Old management truisms may be revised or busted in a rapidly changing world: Ashok Soota Premium

There are aphorisms galore in management circles -- It’s lonely at the top; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; people leave people, not organisations... and so on -- that are often accepted as undisputed truths. But these are explored, analysed, and busted in the recent book by serial entrepreneur and tech industry veteran Ashok Soota and Peter De Jager, speaker, writer, and consultant on change management, and co-authored by Sandhya Mendonca, a journalist-turned-author.

There are aphorisms galore in management circles -- It’s lonely at the top; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; people leave people, not organisations... and so on -- that are often accepted as undisputed truths. But these are explored, analysed, and busted in the recent book by serial entrepreneur and tech industry veteran Ashok Soota and Peter De Jager, speaker, writer, and consultant on change management, and co-authored by Sandhya Mendonca, a journalist-turned-author.

Busted: Debunking Management Myths With Logic, Experience, and Curiosity questions the relevance of several management truisms and debates if they are just myths that need to be examined or principles that still hold good in today’s rapidly-changing world.

The book also carries a disclaimer of sorts that there is a core of truth in these management truisms and questioning the wisdom of management gurus is not the aim of this book. Yet, it insists it is worth exploring other and newer point of views.

In the opening chapter titled Culture eats strategy for breakfast, Mr. Soota, who co-founded Mindtree (which was later acquired by L&T), Happiest Minds, and other ventures in the health space, says, “In recent years, we have witnessed the adverse impact of negative cultures in high profile companies such as poor governance in Enron and Satyam Computers.’‘ The macho culture or “brotopia” which predominated Uber till the advent of Dara Khosrowshahi, is also prevalent in many Silicon Valley companies, he says. Thus it was not surprising that interest in the belief “culture eats strategy for breakfast” has revived.

On Micheal Porter’s principle “The Essence of Strategy is choosing what not to do”, Soota writes, “There is no doubt that strategy requires constant and prolonged focus, and demands that we learn to say `no’ to new ideas, to protect us from a world of possible distractions.

Jack Welch did not prevent him from saying ‘yes’ to other business opportunities which eventually led General Electric (GE) to a diverse conglomerate that spanned from aircraft engines, medical equipment, and many other realms. However, Bill Gates in a way said `no’ to developing Android, despite being a world leader in operating systems (OS). He later admitted that was his biggest mistake, that he didn’t expand his strategic vision and compete effectively and thus completely missed the exploding OS market for mobile phones, where Google became a dominant force. Soota explains, “So the errors of omission are far costlier than errors of commission, in terms of opportunity cost.”

Even changing focus is accepted, when the whole world, times and concept of ‘focus’ itself changes, he says, “Organisations are entering territories that have been dominated by others. For instance, Google’s entry into operating systems with Android and Microsoft’s entry into search engine with Bing.’‘