Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YourStory, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 42nd edition of the quiz, we present issues tackled by real-life entrepreneurs in their startup journeys.
What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you will find out what the entrepreneurs and innovators themselves actually did. Would you do things differently?
Check out YourStory’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 340 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.
Q1: Growth
Founders need to build a viable product and a compelling vision to start with. They also need to communicate this vision, and rope in investors as necessary. But in addition to team building, they need one more skill for growth and connections—what is that?
Q2: Resilience
The journey of an entrepreneur involves dealing with risk, contingency planning, and bouncing back from failure. Learning from setbacks helps avoid repeating mistakes, and move on to success. But there’s more to resilience than accepting some failure—what else is involved?
Q3: Burnout
Due to factors like the intensity of pressure and internal flaws, employees and managers run the risk of burnout. Carefully observing behaviour patterns helps here, as well as spotting a lack of caring about business goals. What’s another cause of burnout, and how can it be tackled?
Q4: Green strategy
In times of increasing concern about climate change and pollution, businesses need to step up and do their bit—and much more—for the environment. This pro-environment focus can actually be good not just for nature and urban habitats but also for the company itself—how so?
Q5: Assessment and hiring
Much of the candidate assessment is based on textual documents. Tools like automation also work largely on text resumes. This may not work as well in a media-rich world, or in dealing with some blue-collar segments. So what’s a better way of doing such candidate assessments?
Answers!
Congratulations on having come this far! But there’s more to come – answers to these five questions (below), as well as links to articles with more details on the entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning—and happy creating!
A1: Growth
“Networking opens new avenues and helps to overcome the reticence conditioned in many of us to explore, be vocal, and collaborate to ideate,” explains Bhuvaneswari Veerasamy, Vice President, TIBCO Delivery & MENA Services, Bahwan CyberTek.
“It is a good way to make professional relationships to grow one’s business and build the company’s brand and that of self,” she adds. Read more here about how genuine connections and networks serve you well during challenges.
A2: Resilience
“Life’s ups and downs give you something. At the very least, they leave you with a good story to tell,” explains Radhika Gupta, MD and CEO, Edelweiss Asset Management. Despite challenges to self-esteem due to a physical disability, she rose up to become a successful businesswoman, author, and TEDx speaker.
“Young people just assume that CEOs don’t have bad days. The reality is they do, and I think it is important for leaders to speak about it,” Radhika says. Read more here of her tips on communicating about failure and how leadership is about living and improving each day.
A3: Burnout
“Company policies often make employees choked up and they feel they do not have the ability to decide how they would want to work,” observes mental health expert Veena Jain, Founder of mental wellbeing initiative Jagruth.
The counsellor explains that first-line managers should identify changes in their employees’ body language, behaviour, and how they carry themselves. Read more here about how employee engagement activities can be restructured to be more empowering.
A4: Green strategy
“Companies making pro-environment investments today will reap tremendous positive opportunities tomorrow,” according to Sohil Wazir, Chief Commercial Officer at Blue Tribe Foods, which makes ‘meat’ from sustainable plant-based sources.
He identifies a number of business reasons why businesses should not miss environment-related investments. It will encourage positive customer engagement, help retain and attract a talented workforce, and can make the brand stand out. Read more here about why companies should focus not just on short-term profits but the bigger picture.
A5: Assessment and hiring
“In today’s digital-first world, traditional or text-based candidate assessments are suboptimal as they are time-consuming, easily manipulated, and assume the candidate knows reading,” observes Tarvinder Kaur, Co-founder and CEO of PMaps.
The startup claims its visual-based assessment measures candidate competence in less than 11 minutes. It recently secured Rs 5 crore from the Indian Angel Network and Lets Venture. Read more about its platform and tools like PMaps Invigilator smart online invigilation here.
YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World 0of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).
