
These questions are not that easy to answer. But starting out with the right set of questions can help build a strong foundation for company culture: What culture do we want for our people? What should we strongly encourage and strongly discourage? Who can be our “culture ambassadors” within the company?
Once upon a time, I read somewhere “Most tourists come to Nepal for the first time to see the mountains, they return for the people.”
People are what makes Nepal a country that tourists want to come back (again and again). If you talk to tourists who have traveled to Nepal, most of them talk highly about the Nepalese hospitality, humility and the human experience. As we plan to make Visit Nepal Year 2020 successful, we need to highlight those human experiences to the incoming travelers. The memories, moments, and experiences are what the tourists will cherish most from their visit to Nepal.
There’s a lot of hype about AI and automation these days. The hype is real. It is reshaping companies, industries, communities, and even countries. Yes, countries as well. An opinion article on the Financial Times talks about China battles the US in the artificial intelligence arms race
Understanding what AI is and how automation will affect us will be the first step. Once we know the facts over the noise, it’s important to see the benefits of AI and automation in our work/company/industry. Getting educated about AI through courses like AI for Everyone will help us understand the basics of what AI can do and cannot do among other things. We also have to understand our human strengths and where machines won’t add value (at least in the near future) and leverage on them. Creativity, empathy, critical thinking, ethics, feelings (emotion) are areas where humans are far better at than machines. Let’s embrace the potential of this new technology, understand where it fits in our business or community or personal lives, and be prepared to stay ahead of the machines.
All managers should, in part, be coaches.
This is from the Picking up the Bill article on The Economist (May 25th 2019). Gallup, a polling organization cites research showing that when managers involved employees in setting their own work goals, the latter are four times more likely to report feeling engaged. Managers are responsible for 70% of the variance in how engaged employees were. (The Economist)
The same article talks about the book “Trillion Dollar Coach” written by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle in praise of their mentor, Bill Campbell.
The class is in session. We’ve gone from cave settings to our current access from anywhere online class settings. Schools, colleges and universities meant physical structures with classrooms, playing areas, and facilities designed to engage the students. Now the places to get education are omnipresent. The web has literally transformed how we gain, use, and acquire new knowledge and skills.
Are you in class now? What are you learning? What’s next?
The road to success is different for each individual. No one success story follows the same track. The fundamentals of becoming successful can be more similar. Hard work, focus, dedication, creativity, sacrifice, team work, vision and so many other components can be the ingredients of success.
Comparing one individual’s success to another is like comparing apples to oranges and mangoes. They’re going to be different. Don’t compare your journey to someone else’s.
We’ve heard of first mover advantage where the first company to venture into the market benefits from an early entry, building a brand, creating customer loyalty and so forth.
Is there also a first mover disadvantage? I believe so. Some markets are as adaptive as other markets and the factors could be culture, consumer lifestyle, lack of awareness, risk factor, technology adoption, access to technology among others. Take for example, a market like Nepal. Nepal leapfrogged from having most of the population with no phones to having smartphones to majority of the population. Yet many new tech innovations or products fail to get traction once they launch. Consumers are not as embracing as it might seem. A company will spend lots of money on marketing to sell its products/services. Yet most of the marketing budget will be spent on just creating awareness and their funds will run dry soon. The next company with similar product/service comes around having benefited from the first company’s marketing spend. Another company comes around who can leverage from the earlier two companies’ experience. We don’t know when the tipping point comes and the product/service catches fire but it can be said that first mover advantages don’t always benefit the initiator.
Yes, most times it’s best to be the first one to penetrate the market. Sometimes it’s best to wait a bit to put your best work forward.
Here are some ways that can make you happy.
-Do things you love (even if you don’t get paid for them)
-Spend time with your loved ones (family, friends, relatives)
-Volunteer to a cause that you absolutely feel strongly about
-Travel (does not have to be international, just travel to where you can)
-Read books (any book)
-Spend more time with people than online (technology is just a tool)
The graduate is an obsolete word now.
As technology changes industries, people and work, a degree will not be enough for you to sustain or stay competitive. With AI set to create jobs as well as replace mundane jobs, we need to stay on top of our game. This means colleges and universities cannot promise you anything once you leave campus. Many promises were made before but few degrees delivered. Now the work is in your hands. You have the tools to build the work you love doing everyday. Continuing education will keep you young, hungry, and mostly ahead.
The freshman is the present word now.
I strongly believe in mentorship. Mentors can play a crucial role in our personal and professional lives. No matter what stage we are in our lives, a mentor can have a tremendous impact.
Just read a nice article on ideas.ted.com The 5 types of mentors you need in your life.
–Mentor #1: The master of craft
–Mentor #2: The champion of your cause
–Mentor #3: The copilot
–Mentor #4: The anchor
–Mentor #5: The reverse mentor
“God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing. Short of that, I’d like to share the experience, the ups and downs, so that some young man or woman, somewhere, going through the same trials and ordeals, might be inspired or comforted. Or warned. Some young entrepreneur, maybe, some athlete or painter or novelist, might press on.
It’s all the same drive. The same dream.”
Shoe Dog Phil Knight A memoir by the creator of NIKE
Getting various perspectives on topics, moments, and events in life will help us see them from a different angle. I strongly believe that seeking out different perspectives and points of view will not only benefit us personally but also professionally. There can’t be just one way to do things such as one way to make money, one way to live or one way to be happy. So, why not hear the perspectives out and consider the possibilities and outcomes?
We can gain perspective from various channels. The most widely available and accessible is books. Books provide us a channel to venture into a different world and see things from the characters’ lens. Another channel is through conversations with people from different backgrounds-careers/race/culture/gender etc. I enjoy this channel a lot as talking face to face with people will help us not only know about the other person’s views but also about ours. Then there are educational platforms-seminars, conferences, workshops etc that help us gain new perspectives and immerse ourselves in group learning. There are other ways as well.
This morning I read about a new food delivery startup in Kathmandu. I pondered do we really need another food delivery startup catering to the capital. There are already a few established names in the space and one who has been doing this since 2012.
Questions I had regarding the new food delivery startup:
-How big is your market size? How many people order food from office/home?
-How many other similar delivery startups are out there? What are their strengths/weaknesses?
-What is your Unique Selling Point (USP)?
-What’s your revenue model? Do the margins make sense?
-What is your burn rate? When is the expected plan to break-even/generate a profit?
Asking questions is an important skill that we all need. It takes confidence, preparation, and a curious mind to ask questions.
Reflecting on the college and work environments in Kathmandu that I have been part of, most individuals do not ask questions. It could be the same scenario for most of Nepal. I pondered what could be the reasons for this. Some reasons could be:
-An educational system that does not facilitate or encourage asking questions
-Workplaces that does not facilitate or encourage asking questions
-Nepalese culture of respect and obedience to teachers/elders/seniors
-Not enough time given or information provided beforehand to students/professionals to prepare questions
-Sometimes a “negative” perception of those who do ask a lot of questions
There could be other reasons as well. I would love to hear your thoughts on why students and professionals in Nepal do not ask a lot of questions. Do share.
Just found out that Andre Iguodala, the sixth man of the NBA champions Golden State Warriors has a book “The Sixth Man” coming out on June 25, 2019.
Andre Iguodala is one of my favorite NBA players and I have followed him over the years. I took a keen interest in his tech investments and The Players Technology Summit. Iguodala partnered with Bloomberg on the creation of The Players Technology Summit which convenes top executives and leaders in the technology, venture capital and sports communities to exchange ideas and share expertise in an educational and empowering forum. He was also instrumental in creating the National Basketball Players Association’s first NBPA Technology Summit held in 2016.
I’m really looking forward to reading “The Sixth Man.”
For almost all of my travelling journey domestically and internationally, I did not consider using a travel guide. I overlooked the value that a travel guide can bring to my travelling experience. One time just for the sake of it, I decided to hire a travel guide on a visit to Bhaktapur Durbar square in Nepal. I did not know much about Bhaktapur and taking a chance on a guide was totally worth the investment.
The benefits that I found of having a travel guide are:
-better knowledge and information about the area
-time savings
-choice and flexibility of activities
-local access to places and people
-a richer travel experience
When I visit a new place now, I would at least explore getting a tour guide.
And if you are travelling to Bhaktapur in the near future, reach out to me. I will recommend the guide that showed us around Bhaktapur Durbar square.
Travel makes one modest, you see what a small place you occupy in the world.
Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind and fills your life with stories to tell.
Let’s wander where the wi-fi is weak.
Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.
Wherever you go, go with all your heart.
There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.
Travelling-it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.
In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.
I love this paragraph from Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog. It’s about the time when he wrote about the long-term prospects of Blue Ribbon and how he saw the future.
“This last line was wholly truthful. It was worth shooting for. If Blue Ribbon went bust, I’d have no money, and I’d be crushed. But I’d also have some valuable wisdom, which I could apply to the next business. Wisdom seemed an intangible asset, but an asset all the same, one that justified the risk.”
The upcoming Venture Talk will feature Saurabh Jyoti, Director of Jyoti Group and the Chairman of Syakar Trading Company and Syakar Investment Pvt. Ltd. He will talk on the topic of “Entrepreneurship Opportunities and Challenges in Nepal.”
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