Don't Leave Change to Chance ... Gain the Edge and Beat the Odds

O n a crisp cold day, sitting on an aged wooden bench under an enormously imposing and remarkably colorful dome, one thought slapped me in the face:  It always starts with one! THE SETTING … After a speech for a group of technology CEOs in Montreal around transformation and change, I squeezed a couple of days of R&R (rest and relaxation for the newer generation) to explore the city. First stop after a late morning start was the Notre-Dame Basilica. An almost two-hundred-year-old gothic style church erected on the ruins of a smaller place of worship frequented in - by   Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve .  The enchanting music gushing out of 7,000 pipes of a magical 32-foot pipe organ immediately forced my mind in an exploratory frame of reference … in a purposefully curious mindset. The tour guide’s narration of the history of the place and its origins pushed me into a learning mode...   It always starts with one!    THE STORY … Here is how the story goes … ...

YES AMAZON #innovates and constantly explores new arenas of #competitiveness – Envied & Feared and the topic of conversation in board rooms and #investorcalls… MY humble suggestion: #FEAR is not the answer, #ACTION is ... #HOPE is not a #STRATEGY … LEARN BUT build YOUR own unique version of future. Is #focus over rated? Here is a post from the guys at CBInsights Guess what: Amazon isn’t just a retail/grocery giant. Or a cloud giant. Or a media/video giant. Or a logistics giant. It’s also an advertising juggernaut. Amazon’s advertising revenue is growing 60% a year, according to estimates. Analysts peg it at $4.5B+ for 2018, and it's already larger than Twitter and Snapchat’s ad business (see This Week In Data, below). Wow. By putting advertising directly into the point where goods are sold, Amazon could:  cut out ad agencies threaten the digital ad dominance of Google and Facebook (which faces other challenges as seen below) and further shift how cons...

A quick story about Gaining the Caterpillar’s Edge from CHINA. Here is an email from an old Chinese student and his interaction with his investor father. I thought it might be an interesting read – here is the email: Dear Professor Sid, A few days ago, I finished reading your book. As soon as I finished it, I got together with my father immediately. We discussed the key points and were reminded that: “ The best time to induce change is when things are good. ” As you know my father invested and established the largest lantern group co. in China. The traditional lantern business has been around for hundreds of years. They have been trying to evolve in the last ten years, but they couldn’t manage to do so. My father saw the reasons as: 1) the board members of the company are afraid of the unknown outcome of making changes -The traditional way has worked for hundreds of years and the industry has been doing just fine, 2) board members were limited by their vision, resources and back...

SHARE ON:                        The Caterpillar’s Edge  is a book about embracing change to gain a competitive edge and flourish in today’s global business climate. Its author, Sid Mohasseb, is an adjunct professor, a venture capitalist, a corporate CEO, the former strategic innovation lead in strategy for a conglomerate, a Harvard-trained negotiator, and a featured TED Talk speaker. Sid’s notable expertise is in connecting theory and reality to help people see the curves in the road ahead and to realize their visions for the future. I had an opportunity to sit down with Sid to understand his view on innovation. How did you come up with premise for  The Caterpillar’s Edge ? While every industry is going through significant change and facing considerable innovation and challenges, we plan and strategies in the same manner we did decades ago: we follow a structured budgeting proc...

The following letter was sent to a board member (Steve D.) of a manufacturing company in India who kindly shared it with me. I have masked / replaced the name of the company and individuals to ensure privacy. Additionally, the LATEST PROGRESS based on a Sept. 26 email also follows.   ___________________________________________    Dear Steve,   I wish to thank you for gifting me the book "Caterpillar's Edge". This book may transform our company into a success.   Initially, when I started reading the book, I felt that it was indeed for big companies and my interest was more from intellectual view point.  However, as I got into the thick of it, I realized that I could relate this book to the story or lack of it at MASKED CO. I started having intense discussion with Vikram as well as Avinash as what is truly wrong with MASKED CO. and what is missing. Since Vikram is also reading this book, he could also relate to the same.   We realized that ...