Is Strategy the Salt of the Business?

With our “so that” strategy - called purpose innovation- receiving some positive reviews in the last few days, one of our fellow bloggers came up with a yet another “so what” question – i.e. “What if, our competitors also come up with a similar “so that” strategy? We agree that it is valid question - as most corporations these days invariably try to emulate the successful strategies of competitors, with a hope to reap the benefits of the second mover advantage. The question however, is how do we devise a holistic, yet well guarded strategy framework - that makes it difficult, or at a minimum prevents them from encroaching in to our first mover advantage. While no one can guarantee a 100% bullet proof strategy framework- ours, perhaps comes close to it, given the fact, it is being derived, not only from our unique purpose driven strengths/core competencies, but also, from our weaknesses - that are then balanced using nature’s principle of “balancing opposites”.

As it turns out – our strategy framework is built using our earlier “so that” strategy (i.e. purpose innovation) as the cornerstone – that is further augmented by three of its sister strategies - knitted together by PURPOSE in the middle balancing them using the “forces of attraction” -as outlined in the picture on the top of the page. Sounds too abstract, isn’t’ it? Well… as usual, we searched scriptures and few other sites for an appropriate metaphor to explain it – and the SALT metaphor fitted the bill this time, and so, salt is the emcee today for our additional inspiration.

Rightfully so, James Beard proclaimed - Where would we be without salt? - And, I couldn’t agree more. Without salt, our taste buds indeed will become senseless – and equally so, the seasoning of the food, as such, will also become meaningless! With that said, it is also fair to ask ourselves - while we all enjoy the seasoning flavor of salt in our foods- not sure, how many of us have paid a closer attention to some of its other remarkable usages!

With “Saltiness” as its core feature, salt exhibits itself in four different usage dimensions depending upon the way it is being used. First and foremost - salt is the primary ingredient of food seasoning as echoed by James Beard. In addition, as a preservative, salt prevents the decay & degradation of food –and as a disinfectant, it prevents the body parts from becoming septic (and even heals some ailments)-and, finally, it also acts as a thawing agent melting the ice on the roads, thus helping us in our busy morning commutes. I am sure- if we inventory some more, there will be few more ancillary usages as well.

Interestingly enough - our 10-box strategy model (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/07/where-eagles-dare-strategies-dare.html)
aligns perfectly with this salt metaphor - and rightfully so, our strategy framework is a logical extension of the 10 box strategy model – that is further enhanced by “PURPOSE” in the middle balancing the four profit strategy dimensions – using nature’s “forces of attraction” principle -as listed below (and on the picture on the top of the page).

• Differentiation strategies (e.g. our “so that” strategy called purpose innovation) to help us to stand apart in the market place leveraging our strengths and core competencies - equivalent to the seasoning dimension of salt (Offensive growth strategy).

• Prevention strategies to overcome/hide weaknesses with one’s strengths (and thereby preventing the onslaught from competitors) – which is equivalent to disinfectant dimension of salt (Defensive strategy).

• Exploitation strategies to exploit competitor’s weaknesses – equivalent to the “Thawing Agent” dimension of salt (Offensive growth strategy).

• Mitigation strategies (i.e. risk mitigation strategies) to reduce one’s vulnerability our weaknesses – equivalent to the preservative dimension of salt (Defensive strategy).

This all-inclusive, well guarded strategy framework - not only helps us to go on the offensive, but also helps us to defend ourselves from the offensive onslaught of the competitors. Yet another insightful part of this framework is the way, PURPOSE manifests itself in four profit strategy dimensions within the context of its seasons - very similar to- how salt, with its core feature of SALTINESS (symbolizing purpose) manifests itself in four different usage dimensions within the context of its seasons. As it turns out, salt with its core feature of saltiness - manifests in four usage dimensions simultaneously, within the context of its seasons-symbolizing the need for us also to “execute both” offensive (differentiation and exploitation) and defensive (prevention and mitigation) strategies simultaneously, as advised by Inder Sidhu and Roger Martin.

