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The RYD Business Excellence Journey

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Artificial Intelligence
M1-mountain-of-purpose
M2-mountain-of-value
M3-mountain-of-growth
RYD Business Excellence Framework
Start To Scale By Verne Harnish

Rockefeller Habits Assessment

16/8/2025

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RYD 2047: Our Community's Shared Big Hairy Audacious Goal:
Our Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to be the world’s best Transformation Ecosystem for Businesses; nurturing 60 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 100, 300 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 500 and 1200 Indian Businesses to be Forbes Global 2000 as Businesses we lead, nurture and coach become Spaces of Grace for people to joyously lead themselves and their business from good to great, realize their dreams and have it all with ease and grace; supporting India to be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous; creating a Brave New World.

We use 3 Growth Levers to progress Business Owners, CEOs and their Leaders on the RYD Good to Great journey to joyously lead themselves and their businesses from good to great, realize their dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure together along the way - Leadership Depth, Craft Mastery and Business Excellence.

On the RYD Business Excellence journey, we have adopted Verne Harnish's Scaling-up Framework. 

Verne Harnish is a Business Excellence mentor for our community to support us ​in our journey to fulfil on our big hairy audacious goal. Successful implementation of the Scaling-up Framework delivers:
​
1. More Positive Impact in the world with
2x Cash Flow
3x Industry Average Profitability
10x Valuation

2. More Time for us to Have It All
Reduce by 80% time it takes to manage the business

3. More Ease, Grace and Fun
Speed the process and take the load off the leadership team

​The Scaling Up Performance Platform has scaled 102,000+ organisations, contributing to 12 million plus people across 6 Continents.

    What differentiates Good from Great are Growth Habits, for both Human Beings and  Businesses. Verne Harnish developed 10 foundational business excellence habits - Rockefeller Habits - for businesses to scale, as part of the Scaling-up Framework.
    ​
    Reflect and rate your business on each of the Rockefeller Habits based on your personal assessment.

    Date format - dd-mmm-yy
    Rockefeller Habit 1: The executive team is healthy and aligned.
    Rockefeller Habit 2: Everyone is aligned with the #1 thing that needs to be accomplished this quarter to move the company forward.
    Rockefeller Habit 3: Communication rhythm is established and information moves through organization accurately and quickly.
    ​Rockefeller Habit 4: Every facet of the organization has a person assigned with accountability for ensuring goals are met.
    ​Rockefeller Habit 5: Ongoing employee input is collected to identify obstacles and opportunities.
    This Habit keeps the organisation internally aligned, engaged, and improving continuously.
    ​It’s just three simple but powerful questions:

    1. What should we start doing?

    Surfaces fresh ideas and opportunities we may be missing.

    2. What should we stop doing?
    Identifies what’s frustrating, wasteful, or no longer effective.

    3. What should we keep doing?
    Highlights what’s working well and must be preserved. 

    These conversations, done weekly by executives and middle managers, help create:
    • Trust and openness with employees
    • A constant pulse check on culture and operations
    • A feedback loop that ensures leadership doesn’t drift away from reality
    ​Rockefeller Habit 6: Reporting and analysis of customer feedback data is as frequent and accurate as financial data.
    The 4Q refers to the four questions that leaders ask customers in person (not on a survey):
    1. How are you doing?
    A personal, human check-in to build rapport

    2. What's going on in your industry / neighbourhood?
    Helps the executive understand broader trends and challenges.

    3. What do you hear about our competitors?
    Gathers competitive intelligence directly from the marketplace.

    4. How are we doing?
    Seeks candid feedback about your company’s performance.

    ​At least once a week
    , each executive and middle managers talk directly to an end-user or customer using these 4 questions for the strategy not to be based on guesses.
    ​Rockefeller Habit 7: Core Values and Purpose are “alive” in the organization.
    ​Rockefeller Habit 8: Employees can articulate the following key components of the company’s strategy accurately
    ​Rockefeller Habit 9: All employees can answer quantitatively whether they had a good day or week (Column 7 of the One-Page Strategic Plan). 
    ​Rockefeller Habit 10: The company’s plans and performance are visible to everyone.
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RYD Community EXPAND Event August 2025 Reflection

6/8/2025

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    Concretise and maximise your learnings to implement and contribute

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Nurturing Indian Giants August 2025 - Business Details

30/7/2025

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    Please fill in the details:

    One Question in each core pillar of the business, the answer to which would most support you to scale your business.
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Nurturing Indian Giants August 2025

9/6/2025

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Our Community's big hairy audacious goal by 2047 is to be the world’s best Transformation Ecosystem for Businesses; nurturing 60 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 100, 300 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 500 and 1200 Indian Businesses to be Forbes Global 2000 as Businesses we lead, nurture and coach become Spaces of Grace for people to joyously lead themselves and their business from good to great, realize their dreams and have it all with ease and grace; supporting India to be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous; creating a Brave New World.

