The One And Only One Rule Of Success - Aditya Yadav

1. “Running an Agile Fortune 500 Company”
Aditya Yadav, aditya.yadav@gmail.com
in.linkedin.com/in/adityayadav76
*

2. *
*A Typical Global Company
*Fortune 500/1000
*200 Divisions
*40 Countries
*25000 Employees

3. @ Acme Inc.
*

4. *
*Original Question “How do we understand
Success in the Modern Human Society?”
*The Correct Question - “Let me tell you a Story
which is Not the One of Natural Selection by
Darwin. Its called the Rule of 1 or 2
Selections.”

5. And The Philosophy Behind The Answer
*

6. *
* We need to be able to understand why some people succeed and
some don’t
* Traditionally we have all believed that Darwin’s theory of natural
selection was the only answer available
* This deck is not about Strategy in any direct way and yet is probably
my most important (My personal opinion) collection of thoughts on, if
I may say, “How success in this world works?”
* By the end of this deck, you would understand why the terms
“Winner takes all” “All is fair in love and war” etc. make sense
* You will get an important perspective into our Education System and
Society and various other things.
* You will also get ideas on how to maximize chances of success, and
things like inflexion and “brutally uniform tests of selection”

7. *
* Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly
because random mutations cause changes in the genome of an
individual organism, and these mutations can be passed to offspring.
Throughout the individuals’ lives, their genomes interact with their
environments to cause variations in traits.
* Individuals with certain variants of the trait may survive and
reproduce more than individuals with other variants. Therefore the
population evolves.
* Natural selection is an important process (though not the only
process) by which evolution takes place within a population of
organisms. Natural selection can be contrasted with artificial
selection, in which humans intentionally choose specific traits
(although they may not always get what they want). In natural
selection there is no intentional choice. In other words, artificial
selection is teleological and natural selection is not teleological.
*** Wikipedia

8. *
*…We Humans spent centuries trying to find those
“Traits” that lead to natural selection in a Human
Society. Because Darwin said populations progress by
such means
*We identified things like
Intelligence, Strength, Charm, Influence, we even
defined Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence
*Obviously (Our Fallacious) Assumption is that by virtue
of Such Traits -> We Get Selected -> We Succeed. I’m
going to show you that its actually not true
*And we have spent an enormous amount of time trying
to articulate and find these Universal Traits (???)

9. *
* Most of these programs in the Academia and Businesses are just short
of nonsense
* They contain things like Discovering Your Inner Self, Your Drive, Your
Passion, Your Inner Peace…
* Ref: My deck on “How Democracy Really Works” to understand why
such things don’t help at all w/ Leading Organizations
* But then why does it seem that participants of such LDP’s succeed?
* The answer is very simple. They succeed not by virtue of anything
that can be attributed to what is learnt or gained at the program but
more so “Just By Virtue Of Them Being Selected Into The Program”
* Their Selection is the Direct Reason behind their Future Success…
* And they could have gotten selected for something as illogical (read
unrelated) as putting the most gorgeous reports in front of the
management or being the most popular manager.

10. *
*We have seen why competition is necessary in
a world of scarce resources.
*We have discussed that atleast theoretically
virtually any arbitrary criteria can be applied
for selection/competition though its obviously
better if there is some correlation
*We have also seen that criteria’s don’t
necessarily correlate with future success but
rather future success can be attributed to just
the act of selection itself

11. *
* The premise is that everyone is virtually indistinguishable
initially
* But by virtue of Selection they go on to better themselves
and succeed
* Every successful person on this planet has had 1 or 2 majorly
critical selections (scenarios where he has been selected
over others) which has led him to succeed in the long term
* Corollary: If you just take away those one or two
opportunities of being selected you take away their entire
lifetime of success
* Now we will begin to understand why things like Winner
Takes All, All Is Fair In Love And War, By Hook Or Crook I’m
The First In Your Book, Early Mover Advantage starts to make
sense…

12. *
*The First Selection For Steve Jobs was when
Steve Wozniak created a computer and yet let
(or not resist) Jobs being the CEO… that had an
everlasting impact on Jobs, if he wasn’t the
CEO or #1 nobody would have accomodated
him much in the future
*Had Einstein not cleared the University
Entrance Exam with some guidance, you could
forget relativity theory for another 20-50
years, being created by someone else.

