THE DIGITAL TSUNAMI by Abhijit Bhaduri

THE DIGITAL TSUNAMI - Succeeding in a world turned upside-down by Abhijit Bhaduri (2016), Rupa, New Delhi p 187

Change is the only constant and for business organizations it is much greater a challenge to respond to changing dynamics of market, business, polity and people. Technology has driven the change much faster in the 21st century. Last two decades have witnessed much visible transformations in business and society than any two decades in the last two centuries. It has been phenomenal and exponential in scale and speed.  The emergence of social media has redefined the nature of conversation and communication and has replaced normal bar for millennials in much of their expectations, attitude and assertiveness. Millennials are writing history every day.

In these times Abhijit Bhaduri (HR expert and blogger, consultant and coach) introduces us to the Digital Tsunami through his own style of narrative and experiences. Abhijit weaves an excellent story around contemporary corporations thriving on disruption through technology and drives the reader to understand the pulls and pressures though entrepreneurial successes of some the highly valued corporations of today.  As I write this review, I learn Google has surpassed Apple in market valuation as a brand and has become world's most valuable brand according to Brand Finance.

The book begins with the science of developing a habit and takes the reader along with propriety of reference, posterity of thought and prominence of learning mindset. On one side digitalization is creating opportunities, on the other it is leading the process of automation and robotics is subject to pose a challenge for HR. The mindset has to bridge that gap through exploring new areas of innovation and entrepreneurship to be relevant and responsive.  The escapists are going to suffer the most until some unexpected disruption finds its way.  The book has lot of academic merit (as it derives strength from the contribution of popular researchers in the domain of Digital networks) and provides rich practical lessons (with corporate examples of practices and transformation).

The researches quoted in the text develop a defense for the prepositions Abhijit is putting before the readers. The ownership of ideas and practice is well explained through an excellent example of Drew Manning (of fit2fat2fit fame), Byju Raveendran (of byju.com) and many others. Technology driven companies are going to lead in almost all spheres of business which was unheard in major part of the 20th century. Taxi services (uber), hotel rooms (aibnb), retailing (walmart/amazon), education (byju/coursera/moocs etc), reading (kindle), social connections (facebook/linkedin/twitter) etc are heading towards much greater valuations than the hard core traditional brick and mortar companies. The trend is going to further continue for few more decades and in order to imbibe this change the firms would have to create facilitating physical and virtual environment. It was surprising to note through the book that between 2008 and 2010, eBook sales grew by 1260 per cent. This is something which is unbelievable. Transformation is exponential whereas change is linear.  Digital world is much more inclusive than the analog world.

Companies will have to go digital not to keep up with the competitive forces but simply to keep up with customers (p 45). This is an apt observation by the author. Customers are getting engaged with the products and producers and helping co-creating products and services, hence the competition lies much around customer and his/her experiences rather than the competitor or if we put it differently the customer is the competitor. Digital responsibility needs to be carried out in such a way that it allows customers to help organizations to design appropriate products/services and to have engaging relationship with them.

The world is going to be led by digital leaders of the market to whom Abhijit gives an acronym as FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix & Google) and he offers suggestion to build a digital organizational culture through transdisciplinary collaboration, employee branding, innovation, managing workforce diversity effectively, creating digital communication infrastructure, responding through speed and scale, embracing failure, preferring fluid structures and learning to become resilient.

The author suggests to follow five behaviours to develop a mindset towards responding to the Digital Tsunami. They are:

1. Wear someone else's shoes
2. From internal to external focus
3. Design, strategy and technology
4. Rapid prototyping and rapid growth
5. Insights allow for individualization.

Apart from this I appreciate his advice at individual level to go for some MOOCs, listen to something inspiring, and leveraging social media for one's advantage. I personally feel that the workforce has to follow a mix of traditional and pragmatic ways of learning.  May be fully moving away from traditional methods would be too early step.  The doodles given throughout the text makes the book engaging as the summaries explained through them create effective recall in the mind of the reader. He proves to be a digital artist who can draw essence of the narrative in an excellent manner. His understanding of issues is sharp, his language is simple, his articulation looks real, his ability to respond to the call of time is praise worthy, his approach towards future is optimist and his lessons are practical.

The book provides rich information from different sources and much of it is left to the reader to convert it positively into knowledge base according to one's ability. The book is small and could be finished in two sittings. But if one really wants to have some key takeaways it might take little more time.  Overall it is an excellent treat to all the young students of today who are interested in the study of organizations, technology, business, entrepreneurship, strategy and future.  I strongly recommend this title to all who believe in the power of technology and are passionate about future.

Outliers - the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell

OUTLIERS - the story of success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008), Penguin Books, p 309.

