April 2023 (1) – Wit & Wisdom

It is that time of the year when most entrepreneurs and business leaders would be pouring the proverbial midnight oil to do three things – review the performance for the year that went by, fine-tune the implementation of a strategic business plan to perform better during the next twelve months and lastly bite their nails anxiously wondering how to escape blame if either of the first two are not showing any encouraging signs!

And, as is often forgotten, the challenges for most businesses can seldom be overcome using the same sets of data and knowledge that one has got comfortable with!

Wit and Wisdom, it’s usually acknowledged, are powerful weapons that have rescued many a hapless human being from death or even worse! So why are these ignored by the current generation of business leaders? I have no definitive answers, but I hope that the following ten random selection of wit and their hidden wisdom will resonate with many who are struggling to finalize their business plans.

WIT	WISDOM
Only chickens accomplish something by sitting on their asses!	Get out of your comfort zone. Innovate if you want to see dividends to your efforts.
Fed up with boiling water each evening? Heat 10 litres, and freeze for future use!	There is always a right process and a right time for that process to be effective. No amount of premature planning and execution will improve its effectiveness.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups!	It is important to have the right levels of talent alongside the right sets of attitude in the team. Large numbers of mediocre talent with a passive approach will never take you beyond a level of overall performance.
If you don’t know where your kids are in the house, turn off the internet and watch them magically appear!	Unless you create the enabling conditions that challenge your teams to stretch out and perform to their peak levels, you will miss out on recognising their capabilities.
If you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit!	It seldom helps if strategic planning gets hijacked by either sheer analytic brilliance or by glib talk. Identifying and Connecting all the possible dots that will impact the visionary goals calls for listening to the heart too and learning to use intuitive judgement in parallel.
Never break two laws at the same time because that’s how you get caught!	The two things that increasingly matter for stakeholders are Ethics and Governance. Falling foul of either will undermine all that you are struggling to build.
Silence is golden. Unless you have kids! Then silence is suspicious!	Understand the interests and the power of your key stakeholders, and keep a track to manage them better.
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target!	Never be deliberately ambiguous in your targets. Never deliberately use a “low-targeting, over-achieving” approach to planning. Both will misfire badly.
Is your sink full of dirty utensils? Put some clean dishes in the draining rack! Now it looks like you’re working on it!	There is nothing like “a best time to begin” or “well-begun is always half-done” when it comes to implementing a strategy. It is always a work-in-progress and needs constant efforts.
If you can’t afford virtual reality headsets, you can close your eyes and imagine everything you want!	Believing in a Vision and Communicating that Vision as a relatable story for the entire team to subscribe to, is the only cost that a leader needs to spend in order to get the Core Value Proposition.