Tsai Ing-Wen, Mette Frederiksen, Silveria Jacobs are some of the less known names. You would rather have heard of Angela Merkel and Jacinda Ardern. What connects these women is that they are the most prominent women leaders of the world. What connects them also is that their respective countries have performed the best in controlling and stopping coronavirus. Probably in a couple of years we will get the retrospective research on why that is so, but there is definitive data on women being the better leaders in a crisis. Thought that was a good story to share on Mother’s Day, but I focus on the statistics and not necessarily the gender battle. Don’t you think you expected to see a mix or rather a lot of male leaders given the actual proportion of male to female leaders in the world. Do read the Guardian or any other coverage on it. Didn’t make the cut here but it is a fascinating a case study.
1. Resilience and Adaptability have slowly come back to replace blitz-scaling and Uber-growth. In the first article today, we focus on a company that for me shows resilience like any other. While the failure of GM, Nokia, Fuji is widely documented,I have struggled to find enough literature on this fine company. It started off at a card playing company in the 1800’s and beating expectations it has managed to soar again during COVID. Guess the company maybe before you move to the link?https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/05/08/world-weathers-pandemic-nintendo-may-just-be-recession-proof/
2. As the World started re-opening everywhere, a traditional political science concept reiterated itself quite strongly. The “rallying around the flag effect” has been around for ages, seen most strongly during the 9/11 where a crisis can help leaders gain a sharp uptick in short term popularity. The reverse is also true if citizens feel that leaders have not acted strongly enough to respond to the crisis. One just needs to look at Jair Bolsonaro’s (Brazil) response to coronavirus to make Trump look like the greatest leader ever.
3.The last of the Steve Jobs, the demigod is on the precipice. Jack Dorsey’s return and a surge after his return drew the attention of too many people. But companies that are not falling apart hardly make the news anymore.It was a welcome surprise to come across this article. Will the activist investors be able to replace him, or will COVID help continue the story of the The Return of the King.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/in-the-coronavirus-era-the-force-is-still-with-jack-dorsey
4.Since alcohol was a popular subject this week, I think the story of this brand, which you would have heard me repeating multiple times, gets an updated coverage.From a steel furniture maker, to a distiller making cheap versions of premium brands to go on to winning the award for the best scotch, its a story which never gets old. https://www.fortuneindia.com/enterprise/radico-khaitan-in-high-spirits/104548
5. In 1913, Thomas Edison said that books would become irrelevant and films would take over as the primary method of education. Despite the recent changes in education over the last few months because of COVID, I think edtech needs much more innovation to become completely mainstream. As a hot topic across this articles takes you through the history of edtech, with a focus on India. As multiple schools in India embrace technology and tired parents look for ways to keep their children busy, corovirus might just be to edtech platforms, what demonetisation was to online payment platforms.
https://inc42.com/features/welcome-to-the-future-of-edtech-its-a-lot-like-the-past/
I rediscovered an old interesting article. Its a 2 min read with a beautiful presentation of the history of business made by Bain. Not super relevant of today’s times, neither an urgent read but I am sure if you enjoy history you will like the article.
https://media.bain.com/history-of-business/
As usual hope you have fun reading !
Ruminated 