The document discusses principles for sustainable growth, including doing fewer initiatives but making them bolder, simplifying operations to keep costs low, and unleashing people through resources and authority. It emphasizes the need for focus amid business temptations, and executing on insights through leadership commitment. Sustainable growth is a journey requiring continuing effort to innovate broadly while avoiding overexpansion that increases complexity faster than revenues.

1. Fewer, Bigger, BOLDER
Sanjay Khosla+Mohanbir Sawhney

2. Sanjay khosla worked with
Unilever in India, Fonterra and
Kraft. Mohanbir Sawhney is a
Professor at Kellogg's Business
school.

3. A refrain you hear in every
company is “we are doing too
much", 'we are stretched too
thin', 'we are drowning in routine’
and ‘we have become too
complex’

4. When you look at sales, look at
the quality of sales, how
sustainable is it? Quality growth
builds on itself.

5. Key principles for growth
• Do less, make fewer bets.
• Be bold, focus on highest potential initiatives.
• Simplify and keep costs low
• Execute, keep testing and refining.
• Unleash people, give them resources and
authority.

6. Sustainable growth is not
something you get into overnight.
It is a journey that requires
continuing effort.

7. Each extra move seems logical
when made, but expansion
without focus leads to
disappointment. Capabilities get
stretched and complexity
increases faster than revenues.

8. After a while, expansion becomes
expensive and brand managers
tend to binge like junkies on
variants etc.

9. On the other hand, deleting is
simple, you can stop doing
something stupid faster than you
can start something new.

10. In most companies revenues grow
linearly and complexity grows non
linearly.

11. It is never about doing more, it is
about doing things better. Focus
needs simplicity in strategy and
clarity in execution.

12. ‘It is always a question of how
innovative and how brave you
are” Tim Clark, President –
Emirates.

13. Focus needs a ton of discipline.
The business world is full of
temptations posing as
opportunities.

14. You cannot eat insights for lunch.
Translating insights needs
leadership commitment.

15. Workshops have become the
staples of the business world.
With numbing power points,
paper lists tacked to the walls,
workshops provoke silent groans.

16. In any workshop- mute the boss,
this always leads to a better
workshop as people speak up.

17. Kraft historically had low levels of
openness around open and honest
communication.

18. Leaders play a key role as catalysts
in discovery, but they need to step
back and let the teams drive the
discovery process.

19. Brands are emotional connections
that stay relevant for generations.

20. No company is an island and it has
to build collaborative relationships
in the eco system. That can be a
powerful lens for growth.

21. Innovation has three Ms. :
Momentum ( winning potential),
margin ( profit potential) and
materiality ( revenue potential)

22. Innovation should always ask-
how big is the potential, what
resources do we need and what
time frame of advantage do we
have?

23. Good people have four essential
qualities – passion, team players,
transformational and are
dissatisfied with the way things
are.

24. Under the right circumstances,
leaders should focus on defining
ambitious goals and then let their
managers and teams figure out
the answers.

25. Good reviews are built on one
element – trust.

26. Focus on what matters, create
sustainable growth and innovate
broadly.

27. Strategy is useless without
execution. Execution fails when
companies try to do too much.

28. The most important lesson about
metrics, is that simpler your
metrics, the better the chance of
execution.

29. What do we measure
When do we measure it
Who gets involved

30. Own up to mistakes, stories of
failure can inspire and be
wonderfully instructive.

31. Manage a few innovations well,
rather than managing all badly.

32. Don’t introduce a new product if it
doesn’t have a margin higher than
the average.

33. Secure your future by investing in
brands and customers.