The lock down is bringing out the best in me. Upskilling myself has been a major thrust area during this period of imposed isolation. Apart from learning new concepts and theories, be it on Industrial Automation, Design Thinking, Creative Problem Solving or Electrical properties of Neurons, I have also started to improve upon my culinary skills. My two sons aged 15 and 10 are foodies and splurge on my gastronomic delights.
The other day, while thinking of preparing some evening snack for the family, I stumbled upon a Whatsapp forward suggesting meal ideas without perishable vegetables. I was sieving through the 100 odd recipes (www.recipedabba.com) and I selected the whole wheat pancake as it was quick and easy to prepare. The wheat pancakes came out well as you can see in the photograph and with bananas and honey over it, the taste was heavenly. The kids loved it and thanked me for the lovely snack. Though the preparation was simple, the whole thing could have gone awfully wrong. Late evening, after garnering all the appreciation from my family, I sat down to think what went right and what lessons I can learn from this successful mission that I embarked upon. I am penning down a few lessons learnt from the “Mission Wheat Pancake” and drawing analogies to the corporate world from each of these:
- Beat the batter well to avoid lumps. For a homogeneous batter, the wheat flour is to be sieved well and the batter needs to be beaten thoroughly to avoid any lumps. The lumps of flour bulging in the pancakes can be utterly embarrassing. A parallelism in the corporate world is of a bad Customer Experience (CX). If the product delivered is not of the quality what was promised or the complaint the customer lodged was not addressed at an opportune moment and with empathy, then you have lost the customer. Ironing out the customer complaints well in time and ensuring a good quality control in the products being delivered will ensure a great CX.
- Get your basics right. The basic ingredients that go into a wheat pancake are wheat flour, baking soda, milk, eggs, sugar and salt. The right quantity of these basic ingredients is very important to make a soft and fluffy pancake. Add some extra salt and that could be devastating to your taste buds. Each ingredient is important in its right quantity. In the corporate world too, in order to succeed, companies need to have the right marketing mix or the 4Ps. Product, Price, Place and Promotion are the 4Ps that define the marketing mix. Every business will need to find their right marketing mix to have the competitive advantage.
- Be innovative. Had I offered my kids the plain vanilla pancake with the basic ingredients, how would I expect an ‘aha’ moment from them? Who wants to eat plain pancakes? So I let my imagination run wild and added some Nutella, whipped cream, maple syrup, chocolate flakes, strawberries and bananas. That left my kids wanting for more after the first one. In the business world too, innovation is the key to success. Be it the cashier-less convenience stores of Amazon or Uber venturing into food delivery, blue oceans need to looked out for every day. The products that you sell need to have a unique selling point, a feature and benefit that is not available with the competitor.
- Flip the pancake at the right time. Trying to flip the pancake is an art. Anyone who hasn’t dropped the pancake on the floor or, even better, got it stuck to the ceiling while flipping it hasn’t tasted failure. Success tastes much sweeter when we know what failure tasted like. Also, if you take a bit longer to flip, then you end up in a burnt pancake. So flip you must, but at the right time. In the corporate world too, if the businesses stick to the same strategy in every situation which was successful in the past, they are bound to fail. Businesses need to FLIP and at the right moment to achieve what we call in the parlance of air warfare, the “air supremacy”.
- Don’t forget the fun part. Had I not enjoyed making the pancakes for my family and taken it as another task to be accomplished with a frown on my face, the whole experience would have been a nightmare. Messy kitchen, sticky fingers, flour on the face and hair and kids taking your picture is all the fun that can be cherished for life. If businesses are morose and lacking fun and employer and customer engagement, the job can become a burden. Bringing a smile on the face of the customer should be the ultimate aim for every brand.
What have you made for your kids today?
