Any event of relevance to an organization requires it to review and, if necessary, recalibrate its strategy. Such events could be macro and play out over a substantial amount of time, such as the effects of digitalization on the media industry. They could just as well be developments that occur overnight, such as the BP oil spill. Either ways, strategy implementation doesn't appear to be very hard to accomplish given an adequate pool of skilled professionals. The difficulty lies in strategy formation, and as much as we would like, it cannot be bangalored.

Strategy is a beast that is hard to tame. This is primarily because there are two contrasting perspectives to strategizing and the success of an organization often depends on how well leaders handle and amalgamate these conflicting perspectives.

The first perspective is known as the Rational Thinking Perspective (RTP). This school of thought involves the use of analytics to solve business problems. It emphasizes a rigid application of problem solving through mathematical rigour. Proponents of RTP live by the motto 'Numbers don't lie'. RTP is all about mundane mathematics, data interpretation and quantitative skill application. Dell is a company that has been largely successful because of brilliant market research based pricing and positioning, so it could be said that Dell works in the rational paradigm.

The second perspective is known as the Generative Thinking Perspective (GTP). It involves the use of human subjectivity, rather than hard numerical analysis to make decisions. It involves gut feel and decisions based on instinct - not something that can be mathematically captured. Proponents of GTP argue that RTP is successful only in a predictable, logical and stable world - where people's opinions do not waver and data points don't jump around. They claim that reality is more complex and the generative method is best suited in a complicated world. Apple doesn't indulge in a lot of market research and can hence be considered to have a strategy largely based on GTP.

RTP has an inherent disadvantage - it can cause businesses to suffer from 'paralysis by analysis' - the inability to reach a decision in view of conflicting data. GTP, in the meanwhile, has its pitfalls as well. It can cause companies to become 'extinct by instinct' - unless, ofcourse, you have the instincts of a certain Steve Jobs. The challenge, therefore, lies in finding an optimal mix - milking the advantages of each whilst avoiding the disadvantages of both. Easier said than done.

As in business, so in life. Successful people are the ones who know when to analyze and make decisions and when to go by gut feel. Different circumstances call for different thinking paradigms.

We don't do quantitative analysis and look at graphs before falling in love, do we? It is easy to be rational when everything's in black and white, but there are times when we need to work with gray - there are times when there is a need to acknowledge our irrationality and make decisions accordingly. However, if we're irrational all the time, it's going to throw us off balance. We won't make too much sense to people around us either. The essence of success in life and business lies in realizing when numbers matter and when they don't - in knowing when the situation calls for binary thinking and when circumstances are fuzzy - and acting in accordance.

Don't just count. Feel. Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted.

There is a lesson marketers can (re)learn from the recent revolution in Egypt that led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak - rebellion sells, and it sells well.

The Egyptian people might have begun with the premise that they were standing up for a better future. They ended up, however, standing up against Mubarak (yes, there's a difference). I say this because they were in unison with the military during this revolution. I'm no expert political commentator but I do know this - the military and people's rights make for strange bedfellows. The fact that they took solace in military backing tells us that they wanted Mubarak out - real change could wait. Whether Egypt sees better governance remains to be seen.

Take a look at any political movement - it is easier to pull people together against an institution or idea than it is to unite them for something. 

Can a marketing campaign be designed around this emotion? Sure.

Just ask Diesel. Their brand identity is based on rebellion. It galvanizes people not because they find conformity unappealing, but because they find rebellion fascinating. Sample one of their campaigns - 'Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls' - and you know what I'm talking about. Quotes such as that one work like a charm on people who do not get their share of the limelight playing by the rules.

You could ask Apple too. They most certainly come up with fantastic products (across segments) - but rebellion is what adds to their brand value. Any consumer frustrated with her HP laptop or Nokia phone probably dreams of having an Apple replacement - despite their ordinary after sales service and high prices.

When in doubt, sell rebellion.

In any business transaction, as in life, it is natural to doubt the intentions of the organization or individual (as the case may be) you are dealing with for the first time. There is an existence of a trust deficit. It is human to worry about the opposite party defaulting on your payments, flouting a few business norms and in general doing what we hope they wouldn't do. Trust is something that gets built deal by deal, week by week.

Amazon is doing something quite contrary. They work with what I call a trust surplus. Amazon allows (even new) customers to return a Kindle book for a week. I am sure we can read most books completely in seven days. What Amazon is doing, then, is trusting that we'd pay and not return a book after reading it.

Risky? Maybe.

Brilliant customer relationship? Most certainly - because if you trust me, it makes me want to trust you - and that's the beginning of any great relationship.

We've all used post-it notes. A brand that's synonymous with post-its is 3M.

Interestingly, 3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. When we celebrate innovation, we celebrate a change in the status quo - a stretching of domains, fields and disciplines. Surely enough, then, we must also celebrate the unsung heroes of innovation such as 3M for their profitable transition from mining to stationery. How did a company that has a 'Mining' in it's name move on to design sticky post-it notes?

Cut to the early 20th century. Industrial revolution was big in the US - the rise of skyscrapers, building of highways and the manufacturing of automobiles was in full flow. Steel was cool. For steel to be manufactured, there was a need for tools and machinery parts. A motley group of people from Minnesota got together and decided they were going to create a mining company to obtain raw material to manufacture tools used for grinding needed in manufacturing steel, hoping to make a profit in the infrastructure industry boom.

