My learning/reading this week (W49 2018)

1) [Linkedin Pulse] Vani Kola: Learning from Leaders

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/learning-from-leaders-vani-kola

[Excerpt] A big piece of the story we tell ourselves about who we are, is that we are willing to invent. We are willing to think long-term. We start with the customer and work backwards. And, very importantly, we are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Any time you do something big, that’s disruptive — Kindle, AWS — there will be critics. And there will be at least two kinds of critics. There will be well-meaning critics who genuinely misunderstand what you are doing or genuinely have a different opinion. And there will be the self-interested critics that have a vested interest in not liking what you are doing and they will have reason to misunderstand. And you have to be willing to ignore both types of critics. You listen to them, because you want to see, always testing, is it possible they are right? [/Excerpt]

2) Greylock Partners: Scaling AI Technology In Health Care

Source: https://news.greylock.com/scaling-ai-technology-in-health-care-e18e8871550f

[Excerpt] Don’t apologize, instead be better and learn from your mistakes. This is the one key takeaway Pranay Kapadia has for founders. Leaders that learn from their mistakes and evolve their personal response when mistakes happen, build strong and enduring companies.

The way that we’ve talked about this internally as a team has always been about diving into the ambiguity. There’s a lot to figure out. As we think about embracing that ambiguity and actually building something of value, our fundamental belief internally is we will screw a lot up. So we constantly push ourselves on don’t apologize, be better and learn from every one of those screw ups. Because the number of times that we do that, we’ve still tended to succeed despite ourselves. — Pranay Kapadia [/Excerpt]

3) [Inc.com] Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos: This Is How Successful People Make Such Smart Decisions

Source: https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-this-is-how-successful-people-make-such-smart-decisions.html

According to Bezos, there are two basic kinds of decisions you can make:

Type 1: Almost impossible to reverse. Bezos calls them "one-way doors." Think selling your company. Or quitting a job. In short, figuratively jumping off a cliff. Once you make a Type 1 decision, there's no going back.

Type 2: Easy to reverse. Bezos calls these decisions "two-way doors." Like starting a side hustle. Or offering a new service. Or introducing new pricing schemes. While Type 2 decisions might feel momentous, with a little time and effort (often a lot less than you think) they can be reversed.

Unfortunately, it's easy to mistake a Type 2 decision for a Type 1 decision, or to let caution creep in and assume that every Type 2 decision is a Type 1 decision. As Bezos wrote in a shareholder letter,

Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible -- one-way doors -- and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don't like what you see on the other side, you can't get back to where you were before. We can call these Type 1 decisions.

But most decisions aren't like that -- they are changeable, reversible -- they're two-way doors. If you've made a sub-optimal Type 2 decision, you don't have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through. Type 2 decisions can and should be made quickly by high judgment individuals or small groups.

Want to be more successful? Every time you need to make a decision, make a more important decision first: Decide whether it is a Type 1 or a Type 2 decision.

If it's a Type 2, easily reversible decision, make -- and then execute -- that decision quickly.

Some you'll get wrong. And that's OK: Trust that you'll figure out how to react and how to respond, and that you will be a little wiser for the experience. You'll grow more skilled, more experienced, and more connected.

And that will mean that an even greater percentage of your Type 2 decisions will work out. Make and execute enough decisions -- and learn from each experience -- and in time you'll have all the skills, knowledge, and experience you need.

Make as many Type 2 decisions as you can. There is no guarantee of success, but when you don't make any decisions at all, you're guaranteed to never succeed. [/Excerpt]

4) [Harvard Business Review] Greg Satell: Set the Conditions for Anyone on Your Team to Be Creative

Source: https://hbr.org/2018/12/set-the-conditions-for-anyone-on-your-team-to-be-creative

[Excerpt] One of the most damaging myths about creativity is that there is a specific “creative personality” that some people have and others don’t. Yet in decades of creativity research, no such trait has ever been identified. The truth is that anybody can be creative, given the right opportunities and context.

If you don’t believe me, take the least creative person in your office out for lunch — someone who doesn’t seem to have a creative bone in their body. Chances are, you’ll find some secret passion, pursued outside of office hours, into which they pour their creative energies. They just aren’t applying those energies to their day jobs.