13. *
* I have been able to identify just 2 categories of Selections in the world. (i)
Complex Kind, and (ii) Brutally Uniform Tests and Selections
* For example admission into a US University or an Industry Job is a complex
selection process.
* Entrance into Indian Institute Of Technologies and Indian Statistical
Institute used to be brutally uniform test and selection
* The Indian Education systems has more or less alternating instances of
these types of selection while the US Education system is more or less
steadily a chain of Complex Selection
* India see’s much more of what I call Inversions (Or inflection points) in the
road to success than US, where if you are doing well in school you would
probably do well in college and then in your job also everything else being
equal
* India see’s a lot of inversions where mediocre performers overtake top
performers (swapping/inversion), especially at boundaries of these two
selection sequences

14. *
* 99% of the work people do in this world requires virtually no special skill that you better had been born
with, and had someone else being selected couldn’t have learnt and done in the same process or career
graph.
* We give ourself’s too much credit. SERIOUSLY!!!
* In statistical terms once a subgroup is selected from a group they would have gone on to become
bankers, consultants, engineers and performed in the same proportion as some other reasonable
subgroup from the same original group
* The Golden Rule: Success can be attributed to Selection.
* The Golden Rule: There is no trait(s) which uniformly leads to Selection
* The Golden Rule: As you keep getting Selected you work harder, smarter and keep becoming better and
better than the original group you started from.
* 50% of US companies and a lot of Indian companies are family run. Their kids are smart no doubt but by
various other measures there are way way smarter people in the world but they don’t get selected to
run those companies. But once the family/son is selected to be the CXO he does reasonably beautifully
with the support of people around him. They even go on to become legends.
* Your kid is not a Loser if he doesn’t get selected (OK some are) but nevertheless given some help if he
can make him pass one or two critical selections HE WILL SUCCEED just as well as the median of other
people who got selected. He could also go on and become Einstein.
* Golden Rule: If you don’t Fcukup and get booted out from everywhere once you are beyond the
selection stage gates you will do reasonably better than the ones who are not through those gates.
Whatever be the criteria of selection or the guidance or help (not cheating but help) you took to clear
those selection gates. Self belief is the best but guidance, coaching and help works swell too.

15. *
* I’m not Sheryl Sandberg, I’m not the COO of Facebook neither a Mckinsey Alum or a Billionaire like her and I didn’t
write the book “Lean In”
* My point here is very simple and I would reiterate “Just 1 or 2 critical selections are required”
* It really doesn’t matter whether women are not liked if they are assertive or successful. I know more men who are
virtually assholes and would have been killed had killing been legal ;-)
* It doesn’t matter if you take 10 years off to raise a family. If you retire at 75 years of age you still have ample
time. It takes just 10-14 years to make Partner at a top consulting company
* It doesn’t matter if you take care of the family or not, if you are communal, caring or giving as Sheryl says or more
like men with aggressive leadership (Really???) qualities…
* Or whether you lean in or lean out…
* You know what? Nothing of that matters…
* What matters is…
* 1 or 2 selections will determine if you end up at the top or not.
* Never ever waive your right to be nominated. Never ever opt yourself out or step back when its important
* It doesn’t matter if you think or not think if you are the best in your peer group because HAMAM MEIN SAB NANGEY HAIN
(everyone is naked in the bathroom)… you WILL BECOME better once selected and put in the spot, unless you fcukup so bad
that you are thrown out. If you manage to hang in there you should be good.
* Nobody can calculate which 1 or 2 selections will determine success in their career
* You just have to make sure that in the selections that matter or you think that matter you are atleast running the race and
not sitting on the side and clapping for most other people.
* That’s all that’s required. Good Luck!

16. *
* Darwins Theory of Natural Selection (Of Prefered Traits) doesn’t work in the Human Society
* Traits don’t lead to Selection in the Human Society, don’t spend an eternity looking for them.
* There are so many factors that come into play, country of origin, location, income, cash
position, information, timing, preparation, mood, frame of
mind, upbringing, confidence, belief, complex selection criteria, background and predisposition of the
selectors, backup options, geography, awareness and a lot of times Pure Luck!!!… What Traits??? Or
Natural Selection??? [@Darwin]
* But rather just the Act of Selection leads to Success eventually
* Every selection drives you and makes you better, you yourself learn and make yourself better at every
step distancing yourself from the original group
* 1 or 2 critical selections are all that determine success in the long term
* Losing 1 or 2 critical selection opportunities is enough to keep you out for ever.
* I quote “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”
* In the human society forget the first debatable part, once selected you WILL achieve greatness in
reasonable probability and someone will come along and thrust greatness upon you also. So we are good
in 2 of 3 parts of that quote. And considering once you succeed you can also claim or others will
attribute on you by themselves “That you were born great” So we are actually good on all 3 or 3 parts
of that quote.

17. *
Aditya!!!