I am happy and grateful that Verne Harnish is a Business Excellence mentor for our community to support us ​in our journey to fulfil on our big hairy audacious goal, and for his commitment to come to India year on year to lead CEO Bootcamps and Scaling-up Masterclasses for our community to strengthen our community's knowledge and understanding of the Scaling-up Methodology for successful implementation ensuring:

1. More Positive Impact in the world with
2x Cash Flow
3x Industry Average Profitability
10x Valuation

2. More Time for us to Have It All
Reduce by 80% time it takes to manage the business

3. More Ease, Grace and Fun
Speed the process and take the load off the leadership team

​The Scaling Up Performance Platform has scaled 102,000+ organisations, contributing to 12 million plus people across 6 Continents.

Click this link for more about Verne and Scaling-up.

I am delighted to welcome you to our RYD Community EXPAND Event in August 2025 (Nurturing Indian Giants), as part of which Verne will be leading a 2-day in-person Scaling-up Masterclass in Mumbai for our community. The event is designed for the Businesses on the RYD Good to Great journey for culture, leadership and business transformation supporting them to create greater positive impact in the world. More number of leaders in a business learn and understand about Scaling-up, faster the business will be able to implement the scaling-up methodology with ease and grace to make a much bigger difference to its people - employees, customers and all other stake-holders.

Details about this immersive learning experience are given below, along with the form to be filled by 30-June-25 to register yourself for the event.

Keep learning, implementing and contributing to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way.

Love and Light,
j.

RYD Community EXPAND Event August 2025
Theme: Nurturing Indian Giants with Verne Harnish

 Venue: Taj Lands End, Mumbai

6-Aug-25 Wednesday 6:30 am to 4:30 pm - RYD CCE EXPAND Event
Participants: RYD Coaches

6-Aug-25 Wednesday 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm - Connect with Verne over Early Dinner
Participants: Business Owners and CEOs from all RYD Tribes (Brave Hearts, Ashokas, Catalysts, Pioneers) and RYD Coaches

7-Aug-25 Thursday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm - Scaling-up Masterclass with Verne Day 1 
Participants: All RYD Tribes and their leaders

7-Aug-25 Thursday 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm - Reflection and Integration over Early Dinner
Participants: All RYD Tribes

8-Aug-25 Friday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm - Scaling-up Masterclass with Verne Day 1 
Participants: All RYD Tribes and their leaders

8-Aug-25 Friday 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm - Reflection and Integration over Early Dinner
Participants: All RYD Tribes. Spouses are welcome to join.


8-Aug-25 Friday 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm - The Party to connect and nurture deeper relationships, strengthening our community, our country and the world as an outcome of that
Participants: All RYD Tribes. Spouses are welcome to join.

The pre-work to warm-up for this immersive learning experience is to read the relevant book from below, word by word and understand the concepts deeply before 30-July-25, knowing that you are reading to implement the methodology in your business / business function:

1. Scaling-up: How a Few Companies Make It and Why the Rest Don't by Verne Harnish if you are a Business Owner / CEO committed to building a great business in partnership with your leaders to create massive positive impact in our country and the world

2. Start to Scale: Secrets to Starting and Scaling any Size Organization by Verne Harnish if you are a leader / team captain, committed to leading yourself and your people from good to great 

3. 12 Habits of Valuable Employees: Your Roadmap to an Amazing Career by Verne Harnish. Share this book with your team members to read to inspire them to lead themselves and their work from good to great. Share the book to have them attend the learning experience energetically, if not physically.

If you have read the book, read it again with the humility of a student because what differentiates amateurs and professionals is that professionals play for mastery by learning the fundamentals again and again.

Keep posting your insights and questions in your respective RYD Good to Great whatsapp groups to deepen your learning experience, enrich each other and to row the boat in the same direction.

30 Rooms have been blocked till 15-July-25 with Taj Lands End for those who want to stay at the venue itself. Check-in on 6-Aug-25 and check-out on 9-Aug-25 for the event, unless you want to stay longer.

Here's the link to book rooms for yourself and your team at Taj Lands End at special rates for RYD - Book a Room at Taj Lands End


Preeti Singh is our Program Manager for the Event. In case of any support needed regarding the event or booking a room at the hotel, please reach out to her at 9899793015 / [email protected] and she will be happy to go out of her way to make your participation easeful and hugely value-creating,

Please fill the below registration form to register yourself for the event, if you haven't done that as yet.

    ​Registration Form
    RYD Community EXPAND Event August 2025
    Nurturing Indian Giants with Verne Harnish

    Share this Link with each one of your participating team members to register for the event by 30-June-25 - Registration Page ​https://www.jyotigulati.com/ryd-business-excellence/nurturing-indian-giants-august-2025
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Is it absolutely Necessary to use AI today just because the World is Talking about it?

