Incite Your Month: November 2021
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
“Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business” by Aswath Damodaran
What: The role of stories in how companies are valued and perceived.
One takeaway: Learn about classic types of business stories, such as ‘the bully’, ‘the better mousetrap’, and ‘the missionary’.
Check it out if: ....you are interested in communication, are a data head who wants to add a flavour of storytelling, or are interested in how companies are valued.
One intriguing article
“How we make decisions at Coinbase?” by Emilie Choi
What: Emilie Choi, President and Chief Operating Officer of Coinbase writes about how decisions are taken at Coinbase. Theirs is a written culture. Emilie writes about two tools they use with examples of how they apply them at Coinbase.
One takeaway: Their RAPID tool for decisions involving multiple departments has a clearly assigned 'Decide' who has access to the views of all others in one document.
Check it out if: ...you are interested in how a company codifies different workflows for contexts like a written culture!
One incisive book summary
“Rogue Waves: Future-Proof Your Business to Survive and Profit from Radical Change” by Jonathan Grill
What: Many trends like emerging technology, data economy, automation, changing demographics etc. are converging and when they come together, they can sweep away industries! How can you future-proof your business against such rogue waves?
One takeaway: Amazon hires the highest number of economists to scientifically plan for several risk scenarios.
Check it out if:...you like to learn about how to think like a kayak that can surf a rogue wave.
One interesting podcast
Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity
What: Walter Isaacson has written books about Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jennifer Doudna & Gene Editing. The connection across all of these? The role of deep curiosity.
One takeaway: There are no easy-to-read lists of success. Go wide, read about different people, and make your own connections.
Check it out if: ...you like thinking about curiosity and curious people.
One inspiring smartcast
Lessons from the Indian cricket team on transformation and future relevance, with Sumeet Pai
What: Sumeet was the IT analyst for the Indian cricket team from 2001 to 2003. This coincided with an era of transformation where the Indian team embraced many changes including a data-based approach to cricket.
One takeaway: Sumeet first built a personal rapport with the players and that helped in building confidence in his role and changing their approach to practice and game plans.
Check it out if: ...you are curious about change management and the transformation of the Indian cricket team!
One Habit Tip from CTQ
What
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