"The Titanic wasn’t sunk by the iceberg. It was sunk by the belief that icebergs don’t matter."

By: Dr Hanif Lakdawala

The ocean of business is filled with hidden icebergs. Only those who respect them survive.
In today's rapidly changing professional landscape, career survival depends not on the depth of your current expertise, but on your ability to continuously evolve, learn, and adapt.
The Titanic's passengers who survived weren't necessarily the strongest swimmers or the most experienced sailors—they were the ones who recognized danger early and adapted quickly to circumstances they'd never encountered before.

The RMS Titanic was a marvel of its time. So are many of today’s start-ups, scale-ups, and multinational giants. In 1912, the RMS Titanic under leadership of Captain Edward John Smith, a seasoned British sea captain and naval officer, set sail with the world’s most experienced crew, unmatched engineering marvels, and a widespread belief: it was unsinkable. Less than a week later, it lay at the bottom of the Atlantic. Despite being equipped with the best technology and supported by experienced professionals, Edward John Smith perished with the ship on its maiden voyage.

How to protect our Job and our company from "Titanic-like faith,"

Strategy 1: The Personal Career Lifeboat Strategy

Proactive Preparation: Rather than waiting for a crisis, the strategy involves actively preparing for potential career disruptions. This includes skills development, networking, and financial planning
"Jump Ship" Planning: It includes a plan for potentially leaving a current job, including exploring new career paths, building a resume, and preparing for job interviews.
Establish Personal Early Warning Systems: Create mechanisms to detect industry shifts before they become obvious. This includes diverse mentoring relationships, cross-industry networking, and systematic trend monitoring

Strategy 2: Build Transition Bridges

Career Pivot: A career pivot involves transitioning to a new career path by leveraging existing skills and experience to adapt to a different industry or role, even when you're satisfied with your current role.
Diversify Your Professional Portfolio: Just as financial advisors recommend diversified investments, successful professionals need diversified skill sets, industry connections, and career options

Strategy 3: Create Value Beyond Your Job Description

Continuously expand your contributions beyond formal responsibilities, making yourself indispensable while building new capabilities.
The Echo Chamber Effect: Do not surround yourselves with peers who share similar experiences and perspectives, creating an echo chamber that reinforces outdated thinking and blinds them to industry shifts.
The Relationship Atrophy: Career success can lead to relationship complacency. Professionals like you never stop nurturing professional relationships, building new networks, or investing in mentorship—both giving and receiving.
Your career doesn't sink from a single catastrophic failure—it sinks from the accumulated weight of small complacencies, ignored warnings, and the dangerous belief that what got you here will get you there.

"From Titanic to Lifeboat:

How to Escape Corporate Complacency Before It Sinks You"

Cover Story

For Business

When street vendors earned decent profit from their owned business why

our educated youth are scared to even think about starting their own venture? -I

By: Dr Hanif Lakdawala

If an uneducated migrant from rural areas, can start his own business as street vendor, why can’t an educated urban youth, is SCARED to start his own business. When an uneducated Street vendor, successfully makes arrangement for the working capital, decides his product portfolio, identify suppliers for the product, manage pricing strategy, in comparison why our youths who acquires formal education are unable to start their own business?

The starting point is the Intention. Our educated youth intention is to search for the job. Whereas street vendor is self-inspired to start his own business inspite of all the limitations. “Street vendors often exhibit strong profitability due to their ability to minimize operational costs, offer affordable goods, and adapt quickly to market demands”.

Ram Charan business consultant and author of multiple books who has worked for companies including Toyota, Bank of America, in his book, ‘WHAT THE CEO WANTS YOU TO KNOW,’ writes that:

Our street vendor doesn’t know the buzzwords. He doesn’t own a computer. He just has his understanding of business fundamentals.
He has to determine what to buy that morning—what quantity, what quality, and what assortment—based on what he thinks he can sell that day (his sales forecast).
Then he has to figure out what prices to charge and be nimble enough to adjust them as needed during the day.
He doesn’t want to carry the fruit (the inventory) home with him. If it begins to decay, it will be of less value tomorrow.
Another reason he doesn’t want anything left over is that he needs the cash. All day long he has to weigh whether to cut prices, when to cut them, and by how much.
If he is indecisive or makes a wrong trade-off, he may lose out.
If he cuts the price too early, he may not make a profit for the day. If he waits too long, he could be left with rotting inventory.

On the other hand educated youth have technology, social network, specific knowledge domain, which street vendor lack, can conquer the business world if they change their mindset to atleast initiate a micro model of business.

A random interview of 73 street Vendors spread across South Mumbai was conducted by this author. The single question was: Does your business support you and your family financially? The following is the findings:

What insights street vendors have which our educated youth does not have? Research Insight: Street vendors have deep connections with local communities and understand micro-level consumer behaviour. According to a study by "Policy Priorities for India’s Retail Sector", by Goyal, A., “Street vendors offer highly customized services, with bargaining options, building strong customer loyalty.”

Vendors can change locations, products, and pricing quickly based on demand. Agility in operations enables them to respond to daily market fluctuations unlike large retailers. On other hand our youth are cut away from the local community as they are more engaged at the institutional level initiatives and activities

A doctoral study by a TISS researcher delved into the daily operations and economic contributions of street vendors:

Economic Role: Estimated that about 30% of Mumbai's workforce purchases at least one meal daily from street vendors, underscoring their significance in urban food distribution.
Employment: Street vending serves as a vital employment avenue, especially for those unable to secure formal sector jobs.

If educated youth just follow the simple business model followed by the street vendors, using their domain knowledge, skills and technology they can earn their livelihood. This micro model can than easily scaled up by infusion of funds which are available.