Day 76: On the importance of resilience, Sunday library, and my blogging inspirations

A good half of the art of living is resilience – Alain de Botton

My first day back home. But the semester hadn’t ceased yet. We had one submission lined up at the end of the day. We had to prepare a shareholder report for the company we ran in the business simulation during the course of the term. While we had a fair idea about dealing with the mechanical content like the management discussion and the financial performance, it was novel for us to attempt to write a shareholder letter.

One has to note that the share price had gone down by 50% in the period we ran the company. While we still a strong player in the market, in terms of shareholder value we didn’t have much to show for. Now how do we communicate it?

I read a few shareholder letters from the annual reports I had. But most of these had performed decently, if not very well. I googled some tips on writing shareholder letters. While some said that a shareholder report was to exhibit the bright aspects of the company’s performance, others said that the report must help the potential investor understand the company’s position and prospects in the market.

Narratives are powerful. I started to look for a story that played during the course we ran the company. Was there any admirable quality to this company? One narrative revealed itself. For the first three rounds we faced consecutive losses, we were mounted with debts. Our share price has tanked. But we turned around the company then on to even becoming the market leaders in a couple of rounds. This company was resilient. This was the one message we wanted to deliver to the shareholders. Whatever the external conditions, this company can bounce back from distress.

We understand the importance of resilience as a quality in humans. Check out this School of Life video on Resilience: Resilience

Now, it was important for organizations as well. We found ‘resilience’ to be an important quality for a company in the fast-changing and uncertain 21st century. When we googled, quite a few articles came up. Here is an HBR article on Building a Resilient Organizational Culture. There are consulting firms that provide resilience-building services to firms!

I’d end with this quote from Charles Darwin, which is how we began our shareholder letter.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

– Origin of Species, Charles Darwin

.  .  .

We have a brilliant public library in my home city of Chennai. It is the largest in South Asia. It is sort of a spiritual home for me. Today being a Sunday, I pushed myself to visit it despite the lazy me wanting to stay home and spend more time on our submission. Most times, I keep my library visits exploratory. Last week, I had read a book with the Persian poet, mathematician, and philosopher Omar Khayyam as a central character. His book of quatrains, The Rubaiyat, is praised for its insights and free-spiritedness. I wanted to check out The Rubaiyat. I was not surprised when I didn’t make much of it. This has happened before with other classics as well. I was not ready for it.

I picked out two other books: The Bluebird Cafe by Rebecca Smith and The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey. Set in Southampton, young college graduates plan to start the Bluebird Cafe just opposite the newsagent owned by an Indian, which they frequent. I found the second book more absorbing and evocative of a place. Set in Trinidad, I was soon engulfed in its island climate and the characters whom I wanted to know more about. It was history, travel writing, fiction rolled into one. My kind of a book, I’d say.

And then some more working on our submission, more line charts and bar graphs. By 10:30 PM, I was done with it. But I had one more task to be completed. I had to write my blog for the day. I did that; I was quite surprised by the flow. It was just past midnight. I curled up on my bed with Daphne Kapsali’s One Hundred Days of Solitude. This work was my major inspiration to start writing here every day.

There are a couple of other inspirations too. The first is the ‘a learning a day‘ blog by Rohan Rajiv, an alumnus of Kellog’s Business School and my school senior. The other one is Sadie, a US Foreign Service Officer, about whom I blogged about yesterday. You could find her personal travel blog here: Sadie Abroad.

Day 59: Giraffe Karaka, Baby Clara, and a ship

Just a boring container ship or does it carry some beautiful stories?

On one of my shelves in my dorm room, I’ve used a sheet of old newspaper as a protective. Along with other news on the page, it had an image of a dock with huge containers stacked over each other. On many of these containers was the prominent inscription of the name Maersk.

Until today, this photo did not have much meaning to me. I had not even noticed it, even if I had the name wouldn’t have made much sense to me. But not anymore. Today in the B2B marketing class, we were exploring social media in the context of B2B marketing. Maersk Line’s use of social media was the case under examination.

For those like me, who don’t know about Maersk Line, it is a container shipping giant with operations in over 125 countries. Around the end of 2011, they decided to get into social media. But what will a company belonging to a boring, unsexy, rugged, conservative industry do on social media? Would they be successful at selling shipping container space on social media?

What they did was this:

1. On Facebook, they started to post photos from its 14000 strong photo archive of ships, seascapes, and ports, which until now was dormant. Being in existence from 1928, they had a rich history.
2. Photo of a Giraffe on a container ship. Karaka, the Giraffe, was moving from Melbourne to Auckland to join a breeding program. Read this excerpt from Taronga: “Despite the unfavorable conditions, Karaka arrived safe and sound, and since arriving in NZ is enjoying teasing the ostriches, getting to know a male giraffe ‘Zabulu’, and has seen one of the older females give birth. This all adds to her life experience which will be invaluable, particularly as she matures and becomes of breeding age herself.“
3. Told real stories. About the Maersk Norwich Whale Strike or the video footage on Clara Maersk rescuing Vietnamese fugitives in 1975. The teaching assistant played this video in class. A first baby born on the ship was named after the ship. So much about Clara Maersk, what about Truong Xuan?

It was about authentic stories. Being who they were. Who knew there were so much interesting going in a container ship! As my professor summarized, social media allows companies to humanize and let them have the human touch, which they can use to emotionally connect with people.

Reading about shipping excites my spirit. The image of the open sea and the sense of adventure is instantly kindled. Even more, reading and watching these heartwarming stories of Giraffe, Whale, and Vietnamese fugitives made my day.