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. 

Read the shownotes below

 
 
 

Prefer an audio version of this edition? Listen below.

 
 
 

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 Changeby 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

Are newsletters clogging up your inbox? Use a separate email account to subscribe to newsletters. Make sure you also have a regular slot to peruse through this account.


Closing with an inciting ‘FutureRing’ question

What is one soon-to-be obsolete work-related practice/ tool/ habit?