Case Analysis: The Choices You Make

Different sounds can be mixed in infinite combinations. Some will create music, rest will be noise. Likewise, different colours when mixed can either produce a picture or an abstract.

Life is also the same — a combination of choices we make. Further, we know that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder — so, the combination that works for you is unique. While you can be inspired by the choices made by others, you still have to make and own up to your own choices.

The complex web of choices are intertwined beyond comprehension, are conflicting with other choices, are clashing with choices of others around you and mostly demand extensive alignment with the current context of your life. This case study on Luxetta and its employees presents the dilemmas in making such choices as wisely as possible to produce congruent outcomes.

As I mentor leaders, executives and people at large, I find that while the algorithm to resolve these dilemmas may be impossible to crack, some frameworks can be adopted to offer clarity in making wise choices. Remaining contextually relevant to this case study, I am listing selected 10 such fundamentals attempting to put John Kramer’s life and death in perspective.

1. Choose Your Goals Wisely: Everything is finite, so why have unlimited ambitions? Do not get so engrossed in the grind that you make your goals as a subset to that of the organisation. Individualisation of goals is imperative. Else it is an endless journey with no destination and hence no fulfilment. You need to stop comparing yourself to other people. Else you will end up setting relative goals that are not truly reflecting what you want. Circling back, you cannot want everything in your goals.
 

Vineet Kapoor

2. Choose Your Job Wisely: Do not try and grab all opportunities that come your way. Standing at a Y-point ahead, you cannot choose to travel on both divergent paths. Even the stretch that seems manageable now will become impossible sooner than later. Simple decision is to find the overlap of (a) what you are good at; (b) what you like doing; and (c) what you believe in. Mostly people end up doing things in a job that they find are irrelevant but are being done to please someone or to keep busy or to chase the tail.

3. Choose Your Load Wisely: Yes is not the answer to everything that the business or the boss wants. What John did by choosing multiple assignments across completely different time-zones was like signing a death warrant for himself. Keep your exertion levels under control. Every battery has a life and then it needs to be recharged.

Listen intently to your body. Do not expend all your energy on only one aspect of your life. Do not try the physically impossible. Moreover, business is not a solo sport. Be smart in how much you stretch and where you should stop being the only go-to-man. Define your thresholds on what is reasonable and accordingly take pressure from your business/boss.

4. Choose Your Addictions Wisely: We do things as we always do them because we get used to the comfort of doing them the same way. Let me highlight two specific addictions in this case:

(a) Laziness: Procrastination does not help but we still do it. Before we know, it gets out of control. Let us say, by nature we cannot entirely eliminate it. So best we can do is to limit it and minimise it.

(b) Achievement: Achievement breeds the need for higher achievement. We set out to achieve something and then the sense of success drives us to set new goals to achieve more. Before we realise it, we make our goals a moving target — making it an obsession to achieve. We stop living the joy of what we have done and remain hungry for more; and hence discontented with what we have achieved so far.

5. Choose Your Speed Wisely: Rash driving can get you there faster? Not assured! Not always! Moreover, at that hectic speed imagine what you missed experiencing on your way. Life and career is not a sprint. Be it short-, medium- or long-term goals, there should be enough breathing time. Gasping your way to the end will only get you one medal — but by then, the bigger trophy would have been lost. It is important to slow down to run fast. You cannot compromise your balance to move fast.

6. Choose Your Battles Wisely: What do you do when you find yourself stuck in a dead-end job or with a dead-end boss? Find another one. This clarity also balances your temperament to make the most of it till you are stuck there. Do not take things personally. Business environment is indeed all equations. After all, the engagement between you and the organisation is contractual — and reversible. Whereas your other identities are defined by nature and mostly more precious.

No value attaching emotions in the workplace and putting in efforts to prove a point. Ignore the dog barking on the road — as a sane passerby do not engage in a battle with the dog. Some unchecked emotions can render you vulnerable and drained. Negative conflicts and meaningless competition may cause severe damage and leave you disillusioned and unhappy.

7. Choose Your Attitude Wisely: Your happiness is up to you and no one else. Attitude and battles are two sides of the same coin – internal and external respectively. You ought to be thick skinned about things beyond your control. While it is impossible to ignore what others think or say about you (or for that matter, what they expect from you), you can always practice building some immunity by consuming feedback without paying heed beyond your own self-image.

Likewise, you may rather not indulge in petty bickering behind others. The point is not to spiral into a comparison with others. Nor get stuck in a half glass empty depression. Craft your own carefree state. Do not look for perfection in everything.

8. Choose Your Routines Wisely: In the current context, I will split this between discipline, diet and duty. Enough is said about this for everyone to know the importance of nurturing all no less than the other. Discipline is like stamina. It is built over time. Breaking out of sedentary lifestyles is possible.

Diet is an informed selection you make. There are many schools of thought on this one — pick and stick to one that you believe aligns with your idea of health. Eat and drink what your metabolism allows. Duty is towards your work, your family and most importantly towards yourself. You cannot make your job your only duty. Your body is all you have got. You can nurture it with care or ignore it to ruin.

9. Choose Your Tradeoffs Wisely: How do you allocate your mix of time, mind, energy and emotions amongst your multiple identities in life? Today, you try and achieve a healthy work-life blend — no longer work-life balance. In the hyper connected world, getting delinked is no longer a good option. Also, work from home was not an option in the older era of workplaces. Now work offers you more flexibility — clearly in return for a commitment to be more productive. As long as you have made the right choice, work is life too. This flexibility to blend can be the lever to a life of moderation.

10. Choose Your Upgrades Wisely:  Continuously strive for the next level of knowing yourself. Renew your understanding of your own body, your mind, your capabilities, your limits, your aspirations, your knowledge and more everything about you. Clear as much clutter as possible. It is not done once and for all. It is a never-ending journey to refine choices based on better understanding of your own self. Also, as you learn more and upskill yourself, you are better geared to adapt to the ever-increasing demands of the business world.

I will summarise this with two messages:

1) Own up your choices. No one else is going to live your life for you. You will experience your body and mind, howsoever you manage them.
2) Calibrate your choices for congruence. Actively review and renew your choices.

Every new choice you make may cause a distortion in other choices. It is like increasing one tone in the music or picture — it will create an imbalanced contrast. Do not ignore the signs. You will make and remake choices all your life. You need an ever-active choice equaliser.   

The writer is MD, INHX (Indian Healthcare Exchange) and Principal Mentor, Hilldom Growth Consulting. He is a keen analyst of the healthcare industry with primary focus on supply chain, medical devices and patient experience

(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 07-09-2015)