At the same time, it is equally important to highlight couple of seasonality insights we had covered in one of our earlier posts – a) balancing opposites does not necessarily mean assigning equal weight and b) seasonality also has other dimensions(place, money, markets etc.),apart from the primary dimension of time (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/10/within-eagles-fine-nest-strategy-is-at.html). With that said, it is important to highlight yet another important seasonality insight – that, even a simple misstep of executing a wrong strategy within a wrong season at times could also cost us fortunes – given the fact profits do not flow equally to all players in all seasons. This is one of the reasons, that we might be better of assigning more weight factor for defensive strategies (than offensive strategies) especially in those markets where our competitors are very strong (which perhaps is their forte). In other words, choosing the right strategy mix (with the right weight factor for the four strategy buckets within the context of its seasons) is both an art and science, as there is no silver bullet for thriving in this highly competitive, yet ever changing business environment of 21st century.

As we further observe the characteristics of our strategy framework within the context of this salt metaphor – salt with its saltiness, not only, just seasons the food, but also, serves other needs( disinfectant, preservative and a thawing agent) by renewing/maintaining (i.e. “not losing” to be precise) its SALTINESS. Speaking of salt "not losing" its saltiness – let us not forget the fact that – if salt loses its saltiness, it cannot be made salty again. In other words, saltiness is what makes salt to perform all of its usage functions, and so, if it loses its saltiness- it is worth nothing. Similarly, if our strategy, for some reason loses its purpose, it is very difficult to regain the confidence in the minds of our stakeholders , and so, it is important, that corporations pay a closer attention to the process of continuously renewing (or maintaining) our purpose – to keep the four dimensional holistic profit strategy cycle moving – very much like how saltiness is constantly renewed (maintained) to continue its four dimensional salt usage cycle moving- as summarized in the poem below.

Oh, Salt of the Earth… Aren’t you the Strategy of the business also? With your,
Seasoning strength, you source the sustaining secret -for differentiation,
Thawing tactics, you tweet the tooling technique -for exploitation,
Disinfecting defense, you draft the deviation detour- for prevention,
Preserving power, you plant the precautionary prescription -for mitigation, yet, by
Renewing your “saltiness (purpose)”, you improvise our innovative iteration,
Oh, Salt of the business…Without you where will we be?

Transforming the "So What" Opposites in to a “So That” Strategy called Purpose Innovation

The last few posts on the topic of “balancing opposites” have definitely made our blog readers to pay a closer attention to the ideas we have been promoting in the fast few weeks. Coincidentally enough, on the other day, one of our readers came up with a “So What?” question– which, in our opinion is a great sign – as, it is just a matter of time that they will transition from the “so what” camp in to the “so that” camp, as alluded in one of our earlier posts (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/09/transforming-what-aboutso-what.html). With that said, we are going to dedicate this post to answer that specific question- i.e. how do we transform these “so what” questions in to a “so that” strategy called “purpose innovation” within the context of balancing opposites?

First things first... what is this purpose innovation? As depicted in the graphics on the top of the page– when core and edge (or, in general, when opposites) are balanced , the “forces of attraction” from the core and edge participants of various related and unrelated industry verticals come together to unleash their synergistic purpose value in the form of a powerful innovation called - purpose innovation - with its three sub components -

• Boundryless purpose models - A stirred up view of edge opportunities, in the form of a “pull value chain” disrupting the traditional boundaries of related and unrelated industry verticals (CPG, Retail, Telecom/Hi-Tech, health care, Pharma, Insurance, Banking etc.) – who are knitted together with a “forces of attraction” from the “purpose value opposite pairs” such as Health &Wellness/Taste & Beauty, Sustainability/Maintainability, Mass Market/Personalized, Shareholder value/Community value and Externality/Internality - to name just a few.


• Boundryless Purpose bundles - A “causal chain” based dynamic bundle of products and services with a set of positive value incentives that are shared among all the players of the pull value chain (consumers and participants alike) who helped to create them- as incentives help catalyze collaborative action.
  


• Boundryless Purpose platforms* - A flexible foundational platform design that help to change the characteristics of the underlying product and services without changing the platform design significantly using the emerging technology and manufacturing/supply chain best practices - a huge capital cost saver.

I hear someone asking - how is this purpose innovation different from open or institutional innovation? In our opinion, purpose innovation is much broader. While open innovation focuses on leveraging third party resources to support organizations’ product and/or business model innovations, institutional innovation, in some cases, also expands the scope to include the core operating processes of partner’s value chain – but, still within a single or related industry verticals. On the other hand, purpose innovation goes few steps further – by creating a “pull value chain” across both related and unrelated industry vertical boundaries in the form of purpose models, purpose bundles and purpose platforms – that are knitted together with a powerful “forces of attraction” from the consumer consumption driven, causal chain based, “purpose value opposite pairs” as listed earlier.

Pull Value Chain - Explained

This "pull value chain", unlike the push model encourages decentralized, yet loosely coupled interactions among its players from both related and unrelated industry verticals facilitating much broader type of collaborative innovation, using the “forces of attraction” from the purpose value opposite pairs. This attraction in turn inherently makes the participants to come together with a causal chain relationship, thus making them highly scalable with diverse, yet complimentary set of talented resources. This type of unprecedented scalability is being achieved because of the “distributed talented workforce"- regardless of their location or country where the pull value chain’s operations are predominantly executed.

Granted – in some situations, we will need the push management techniques for better control - however, they are used only on a case by case basis, and not as a norm. Hence, the push model organizations –typically go through a mindset shift to effectively harness the potential of pull value chain –which brings up another point - that the purpose innovations, in some cases also might override local product and/or business model innovations within the context of creating big picture value for all the participants - instead of creating the value for just one participant.

Pull value chain, in addition also pulls consumers with the same forces of attraction by providing valuable incentives in the form of purpose bundles. In other words, pull value chain makes consumers as passive virtual business partners within the value chain, thus making consumers as their lifelong partners creating a different kind of consumer loyalty -called “composite brand loyalty”.

The 3P’s (Purpose Models, Purpose bundles and Purpose platforms) Explained

Purpose models are the revolutionary game changing business models that not only just reinvent the firm from product/business model innovation standpoint, but also, mutate the DNA of the brand at the nucleus level and make them to be a part of a “pull value chain” composite brand. In other words, business models usually shuffle the value chain activities of the firm within the four walls of the firm (or at the maximum within the industry or related industry verticals) whereas, purpose models go few more steps further - shuffle the value chain activities of both related and unrelated vertical boundaries– and, then re-purposes the vision/mission of those brands (as both standalone and composite brands), with a causal chain based purpose bundles- that are knitted together by the “forces of attraction” resulting from balancing the “purpose value opposites” (i.e. the example value pairs as identified earlier).

Similarly, Purpose bundles are the causal chain based “consumer consumption” driven “day in the life” type dynamic bundles of products and services from variety of related and unrelated industry vertical providers that are bundled together by the “forces of attraction” from the “value opposites” – thus, providing a better value for the purpose minded consumers who are committed to a leading a purpose life style. For example, under this model, a Health and Wellness/Green minded consumer (who is also a passive partner of the pull value chain), will get a better value when they purchase a dynamic purpose bundle of “health insurance along with a variety of H&W based durables and non durable P&S and workout services” in a price that is in proportion to their purpose scores. The causal chain relationship rationale here is that- those consumers, who eat healthy organic food, apply natural beauty treatments to their bodies and exercise well will have a healthy life - and hence they deserve a better health insurance premium and so on and so forth. Extending the context of the this causal chain rationale, one can also say- that the more products and services consumers add to their causal chain - the more their purpose scores - and hence, better the value.

Likewise, Purpose Platforms are the foundational infrastructure enablers of the purpose models (and purpose bundles) providing the flexible platform design (with principles like JIT, lean manufacturing, tapered integration etc.) to help change the “relevance, access and value” characteristics of the underlying products and services - without significantly changing the platform design. This is a great value-add feature – that these purpose platforms are designed with a flexible design using emerging cloud based miniaturized manufacturing technologies (& nano- technologies) - as they help to change the characteristics of product and services without changing the underlying platform design – which is huge capital cost saver for the "pull value chain" participants.

Bottom line: History is filled with many examples of business concepts becoming successful – only when they “go along with the gradient” in alignment with the nature’s principles. And so, if history repeats itself (as it has done in the past), our purpose innovation has a great potential to be the next wave of disruptive innovation -as it, not only just disrupts the current “push value chain model”, but also, goes along with the gradient (in alignment with the “forces of attraction” principle from balancing the “purpose value opposites”) – as outlined in our blogs -and summarized in the poem below.

Opposites attract opposites for creation to procreate,
Positives exert negatives for the creature to illuminate,
Profits revert purposes for corporations to innovate,
Yet, likes retract likes for them to continue to be unlit,
Like the unlit* Almighty- as He has no opposites!

* That’s why Solomon among other wise men/yogis of yester-years, depict the Almighty to be residing in the inner most court in utter darkness- in alignment with nature’s “forces of attraction” principle -as evidenced in the scriptures of both west and east alike!

Within Eagle’s fine nest, Strategy is at its finest… on its crest, Innovation is at its best!

Courtesy - Google's eagle images assembled/modified with our inspiration

Over the last few days, I have received quite a few informal questions - the most notable one being is about -the recent “Redefined Value equation” principle, not complimenting our earlier principle of “Strategize from the Core and Innovate from the Edge”. In other words, how is it possible for “Core and Edge” to perform their respective “strategize and innovate” functions, and yet balance each other as a “cohesive whole” simultaneously?

While these principles might sound like a paradox on the surface –beneath them, they indeed complement one another. As I was thinking about the best way to explain this paradox, I was immediately reminded of our Eagle metaphor (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/07/strategy-is-like-eagles-mounting-up.html) -and so, decided to go back to the eagles for additional inspiration. With most of eagle’s characteristics being already covered in our earlier blogs, I was definitely challenged to come up with yet another compelling inspiration to explain this paradox. However, with eagle being symbolized to the “Almighty God” in the scriptures- the mother eagle did not disappoint us again- with her never-drying reservoir of compelling inspirations!

With that said, I must admit that it is not an exaggeration to say that eagle’s life is full of poetical inspirations- whether it be their structural beauty, rhythmic energy or inspirational insights - and, today’s inspiration is no exception either–as it is about “the mother eagle stirring up her nest” within the context of its seasons. As I started visualizing this stirring up event in eagle’s life – I was amazed how God’s creatures are wonderfully made to be the best strategy teachers. In other words, the mother eagle herself has become our strategy teacher today, explaining this seemingly opposing paradox, with an eagleical* poetry –


Transforming our quest in to her inspiring thirst, by
Turning her fine nest in to strategy’s fine nest (finest),
Making her crest as innovation’s bee nest (best), yet
Sustaining her thirst without going to rest, until
Re-cycling our (strategic) zest in to her seasonal quest!

With all the pun aside, I guess it is time to stir up our inspiration! We all have seen eagle’s nest being knitted together very high on the branches of a tree or in the edges of a cliff. However, not many of us, perhaps, have had the opportunity to glimpse at it from inside though. Apparently, the mother eagle starts the nest knitting process with wild thorns, broken branches, sharp rocks, and a number of other construction materials like a seasoned “strategist/operator” from “Eagle Nest Inc”. But then, she lines up her nest with a thick padding of wool, feathers, and fur from the wild animals on top of them making it soft and comfortable for the eggs. By the time, the eaglets reach the flying age, the comfort of the nest make them quite reluctant to leave the nest. That’s when the mother eagle decides to stir up the nest. With her strong talons, she begins pulling up the thick carpet of fur and feathers, bringing the sharp rocks and branches to the surface. As more and more of the comfortable cushion gets plucked up, the nest becomes uncomfortable for the young eaglets to live there anymore– and eventually, making them to move on to its crest.

Similarly, by the time the core reaches its maturity (or the flying stage), the comfort of the nest, or the so called, continuous revenue streams indeed make them reluctant to innovate. That’s when our “purpose-profit balanced strategy” (like the mother eagle) must start “stirring up the core” with its strong talon like “differentiating strategies” -and pull up the thick carpet of “easy revenue streams”, thus bringing the reality of disruptive innovation opportunities (or threats) to the surface. As more and more of these opportunities come to the surface (both from within and from the competitors), the nest becomes uncomfortable for the core, and eventually making them to re-examine their successful products and business models- and to prepare them to innovate with an edge.

Yet another insightful part of this stirring up event is- how the mother eagle starts the stirring up process within the context of its seasons. As it turns out, the mother eagle takes good care of its eaglets during their growing up stages with a fine nest –symbolically making - “strategy to be its finest” (or in alignment with the strategize from the core principle). However, as the season starts changing – the same mother eagle, starts stirring up the nest (or disrupts the core) - symbolically making –“innovation to be its best” (or in alignment with innovate from the edge principle).

The stirring up event does not stop there either. The mother eagle (after stirring up the nest), apparently starts walking down deep in to its nest (eagle’s nest can be of 10 feet deep!), gathers all of its eaglets on to its wings, and then starts the flight to its crest. What happens in the air is all the more intriguing – the mother eagle, apparently starts shaking those eaglets off -just to teach them the strategy lesson– “what it takes to be an eagle”– symbolizing, how a “purpose-profit balanced strategy” is supposed to use an edge (or disruptive innovation) opportunity to disrupt the core. On situations, when those eaglets slip and fall – the mother eagle,apparently stoops down below, lifts them back on to its wings - and the acrobatic flight lesson continues till the eaglets start flying on their own.

As we observe this this end-to-end stirring up event - the mother eagle, not only, stirs up the eaglets, but also, shakes them off in the air, until they start flying on their own. Let us face it – had not the mother eagle started stirring up those eaglets (and shake them off in the air), those eaglets would be just enjoying the cozy life, never would have learned to fly at all (as there is no incentive for them to leave the nest). And, above all –they never, ever would have got the opportunity to build the nest of their own in the future (symbolizing the edge becoming the core in the following season) and make the eagleical cycle moving - very much like the” redefined value equation”, balancing “core and edge” within the context of their seasons- and, yet continuing the seasonal value equation cycle- (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/10/balancing-opposites-using-redefined.html) as outlined in our earlier blog.

A point of clarification about seasons - seasons, (although primarily are defined with a time dimension), also have other dimensions (i.e. place, money, opportunity etc.), and so, our concept of seasons should take in to account all of those dimensions in a holistic manner. For example, while it might be relatively difficult to balance “core and edge” simultaneously within the time dimension, under the place (or opportunity) dimension, they both can be easily balanced simultaneously , provided they are executed in different business segments/geographical places (or different opportunity spaces) using one of the organization models, we had laid out earlier (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/08/strategize-from-core-and-innovate-from.html) .In other words, within the time dimension of the seasons, we are better of sequencing core and edge -whereas within the non-time dimensions, we are better of executing them simultaneously.

Yet another point of reinforcement within this context is- our principle of “redefined value equation” is not at all against structuring the businesses in to core and edge (or stars and dogs etc.) – as these structures are very much needed for better manageability and faster decision making. On the other hand, what the “redefined value equation” encourages is that core and edge should be treated or given its due importance (not necessarily equal importance)- very much like how the mother eagle does both (caring and stirring/shaking) within the context of their seasons to make them to be part of a cohesive whole – which, by the way, was exactly the key complimentary point intended by our paradox (with those two principles) as illustrated on the “eagleical picture” on the top of the page.

Bottom line: The principle of “strategize from the core and innovate from the edge” is relevant only when we have the “redefined value equation” mind set - of balancing core and edge as a “cohesive whole” by giving their due importance within the context of their seasons -very much like how the mother eagle does both “caring and stirring /shaking” of their eaglets within the context of their life seasons- to keep the eagleical* cycle moving. With that said, I guess it’s time to come up with yet another poetical slogan – “Strategize from the nest, for the strategy to be its finest- and innovate from the crest, for innovation to be its best - all within the eagleical* seasonal quest”!

Source: Scriptures and few other Eagle research sites

Balancing Opposites Using a “Redefined Value Equation”

For those of you who have been following my blogs closely perhaps would have noticed a follow-up question that was asked within the context of my last week’s blog– how does this concept of “balancing opposites” work in the real world from strategy execution standpoint? Although, I had answered the question at a high level within the comments section (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/09/strategy-is-it-marathon-sprint-or-both.html), the more I thought about it- the subject of “balancing opposites” is a much deeper one -and so decided to write a separate post.

As I started reading more on this subject- to my amazement, I quickly learned that the philosophers of yester-years from both the west and the east alike (Yin-Yang, Ayurvedha, Feng-Sue, UMO, Greek basic elements, Qur’an’s tenets, Sun Tzu’s art of war, and Solomon’s wisdom etc.) have not only used this concept to explain the ultimate meaning of life, but also, have used them to explain the ultimate reasoning behind the existence of human race - which clearly suggests that “balancing opposites” is a mystical process that is filled with enlightenment and wisdom -and so, leveraging their work to explain the relevance of this concept within the business world (using a “redefined value equation”) is more appropriate within this context.

Although, these opposites are distinct things on their own right, it is important to recognize that each of these opposites coexists by consent of their other half. For example, as we saw earlier in one of my previous blogs - the “concept of seasons” is what gives us the confidence that every opposite or down cycle in life or business has a beginning and an end. In other words, happiness cannot exist without sadness; therefore if we seek happiness, we are also destined to encounter sadness (in another season) because both depend on each other for their existence. Analyzing these interdependency of opposites with a key natural principle “Like repulses like and opposites attract each other ” – will clearly help us to come to the conclusion that “balancing the opposites” within the context of their respective seasons is critical for us to maximize life or business’s outcome.

