Incite Your Month: February 2022
At CTQ, we kick each month off with a collection of ideas & recos from the team’s recent curiosity diet. It helps us ‘incite’ the rest of the month. Here’s this month’s edition.
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One insightful book
“Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight
What: The incredible roller-coaster story behind Nike.
One takeaway:
The people who gave birth to Nike were mavericks and experimenters who believed deeply in the athlete’s ethos. This led to a mythology that endures till today.
Check it out if: ...you love reading well-written biographies and want to learn how company culture is created.
One intriguing article
Twitter thread by Shreyas Doshi
What: Why do companies with major resources & distribution make products that are mediocre and often fail to reach their potential.
One takeaway: Don't resort to vanity metrics.
Check it out if: ...you want to learn about how seemingly right processes can lead to less than favourable outcomes.
One inspiring smartcast
The Relevance of Employer Branding, with Adithya Venkatesan
What: Adithya is the Head of Employer Branding at Meesho. Find out what makes for successful employer branding, and why it is important for leaders to be storytellers.
One takeaway: To get Employer Branding right, a company must start by identifying a core foundation of a great culture. Employer Branding identifies and amplifies what already exists but can’t make up for poor culture.
Check it out if: ...you are scratching your head on how to deal with positioning your company to attract great talent.
One interesting podcast
Continuity: Discovering the Lessons behind the World’s Longest-lived Organizations (Long Now’s Seminars About Long-term Thinking)
What: Some organizations have endured for centuries and even over a millennium. What explains their longevity?
One takeaway: Many long-lived organizations tend to have an in-house source who passes on learnings and stories across generations. Some cathedrals have a formal role called the Keeper of the Fabric, while in some institutions, this could be a janitor who’s been there for years.
Check it out if: ...you are thinking about how to strengthen the legacy and culture of your organisation.
One smartlever
Pre-Mortem
What: How can a pre-mortem help in better decision-making and why it should be part of the Upleveler's toolkit of smart levers.
Check it out if:... you are interested in improving chances of a better outcome.