What I learned from Mr Gopal Vittal at Airtel – Part 2

In continuation of my learnings from Airtel CEO Mr. Gopal Vittal, I present in this post the complementary learning that builds on the “AND”.

One cannot really achieve multiple things at the same time, especially the things that may seem contradictory or orthogonal. The second trick I learned from him is as below:-

De-Average, De-Average, De-Average

Ever heard your leaders talk in terms of averages? Many of us measure our performances in “Average”,

• Our Average Growth last year was…
• Our Average Profit last year was…
• On Average, we have had a retention rate of…

What if we base all our decisions on averages?

Did you enjoy lectures where the hall was filled with people at various skill levels and the Speaker decided to satisfy the “Average” level?

• what if you were already beyond what was being told? I guess you would be bored,
• or you found the content far beyond your grasp? I guess you would be frustrated.

In either case, the solution chosen by the speaker is never going to be a fit. Averages do not provide insights, averages may sometimes plunge us into inaction or sometimes grossly wrong actions. Ever encountered a story of a mathematician, who wanted to cross a water stream with the maximum depth of one meter? He calculated the average height of the family including his wife and two kids to be more than one meter and confidently asked all to cross, I guess we can all deduce the fate of the children.

Organizations many time build their strategies on averages and fail. I learned from Gopal to look for details, within averages, there are outliers, some below and some above, and they can offer great insights. The worst performing circle (geographical business region) may have a city that is performing far above average and the best performing circle may have a city that is performing below many cities in poor circles, and each such instance will give you an insight, a pointer that will lead you to create a strategy that does address the problems and gains from the best practices. The secret is to De-Average and just to emphasize it, De-Average and again De-Average.

This lesson was the second most valuable lesson for me from Gopal and I can never thank him enough for sharing these great insights, simple yet effective. Hope you enjoy using these in your own ways.

In my next post, I will continue to share insights from other leaders that I met during my days at Airtel, so stay tuned.