CONVERTING THE ‘ABILITY TO LEARN' INTO A STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

Learning is also not easy. It is an intellectual nightmare as what we have learnt in our past experiences, school and college are often taken as definitions and agreed upon. It is also psychologically difficult because learning points to uncomfortable truths at times. As Peter Thiel, the legendary venture capitalist says ‘brilliant thinking is rare but courage is in shorter supply’.

- Rajesh Nair Associate Partner, Ernst & Young LLP

As early stage investors, we often ask entrepre-neurs to get on with the task rather than languishing for long hours in fine tuning a business plan or perfecting the business powerpoint presentation. This is not to chide or belittle the importance of a robust business plan but to focus on execution and more importantly find the crucible of issues where one may need to learn or to pivot. The word ‘pivot’ is a relatively new ‘jargon’, and it simply means to reorient focus and change the core business fundamentals and objectives that an entrepreneur begins with. It is of high imperative because of all the winds of change – technology, business outlook, reach, new products etc. It is also because today’s business can be deciphered better using first principles rather than formula driven approaches. We are not often presented a cosmic menu of business directions but the need to rewrite the original plans we began with.

Data, diligent analysis and a prescient business framework for thinking and thinking through options provide a helpful structure for planning. All these need an open mind and the ability to learn. Learnability is often underrated or taken as granted – ‘of course the ability to learn and change is important’, but we do not see as a strategic advantage. This is relevant equally for professionals as much as for organisations. We often rely completely on existing data. While it is important, there are often trajectories which are new, and you will not always find numbers which will help us conjure the story. Imagination is equally important. Imagination is not dreaming our new contexts but learning from trends and questioning the direction which we often take. C.S Lewis famously said – Imagination is the organ of meaning!