The news of CK Prahalad's untimely death
is a great shock to all of us. He was a vast source of energy and it is hard to
realize that it has now been stilled. He was the management equivalent of the
legendary parijata tree, a constant producer of
great ideas, which yielded practical insights and benefits. These included vital concepts
such as dominant logic, core competency of the corporation, the Bottom of the
Pyramid (BoP), co-creation of value by NGOs and business, N=1 and R=G, sustainability as
a driver of innovation, and India@75. However, my purpose here is not so much to
dwell on these visionary ideas, since their role
in shaping our thinking has been extensively articulated elsewhere. Instead, I want
to describe how this tree of knowledge functioned, from the limited perspective
of someone who saw it in action at close quarters during the last two years of his life.
All great ideas and visions need an effective process for their creation
- the way of thinking, collaborating and articulating that leads
to successful innovations in thought leadership. To use his own phrase, this was CK's
core competency and he was better at it than
almost anyone else in the world. In his forty
years of prodigious scholarship, CK must have worked with dozens of co-authors. All
these co-authors may be said to have a score of CK 1, the management literature's
equivalent of ErdÕs 1. Along with MRRangaswami, I
was privileged to be CK's co-author on an article on sustainability and innovation, which
was one of his last business publications. My observations below stem from
my collaboration with CK during this process. |
