Book Summary | The VUCA Company - Suhayl Abidi, Manoj Joshi

Book Title: The VUCA Company
Authors : Suhayl Abidi, Manoj Joshi
Publication: Jaico


Don't read success stories, you will get only message. Read failures stories, you will get some ideas for success - A P J Abdul Kalam.

Aristotle famously said, that the gods first send 40 years of prosperity to whoever they intended to destroy. It is well proven from the history of men that success leads to complacency which leads to decline. That is why one must be most alert and watchful at the peak of success. The successful organizations sows its own seeds of destruction. The VUCA ( Volatility, Uncertainty, Complex and Ambiguity) are the jargon's that is widely used in the Management when business is in stress due to many factors.  The authors of this book have considered Indian companies which experienced failures post liberalization due to VUCA. The best part of the book, is the author has provided key insight on how companies can learn from these organizations failures to over come complacency. 

Although the word VUCA was defined by the Americans during the war and much conceptualized by the management professionals, The author has used Indian companies which underwent downside in the business and analyzed why these companies need to face turbulent times as well as closeout. Today the average life of S&P index companies has drastically reduced over the years.  Leaders  must be absolutely clear that the reasons that helped to succeed in the past will not guaranty the future success as the business context has changed.  In a vuca world, the faster the world changes, the more firmly the organization should be anchored to its vision. 

#Resilience and agility cannot be taught but can be learnt. Behavioral changes, rather than just acquiring new companies and skills must be emphasized. 

# Failure ! The fear of failure is a world wide phenomenon, experiencing it is inevitable and running away from it is only human. It is said that if you want to learn about success, talk to a successful person, but if you want to learn about failures, talk to a very successful person.

# Leadership involves the readiness to make decisions, the courage to take risks the willingness to collaborate and to support others to support creativity and the ability to speak ones mind. 

# In the VUCA world, resilience and adaptability are the two attributes that distinguish leaders from mere mangers. 

# When you stop learning, we stop developing and we stop growing. Thats the end of a leader.

# If you do only what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you wont fail. You'll just stagnate and thats failure by erosion. 

# Ignorance and arrogance unforgivable to anyone or any organization.

# The path of success lies in the understanding the relevant trends, figuring out how your strengths and resources can capitalize on them and staking our a leadership position. 

# 3 C's are most important - Culture | Code of conduct |Control. 
culture is critical. it is important to remain committed to your organisations mission, to define core values and to act with integrity in accordance with those values. 
Arrogance leads to over confidence. Not only leaders become arrogant, but organization culture too starts taking the same he as dissentters are slowly eased out and debates disappear. overconfidence isn't a personality trait or a moral failing, but a natural consequence of success that affects almost every one . As we grow older and more experienced, we overrate the accuracy of our judgments. 

# Success can be achieved in two ways. One is like climbing a ladder. It is fast, but a ladder can be unstable and you can fall from where you started from. The other is climbing a mountain, where you experience descent as well as plateau on your way to the peak. 

# The causes of failure can be classified into 1. Human or behavioral 2. Systemic or organisational. 
The behavioral causes - Arrogance or Hubris :- Most failures are self inflicted wounds that are allowed to fester and ultimately poison the leader and his organisation. Hubris, the sin of overweening pride or arrogance is invariably the basic condition that undermines societies and individuals. 
According to Tim Irwin, in his book derailed, he charter the highs and lows of Six CEO's there are 4 qualities that are tied to failures - Authenticity | Self Management | Humility |Courage 

Derailed leaders progress through 5 stages - A failure of self / other awareness | Hubris : Pride before the fall | Missed early warning signals | Rationalizing | Derailment 

# Assumptions, beliefs, mindsets and blind-spots. 
- Successful people are more prone to assumptions as they start believing that they have somehow discovered the formula for success. 
- poor leaders are hired due to poor competency framework 

Failure is not a catastrophe, but failure to learn certainly can be, some of the case studies shared in the book is from the organisation such as Kodak, Motorala, Lehman Brothers, Jain Irrigation, Venky's chicken, Suzlon, King Fisher Airlines, Nokia etc. 

# KODAK - The success had blinded the company into denial that digital photography would replace the film roll. Kodak fits the classic profile of a twentieth century corporate dinosaur. 

# Motorola - The arrogance of technological superiority is deeply ingrained in culture and iridium went forward single mindedly concentrating on satellite design and launch, brushing aside the challenges in marketing and sales. 


# Lehman Brothers - Single minded goal to be no.1, he had little time and consideration for his clients and stakeholders

# Jain irrigation core lesson - Early success had blinded us and we thought we could do no wrong. Diversifying into unknown areas without required management bandwidth and eyeing disproportionate growth using debt is not sustainable.