Musings Of The Iron Butterfly – Chapter 1

Analysing and Decision Making

Musings of The Iron Butterfly

Chapter 01

Hello, welcome to my special space. Even though this is a class assignment, it seems like a great idea to put our thoughts on paper. I haven’t written anything unrelated to work in a while.  

It was our second intensive week, and trust me it was better than the first. Probably because I was more prepared , I just realized I found it more enjoyable than expected. It was very difficult to shut down for the entire week, I was just thinking of what could possibly happen, but I got the go-ahead from the HS, and I decided to just go ahead, after all ‘all die na die’  right? Nothing will happen!

So I sent a circular to my leaders, telling them that I won’t be around for the week, and all communication can only be via WhatsApp as I won’t be allowed to take calls during sessions.  I didn’t have a lot of expectations at first, but as we started the classes this session, I started thinking deeply about my work as a leader, the errors I have made, corrections I should make, and what I can do to improve my team better.

In one of my classes where we were taught to dissect and analyse business problems, I picked up a strategy of dissecting the problem, identifying what my objective was, what exactly do I want to achieve? And what are my possible solutions? After that session, it was as though I had a lightbulb moment.

I have been struggling with some ideas and their implementation on one of my construction projects, as the team is stuck and can not progress more than they had already. I called an emergency meeting and asked the team to highlight what their challenges were, what are the things we aren’t considering as challenges but they are actually problems? I created a slide and started listing them. It was possibly the most exciting aspect of my week. It was an ‘AHA’ moment. 

No doubt, I pride myself on being great at strategy and being able to implement, but this was on another level. 

For some reason, I get excited when surrounded by smart and intelligent people. I believe there is a word for it, I would research. Being in a place where I’m the smartest in the room has to be the most draining thing I can ever experience, or surrounded by people who are afraid to disagree, or think deep.

As regards the analysis carried out, I believe we have greatly under estimated the ability of thinking deeply. We analyzed some case studies, and that process till date is amazing. We can’t underestimate the power of thinking deeply.

One of the Cases I actively read was the Okoye Foods Case, A company was outsourcing, yet based on feedback from its sales people, they were now considering manufacturing the products in-house.

Upon analyzing the case, we realized that the feedback from the SalesMen wasn’t exactly true and you can’t make decisions based on ‘thoughts’ or ‘beliefs’ or ‘opinions’. It must be based on FACTS! The company could have gotten into major problems because of that move. 

In the words of some popular skitmakers, ‘e shock me’. What?

When we looked at it as a class with Dr A, we realized that certain things we thought were big issues, feedback from customers, were just reported by the salesmen, who could have as well been using it as an excuse for not meeting their targets.

It was indeed mind blowing, it has set the tone for my mood when I get back to work next week.

I hope my first post hasn’t been too much of a drag.

Till we meet again…

Cheers,

The Iron Butterfly

Edim Junadia

#MEMBA12