Mukesh Gupta's Blog, page 36

Game Theory – Gladiators, Pirates and Games of trust by Haim Shapira

I recently finished reading a book by Haim Shapira – Gladiators, Pirates and Games of trust. I must say that is probably the best introduction that I could have got to the field of game theory.

Game theory is all about interactive decision making – which is what we do in life day in and day out. So, I believe that it makes sense to learn about the topic and get some insights about games people play and learn how to avoid some of the most common mistakes we end up doing and in the process...

Starting a Digital Transformation Journey

[image error] Premise:

It seems like there can’t be a day that goes by when I don’t hear the word transformation being tossed around, usually with the prefix – Digital. At a deep level, I think everyone knows and understands that transformation of any kind is not only difficult but in most cases has an extremely low probability of success.

The term digital transformation is a misnomer which has quite a lot of people confused. It is first and foremost transformation, of course enabled by digital...

Being Intentional About our Attention

We now pay for content all the time:

We pay a monthly fee for accessing video content online (Netflix and it’s like) We pay a monthly fee for accessing music online (Apple Music and it’s like) We pay a monthly fee for accessing magazines online (NewYorker and it’s like) We pay a monthly fee for accessing news online (New York Times and it’s like) We pay a monthly fee for getting goods delivered to us (Amazon and it’s like) We pay a monthly fee for creating & accessing content online (Medium...

The Difficulty of Being in the Present Moment and Strategies to Overcome it

Premise:

Earlier today, I came across a blog post on The School of Life blog about the difficulty of being in the present. You can read the entire post here. It so happens that I’ve been having a conversation with my wife and son recently about the same topic (which is a slightly better way of saying that both of them don’t think I am being present in the moment when I am with them).

I do accept this as a fact as I am mostly in the midst of either looking at my past or looking forward to my...

Seizing the day with principles of Improv Comedy | Anil Abraham | TEDxSJMC

One of the things that I talk about in my book Thrive, is about the mindset of “Yes And”. This comes from the world of improvisation comedy. This mindset indicates that the best way forward in any situation in life, as in an improvisational comedy session, is to first agree and accept what has already happened and then build on it.

“Yes” part of the mindset is about acceptance of what has preceded or what has already happened.

“And” part of the mindset is about building on top of what has...

The Act of Leading Vs Being a Leader

Premise:

I was talking to one of my friends about leadership and what it means to be a leader and is there a distinction between being a leader and the act of leading. What follows is my understanding of the difference. Would be a great to riff at this.

Apart from the fact that one is a verb and the other is a noun, there are a few other important things that we need to understand.

The Act of Leading:

The act of leading implies two things

It is an act (with a beginning, middle and an end) ...

How To Choose The Best Idea Amongst All to Execute

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I am sure that we all get into a situation where we are required to come up with a set of ideas that will solve a specific problem that we have run into. The question then is how one decides which ideas deserve to be picked from the bunch of ideas that we came up with. We need some sort of a framework that will allow us to decide the value of each of the idea so that we can pick one that is most valuable.

EPIC framework:

One such framework was suggested by Todd Henry in his latest...

You Can’t Innovate when

You don’t know what problem you are solving, and for whom

You want the innovation project to go strictly according to plan

You don’t have a team which is diverse and engaged

You don’t use an innovation framework (any framework would do)

The team is not given the tools, training, time and a teacher

You’re afraid to make a mistake

You’re responsible to innovate but never have the authority (budgets or access) needed to innovate

There is no significant insight that is driving the project

The team is afraid of calling out if and when “the emp...

The True Face of Fear and Reality

Premise:

As creative professionals, we all face our demons and struggles with all kinds of fears. What we would all benefit from is to realise that most of the times, our anticipation of fear is a lot worse than it really is.

I came across this short video about an angler fish and it immediately appealed to me and my understanding of fear and wanted to share this with all of you. 

I will let you watch this 3.5 min video first. 

Not sure if this was the intent of the team that put together this video, but I think i...

ABC – Always be challenging

Seth Godin recently wrote a blog post “The Big Fish Theory” that made me think.

In the post he argues that in markets, the most dominant player has the distinct advantage that most consumers choose them by default as they want to be safe and it is not worth the time and effort to look at all the options available and make a choice. It’s easier and safer to choose the market leader. So, the decision in that case is not to go and be a big fish in a large market but to define the market such th...