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By:

Divyaa Advaani 

2 November 2024 at 3:28:38 am

When agreement kills growth

In the early stages of building a business, growth is often driven by clarity, speed, and conviction. Founders make decisions quickly, rely on their instincts, and push forward with a strong sense of belief in their methods. This decisiveness is not only necessary, it is often the very reason the business begins to grow. However, as businesses cross certain thresholds, particularly beyond the Rs 5 crore mark, the nature of growth begins to change. What once created momentum can quietly begin...

When agreement kills growth

In the early stages of building a business, growth is often driven by clarity, speed, and conviction. Founders make decisions quickly, rely on their instincts, and push forward with a strong sense of belief in their methods. This decisiveness is not only necessary, it is often the very reason the business begins to grow. However, as businesses cross certain thresholds, particularly beyond the Rs 5 crore mark, the nature of growth begins to change. What once created momentum can quietly begin to create limitations. In many professional environments, it is not uncommon to encounter business owners who are deeply convinced of their approach. Their methods have delivered results, their experience reinforces their judgment, and their confidence becomes a defining trait. Yet, in this very confidence lies a subtle risk that is often overlooked. When conviction turns into certainty without space for dialogue, conversations begin to narrow. Suggestions are heard, but not always considered. Perspectives are offered, but not always encouraged. Decisions are made, but not always explained. From the outside, this may still appear as strong leadership. Internally, however, a different dynamic begins to take shape. People start to agree more than they contribute. This is where many businesses unknowingly enter a critical phase. When teams, partners, or stakeholders begin to hold back their perspective, the quality of thinking around the business reduces. What appears as alignment is often silent disengagement. What looks like efficiency is sometimes the absence of challenge. Over time, this directly affects the decisions being made. At a Rs 5 crore level, this may not be immediately visible. Operations continue, revenue flows, and the business appears stable. But as the organisation attempts to grow further, this lack of diverse thinking begins to surface as a constraint. Growth slows, not because of lack of effort, but because of limited perspective. On the other side of this equation are individuals who consistently find themselves accommodating such dynamics. They recognise when their voice is not being fully heard, yet choose not to assert it. The intention is often to preserve relationships, avoid friction, or maintain a sense of professional ease. Initially, this approach appears collaborative. Over time, however, it begins to shape perception. When individuals do not express their perspective, they are gradually seen as agreeable rather than essential. Their presence is valued, but their input is not actively sought. In many cases, they become part of the process, but not part of the decision. This is where personal branding begins to influence business outcomes in ways that are not immediately obvious. A personal brand is not built only through visibility or achievement. It is built through how consistently one demonstrates clarity, confidence, and openness in moments that require it. It is shaped by whether people feel encouraged to think around you, or restricted in your presence. At higher levels of business, this distinction becomes critical. If people agree with you more than they challenge you, it may not be a sign of strong leadership. It may be an indication that your environment is no longer enabling better thinking. Similarly, if you find yourself constantly adjusting to others without expressing your own perspective, your contribution may be diminishing in ways that affect both your influence and your growth. Both situations carry a cost. They affect decision quality, limit innovation, and over time, restrict the scalability of the business itself. What makes this particularly challenging is that these patterns develop gradually, often going unnoticed until the impact becomes difficult to ignore. The most effective leaders recognise this early. They create space for dialogue without losing direction. They express conviction without dismissing perspective. They build environments where contribution is expected, not avoided. In doing so, they strengthen not only their business, but also their personal brand. For entrepreneurs operating at a stage where growth is no longer just about execution but about expanding thinking, this becomes an important point of reflection. If there is even a possibility that your current interactions are limiting the quality of thinking around you, it is worth addressing before it begins to affect outcomes. I work with a select group of founders and professionals to help them refine how they are perceived, communicate with greater impact, and build personal brands that support sustained growth. You may explore this further here: https://sprect.com/pro/divyaaadvaani In the long run, it is not only the decisions you make, but the thinking you allow around those decisions, that determines how far your business can truly grow. (The author is a personal branding expert. She has clients from 14+ countries. Views personal.)

