Month: September 2022

Hello Everyone,

In this article, I have shared some of the business learning I have captured in the last year while managing & growing the Desktop product category at Lenovo.

Every financial year brings new opportunities & challenges to grow the business and with that comes lots of learning to capture which can be referred to anytime in future. Hence, I have built a habit of capturing the work learning every quarter. Here, I am sharing some of them I have captured last year.

1. Businesses get measured on quarterly results & so do employees who get measured on their quarterly performance. To achieve consistent performance, one should look at starting every quarter fresh with a clean slate. Whether the previous quarter/s went bad or if it was a successful one; one shouldn’t carry the baggage of a bad quarter to the next one as it can limit your motivation likewise don’t get carried away by the excellent results of the previous quarter, else the complacent mindset can take your attention away from the goal.

• Doing the same thing every quarter may not ensure success every quarter, what worked last quarter may not be exactly applicable to achieving success as every quarter demands different approaches or strategies to grow the business. The marketplace is dynamic and competition is intense & fast increasing, your last quarter approach may not help you win in the next quarter, hence you need to keep thinking of different ways of delivering business growth. Be prepared to create a new approach.

• Success or failure always has a variable component called as luck or uncertainty, which you can’t completely avoid. However, by managing oneself well, and by consistently putting in the effort, you can come closer to decently executing every quarter if not in an exceptional way. As luck favours you when you consistently do hard work, despite the success or failure of the previous quarter/s.

• Like failure, success also is transitory and short-lived. One should keep himself grounded and continue doing hard work every day. You will have your moments of luck, but you may also have a difficult time where despite putting effort you will not get results, nevertheless keep putting effort.
• Be consistent in tracking and following up on every business opportunity: upcoming customer requirements or custom orders. Generating business in today’s competitive landscape is tough, one needs to really work hard, and stretch oneself to be able to win more in the marketplace. The key is to apply efforts and energy in most of the opportunities that come to your attention daily. You can’t afford to miss more than a couple of these opportunities. Any small business opportunity to which you have not been paying attention can become a very big opportunity in no time.

• Once you cross a certain threshold after putting consistent efforts, you build momentum which helps to get disproportional results, appreciation starts coming your way disproportionately when you do something good consistently. Hence the best alternative to avoid underperformance and mediocrity is the consistency of efforts.

• Involve stakeholders and take their support: Each business goal is a team goal hence you can’t do it all alone, neither it is expected of you to do it all alone, hence do involve stakeholders & take their support. Since it is a team goal, stakeholders will also be keen to support it. Take proactive steps to reach out to stakeholders in advance, and keep them informed of the challenges and help required to win. In difficult times, keep the management updated on the business outlook more frequently so that they are aware and confident in you to handle the challenge.
• Collaborate and Act Fast on your actions: Collaborate with cross-functional teams, keep them updated on your ask and the support you are looking for, and act fast on any action if it is due to you. This helps faster closure of the task that you had intended to do in the first place.

• Organize your work: Everyone has an equal number of limited hours in a day, by organizing your work you can focus on what tasks to do and prioritize the important ones. A well-organized and structured plan is like half the battle won, having no plan is like standing in ‘no man’s land’.

1. Make your weekly task organizer and calendar:  Organizing your daily tasks has a huge impact on your daily productivity. I use the below weekly task organizer/calendar where I plan my activities and important tasks for the day on a sheet. I outline the expected important tasks for the week & for the day. This helps me put down all the important tasks & allows me to set priorities between tasks. This has immensely helped me to be more productive & focused. I also record my activities/time spent every 30 minutes; this not only helps to record my time but also helps me to analyze how much time I am spending in different areas, which I can review and take action.

All the above are my personal learning from the experiences I have had. Do drop in your comments if you resonate with these or have any thoughts or feedback. Thanks for reading!