19/5/2025

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This is a great question. Thank you for your courage and First Principles Thinking to even ask this question.

I would say it is important to learn about and understand AI because with the higher collective intelligence of humans and computers, how we do anything and everything will shift just as the coming of Internet shifted how we did anything and everything.

When we learn and understand something, we can use it effectively as a tool to fulfil the Purpose of our Business and achieve our Big Hairy Audacious Goal; and through that fulfil our Purpose this Lifetime through our work and realize our highest potential; supporting us to realize our impossible, unimaginable, crazy-big dreams and have it all with ease and grace.

I believe AI will accelerate the evolution of human beings to Gear 5 Consciousness by being an external force to make human beings increase their intellectual intelligence by having to partner with more intelligent computers and having to learn a lot more as an outcome of that. 

We become like the company we keep. Our company in the form of computers is becoming far more intelligent. That will have a ripple effect in humans becoming far more intelligent across different dimensions because we are wired to learn, grow and evolve.  The humans who learn, grow and evolve will thrive, following Thrival of the Fittest principle. In the earlier phase of evolution of our species, it was Charles Darwin's Survival of the Fittest principle which was at play. In the current phase of the evolution of our species from good to great, from Fear Consciousness to Love Consciousness; it is Thrival of the Fittest principle which is at play. Fittest in this context is being at the highest level of health, fitness and joyous well-being across all our 5 bodies - physical, energy, emotional, mental, spiritual.

AI will contribute to more and more humans going on their good to great journeys to strengthen their emotional Intelligence, Intuitive Intelligence / Inner Wisdom and Spiritual Intelligence; ultimately accelerating our species to our next level of evolution - the Gear 5 Human.

What will remain the same as far as business is concerned is that business will continue to remain about serving the customer. Those businesses who understand that the centre of the Universe is their customer; and not AI / technology or their product / service or their craft / domain; are the businesses which will march forth towards claiming their right to be a great business. 

A quick definition of strategy is that it is a structure of success to make a massive difference to the customer.

Mediocre businesses will die because they will become blinded with the shine of a new toy called AI and over-invest and wrong-invest in it; while wise great businesses will use AI to make an even bigger difference to their employees, customers and other stake-holders.

Let's keep taking Actions of Courage to master and dissolve Fear, an inheritance of our species, to transform what it means to be a woman, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a leader, what it means to be a business and what it means to be a human being to joyously lead ourselves and our work from good to great, realize our dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way.

Loving you,
j.

Hat Tip: Amrita 💜

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Understanding AI - Part 2

13/5/2025

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Learnings from Module 2 of the online AI program from MIT - Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy:

My favourite learning is number 15.

1. 
Machine learning has now come to dominate the field of artificial intelligence, and it can be used in many ways in business, including sensing, predicting and generating.

2. What the machine learning is all about is finding underlying patterns in big amounts of data, which turns out to be a very useful thing because sometimes it finds patterns that humans might have never noticed before.

3. What Computers may well be able to do far better than people:

They are already much better than we are at arithmetic and have been for decades, but now with these new machine learning techniques, computers are increasingly able to see patterns in vast amounts of data that we humans would never have been able to notice, but may well be very important.

4. If you can anticipate a way of using artificial intelligence to do something better than your competitors, or faster, or cheaper, but better in some way or maybe even do something that your competitors never even thought of doing, that’s a very interesting strategic possibility.

5. Companies who have big amounts of data … have a big strategic advantage over those who don’t.

6. Advice to entrepreneurs is to focus on solving fundamental customer problems rather than merely implementing AI. 

7. For existing businesses, decisions should be based on value propositions and return on investment.

8. One very important thing for any company is you have to be positioned in a way that the technology can be adopted by the users where they can generate the value out of it.

9. The benefit of the AI ... is it does things faster, better, cheaper more accurately.

10. AI will help make do more high-quality work at lower cost.

11. The most important thing when starting an AI company is to really be solving an important unmet problem for your customers. That is 100 times infinitely more important than whether AI is or is not a part of the solution.

What's important - Really understanding the problems, really understanding why current technology, much of which today will be starting to incorporate AI, is unable to solve that and why your solution is going to be so much better than what’s currently out there that people will switch from what they are currently doing and begin adopting your technology, and how will that grow over time?

12. Start from the business fundamentals, and AI may or may not be useful here. There is a lot of interest, a lot of buzz around AI. It’s not obvious that following that is even the best strategic move. 

It may be being the non-AI which is the best strategic move. 

Everyone’s going to be looking with an AI lens about what problems can be solved with AI. Certain problems that can’t be solved with AI might actually be the new places for industry leading businesses because they are probably less crowded. Really understand the competitive landscape, the problems your customers have and not simply jumping to AI being the solution.

13. An AI will be the most disruptive part of your business because so many people are working on it. There are so many dollars already been thrown at it. They are so many great tools being released by very large tech companies that sometimes it’s going to be the customer relationships, customer integrations that are far more defensible overtime.

14. You should be judging the product on its merits and the solution on its merits. Don’t be unduly fed by feeling that you need to use AI to stay ahead. This field will continue moving. Continue getting better, just being very objective and understanding what is your value proposition, what is the return on investment, when will the timing be correct.

Don’t make this mistake of thinking if we can’t do it today, it won’t be doing it in three years because sometimes you need to get ahead of it. 

15. Don’t focus on the AI, focus on the actual solution and how it is generating value for your customers.

16. Don’t use AI just because it’s cool. Use it because it’s actually useful either now or in the foreseeable future.

17. People aren’t going to lose their jobs to AI. People are going to lose their jobs to people who use AI.

Keep learning, implementing and contributing to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way 💜

Loving you,
j.
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Understanding AI

6/5/2025

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As a way to warm-up for the in-person AI program at MIT, USA this November, I started my AI learning journey through an online program with MIT 3 weeks back - Artificial Intelligence: Implications for Business Strategy.

Why learn AI as part of my Craft Mastery? 

Because AI is now a part of RYD Business Excellence journey as AI is already disrupting businesses across industries. If our big hairy audacious goal is to nurture great businesses from our land, then we have to disrupt our own business model much before it gets disrupted to make a much bigger difference to our customers.

Here are my top 5 learnings and insights from the online MIT AI program so far:

1. The real question about AI is - How can people and computers be connected so that collectively they act more intelligently than any person, group or computer has ever done before?

It is not a battle between humans and AI. It is a partnership between humans and AI to make a much bigger difference in the world through collective intelligence of humans and AI.

Even more powerful question is - How can this human-computer system (also known as collective intelligence) improve over time to contribute to make our world a better place in ways not possible before?

2. For AI to be of value to our business, it is important to have an understanding of our business strategy which needs to be deeply thought through and executed; instead of throwing darts while blind-folded hoping one of the darts will hit the bulls-eye.

3. Your strategy for using AI should be consistent with your company's strategic approach in general. As per Michael Porter, businesses can choose one of the four strategic approaches - Cost Leadership, Differentiation, Cost Focus and Differentiation Focus.

From Competitive Advantage by Michael Porter, a firm's relative position within its industry determines whether a firm's profitability is above or below the industry average. The fundamental basis of above average profitability in the long run is sustainable competitive advantage. There are two basic types of competitive advantage a firm can possess: low cost or differentiation.

The two basic types of competitive advantage combined with whether the company is operating industry wide or focussed on a particular customer segment leads to three generic strategies for achieving above average performance in an industry: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. The focus strategy has two variants: cost focus and differentiation focus.

i. Cost Leadership
​In cost leadership, a firm sets out to become the low cost producer in its industry. The sources of cost advantage are varied and depend on the structure of the industry. They may include the pursuit of economies of scale, proprietary technology, preferential access to raw materials and other factors.

A low cost producer must find and exploit all sources of cost advantage. If a firm can achieve and sustain overall cost leadership, then it will be an above average performer in its industry, provided it can command prices at or near the industry average.

ii. Differentiation
In a differentiation strategy, a firm seeks to be unique in its industry along some dimensions that are widely valued by buyers. It selects one or more attributes that many buyers in an industry perceive as important, and uniquely positions itself to meet those needs. It is rewarded for its uniqueness with a premium price.

iii. Focus
The generic strategy of focus rests on the choice of a narrow competitive scope within an industry. The focuser selects a customer segment or a group of customer segments in the industry and tailors its strategy to serving them to the exclusion of others.
The focus strategy has two variants.
a.  In Cost Focus, a firm seeks a cost advantage in its target segment,
while 
b. In Differentiation Focus, a firm seeks differentiation in its target segment.

Both variants of the focus strategy rest on differences between a focuser's target segment and other segments in the industry. The target segments must either have buyers with unusual needs or else the production and delivery system that best serves the target segment must differ from that of other industry segments.

Cost focus exploits differences in cost behaviour in some segments, while differentiation focus exploits the special needs of buyers in certain segments.
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Source of the image: https://www.consuunt.com/porters-generic-strategies/
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Your company's strategic approach will help you understand what business problem to use AI for to make a bigger impact through your business.

4. AI feeds on data. If you are not collecting vast amount of data in a structured way, then learning about AI will not contribute to your business. This means putting in Process Excellence is a key input to AI implementation. 

In our RYD Business Excellence journey, make your organization AI-intelligent when your business is on Mountain 3 (Mountain of Growth) to finally implement AI in Mountain 4 (Mountain of Scale) to scale your business with ease, grace and velocity.

5. What becomes amply clear is that running businesses with a 'jugaad' attitude is no longer a viable way forward. It is important to become a business scientist to learn the art, science and math of building a great business; and implement that with the meticulousness of a scientist. As we do that, we will learn AI along the way to make a massive difference in the world living our purpose through our business.

AI has further validated that our best friend on our good to great journey is Joy of Learning.

Keep learning, implementing and contributing to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way 💜

Loving you,
j.
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How to Lead Your Organization from Good to Great

13/4/2025

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The journey of transforming your organization from good to great begins with you transforming from good to great. Fortunately or unfortunately, the organization mirrors the leader at the helm of the organization. Fortunately because that means the power is in your hands to make this happen. Unfortunately because it is easier to work on the outside than on the inside.

For the organization to shift gears from good to great, there are actually 3 journeys that the CEO will have to undertake simultaneously:
​
1. Business Excellence
2. Craft Mastery
3. Leadership Depth

Even before we begin to explore each in greater detail, let us define what is good and what is great to assess whether it is even worthwhile to be on this journey. A good organization makes profit but struggles to do so, is in the red ocean of bloody waters with competition nibbling at its toes, primary motive is financial survival, does not have any significant impact in the world, employees work half-heartedly and only for their salary. Employee engagement is a huge focus because disengagement is so rampant. Employees don't feel connected with their own selves or with each other or with their leaders. It's stressful to be working and everyone is waiting to hang-up their corporate boots some day to follow their heart, to come alive. There are offsites to discuss mission, strategy, future etc. and everyone uses these as a way to get a breather from the boring routine and nobody remembers anything once they are back at work. Nobody understands what love is or what's that got to do with work. Leadership is bottom-line and top-line focussed. Another word for good is mediocrity and the organization is only leading itself to a certain death sometime in the future.

A great organization is purpose-inspired; significantly and positively impacts human consciousness and elevates how we live; passion, commitment, accountability, self-inspiration and purpose light up the employees who joyously work with their heart, mind and soul; is in the blue ocean, is a market leader running a monopoly  with its nearest competitor miles away; is in an effortless self-sustaining cycle of creativity, innovation and profitability. No employee engagement programs are needed because employees are deeply engaged and connected with their work, with each other and with their leaders. Employees live their purpose of life through their work; leave the day at work feeling rejuvenated and refreshed. There's focus on value-based leadership with leaders creating a space of compassionate love through nurturing, coaching and leading authentically by themselves doing 10 times what they tell their people to do. This results in breakthrough performance, productivity and profitability.

Well, isn't leading your organization from good to great then a worthy goal?

If it is, then let's deep dive into what it takes to make that happen. There are three journeys that the CEO, the leader at the helm of the organization would need to undertake simultaneously and take their people along with them on these journeys: 
​


1. Business Excellence

Business Excellence is the outer journey of professional success by living our purpose through our work, leading our business from good to great, generating a healthy Triple Bottom Line (3P - Profit, People, Planet); creating a legacy by making a massive difference to our employees, customer communities, business partners, investors and all other stakeholders.

This is a journey over 5 mountains:

Mountain 1: Mountain of Purpose: Inquiring into his / her own Purpose, the CEO identifies a real experiential link between his / her purpose of life and what the organization is up to in the world. Without this alignment, the organization remains trapped in mediocrity - the inevitable fate of every 'good' organization that never steps into greatness.

For the organization to be on the path of greatness; the CEO has to be on the path of greatness, committed to make a huge difference to the communities they are a part of, energised by a vision to transform the world, inspired to leave the world a better place than before their arrival on earth.

Mountain 2: Mountain of Value: Discovering your organization's Blue Ocean and a 
Compelling Value Proposition that has prospects chase you to become your customers instead of your business having to chase the customers. Until you offer something so compelling that customers chase you, you are playing a losing game.

Mountain 3: Mountain of Growth: Iterating to create a robust
Profitable, Repeatable, Scalable, Efficient, Sustainable and Optimised Business Model - one that is standardised, lean, margin-positive, systematised, and continuously improving through data-driven decisions -giving your business a solid foundation of long-term value-creation for your customers and your organization.
Here’s how you test whether you are ready to cross this mountain:

a. Profitability: Is the cost of customer creation, product / service development, delivery and post-sales service substantially less than what the customer is willing to pay for?
b. Repeatability: Can you repeat the entire value creation cycle (from customer creation to post-sales service) following the same steps, with the same inputs and outputs, every time - delighting the customer the same extraordinary way each time?
c. Scalability: Can the entire process run without you through systems, people, and processes  hat function independently of your personal involvement?
d. Efficiency: Are you minimising waste and maximising value in time, effort, and cost; delivering more with less, across all functions?
e. Sustainability: Are your business decisions enabling long-term growth without depleting your people, your resources, or the environment?
f. Optimisation: Are you continuously improving your business model through feedback, data, and innovation; upgrading systems, decisions, and strategies to create greater value over time?

Mountain 4: Mountain of Scale: Once your business model is profitable, repeatable, scalable, efficient, sustainable, and optimised, it's time to scale up.

Mountain 4 is about expanding your organization's impact and reach through deep relationships, operational mastery, unmatched service, technology as a multiplier, and a commitment to building a future-ready business.

It's about scaling-up your business through
 Nurturing Relationships, Operational Excellence, Extraordinary Service, Leveraging Technology and Sustainable Sustainability. 

a. Nurturing Relationships
i. Nurturing Customer Relationships
→ This is Strategy and Strategy Execution. Strategy is a plan of action to make a massive difference to our customers.
→ It's about creating a powerful Value Proposition that deeply serves our customers by marrying what’s missing in the world for them with Craft Mastery.
→ It requires us to coach our team to work from Being of Service consciousness.
→ Frameworks to leverage: Blue Ocean, Verne Harnish’s Scaling-up’s 7-Strata, Alex Osterwalder's Business Model Canvas

ii. Nurturing Employee Relationships
→ This is about building a super-performing, nurturing, learning culture
→ Nurturing means creating emotional safety, engagement and growth
→ Implementing a Leadership model that enables building of a super-performing, nurturing, learning culture through coaching
→ Putting in place learning systems to enable continuous learning, growth and contribution
→ Frameworks to leverage - Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team, OKRs + CFRs, Verne Harnish's Scaling-up People

iii. Nurturing Relationships with all Other Stakeholders
→ Nurturing relationships with investors, business partners, suppliers and communities to create authentic, long-term, impact-creating partnerships.
→ Frameworks to leverage - Business as a Force for Good

b. Operational Excellence
i. Bottoms-up continuous process innovation to reduce costs, reduce time to do any specific activity and increase quality.
ii. Creative and innovative ways to reduce our and our team’s time, effort and resources; while increasing value for our customers, employees and all other stakeholders of our Business.
iii. Frameworks to leverage - 1FOR5 (1 Action to Fulfil 5 Intentions), DLCM (Do Less to Create More), Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up Methodology, David Parmenter's Winning KPI Methodology

c. Extraordinary Service
i. Serving, delighting and contributing to our customers with such amazing service, at the level they have no right to expect.
ii. Frameworks to leverage - Service Design Thinking, Net Promoter System (NPS) with Root-Cause Loops

d. Leveraging Technology
i. Using technology not just as a tool, but as a strategic enabler—to simplify, amplify, and accelerate making a massive difference to our employees, customers and all stakeholders.
ii. Automating the routine, enhancing insight, and scaling impact.
iii. Frameworks to leverage:
→ Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning Readiness Models
→ Digital Transformation Canvas
→ Tech Stack Alignment to Customer Journey

e. Sustainable Sustainability
→ Building a future-ready business by integrating sustainability into strategy, operations, and culture.
→ Going beyond compliance to contribution.
→ Frameworks to leverage: Rajeev Peshawaria’s Sustainable Sustainability Model


Mountain 5: Mountain of Mastery: Creating a Self-Sustaining Business. The fifth stage is when the organization no longer needs you and can function effectively without you, as you have not only created an organization with strong, robust fundamentals but also have created succeeding leaders to take the organization to its next level of evolution with even greater velocity.

You are now free to contribute to the entire industry, leading its transformation through your thought leadership, impacting a lot more organizations simultaneously as you sit on multiple Boards of Directors and bring about social change, contributing to the evolution of the human race bringing people and countries together through who you have become as a human being as an outcome of leading your organization from good to great.

​

2. Craft Mastery
For the organization to cut-over to greatness, there is no other option but to be the world's best in whatever the organization is upto. And, for that to happen, the employees need to be playing the game to be the world's best in whatever they are doing as part of the organized work. For the employees to be on the learning path to be masters of their domain, their craft; you absolutely guessed it - the CEO has to be playing the game to be the master of the domain the organization is in. This is also a journey over five stages. 

Stage 1. Amateur: This is the stage of Passive Learning, when you learn on your own through reading works of masters in the field, training yourself through material available in the public domain.

Stage 2. Professional: This is the stage of Active Learning, when you implement whatever you are learning to make a difference to your chosen target community. 

Stage 3. Expert: You become an Expert by learning through Apprenticeship, when you learn directly from an existing Master of your Craft.

Stage 4. Mentor: You become a mentor when you coach others to become Experts in your domain.

Stage 5. Master: You finally become a Master when you coach Experts to become Mentors in your domain. This is when you go inside your craft and become it.



3. Leadership Depth
You cannot lead your organization from good to great without deepening who you are as a human being, without being on your own journey of transformation and evolution from good to great. This is a journey over 5 Gears by dropping Limiting Habits and inculcating Growth Habits to create the highest level of fitness and well-being across all the 4 bodies (Physical, Emotional, Intellectual / Mental, Spiritual) of your Being. 

Each Gear is about elevating one’s consciousness by developing a specific leadership muscle, working at the level of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual habits. 

Gear 1: Agility of Mind: Discovering your destiny, your purpose this life-time. Strengthening Agility of Mind™ leadership muscle to experience your own self as extraordinary. 

Gear 2: Being of Service: Making a difference through your work, playing your big game with peace in your heart and mind. Strengthening Being of Service™ leadership muscle to see the light in everyone and experience each one as extraordinary. irrespective of however they are and however they are not. 

Gear 3: Communicating Powerfully in the World of Others: Experiencing joy of effortless existence as you experience life itself as extraordinary and the world around you experiences you as extraordinary as you strengthen your Communicating in the World of Others™ leadership muscle. There is deep stillness within, with nowhere to go and nothing to prove with the experience of oneness with the Universe.

Gear 4: Delivering on your Word: Experiencing deep fulfilment as others in your space experience themselves as extraordinary. The Authentic Leader in you is born as you get access to significant Power to Create™ by strengthening your Delivery on Your Word™ leadership muscle. 

Gear 5: Excellence: People in your space experience each other as extraordinary. Your presence causes a shift in the space around you as you inspire a culture of trust, partnership and compassionate love; with each one supporting the other to be successful. The Master in you is born, as you strengthen your Excellence™ leadership muscle to have your Power to Create™ in full bloom. You become The Master Creator. You intend; it gets created effortlessly and almost instantaneously.

The most efficient way to travel on this path is to synchronise each of the five stages of Business Excellence, Leadership Depth and Craft Mastery because the three journeys are inter-linked. One journey is not possible without the other two. If you progress on one journey, your growth will stop till you don't progress on the other two journeys. 
​
Yes, it is a long haul forward. Why should you make your life difficult to be on this path? Because this path supports you to have it all -
i. Deeply fulfilling, successful, profitable business supporting you to live your purpose of life; gifting you with impact, contribution and financial freedom
ii. Loving, harmonious, positive, uplifting relationships at work, at home and in the world
iii. Happy, healthy, confident, responsible kids with their genius joyfully expressed
iv. Nourishing, nurturing yourself to the highest level of health, fitness and joyous well-being - physically, energetically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually
v. Making a massive difference through the work you do

​
The old model of leadership only gives you professional success but at the cost of everything else. In this new model of leadership, you have it all. Then, why not?

Keep learning, growing and contributing to joyously lead yourself and your business from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way 💜

Loving you,
j.
Original Article: 5-Aug-2017
2nd Version: 13-Apr-25
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Elevating RYD Business Excellence

10/4/2025

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Sacred Pauses get you to step back and see the whole picture for a whole new understanding, which one misses when one is part of the painting.

I had a lot of interesting new insights that I believe will make a much bigger difference to our coachees on their Good to Great journey with RYD as their structure of success.

The biggest insight was about RYD Business Excellence framework.

So far, RYD Business Excellence had 3 components - Nurturing Customer Relationships, Operational Excellence and Extraordinary Service.

The insight I had was that for nurturing great businesses which is our community's Big Hairy Audacious Goal, there are 2 more components; besides the change in the first component to include all relationships:

1. Nurturing Relationships
i. Nurturing Customer Relationships
→ This is Strategy and Strategy Execution. Strategy is a plan of action to make a massive difference to our customers.
→ It's about creating a powerful Value Proposition that deeply serves our customers.
→ Frameworks to leverage: Blue Ocean, 7-Strata, Business Model Canvas

ii. Nurturing Employee Relationships
→ This is about building a super-performing, nurturing, learning culture
→ Nurturing means creating emotional safety, engagement and growth
→ Implementing a Leadership model that enables building of a super-performing, nurturing, learning culture through coaching
→ Putting in place learning systems to enable continuous learning, growth and contribution
→ Frameworks to leverage - Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team, OKRs + CFRs, Verne Harnish's Scaling-up People

iii. Nurturing Relationships with all Other Stakeholders
→ Nurturing relationships with investors, business partners, suppliers and communities to create authentic, long-term, impact-creating partnerships.
→ Frameworks to leverage - Business as a Force for Good

2. Operational Excellence
i. Creative and innovative ways to reduce our and our team’s time, effort and resources; while increasing value for our customers, employees and all other stakeholders of our Business.
ii. Frameworks to leverage - 1FOR5 (1 Action to Fulfil 5 Intentions), DLCM (Do Less to Create More), Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up Methodology

3. Extraordinary Service
i. Serving and contributing to our customers, employees, business partners, investors, and all other stakeholders at the level they have no right to expect.
ii. Frameworks to leverage - Service Design Thinking, Net Promoter System (NPS) with Root-Cause Loops

4. Leveraging Technology
i. Using technology not just as a tool, but as a strategic enabler—to simplify, amplify, and accelerate making a massive difference to our employees, customers and all stakeholders.
ii. Automating the routine, enhancing insight, and scaling impact.
iii. Frameworks to leverage:
→ Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning Readiness Models
→ Digital Transformation Canvas
→ Tech Stack Alignment to Customer Journey

