January 2023 (1) – A Hammer and Some Nails!

If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail !

I had once overheard this snappy wisecrack made during a business conference, many years ago. It was indeed witty and broke the monotony of what was being discussed then.

Over the years, while many other witty remarks and interesting anecdotes have kept me entertained during such conferences and networking events, this one has kept bouncing back, offering me unique vignettes of interpretations on entrepreneurship and leadership. Let me share with you four of these vignettes based on the hammer and nail.

1. Flaunting the all-purpose hammer. – I have met entrepreneurs who refused to let go off their belief that their company’s products or services are agnostic of the characteristics of market segments or use-applications or even time considerations. Everything is a homogeneous wall on which any type of nail can be driven into with ease. These entrepreneurs are like quacks peddling the ‘panacea’, the ‘magic bullet’, the ‘elixir’, the ‘heal-all’.

2. Rejecting the left-handed screw. – So we all know that most fasteners are right-handed (the helical thread runs clockwise), then why do we need left-handed screws (the threads running counter-clockwise)? Good manufacturing experts will tell us that the left-handed screws are needed for getting the mechanical advantage of reverse threading or for deliberately creating incompatibility as a safety feature. The differentiation in the characteristics of the screw brings some unique advantages.

Diversity in teams brings great rewards to team performance and ensures long-term sustainability for the enterprise; yet, there are leaders who firmly believe that as long as they keep ‘tightening the screws’ on their ‘loyal teams’, they can ensure success in the targets that they had set for themselves! These leaders loathe new skillsets from non-conforming backgrounds and flounder when they are confronted with VUCA circumstances.

3. Just having a hammer and a box of nails does not make one a carpenter, let alone a good one! – After more than a decade of trying to make flying cars a reality, Kitty Hawk, a Larry Page-funded start-up with a disclosed funding of around $101 million announced that it is calling it quits. Its CEO is reported to have admitted that ‘they could never find a path to a viable business’!

Often the euphoria of coming up with an idea and having a foundation of technology and money will still end up as a dismal failure, because there is no inherently sustainable demand. Entrepreneurs need to constantly ascertain that their business proposition continues to be a part of the societal-demand-value-chain. Now can you believe that this review is seldom done and leaders continue to lament overall economic cycles for their poor performances!

4. Hitting your fingers more often than hitting the nail. – Is it possible to hit all five of your fingers when hitting the nail with a hammer? This question may sound silly, but if you are both stubborn and foolish, you can achieve this!

Yes, often rewards cannot be reaped without taking risks. The good entrepreneur and a transformative leader understand this maxim well. But many disregard the underlying fact that risks need to be evaluated and reasonably planned for! The five fingers that can help an entrepreneur and a business leader to position the ‘Nail’ (read their business proposition) are (a) Evaluating the market (b) Staying Flexible, (c) Getting Organised, (d) Delegating as soon as possible and (e) Planning Appropriately.Taking adequate care in each of these five areas will help reduce the risks and prevent you from hurting your business. Now you’d be surprised at how few actually focus adequately on these five basics.