Flexibility Is The Key Strategy

IT IS, PERHAPS, only human tendency to frame the times that one lives in as exceptional in the flow of history.

- Anirvan Pant

And writing in business and management anyway tends to valorise change and novelty, with just a dash of exaggeration. So, it is not surprising that management writers have taken to the phrase ‘Vuca’ (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) with such zest. The term, which originated in the US military, has been adopted in a wholesale manner by business leaders, gurus, and observers to describe today’s business environment. If today’s environment is truly Vuca, one wonders how one may characterise the aftermath of the OPEC oil crisis in 1973, or – for Indian executives– the tumultuous decade starting with the MRTP Act in 1969. Be that as it may, the authors of the intriguingly titled Riding the Tiger: How to Execute Business Strategy in India ask themselves, what can we say about strategy execution that explains success (and failure) in the ‘Vuca’ world of contemporary India? That’s an interesting question, and the authors – who strive here to organise their work in terms of the strategy frameworks proposed by Michael Porter (‘What is Strategy?’) and A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin (Playing to Win) – seek to provide the reader insights into the art of ‘riding the tiger.’