Message From MD January – 2023

Dear friends,

Welcome, 2023!

I wish all Assetians good health, fortune, happiness, and success. May the upcoming year bless you with promotion and prosperity in your personal life and career. Happy New Year, 2023! This year grants you everything you wish for and brings you success in every aspect.

As all of you know, New Year resolutions are a tradition, most common in the western world but also found in the eastern world nowadays, in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired behaviour or accomplish a personal goal at the beginning of every calendar year. Despite the best intentions, once the glow of a fresh new year wears off, many people struggle to make good on their plans. Ambitious New Year resolutions often end in disappointment. According to research, over half of the people who set a goal for the new year used to fail to accomplish the targets. I don’t want you to be in the camp of folks who fail to achieve their aspirations and dreams for 2023. So instead of setting unrealistic goals in 2023, I request you to consider making smaller, simpler changes—and they just might see better results.

My professors at Harvard Business School, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka, co-authors of the book “THE WISE COMPANY“, recently developed six practices to make a better future, to help leaders focus on the most important drivers of simultaneous success for themselves, their companies, and the world at large.

As we gain the ability to collect and analyse more data more quickly, decision-making and problem-solving have become increasingly complex. Many people look to technology to solve modern problems, but the more technology advances, the more human reasoning and creativity are often needed to shape and apply it. To exercise those human strengths and remain centred amid mounting complexity, he recommends developing and using kata, a Japanese word that means specific routines, as a means to keep your thoughts and actions in sync with your mission, whether on a personal level or within the business context.

Please start the practice by asking the right questions. The wise people don’t give the right answers; he poses the right questions. Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers. An expert knows all the answers – if you ask the right questions.

In the coming year, consider resolving to retrain your mind to think in terms of “both/and” instead of “either/or”. Changing how we frame debates within ourselves can result in understanding the business through a lens of oneness, where what is good for the person or company is also good for society. On a very practical level, we need to think of the oneness of nature and our business.

Empathy is essential for maintaining healthy relationships with clients, customers, vendors, team members or any other person. It might seem like people are either empathetic or not, but you can increase your ability to empathise in the coming year.

Storytelling is the most effective way to communicate ideas and promote understanding. Being able to use metaphors and analogies effectively translates to the ability to persuade and affect change. Listening to the best speeches across the globe is recommended to improve your narration abilities.

Connecting with nature through a high-energy outdoor activity increases our appreciation of the need to live in harmony with it. As the world confronts climate change, resource depletion, deforestation, and other environmental challenges, it has never been more important for organisations to internalise these problems and find ways to help solve them. Living with nature can mean a quiet walk in the woods, but it can also involve experiencing the essence of your immediate surroundings in other ways.

I also feel these six practices make your way forward more clear and doubtless. This approach will help us to make our targets specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Friends, Each year’s regrets are envelopes in which messages of hope are found for the New Year. For a change, don’t add new things to your life as a new year’s resolution. Instead, do more of what’s already working for you and stop doing things that are a time waste.

Warm regards
Sunil Kumar V
Founder & Managing Director