Speaking at the IBM CEOs Forum in Mumbai, Dr Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard professor, consultant and trainer extraordinaire, gave us her favorite metaphor of today's business challenges by recounting the famous Alice in Wonderland story of the crazy game of croquet. This game is normally played very similar to golf with a heavy mallet that sends balls into hoops. Except that in the game that Alice plays and which Dr Kanter translated into modern business, the mallet (read technology) turns out to be a live flamingo that raises its head when it approaches the ball, the ball itself (read customer) is actually a hedgehog which scurries away just as the mallet comes down to strike and the hoops (read business targets) are actually packs of cards that keep moving this way and the other following the orders of the mad Queen. Quite a challenge, both for Alice and for leaders of IT and BPO businesses, trying to win over new customers and retain old ones.
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