The secret to unlocking creativity is not to look for more creative people, but to unlock more creativity from the people who already work for you. The same body of creativity research that finds no distinct “creative personality” is incredibly consistent about what leads to creative work, and they are all things you can implement within your team. [/Excerpt]

5) [Stanford Business School of Graduate] Magic Johnson: Understand Your Customers and Over-Deliver (The former basketball star discusses his pivot from the court to the boardroom).

Source:
[i]https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/magic-johnson-understand-your-customers-over-deliver
[ii]https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/earvin-magic-johnson-adapt-adjust
[iii]https://community.intelligentfanatics.com/t/magic-johnson-on-understanding-your-customers-and-over-delivering/1437
[iv]https://www.businessinsider.my/magic-johnson-nba-star-to-businessman-2016-2/
Additional Reference about Magic Johnson's business achievement:
http://www.upgrademag.com/web/2018/05/04/how-magic-johnson-became-a-successful-businessman/

[Transcript] Interviewer: Many people may not realize that you actually began preparing for your second career, your career in business, while you were still in the NBA. Can you tell us what that preparation looked like and what motivated you?

Magic Johnson: Well, first we have to understand that the same principles really apply from being a basketball player as well as a CEO.

When you think about focus, strategy, discipline, so I’m still that same guy that has those same principles as a CEO. And what I was doing as a basketball player first and also a competitor. because I hate to lose at anything, alright?

Like my wife encouraged me to play my daughter one on one when she was about 15, 16 years old. You know, I play her you know, we go to ten. I let her get to nine. And then I gotta to crush her.

And if I was playing my mother, I would let her get to nine and a half, and then I’d crush her too.

I love winning. And I took that same competitive spirit to the boardroom as well.

I’m a perfectionist. So I was a perfectionist as a basketball player. I did the drills over, and over, and over again.

And even today, I’m a perfectionist. And I want to do everything the right way.

So when you think about principles of being an athlete or a basketball player, it’s the same thing as a CEO. I am a guy who is going to get there early. I am not about, I’m a professional. Today they said, okay about 11:30. Well I got on campus at five to 11. I just sat at the chapel for a half hour waiting. But, that’s who I am.

And so I think that I was preparing. What I did was asked Dr. Bus I said, my dream is not to just win championships, but I want to become a businessman after my basketball career with the Lakers. And he took me up under his wing and became my mentor. One of my many mentors. And so he taught me Laker business, opened the books up to me, let me see how the Laker business was being run day to day.

Then I took, and I was one of these guys that was crazy so I called the PR man from the Lakers and I said look I want to know, all the people who sit on the floor, I want to know their phone numbers and names.

So I cold called 20 people, and said, will you go to lunch with me? And they said yeah, so.

Interviewer: Surprise surprise.

Magic Johnson: I took advantage of my platform, trust me. And so I picked their brain about business, what made them successful and I incorporated it into my own style.

So while I was playing basketball, yes, I was getting ready.

But make no mistake about it, I was 150% in with being a Laker and being the best basketball player I could be. In the off-season, I was preparing for this life after basketball. But I was a crazy basketball player, much like I am CEO. Because, when you’re trying to prove people wrong. First they said I wouldn’t be able to play point guard at 6’9". So I had to prove them wrong. Then, they said I couldn’t go from the basketball court to the boardroom. And it’s been my pleasure proving them wrong again. And so, I’m a guy who goes all the way in. And I love doing what I’m doing, but basketball prepared me for the business room. No question about it. If it wasn’t for basketball, I don’t think I could be the CEO that I am today.

Interviewer: I think you touch on some good lessons that you learned in transitioning your career. There's a lot of people who come to business school hoping to pivot out of one career and into another basketball pun intended. And, what would be your top piece of advice for them?

Magic Johnson: Well, first of all, you gotta take your ego out of it. See, what made me a great basketball player, wouldn't make me a great CEO. I have to understand, because I didn't know business. So that's why those mentors were so important to me. And then, somebody finally is going say no to you. Hmm...

And then, you have to have a thirst for knowledge, alright? And so, that's why I was meeting with so many people, because I was hungry for knowledge, and I wasn't shy about asking questions.

And so I think for me, it was just making sure I got in the right room with the right people, make sure I got enough experts in terms of being my mentors - that experts in business. And then make sure that then I apply what I learned from them.

