Book Review 4 - Give & Take by Adam Grant

Just finished my 4th book of 2018 - Give and Take by Adam Grant. This book is an interesting view on relationships in life with people and how patterns emerge in 3 types of people - Takers, Matchers and Givers. Takers are always driven by thier own selfish motives, trying to get to the top by powering  themselves over others. Givers are those people who help, mentor others; who take interest in others' worlds to better and overall pull everybody up. Matchers are people who give and take in equal amounts with a propensity to match. The obvious hypothesis is that Givers are the last ones on the success ladder.

The book challenges that hypothesis with real life examples from Startup capital to hollywood; and discusses learnings on how givers excel everywhere. It systematically discusses the benefits of giving and pitfalls to avoid to become a 'successful giver'.

Some key gems from the book -

1. Givers dont network like networkers do at networking events. They have a genuine desire in contributing to others and thus thier networks are stronger. The quality of conversations lead to depth of relationships which they tap at any point of time. And as the interactions are genuine, even dormant ties when reconnected lead to poistive outcomes vs takers who sort of burn bridges. Eg Adam Rifkin, rated as largest networker on linkedin.

2. Givers are so genuinely interested in helping others; when they work in a team they dont have a 'claiming' desire; thus they give collaborate well with others. Takers on the contrary again in a desire to move ahead, do it once and people dont want to work with them again. Thus, the power of collaboration takes them much ahead even in occupations dealing with innovation, creativity or medical surgeries etc. Eg. George Meyers, man behind Simpsons.

3. Givers practice powerless communication at times to connect with audiences vs takers powerful speeches. The audience find them normal human beings with some flaws and somebody who listens more, making them open up well vs a deft speaker delivering speeches like a monologue. The book talks about several examples from sales where givers were top achievers because client felt safe with them. They felt that the salesman has a genuine desire to help rather than powerful fleecers or takers.

4. Despite these huge benefits, where givers fail is that they get 'used' extensively like doormats by takers or they burnout while indulging in selfless service. Its when the author brings about ways to avoid these pitfalls. 

He suggests Reciprocatory Rings as a method to deal with takers or matchers. He says takers avoid ditching people when their reputation is on the line or the act is in public. Takers show helping behavior if they are shown doing it. Thus, author suggests to have open help sessions where a person asks for help and volunteers have to raise hands to help. And as a rule everybody has to help at least one. 

5. Another pitfall is burnout out of excessive giving on account of selfless service character. Here Givers need to be 'Otherish' which means a behavior where you help but also enjoy and take care of your interest as well. This develops when u get driven by something which is good for ur individual success but also is must do for others. Eg. As a giver, you might not want to achieve ur own target in sales but help others as u dont want that much money. Givers switch off and loose out here. However, if u also think about ur family and thier needs, suddenly u dont feel guilty but motivated to achieve ur target. Thats 'otherish' behaviour.

Its a very good book on behavior and people who deal with people on a daily basis, its a must read.

Book Review #3 in 2018 - The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg

Tao of Coaching is an easy read on a subject which is complex and deals with coaching of employees to improve thier performance. It deals with practices and frameworks to consistently improve things with consistent coaching, feedback and appraisals.

Now these statements and words ring a bell about poor practices, partiality, office politics and so on. However, thats where the book scores, as it deals with such subject with a simple story of a guy called Alex. The book discusses his journey from a new entrant in a company dealing with an ice-cream project to becoming one of the key executives in the company. Deftly written by ex-Mckinsey and a Stanford MBA, Max.

It diminishes lots of myths and notions about coaching thru easy chapters and one of my biggest learning is that feedback/coaching others does improve others lives but also improves yours. And that is the reason why of coaching - Give and Take. Why because developing your team members in turn gets you spend more time on yourself and developing your skill set while you delegate work!

Here are few gems from the book -

1. #Coaching by asking is more effective than coaching by telling. Ask questions to coachee to help him come up with his own solutions rather than handing him doctor's prescription by telling what to do.

2. When u ask for #feedback, give proper time, notice and make it easier for somebody to do you a favour. Coaches who dont take feedback loose out on self-correcting mechanism to further improve themselves.

