EP #8: Entrepreneurs — From Failure to Success (ft. Lak Ananth)

Entrepreneurs — From Failure to Success (ft. Lak Ananth)

Why do some ventures succeed and others fail— and why do some succeed and then fail? Find out this week with guest Lak Ananth.

OPENING QUOTE:

“The lesson to draw for even somebody that's working at a large organization is to value their cycle time. Don't spend all your time in aligning, and having the next meeting, and finding a reason to have a next meeting. If you have an idea, and you have tested it and there's some conviction, then the best thing to do is to have the shortest cycle time to actually trying it and then progressing it forward.”

—Lak Ananth

GUEST BIO:

Lak Ananth is a corporate entrepreneur, leveraging industry change and disruption opportunities to bring together innovation strategy, venture investments, acquisitions, and partnerships. At Cisco Systems, Lak enabled acquisitions in excess of $4.5 billion, before moving to Hewlett-Packard to lead their Pathfinder organization. Lak is recognized as one of the Top 30 corporate venturing leaders, and is also the author of Anticipate Failure, an entrepreneur’s guide to avoiding disaster and being successful that has many lessons for the wider organizational world.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[13:12] - From Entrepreneur to Executive

The difficult but essential transition

Very few people have the skills and attributes to be an effective entrepreneur and company founder, and even fewer among them have the ability to transition from an innovator to a leader of their company’s day-to-day needs. Those who are able to develop their leadership skills alongside their creative innovating skills are the ones who create companies with longevity.

[23:16] - The Dangers of “Alignment”

The double-edged sword of getting on the same page

Lak discusses the dangers of waiting for ‘alignment’ on a direction or project within an organization. Everybody wants to be aligned— taking an idea, seeing whether it’s worth pursuing, brainstorming, developing pages of PowerPoints, etc. But if you’re not careful, you can spend so much time and resources discussing a path forward that you never actually take a step in any direction.

[28:59] - Study Failure to Find Success

Discussing the inspiration behind Lak’s book, Anticipate Failure

While countless business books have been centered around how to ensure success, fewer focus on what causes companies to fail. According to Lak, the teams that are ultimately successful are the ones that can instinctively identify potential points of failure and diagnose them before they derail a company’s growth.

[34:45] - Making Big Companies Small

What’s lost and gained when a company grows

When a company moves from a small startup to a larger enterprise, one thing that is lost is the instant feedback, honesty, and intellectual trust between close-knit teams. But if that can be protected, fostered, and ensured in a large company, imagine what you can accomplish? Maintaining a sense of personal ownership can help avoid ‘armchair quarterbacks’ and keep people actively engaged in finding solutions.

[41:29] - There is No Five-Year Plan

Want to prepare for the future? Prepare for change.

While every company wants to lock-in the perfect long-term strategy, the world is simply too volatile to predict what will work five or even two years from now. So the key is to focus on making your company agile and adaptable, not slotting it into a trajectory that feels good now but may not make sense down the road and will be difficult to extricate your company from until it’s too late.

RESOURCES:

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CREDITS: