This book written in the ‘discourse’ style of Khalil Gibran, is unique in its crispness and simplicity, although it deals with a very complex and holistic subject.
First time, I met the Author Mohan Pandey, some two years ago during evaluation session of a national business idea competition. And then, again a few months back. When I met him last Sunday, he presented me with his book, The Corporate Prophet. A 150 pager, handy, well designed, compact and printed in an easy to read fonts.
Mohan takes you through a quick tour of understanding of business in an ever complex and chaotic environment. He allows you to grasp the Big Picture. Essential elements of this Big Picture are carefully crafted in 22 small chapters. While he defines each one of these elements in a very simple language, he carries forward the interface with the whole business and other elements.
Here is an example of how simple he makes the understanding of complex subjects: “The strategy connects the vision with the reality, and the execution connects the strategy with the results.”
For quite some time, I have been working in Business Model Innovation and we have been providing visualization of the logic of running the business. And every time, we describe a business model, we feel that some elements are missing which are pretty much put under the category of “Corporate Issues” than under “Business Flow”. When I read the 22 elements presented by Mohan,I get a feeling that it is worth exploring a possibility of building a ‘corporate model’. In fact, he has already described this model in words. Having such a model that could be visualized on an A2 sheet, would go a long way in providing a basis for ensuring that decisions taken at corporate levels are truly integrated and that causality of the decisions across the business entity is taken care of. I am sure Mohan is already thinking in this direction.
In fact there is a strong framework behind the thinking of the Book. It is called ‘The Truth, The Good and The Beauty’. Mohan contends that most of the traditional ways of thinking is biased towards one of these three axes. And, what today’s world needs is an integrated approach of these three axes. When you read the book you would see how these three axes merge into the narration.
I strongly recommend this book as an essential read, to those who want to obtain a quick understanding of managing Business as a whole in today’s context. It will verify and summarize your understanding of the business; and as Mohan said, “Will keep you thinking forever” what the Corporate Prophet has said.
There is lucidity in the writing and you would soon know that Mohan is a curious Poet and Short Story writer. It took me 2hrs to breeze through the Book like a song; one hr during a Blr-Hyd fight and the second one on the return.
Wish you an early reading of this refreshing and simple Book on integrated management.