3. Some myths - we coach to primarily help others. We focus on coachee while coaching. Coaching means feedback. It takes lot of time.  And its about work. Thats all incorrect!

4. Feedback is one of the coaching techniques where one should use AID format - Actions under focus to be discussed, Impact of these actions and Desired Outcome (how to do it better).

5. As some of u must have known, difference between a bad feedback and good one is that good feedback focuses on improvement areas vs blame, skills vs person and leaves person helped vs judged.

6. A coaching session can be structured well as #GROW - Goal, Reality, Options and Wrap up.  Ask  coachee what goals he has, to achieve better outcomes. Then ask about reality, what he has tried till now and his challenges. Discuss with him his options on countering and the best one to move on with. And wrap up with next steps and next review time.

7. Before coaching or managing a subordinate, one should apply #skill/#will matrix to decide on what kind of coaching technique to be applied. Its a 2 by 2 matrix across skill and will. High skill and low will means u need to excite the guy, low skill and high will means u need to guide him, low skill and low means u need to direct him while high skill and high will is what u need to arrive at so that u can delegate and get things done. This one is useful as ur team members will fit in different quadrants for u to apply different ways.

8. Assess motivation levels of ur coachees. At times the kind of motivation/demotivation loop they are in, can help u decide the course of action. 

9. For any goal to be achieved. Here is the recipie - 1. Write down the goal. Publicise it. Discuss it. Share with more people. 2. Apply #Waypower (power to figure out ways towards ur goal) 3. Apply #willpower (action to chosen path).

10. And the last one is - Goal are many types and one should focus on process goals rather than performance goals or Outcome goals. #Process goals (hit a harder serve), #Performance goals (hit more aces) and #Outcome goals (Win wimbledon). 

Great coaches focus on #process goals and practice it multiple times. Performance goals and outcome goals are way too less frequent to practise (winning a wimbledon).

A must read for anybody dealing with people - employees, colleagues, kids..

Do share ur comments if u like my chosen gems...or if this review makes you think about reading the book.

This is my 3rd book of 2018. Resolution is to finish 12 this yr.

Nitin 

Retailing - Offline > Online (Part 2)

As explained in the first article, the premise here is that retailing basics dont change whether its online store or an offline store. In last article, 5 Key Areas of retail were described - Consumer Experience, People, Product, Topline & Bottomline. In this article, i would exhibit the linkages to online retailing, discuss key drivers & key actions/strategies enabling them.

1.Product/Service - For any business to succeed, the product/service which you are selling, has to be desirable for customers, offers a good quality experience on usage & adds to a consumer's life. However, before a consumer can experience the product post purchase, her attention has to be intercepted by your product/service for it to get sold.

This is where Visual Merchandising plays a role in offline retailing. From the window of the store talking about that 'stitchless shirt' which intrigues your mind & tickles you to enter the store; to attractive display of product with wonderful VM talking about the story behind say the ' no stitching' or 'anti-radiation mobile pocket' etc. You pickup the product & then interact with the customer associate & give it a shot. Boom. The sale is over.

However in online retailing, there is no intriguing window/VM to have product talk you into buying it? That gets replaced by the 'User Interface & Navigation' of the site enabling fastest discovery of such products. The window is the 'Home Page banner' wooing you to buy that stitchless shirt! VM is replaced by the 'quality of pictures/videos' shot in the studio with beautiful models to make you comfortable while making the buying decision.

Another barrier in online app/website is that you cant define a layout of the store to fix the category navigation the way it happens in offline retailing - putting the destination categories at the back of store & impulse next to cash counter, highlighting seasonal stories at the first fixture & basics at the back. In online retailing, its dependent on how the consumer uses the provided filters to lead to 'product discovery'. However, with #BIGDATA analytics, app should be able to provide varying UIs basis what a purchases. My home page banner on say an Amazon should vary from say yours; leading to bring in that personalized product discovery! Thats more power to online retailing if done well.