A lot of times (as) athletes, we're such in our own world that we forget that you know after we retire, you're still young, and you have a whole life to live, you know.

I retired in my 30s and so, I still have a lot of life and a lot of living to do. And so I'm so happy that I knew my second life was going to be in business. I didn't think it was going to get to this level. I never thought in my wildest dreams it would get to where I am today. But I knew I wanted to be a business man and I would.. I was going to do everything in my power to become a successful one.
[/Transcript]

6) [Harvard Business Review] Feng Li: Why Western Digital Firms Have Failed in China

Source: https://hbr.org/2018/08/why-western-digital-firms-have-failed-in-china

[Excerpt] Many leading American digital firms, including Google, Amazon, eBay, and Uber, have successfully expanded internationally by introducing their products, services, and platforms in other countries. However, they have all failed in China, the world’s largest digital market.

The widely touted reasons for these failures include censorship by the Chinese government and cultural differences between China and the West. While these factors undoubtedly have played a role, such explanations are overly simplistic.

A comprehensive five-year study paper by Feng Li published in the Academy of Management Discoveries this year, systematically identifies the reasons behind the failures of major Western digital firms in China. This study uses two rounds of interviewing to identify what the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman describes as the “inside view” and the “outside view” of the phenomenon. First, interviews were conducted with 40 senior business executives from six leading Western digital firms (Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Groupon, and Uber) and their corresponding direct competitors in China (Baidu, Sohu, Taobao, JD.com, Meituan, and Didi). This was intended to identify the inside view of the phenomenon. The prevailing narrative emerging from these interviews points to a lack of strategic determination and patience by Western digital firms as the main cause of their failure. This is reflected in seven factors:

lack of a deep (enough) understanding of the Chinese market
poor management of relations with Chinese regulators and the government
ill-fated attempts to impose global business models unsuited to the Chinese market
failure to cope with the extremely fierce competition in China
failure to manage relations effectively with local business partners
imposing technological platforms developed for the U.S. market on China
overly centralized organizational structure’s leading to slow decision making

Second, 185 seasoned expert observers were interviewed in China to identify the outside view on the phenomenon. These interviews highlighted the failure by Western digital firms to acclimate to China’s business environment as the main cause of their failure. This was described in Chinese as Bujie diqi (不接地气), meaning these firms failed to “keep their feet firmly on the ground.” It led to a series of competitive disadvantages, thereby allowing Chinese digital firms to race ahead in the fight for market share. Specific factors identified included:

failure to cope with a very large number of local competitors
failure to cope with extremely aggressive and determined local competitors
underestimating the major differences between digital business and other industries
failure to develop and communicate business strategies effectively
ineffective innovation strategies
failure to fully embed operations in China

Despite the differences between the inside view and the outside view, these factors have converged in three clusters: (1) poor understanding of the business environment, (2) ineffective strategy making and communication, and (3) underperformance in operation and execution. The Western firms’ failures in China were not due to one specific factor, but rather to the cumulative effects of multiple factors over time. “It’s death by a thousand cuts!” remarked a former senior executive from eBay.
[/Excerpt]

7) [Bloomberg] Yumi Teso and Masaki Kondo: Malaysia Beats Emerging Market Peers as Asia Outshines

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-27/turkey-sinks-to-last-on-emerging-market-scorecard-malaysia-tops

[Excerpt]

Turkey’s economy is forecast to grow 0.8 percent in 2019, down from an estimated 3.5 percent this year, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Inflation reached 25.2 percent in October, the highest level since 2003, eroding real yields
Malaysia remained at the top of the list, thanks to its current-account surplus, relatively stable economic growth outlook and valuations. Data last week showed inflation came in at 0.6 percent in October from a year earlier, compared with its 10-year government bond yield of about 4.17 percent
Four of the top six economies on the scorecard are from Asia, including China, the Philippines and Thailand. China and Thailand are drawing support from current-account surpluses, relatively strong growth and benign inflation. The Philippines’ current-account deficit and high inflation rates are partly offset by growth of more than 6 percent
“A closer attention is now paid to economic growth outlooks of each emerging economy amid successive rate hikes,” said Tsutomu Soma, general manager of the investment trust and fixed-income department at SBI Securities Co. in Tokyo. “Investors are also deciphering how each country is impacted by the U.S.-China trade frictions. They will continue to be more selective with their investments given such circumstances.”