For example, on the surface, cost containment (bottom line focused) and innovation (top line focused) strategies might sound like seemingly opposites -very much like the opposing pairs of Solomon. But, if we think about them within the larger context or objective (say, to turnaround and grow the company) — cost containment (for a season) is indeed a stepping stone for innovation (for a new season) – which kind of implies that “balancing opposites” within the context of the larger objective is the way to go, as long as we do not mix them up within the same season– in the words of Solomon. In other words, both of these strategies might sound like polar opposites when we weigh them in isolation- but, when we look at them within the context of the larger purpose governing those seasons — we can clearly recognize that they are complimentary to each other provided they are executed within the context of their respective seasons as a stepping stone for each other.

The question however is – why most corporations, still struggle to balance these opposites? What is preventing them from balancing these opposites? The answer in my opinion is “misplacement of value components within the value equation”. In other words, the value equation, in its current form, in most corporations create divisions by dissecting businesses into opposites –the core and edge, the stars and the dogs, purpose and profit initiatives so on and so forth -from the standpoint of achieving quick wins. Don’t get me wrong, that these structures and quick wins are absolutely necessary for better manageability and for meeting the quarter numbers; however, in most situations we get carried away with this short sighted quick win focused mentality and fail to recognize the larger context or purpose wherein these opposites (e.g. core and edge) are part of a cohesive whole. In other words, we cannot have an edge without a core and cannot have a core without an edge, therefore, to try and label a particular facet of business as being more important than the other half is illogical and self-defeating – and, so, corporations must redefine their value equation with an end goal of arriving at that mystical centre point where these opposites are balanced and executed within their own respective seasons.

However, arriving at that mystical centre point (where these complimentary opposites are balanced) is both an art and science - and so, we may have to get some additional inspirations from the following five underlying natural elements that were used by the philosophers to represent our universe’s value equation.

“Water soaks and descends; Fire blazes and ascends; Wood bends and straightens; Metal holds its shape and is malleable; Earth takes seeds and gives crops”

As we can see from this causal chain, it contains natural elements that are representative of different stages of an ongoing process of transformation within this universe’s seasonal causal chain as discussed earlier in one of my previous blogs (http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2010/09/transforming-what-aboutso-what.html). On a deeper philosophical level, these transformations are balanced on a continuous basis by the dynamic interplay between complimentary opposites within their respective seasons. Interestingly enough- Sun Tzu leveraged inspirations from these five natural elements as well, while forming his five strategy system elements – i.e. mission, ground, climate, command, and methods.

With this prelude- let us leverage the inspirations from both “five nature elements” and Sun Tzu’s “five strategy element system” to redefine our value equation to help balance these complimentary opposites: i.e. with “purpose & profit," at the center of the equation balancing the remaining four opposites with a causal chain based creation and destruction cycles. The remaining elements are imagined to be part of a circular causal chain similar to the natural element causal chain, as outlined below.

“Water creates wood by growing trees. Wood creates fire. Fire creates earth by transforming wood to ash. Earth creates metal, which is why metal, is mined from the earth. Metal creates water, as we can see by condensation on metal surfaces”.

Likewise, within our redefined value equation,

“Environment or competitive advantage analysis” creates winning strategies, and then, those strategies in-turn transform the “current state business” in to “Purpose-profit balanced future state business”(center) using the execution focused leadership skills, strategic positioning and expert knowledge. And then, those renewed execution leadership skills, propel forth newer visions and continue the transformation process of turning the environmental conditions in to winning strategies”.

And, the cycle continues – and, gets refined every iteration- by continuously balancing these complementary opposites – thus creating the ultimate business harmony (or optimal outcome) as outlined in the picture at the top of the page.

Bottom line: The ultimate success of businesses lynch on this key principle of “balancing opposites” within the context of their respective seasons using this redefined value equation. However, to reach that success in reality, we need to be practicing this principle on a daily basis using our redefined “causal chain based value equation” –which not only will help corporations to become the experts in this balancing act (of opposites), but also, make them the purpose leaders of tomorrow -in accordance with the purpose, wisdom and spiritual principles of the world renowned philosophers.

Source: Scriptures, Ancient literatures and Sun Tzu's art of war