2.People - In offline retailing, the omnipresent 'human touch' is what at times makes you discover a new category or brand you would never buy. Thats the power of human interaction. It delivers variable and personalized and live-dynamic delivery of knowledge & product experience. Thats why good brands invest in training their sales people. A product/Brands gets alive in the way creator has conceptualized only when a person gives that product presentation making the story complete. That, 'Joe' in your favourite high street store calls you when your desired product arrives, wishes you on your birthday & invites you to the store, helps you get benefited by the steal deals, customizes your clothes as per your taste/measurements, and once in a while lets you have your ego massaged; is something! Something, that a fixed computer screen cant match!

In online retailing, this important bit gets replaced by the Product Presentation(Picture/Video, Copy, size chart, reviews, ratings, etc). Now, basis all this information, one can take the decision; and as these factors are incomplete vs a human presentation; thats why ecommerce companies offer liberal return policy & faster delivery mechanisms trying to make up for this void & making is easier for consumer to shop. However, with advanced AI & bots; this is getting better to give that human touch to ecommerce.

3.Customer Experience - If the consumer walks into your store & gets presented by the sales person; but doesn't get serviced properly or the store experience is not good given sloppy display or no cooling or rude behavior; everything goes for a toss. A bad consumer experience is like a camphor catching fire; it burns & burns the entire neighborhood of customers. Thus, offline art of retaining is all about consumer experience, the capital factor.

In offline, the experience is elongated. From website experience to the product delivery. The app wasnt loading or the filters were going wonky or the payment gateway wasnt working; all kills the experience. But so does late delivery of goods or rude behavior of delivery boy or wrong delivery of product in the box. Online retailing has its own challenges to ensure a great consumer experience. Most of the ecommerce players have been able to fix the technology side; however most of the issues crop up on the logistics/warehousing errors.

4.Top-line - As discussed in Part 1, Topline being the objective No 2; there needs to be clear understanding on drivers of topline & relationship in between to revenue. As in offline, online retail has similar relationship -

Offline Sales = Footfalls (No of Customers * Freq) X Conversion X Basket Size X Average Sales Value

Online Sales = No of hits (No of unique visitors * visits) X Conversion (Sales Transactions/visits) X Cart items X Average Sales Value

Now the drivers in online piece, are obviously -

A. No of hits or Traffic to the site driven by lead generation out of various campaigns (SEO, SMM, ATL, BTL etc);

B. Conversion on the site driven by 1. Ease of product discovery & transaction on website (User Interface & Steps to transaction completion) 2. Product Presentation (Pics/vids/info/reviews/Pricing) enabling users to make a buying decision 3. Transaction completion net of returns (Lot of transactions get cancelled post conversion/post delivery due to poor acceptance or impulse) which needs to be controlled with better product quality checks/ product presentation & efficiency in logistics & delivery.

C. Basket Size on the eCommerce website can be boosted by running campaigns of cross promotion (shop across shirts & trousers & get extra discount), shipping free (order > Rs 1000 get shipping free) and so on. Cart can also be boosted with recommendations showing users who bought A also bought this book. Basically giving a benefit (discount, freebie) on increased basket.

D. Average Sales Value is the last factor on the topline; which is driven by premium assortment, branded merchandise, better quality and so on. Sell more suits and blazers than shirts & your average sales value sky rockets! How can a website influence you to up-trade your ASP? Using recommendations tickling the ego (Consumers choosing an apple iphone have bought apple branded accessories only); highlighting high priced products basis shopping history; or plain and simple 'personalized pricing' within an app (Same hotel room to Mr X is $1000 while Mr Y is $1200).

5. Bottom-line - Obviously, this is the No 1 objective for which businesses exist. One needs to drive all revenue factors up and all costs factors down without dropping consumer experience, product quality & people standards in offline retail. Same factors apply here in online retail - One needs to boost margins by arm-twisting vendors, ask minimum guarantees, increase #private #labels, boost traffic at lowest cash burn, drop costs of logistics & warehousing, and reduce discounts and so on. Make unit economics work!

I think the basics remain the same; be it online or offline; its the passion that drives the business ahead to serve consumers! I hope this 2 part article; was a good read. If yes, please drop in your valuable comments & lets strike a conversation around retailing - Offline or Online!

For going to part 1 of this article, please click here.