Stop Building Toys

Artificial Intelligence is not merely a technology upgrade cycle but a once-in-a-generation test of managerial courage and operational discipline.

In 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone, a senior executive at Western Union reportedly dismissed it as an “idiotic toy” with no commercial possibilities. The company famously declined to buy the patent. A few decades later, that ‘toy’ had rewired global commerce. Similarly, in the early 1900s, automobiles were mocked by horse-breeders as noisy novelties for the wealthy, oblivious to the fact that the internal combustion engine would soon birth highways, suburbs, and global logistics.


History is littered with inventions that appeared impractical or overhyped in their infancy, only to eventually become the bedrock of civilization. Today, Artificial Intelligence stands at a remarkably similar crossroads.


Pilot Purgatory

While global enterprises are pouring billions into GenAI, a quiet frustration is brewing in the boardrooms of Mumbai and Bengaluru. Most AI initiatives are trapped in a ‘pilot purgatory.’ Internal demos win applause and proof-of-concepts (PoCs) generate headlines, but measurable business value remains elusive. The scepticism is rising whether or not Is AI failing?


The answer is no. AI is not failing. It is our traditional organizational systems that are failing to absorb it. The Industrial Revolution did not succeed simply because steam engines were invented; it succeeded because factories were entirely redesigned around them. Electricity did not transform the world the day Thomas Edison patented the light bulb; it changed the world when manufacturers replaced central steam shafts with distributed electric power, allowing for the modern assembly line.


Technology alone never transforms a society; systems do. Today, many organizations are treating AI as a ‘gadget’ rather than infrastructure. They experiment with chatbots to handle FAQs or use AI to summarize meetings, but they leave the underlying business processes untouched. Without answering who owns the outcome, how to scale across the enterprise, and how to track ROI, AI remains a high-priced showcase project rather than a growth engine.


The common narrative is that AI’s limitations are technical and that we need more compute or cleaner data. In reality, the bottleneck is cultural and structural. AI initiatives often stall because sales teams are misaligned with AI-driven insights, delivery teams lack implementation clarity, and governance frameworks are treated as an afterthought.


Breakthrough technologies do not scale through enthusiasm; they scale through discipline. When the internet arrived, the winners were not just those who built websites, but those who restructured their entire supply chains and customer engagement models. AI demands a similar ‘architectural’ seriousness.


Architectural Seriousness

To move from proof to profit, leadership must drive the following strategic shifts. AI must be tied to specific P&L goals - revenue growth, churn reduction, or speed-to-market – and not experimentation for its own sake. A PoC proves possibility while an enterprise-wide implementation proves value.


If a tool doesn’t have a clear path to 1,000 users, it shouldn't be built for ten.


AI must be integrated into the core. It should not be a ‘bolt-on’ feature. Like Amazon’s recommendation engine or Netflix’s personalization algorithms, it must be woven into the core product.


Governance must function as an accelerator. Without clear accountability for AI-generated outcomes, organizations create more risk than value.


Execution must take precedence over hype, for the winners of this era will not necessarily be the ones who invent the most models, but the executors who combine technical clarity with operational discipline.


For a nation like India, which sits at the heart of global IT services, this moment is pivotal. We have moved from being the world’s back-office to its R&D lab. If our institutions, incentives, and execution models are redesigned around AI, we define the next economic era. If we treat it as a fleeting trend, we remain spectators. JPMorgan Chase now uses AI to review legal documents in seconds - a task that previously took 360,000 human hours annually.


When they first arrived on the scene, the telephone was dismissed as an impractical curiosity. The automobile was mocked as a noisy indulgence for the rich. Electricity was underestimated as an incremental convenience rather than a transformative force. Similarly, AI, too, faces scepticism but it will not disappear. The only remaining question for the Indian C-suite is whether we will build with it seriously today, or look back and regret our hesitation tomorrow.


(The author is a strategy and transformation leader who writes extensively on technology and future of work.)

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