We say ‘Journey is the reward’. My reward during a recent travel was a wonderful question asked to me by SriLekha. She wanted to know which among the 2 was important
1. Doing Different Things or
2. Doing Things Differently.
It was an interesting question and majority of the people think ‘doing things differently’ is important for them in their life.
Let us decide what is important after setting a context to this. If we set entrepreneurship as the context, then ‘doing different things’ and ‘doing things differently’ become 2 sides of the same coin and both become important.
1. Entrepreneurs are trend setters, not followers! They do different things. They take the road less taken or they even take the roads that are never taken. This is a leadership act. ‘Doing Different Things’ should lead to innovation and trend setting business.
2. It is also important to do things differently to make the new business trend more efficient.  ‘Doing Things Differently’ is a measure for productivity and should translate into better results.
‘Doing Different Things’ should help an entrepreneur to get a good Start. It’s also important to Lead; so adapt to ‘Doing Things Differently’ also.

One common refrain we hear in the modern times from people is that they are very busy. Everyone has one thing in common, that is 24 hours a day. How each individual uses the same number of hours is what matters.

Hard work is not an option to achieve something in life, but smart work is!

Smart work is when we work very hard and we are able to accomplish more work, in lesser time, with better results, and with optimized use of available resources. If Hard Work and Smart Work are the two sides of the same coin, Prioritization is the strong metal holding either sides together.

Once there was a demonstration by a teacher in a university. The teacher had a big glass beaker and filled it with large stones and asked the students, ‘If the beaker was full?’ The class responded immediately with a ‘YES’. The teacher then picked some small pebbles and added to the beaker and it could take it. The teacher again asked the class, ‘If the beaker was full’? The class again responded with a ‘yes’. The teacher picked a packet full of sand and poured into the beaker and the beaker could accommodate it. Teacher again asked the class, ‘If the beaker was full’? This time students were hesitant to say yes and they were right…Teacher pulled up a water bottle and poured water into the beaker. It was not a surprise that the whole bottle of water could fill into the beaker. The teacher then asked the students, ‘What did you learn from this?’.

The message is loud and clear from this experiment that, in our day to day activity, there would be many tasks. The smartness is in putting the big stones first, in other words prioritizing and attending to important ones first and then life can accommodate many more things by still being efficient. On the other hand, if the beaker was filled with water first, even an addition of a small pebble would end up with overflow of water.

First Things First, that’s the way to get smarter…

This reminds me of a wonderful book ‘First Things First’ by Stephen R Covey and his quote “Effective Leadership is putting First Things First. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out”.

Risk is an inherent part of any business or even life itself. The success of any organization depends on how it is able to mitigate and manage its risk.

It’s just not enough to assess and know ones risk appetite, it is also important to consider other factors such as:

$ Risk : Reward (Risk Reward Ratio) - What is the forecasted return? The return is the reward for the initiative.

$ The Timing - When should the risk be taken?

$ Building Buffer - 80:20 rule applies here. For example, if your risk taking quotient is 100 you should take the risk upto 80 and the other 20 is the buffer. Navigation (forward movement) is second to survival. Imagine yourself in water, your body constitutes to 80% and the head (including the face) constitutes 20%. You need to breathe to survive, so keep your head in the air.

$ Logical Link – The decisions should be rational. Follow the logical flow.

We have heard that ‘High Risk, High Reward’, then the question is ‘How to Increase the Risk Appetite?’

One of the ways to increase risk appetite is to share the risk. It should also mean to share the rewards appropriately.

The following points will help an organization to increase its risk appetite:

$ Strong Structure – The foundation of the organization should be strong. (a) Best leverage of the network of people in the existing circle. (b) Having a compelling business model and right processes to facilitate. (c) Getting strong board members to provide solid foundation and (d) Getting good advisors which strengthens the structure of the organization.

$ Powerful Partners – Get the right kind of people to invest in right proportions. They should also add great value.

$ Correct Configuration - Bring in committed complementarily skilled people to work together.

These will reduce and minimize the impact of the risk, in other words it will increases the risk appetite and will enable organizations to scale to greater heights.

“You miss a 100% of the shots that you never take” – Wayne Gretzky