Strategic Brilliance
From Concept to Reality
- Chetan Walia - CEO of C. School and BeOne Foundation, and Associate Professor for Innovation and Leadership at University of Bradford, UK
Every business education and training programmes encourage us to ‘think big’ and be ‘excellent’. But they do not teach us to be brilliant. While excellence is the quality of being extremely good at something, brilliance is an exceptional level of performance. Strategic Brilliance: From Concept to Reality is a brilliant work of ideas that enlightens readers on the art of ‘brilliance’ and exposes the wildly ambitious and dramatized idea of ‘think big and the rest will follow’ mindset. It outlines a journey from perceiving brilliance to a roadmap for executing it. Guiding the reader through a process of clarifying assumptions, confronting problems and articulating decisions, the book equips business leaders, budding entrepreneurs and strategy enthusiasts to challenge the existing paradigms about success, develop a mindset for brilliance and create a strategic blueprint to achieve it.
Strategic Brilliance admonishes the basic criteria which we associate with brilliance. This makes us realize that brilliance shines through all the coverings to make a profound impact and, in that, it solves the right problem. That is what brilliance is about. It is a fabulously crafted conclusion of what it really means to be brilliant. It is a must-read for business leaders.
Chetan Walia has brought out some of the key aspects for value creation using creativity, well-thought-out plans and execution. Some of the topics and discussion such as mediocrity to brilliance, everything is a decision and creativity is central to success really play a big role in building strong businesses. He has also brought out the importance of defining a culture, in addition to highlighting how obsession can create legacy disorder. He has also very aptly touched upon the momentum effect. I remember how motion plays a role in physics, which I am glad that Chetan has brought as a part of the book in driving brilliance rather than excellence for creating varying business models. It is a great read, great learning and wonderful recall to the core values that one should possess while building firms and leading them to success.
The world is witnessing contradictory trends. On the one side, big is becoming bigger and strong is becoming stronger. On the other side, an idea can disrupt structures and challenge leaders. Innovation and creativity are likely to be the differentiator and the biggest driver of value creation in the future. Strategic Brilliance brings out a great framework for value creation through creativity.
Thought-provoking and insightful, Strategic Brilliance brings in a fresh perspective to a lot of management gospels. The book is so counter-intuitive that it makes you pause, think and reflect, and then leaves you contemplating that brilliance, eventually, is so simple. It is a must-read for any new-age thinker!
It is truly a riveting discourse on strategies for success in the world of business. It gives a unique take and raises some poignant questions through the use of everyday conversations, newspaper headlines and childhood tales. It is an impeccable piece of work for future business leaders, managers, bureaucrats, academicians and students. It definitely struck a chord with me, a must-read!