"I discarded many of the conventional explanations of success"

I was looking through my book shelf yesterday. All of them were written before the Covid crisis. One question kept coming up. How relevant are these books? And the theories/ hypothesis/frameworks they presented.

To find out I picked up Dr Ram Charan's book "Know-How. The 8 skills that separate people who perform from those who don't"

What are the 8 Skills Dr Ram Charan talks about?

1. Know-How - The substance of Successful Leaders
2. The Foundation - The Positioning and Repositioning The Business To Make Money
3. Before The Point Tips - Connecting Dots by Pinpointing and Taking Action on Emerging Patterns of External Change
4. Herding Cats - Getting People to Work Together by Managing The Social System Of Your Business
5. How Leaders Are Made - Judging, Selecting and Developing Leaders
6. Unity Without Uniformity - Molding a Team Of Leaders
7. It's Monday Morning - Now What?
8. In The Court Of Public Opinion
9. Letter to a Future Leader
10. The Eight Know-Hows

Know-How

"Know-How is about what you must both do and be able to lead your business in what is shaping up to be the most challenging business environment. It plants business leadership squarely in what is shaping up to be the most challenging business environment in decades.

You will be constantly tested for your know-how to lead your business in the right direction.

Can you position your business by finding the central idea that meets customer demands and makes money?

Are you able to pinpoint external change by detecting patterns ahead of others and put your business on the offensive?

Do you know how to lead the social system of your business by getting the right people together with the right behaviours to make better, faster decisions and achieve business results?

Can you judge people by finding their best talents based on facts and observations and match them with the job?

Are you moulding a team by getting highly competent leaders to submerge their egos and co-ordinate seamlessly?

Do you know how to develop goals by balancing what the business can become with what it can realistically achieve, not merely looking at the rear-view mirror and making incremental adjustments to what's been done before?

Can you set laser-sharp priorities by defining the specific tasks that align resources, actions and energy to accomplish the goals?

Can you deal with forces beyond the market by creatively and positively responding to societal pressures you don't control but that significantly impact your business?

It is an amazing book with clear pinpointed questions and excellent examples.

In the last section he lists personal traits that can help or interfere with the know-hows. The traits are Ambition, Drive and Tenacity, Self-confidence, Psychological Openness, Realism, and Appetite for Learning

He has also listed Cognitive traits that improve the Know-Hows

A Wide Range of Attitudes, A broad Cognitive Bandwidth, and Ability to Reframe.

The rest of the sections too are as detailed and helpful. And motivating. The last section is a veritable bonus. It is a letter to a future leader written by Dr Ram Charan. About eight pages long. Worth reading every word in it.

I enjoyed reading it not only because of the clarity and conviction with it is written. But also for the empathy Dr Ram Charan has for the future leader.