The question as to what is that which makes people successful keeps coming to our mind as we keep reading about great people and come across their journey. I have been trying to find out that formula which can help me understand the basics for becoming a successful person. Shakespearean belief that Some are born Great, Some achieve Greatness and on some Greatness is thrust upon caught my attention while I started relating Greatness with Success and later realized that there is a difference in being Successful and in being Great. While reading about different research works and books I came across this book titled OUTLIERS by one of my favorite authors Malcolm Gladwell (MG) and having gone through 'Blink' and 'The Tipping Point', I thought that my familiarity with the writing style of MG might solve the puzzle that I have been facing all this while.

MG successfully traces the background of successful individuals and develops a story around it focusing on finding out the antecedents. Biological and biographical characteristics of individuals determine a kind of behavior individuals follow. Key success factors of individuals are determined by the culture, background, growing up, geography (location), prevailing political-social-economical-technological conditions, etc. This book starts a story interwoven with various researches by educationists, psychologists and sociologists to defend so succinctly the argument and convinces the reader chapter after chapter what the author wants to convey, the constituents of being successful. The reasoning given in the book is at times never ever thought of but he is able to win through his in depth study and linking the condition with the outcome.

The cause of maintaining better cardiological standards is explained through the research done by Bruhn and Wolf which is able to keep the reader engrossed and curious to further learn about other stories. Community living through providing a strong support system with ‘a thinking beyond the individual’ was found to be the main reason unlike their biological and geographical background. MG writes - I want to do for our understanding of success what Stewart Wolf did for our understanding of health.

The book is divided in two parts - Opportunity and Legacy. The author seems to be convinced that there are these two great differentiators which make people successful or otherwise. Coincidental yet providing a defense for being successful hockey player as they were born in a given month makes it really interesting and the as the argument seems making sense, one realizes that it is just because in order to have admission into Hockey Academy one has to be of certain age and many a times it is manipulated.  The point is the available opportunity to these players who join the academy and who are not able to join, makes all the difference, though at the end of the day it is genuine performance which matters. The opportunity which was capitalized by Bill Gates or the people of his tribe makes the case of being successful through the presence of opportunity more than the talent. It really does make sense and we have seen it all around us. Many talented individuals could not achieve greater heights in their career just because they did not get the opportunity or they just could not have that talent which could convert the opportunity into targeted performance. In case of technological transformation (especially in connection with computers), people who were born in 50s could avail the opportunity in 70s. It was just in time for them.

Growing up with a statement – practice makes the man perfect, I realize that outliers also possess patience and get an opportunity for seriously practicing for their passion, their focus, their target and resultantly achieve it. As portrayed by MG in this book through the example of The 10,000-Hour Rule, and illustrated through the success of Beatles, Bill Gates, Bill Joy and others in the same club.     

A lot depends on the growing up of individuals and what they learn from their growing up. The prevalent conditions and situation and the art of successfully dealing with it in one’s advantage is what becomes a contributing factor for having an attitude to learn and work hard (or otherwise).  The culture of honor determines one’s cognitive faculties through an attitude, perception, and personality. Depending on whether one has grown as farmer or herdsman, in the bordering town or mainstream city, one carries oneself and forms a certain kind of behaviour. This is Legacy and MG believes that it plays an important role in distinguishing successful individuals from not-so-successful ones. Extrinsic factors apart from biological characteristics of an individual determine the scale of success (or otherwise) for them.

The case of crash of Korean Air plane is explained, reasoned and corroborated in such an excellent way which displays MG’s brilliance in putting the threads together and weaving an excellent story with it, leaving behind so much of bulleted learning. For the students of behaviour and management it makes an important read. The conditions in which one grows up drives him/her to develop a certain kind of behaviour which results in an attitude to perform one’s best and to be assertive about one’s position which is part of a legacy an individual carries forward with. Number of days and hours of effective schooling in a year and day in eastern world as compared to western world is relatively more.  The school year in the US is, on average, 180 days long, in South Korea it is 220 days, and in Japan it is 243 days long. This develops an attitude of hardworking in a child from the very beginning which is driven by the fact that one needs to put more efforts. The example of rising before dawn 360 days a year makes sense for the case of having more effective working time. Knowledge Is Power Program in New York City is the result of this learning in order to get prepared to compete with their eastern counterparts.

The dedication of the book to Daisy, the grandmother of MG is very apt and the reason has been explained by him towards the end of the book. This in fact makes Daisy as well as MG and MG’s mother an Outlier. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who believes in the pursuit towards excellence and in the quest of knowing the rationale.

Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan by Ashi Dorji Wangmo

Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan by Ashi Dorji Wangmo, Hardcover, 224 pages. Published 2007 by Penguin Global. ISBN: 0670999016

Interesting book on Bhutan. I would suggest this book for anyone interested in knowing bhutanese culture. A good account of events, places, people, history, geography, planning, community living etc... A book written in first person that too by the Queen herself is a remarkable testimony of her visits of different places which she calls, 'hidden treasures of the land of thunder dragon'. An autobiographical expression from her life as a child to the one as the First Lady of the nation. Tribal (Brokpas, Khengpas, Mongpas, Lhotshampas, Layaps, etc) rituals, habbits and practices are well recorded here.

A good and easy read.