Only losers will win (mistakes we all learn from)

Preface

It’s Nov 2020 and this year can’t really stop brining surprises! It was very special year and it’s still going on. I just learnt a week ago, that Ontex, the company I was working at for the past 7 years and thought I will retire at, doesn’t have job for me anymore. World has changed once again and I’m free to look for a new job or write a blog, or both. Another consequence of such a dramatic change was that in the last 10 days dozens of people called me from all over the world: from Shanghai and Casablanca, from Russia of course (as I’m Russian) and Addis Ababa, from Istanbul and Karachi, from Amsterdam and Johannesburg. All my friends was so supportive, kind and warm that I felt like it was my birthday. To some extend it was indeed my “birthday”. All the callers apart from sharing their empathy with me were asking the same question again and again: “what went wrong with your Company?”. This and all the changes in my lifestyle triggered my thinking and while sharing my thoughts again and again I came to the idea of the blog which may help people who knows me and those probably who doesn’t have an idea of who I am. Thus, this blog is a dialogue, sharing with the friends.

I probably need to start with self-introduction. I like few things: I like to travel, I like talking to the people and I like doing new things. Travelling it’s a life lasting addiction. I was born in the small city in Ural mountains, but spent significant part of my childhood in Pakistan, that’s how it started. Later while working at P&G I managed to visit almost all the corners of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and even went as far as Southern Africa where I was residing in Joburg for few years flying back and force between Harare, Maputo, Durban and Cape building distribution with my Distributors partners. The best way to travel for me is driving. While driving I have enough time in isolation for thinking. Once I took a car in Las Vegas and 5 days later returned it in Nashville. Driving and making stops from time to time gives my enormous motivation and food for thoughts, helps me to dive in localities of the cultures. In the past few years with Ontex I extended my geography to North Africa, Turkey, Middle East and, of course, China and South Korea became an absolute gem for my traveling nature. I’m pretty much business traveler, each trip is full of meetings and business talks. Every trip is a small expedition for me where I learn and study not just the business but also people, culture, habits and behaviors.

Talking to the people, listening to their stories and telling mines is another part of my personality. I do not remember when did it start, probably when I was 11 in the boarding school we, boys, all the roommates loved to tell different stories to each other before going to sleep. Yes, it was pre-internet time. Every person is unique and while talking to him or her I discover another universe any other time. I discovered the world through the eyes and experience of another people. Still remember many lessons learnt. One of them I got many years ago when I was working as Distribution Manager in South Africa and had to move Duracell business from old Duracell Distributors to the new ones. It was very sensitive mission to call the owners of the businesses and tell them we are terminated the contract that probably fed them and their families for many years. One business owner, the young (at least the voice was very young) lady from Durban reacted so calm, humble and positive that I was indeed puzzled. We started to talk and she asked me if I knew the meaning of “Insha’Allah”, of course I didn’t. She explained it to me it this way: “Allah never closes all doors for a person. If He closes a door, then He certainly opens another one. It’s a duty of a person to find the door that was opened for him”. Since that time “Insha’Allah” is with me and trust me, it really works!

Passion for doing new things came from my scientific background I guess (I’ve got PhD in applied mathematics). It’s very unique feeling when you are touching something undiscovered, when you are coming with your hypothesis and you see step by step how this immaterial idea is coming to life, influence the others and finally starts to live on its own. Once nice summer evening I was chilling at Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton and what cached my attention was a big quote from Nelson Mandela just in front of me at the Sandton library saying “It’s always seems impossible until it’s done”. It’s so correlating to me. When the very first time I came to Hawassa in 250 km from Addis Ababa with the idea to build the plant there it was not even a green field… it was just a field. 2 years later the plan produced very first Ethiopian baby diaper. It seemed totally impossible in the beginning those sunny September day at the edge of the field…

I need to explain why the name of the blog is so provocative. In general there are too types of business books on the market today. First type is very famous alike “7 habits…”, “10 principles..” and so on. It’s good reading of course though reading it you always has a risk of been trapped with the “survivorship bias”. Personally I have a very strong feeling that sharing optimistic beliefs those books tends to ignore the voice of the companies or people who failed miserable simply due to the fact, such companies do longer exist and people usually are not open to tell about their failures. Survivorship bias can easily lead to the false belief that the successes in a group have some special property, rather than just coincidence. Another group of books like my favorite “Good To Great.. “ from Jim Collins is really great reading yet I found it very often “too heavy”, too academical and focusing more on executive teams and CEOs. Of course nothing wrong with it, all the great books, but my storytelling nature was always looking for something more grounded and close to the human around us.

So this blog is not an academical study, it’s not a complete set of recipes or advises of HOW TO DO THINGS. It’s rather a collection of stories I’m putting together in the past 25 years and telling me HOW NOT TO DO THINGS. Or even more precise — WHERE TO LOOK AT IN ORDER NOT TO DO TOO MANY CRITICAL MISTAKES.

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — 17 Dec. 2020, by Stephen R. Covey, Sean Covey

2. Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t Hardcover — 4 Oct. 2001, by Jim Collins