These (mostly young) men borrowed a lot of money and built the mine. Soon enough, disaster struck. It turned out the mineral they mined was the wrong mineral. It was not nearly as useful for abrasion as they thought. 

They were in trouble. Thankfully, they found out that the mineral they had mined would be really useful in making great sandpaper. Back then, sandpaper was pretty important in infrastructure. They persevered, and surely enough, half a decade or so later, they broke even. They weren't a run away success by any stretch of imagination, but were fairly profitable. 

Something amazing happened soon after. 3M had on its payroll a sandpaper engineer named Richard Drew. He was working on a sandpaper project for 3M in collaboration with automobile companies. He noticed that automobile companies had a problem in painting vehicles in two tones - they couldn't come up with a way to separate the colours. Richard Drew saw the problem and thought he could solve it. He headed back to his lab and came up with a series of prototypes - until his boss, a man named William McKnight, saw him working on this project that wasn't part of Drew's job description. McKnight gave Drew a talking to. Grudgingly, Drew got back to working on sandpaper. However, whenever he could, he directed his efforts towards solving the paint problem. He got told several times to get his act right and work on sandpaper, but he was possessed. Half way into his efforts of solving the two tone problem, Drew realized he needed money. He had enough budget authority at 3M to write $100 receipts. He wrote these receipts to himself, amounting to a total of around $2000 (which was a lot of money in the second decade of the 20th century) and finished the prototype. He showed his invention to the automobile companies. They fell in love with it. He showed it to William McKnight, who reluctantly agreed that it was a breakthrough. This was the modest birth of the now ubiquitous masking tape! Masking tape eventually gave way to Scotch tape, designed by the same guy. This is how they made their entry into stationery.

The enterprise of Richard Drew is worthy of admiration. I would, however, like to direct your attention to William McKnight. It is hard for a boss to put his hands up and say 'OK. I was wrong. You've come up with a brilliant idea that is going to get our profits skyrocketing. I was actually an impediment to innovation. Despite considering myself as being a good manager, I did my best to stifle my star engineer and innovator. I need a management rethink. I want to encourage the Richard Drews in my company, not trouble them'. But that's exactly what McKnight did. He had the foresight to see that tape was a much more profitable venture than sandpaper, although sandpaper wasn't too bad a product to be manufacturing. 

William McKnight eventually became the CEO of 3M and ensured his learnings became central to 3M's management philosophy and culture. This is what McKnight wrote, in 1948:

As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.

Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.

That's quality management education right there. Moreover, it's timeless. It was written in 1948 and still holds true, despite the rise and fall of several industries. Google, a company formed fifty years later, uses this very management principle when it allows employees to work on a project of their choice once a week, utilizing company time and resources. Talk about vision - McKnight, in all probability, did not even know computers would be so important and companies like Google would exist in the future.

Infact, it's not just a management philosophy. It's a roadmap to a happier life, if you think about it. Parents who want their children to be happier, families who want to stay together and people in a relationship who want it to work can all learn something from McKnight's three paragraphs of brilliance.

Look at his words closely.

As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

He talks of delegation - trusting other people's judgment even when you think they are totally out of order, because you know there's something about those people that you know (even if you can't put your finger on it) is right.

Mistakes will be made.

This is scary. People are uncomfortable with mistakes. Mistakes are supposed to be a bad thing - in business or in relationships. Imagine a manager saying 'We expect expenditure on mistakes to go up by 20% this quarter'. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? It's a risk to spend money that will probably never be recovered. Yet, risks are what keeps businesses thriving.

Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.

Initiative - that's hard to understand as well. Most people don't grasp the concept that you don't have to be a Senior Vice President or a Chief Executive Officer to lead. You can lead from the bottom. People live in the illusion that you are supposed to do what you're told until you're in a position of authority and then suddenly, you get to do what you want and execute your ideas. In all probability, it would be too late then. Change can come from anywhere. McKnight spells it out beautifully.

We owe a lot to William McKnight. Gmail, Google News and the likes would never have been created had the concept of responsibility delegation and trust not made its way into management psyche. It's human (and right) to love and appreciate the Richard Drews of this world. What the world needs, though, is a large number of William McKnights.

Incidental exposure to a powerful brand can have a significant impact on consumers' choices, according to Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

In what seems to me to be a brilliant piece of research, Professor Fitzsimons showed 800 people a logo on a screen really quickly - so quicky, infact, that they may not have consciously registered it. They were then tested on their creativity. A divergence test was used for this purpose. An example of a divergence test problem is to list all possible uses of an object, such as a brick or a blanket, in limited time (Try doing it now. I couldn't come up with too many). Basically, divergence tests are to creativity what IQ tests are to intelligence.

The results were for everyone to see. People who were shown the Apple logo were found to be 30% to 40% more creative than those who did not. Moreover, people who were shown the IBM logo were found to be less creative than those who did not see any logo. This is possibly because Apple is seen to be a far more creative and interesting brand than IBM, which has a very bureaucratic, uninspiring, monotonous and mundane feel to it.

Exposure to logos stimulate us to strengthen or weaken (as the case may be) our creativity for a while after viewing them, and this, subconsciously. Subliminal advertising, widely regarded to be too frivolous, may actually have some substance to it after all.