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In a world where business leadership has not yet changed its mindset to the

new realities, failures are bound to happen. What better way to manage the
VUCA world than to learn from the failure of others?

Book
Review

Learning
from failure

The VUCA
Company
Author:
Suhayl Abidi and
Manoj Joshi

Price: R350
ISBN:
978-8184956627

72

or most part, this book is an anthology of corporate debacles during


the past decade, a period associated with business vulnerability,
uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). However, the book
emphasises that the majority of the corporate failures during the past
decade could not be blamed on VUCA. They were self-inflicted.
The authors list many examples of leadership mistakes that led the
initially promising or successful companies into trouble, some to even
their doom. The book is a digest of leadership failure at renowned Indian companies
from different sectors, including SKS Microfinance, Kingfisher Airlines, Dhanalaxmi
Bank (now Dhanlaxmi Bank), Jain Irrigation, Shri Renuka Sugars, Subhiksha, Suzlon,
GMR, Ranbaxy, and Venkys.
The authors warn against reducing success to formulas and trying to replicate
those in different contexts. They point out that most business failures result from the
successful CEOs belief that they could do no wrong.
Pushing for fast growth is another deadly leadership sin, according to them. Greed
for growth and valuation is the cause of irrational diversification and expansion, which
ensure the downfall of established companies.
The authors pan Vijay Mallyas debt-funded foray into aviation, and then buying a
budget airline merely for size even if that did not fit Kingfishers upmarket culture.
They list Tata Motors Nano as a big mistake and argue that investing in a jugaad instead
of real innovation ended up hurting the company.
The book cautions about behavioural flaws of leaders and the tendency to make wrong mental associations.
Among the many gems of wisdom, the book carries an apocryphal tale of a successful gurukul where a teacher
instructed pupils to tie the school cat during the class to avoid disturbance, but the following generation of
teachers and students made it a practice to tie a cat believing that it led to excellence in learning.
The authors advise that to succeed in the VUCA world, leaders need to see the world from diverse
perspectives, consult others, and avoid rushing before acting. They argue that the era of the imperial and
the one-trick CEO is overdecision-making in the VUCA world is like travelling without a map, and past
knowledge and experience are often wrong guides to making immediate decisions. They argue that failure is
not an absence of competence and failure needs to be treated as learning.
Though full of interesting anecdotes and wisdom, the book suffers from random organisation. It would
read much better with a little sharpening. Following is an excerpt from the book:

INDIAN MANAGEMENT

SEPTEMBER 2015

BOOK
Extract

Welcome to the VUCA world! It is a future


that is here to stay; entry is neither optional nor
avoidable. The VUCA world is characterized by
volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
All human beings are affected by the VUCA
phenomenon irrespective of whether it is a
political, an economic, a business, a natural or a
social environment.
In The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman notes
that the rate of change today is much different
than it was in the past. Whenever civilization
has gone through one of these disruptive,
dislocating technical revolutions like Gutenbergs
introduction of the printing press the whole
world has changed in profound ways, he
writes. But there is something different about
the flattening of the world that is going to be
qualitatively different from other such profound
changes: the speed and breadth with which it is
taking hold.
The fate of many leading companies such as
Kodak, which failed to navigate the rapid changes
brought about in its business environment, and
Blackberry, which is on its last leg of existence, is

a warning to all organizations that are now facing


these inevitable, even unpredictable, changes but
lack the leadership, flexibility and imagination
to adapt not because they are not smart or
aware, but because the speed of change is simply
overwhelming them.
The VUCA Company
The V in VUCA denotes volatility. It refers to the
nature, speed, volume and magnitude of change
that does not move in a predictable pattern. U
stands for uncertainty a lack of predictability
in issues and events. C denotes complexity
there are often numerous difficult-to-understand
causes and mitigating factors (both inside and
outside the organization) involved in a problem
brought about by an increasingly complex globally
intertwined business environment. Finally, A
stands for ambiguity, that is, a lack of clarity about
events. Each one of these factors comes with many
challenges for the leader of an organization, and all
four of them combined make it a virtual tsunami.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

INDIAN MANAGEMENT

SEPTEMBER 2015

73

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