5. Sustainable Sustainability
→ Building a future-ready business by integrating sustainability into strategy, operations, and culture.
→ Going beyond compliance to contribution.
→ Frameworks to leverage: Rajeev Peshawaria’s Sustainable Sustainability Model

I feel deeply grateful to the Universe for blessing me with these insights, enabling me to deepen and strengthen our RYD Business Excellence framework to fulfil on our community's shared Purpose of supporting people to Have it All; our shared Values of Love, Gratitude, Reverence, Integrity and Excellence; our shared Big Hairy Audacious Goal to nurture 60 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 100, 300 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 500, 1080 Indian Businesses to be Forbes Global 2000 by 2047 in 100 years of our country's rebirth enabling our country to be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous.

Loving you,
j.
​
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Increasing Cash, Profit and Value with Joss Milner

1/4/2025

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​If nurturing Fortune 100 businesses to transform humanity from Fear Consciousness to Love Consciousness for people to Have It All is our big hairy audacious goal, then Financial Mastery to increase cash, profit and value of our businesses is a learning milestone on our Good to Great journey. And, we want to get to that milestone sooner than later.

Financial acumen is important in creating an effective business strategy. One of my favourite examples is how Michael Dell changed his business strategy through better understanding of his financial model to not only avoid bankruptcy but also propel Dell to become a highly successful and profitable enterprise.

Dell adopted a direct-to-consumer sales strategy, requiring customers to pay upfront for their computers. This customer-funded business model allowed Dell to operate with negative working capital, effectively financing the company's growth through customer payments rather than relying heavily on external funding.

I am happy and grateful to share that we have a new partner on our Good to Great Journey to get us to the learning milestone of Financial Expertise, which will enable us to lead our businesses to be Fortune 100 with greater clarity, confidence and courage - Joss Milner, CEO and Co-founder of Cash Flow Story. 

They are Scaling-up partners for the Cash component of the Scaling-up methodology. I feel, as a community, we are ready to learn and become experts of Cash, Profit, Value and everything Finance to step up our game.

Joss will be leading a session for us as a way to initiate us on the Finance Learning Expedition as part of our RYD Community EXPAND Event on 11-Apr-25 Friday 5:23 to 8:23 am IST.

Joss Milner has dedicated his working life to producing software that helps businesses understand their numbers and improve their performance. Everything Joss has developed has had one common theme – help businesses improve performance
by improving their profit, cash and value.

​As co-founder of Inmatrix (known as Optimist software and ProfitOptimiser) in 1998, Joss and the Inmatrix team took Optimist to the world with banking and accounting users in over 50 countries.
 
In 2014, Joss co-founded Cash Flow Story which is today used by thousands of advisors and businesses in 97 countries around the world.

Joss is a Chartered Accountant and is also an experienced Business Mentor. Joss has mentored over 200 companies and has shares in a number of software companies.
 
Joss is the author of the Cash section of the global best-selling book by Verne Harnish - Scaling Up.

Learning Finance needn't be boring or difficult, as Joss will make it fun and easy for us. Sharing below an interesting case study from him for you to read and reflect on before our session with him on 11-Apr-25. 

You can Be, Do and Have whatever you intend and dream. Believe it till you create it 💜

Loving you,
j.
Milok Proprietary Limited 
Case Study
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Milok Pty Ltd was founded in 2010 by George Milok who was a hairdresser by trade. He was unhappy with the quality of various shampoos and conditioners and saw a gap in the market for organic products. The market for professional hair care products is about $300 million. Milok has 5 major competitors in the market, representing about $250 million of the market.
 
He started manufacturing locally, but when volumes grew, he started to source from China and import.  In 2015 he purchased a warehouse, where he stores, and distributes his range of 200 products. Staff of 55, of which 40 are based at the warehouse. The balance of the team are sales people who are geographically spread.
 
His distribution channel includes hairdressers, beauty salons, pharmacies. The business has 300 customers. Approximately 20% of his customers represent 70% of his revenue.   Recently the company created an online presence by developing an online shop with the idea of selling direct to consumers. This strategy has not been well received by Milok’s existing customers.
 
Milok has debt with a Tier One Bank. His banking relationship is sound and as far as the Company knows, their bank is happy with their numbers. 
 
Milok’s strengths are in product innovation and sales. Whilst business has been going very well, he wants to Scale Up his business and is aiming to exit in 3 years for $40 million. Recently, Milok has created a board consisting of 5 senior managers of the company and two external advisors.
 
Below is the extract of the Financial Report for the January 2025 board meeting, prepared by the CFO.

Milok Proprietary Limited 
Financial Board Report
January 2025 Board Meeting
Profit & Loss Statement
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​Balance Sheet
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