Nibbling for Success

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In this post, I am going list and describe four-step approach for success in any human endeavour. I am calling it a nibble for success since nibble is a computing term for a four-bit aggregation and as a verb it means doing things in small and steady steps. At any stage of our personal , professional or institutional life, we face the following questions.

  • What to do next ? : This is a fundamental question and answering this is very essential. The answer provides direction to individual or institution. For example. when companies ask this question, it may take form such as " what is our next product?" what is our next market?. When an individual poses this, it may turn out to be " what can I do after B.E? or what is the next position in my career path? Not knowing answer to this crucial questions puts us into a position or disadvantage which experts call " Strategic Gap". In other words we are facing a "strategic gap" or do not know the future direction to take.

  • How to do that ? Assuming that we have overcome the strategic gap ie we know what to do next, the consequent challenge is to answer the question. How to do that ? ( which was decided in the previous stage). For instance, suppose an IT company decides to enter Chinese market or a engineering students decides to pursue M.Tech, then knowing how to do that is the challenge. Company may enter new market directly on its own or go for joint venture etc. The engineering student may choose to appear for GATE or PGCET. In case you do not know answer to this challenge then you are in position " Knowledge Gap"

  • Core competence: In this stage, one has to ask what is its/his special strength that can be put into use for achieving the stated objective. In other words what is the area in which you have excellence which can be exploited. For instance, a company may use its search excellence to dominate Internet space while the competitor may use its software strength for the same purpose. A student planning for GATE may identify one or more core subjects ( such as maths, DMS, OS) to focus during his preparation.

  • Context competence: The last but still important question is how to get it done. For instance, a student may choose to opt for some additional coaching as part of preparation. This is called context competence, because choice of coaching institute is an important step and one has to choose an excellent institute for training. But this is not a core strength because anyone can join that institute.