Episode #187: Napoleon, Data, and Leadership: Why First Principles Matter with Ritavan

Leadership isn’t about titles—it’s about impact. In this episode of Leaders and Legacies, Craig Andrews sits down with Ritavan, founder of Bavarian Tiger Ventures and author of Data Impact, to break down the principles of high-performance leadership.

Ritavan shares why blindly following best practices leads to failure and how first principles thinking drives real success. Drawing lessons from Napoleon’s military strategy, he explains why leaders must ensure absolute alignment across teams. The key? Clear, actionable communication—if a rank-and-file soldier could understand Napoleon’s commands, so could an entire army.

Shifting to business, Ritavan reveals his six-step framework for leveraging data to make smarter decisions: Save, Leverage, Align, Simplify, Optimize, and Grow. He argues that digital transformation is useless without clear objectives and that precision thinking—once crucial in manufacturing—can be a liability in the digital age.

Craig and Ritavan also explore cultural differences in leadership, the balance between perfection and speed, and how businesses can outmaneuver competitors by focusing on the right data.

Want to learn more about Ritavan's work? Check out his website at https://www.ritavan.com.

Connect with Ritavan on LinkedIn at https://de.linkedin.com/in/rritavan.

Key Takeaways & Timestamps

[00:01] Meet Ritavan: Founder of Bavarian Tiger Ventures and author of Data Impact, specializing in data-driven leadership and digital transformation.
[00:06] Culture and Leadership Styles: The contrast between German precision and Silicon Valley’s “ship fast, optimize later” approach.
[00:12] The 70% Rule: Why businesses must determine when a product or decision is “good enough” to launch and refine later.
[00:17] Lessons from Napoleon: How the French general used clear, repeatable communication to ensure his army executed commands flawlessly.
[00:22] First Principles Thinking: Instead of copying industry trends, leaders must break problems down to their core components and build solutions from the ground up.
[00:25] The Data-Driven Leadership Framework: Ritavan’s six-step system—Save, Leverage, Align, Simplify, Optimize, Grow—designed for strategic decision-making.
[00:29] Growth in the Digital Age: The biggest business constraint isn’t supply, but demand—companies must leverage data to understand customer behavior.
[00:31] How to Connect with Ritavan: Learn more about his work, book, and how to engage with his insights.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment of my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on the show.

00;00;51;16 - 00;01;10;05
Craig Andrews
Today I want welcome. Ritavan. Yes. Founder of the very own Bavarian Tiger Ventures. He's got a book called Data Impact How Legacy Businesses save, leverage, align, simplify optimize and Grow to Win.

00;01;10;05 - 00;01;27;29
Craig Andrews
He's a entrepreneurial technology leader with a decade of experience focused on data driven business impact. And I love data. I know a lot of people don't, probably because they're using data in the wrong way.

00;01;28;01 - 00;01;28;20
Craig Andrews
And,

00;01;28;20 - 00;01;34;25
Craig Andrews
and so stay tuned. I think this is going to be a great discussion. Read up on welcome.

00;01;34;27 - 00;01;37;04
Ritavan
Thanks. Great. Great to be here.

00;01;37;06 - 00;01;37;26
Craig Andrews
So,

00;01;37;26 - 00;01;40;21
Craig Andrews
yeah, I got to say, when when you book the,

00;01;40;21 - 00;01;51;07
Craig Andrews
when you book the, the podcast, and then when we were talking in the green room, I'm sitting there scratching my head. You're dialing in from Germany. You don't look like your average German. And,

00;01;51;07 - 00;01;53;08
Craig Andrews
But you sound German. And,

00;01;53;08 - 00;01;55;06
Craig Andrews
And so where are you from?

00;01;55;06 - 00;02;02;03
Craig Andrews
How do you how do you how did you get from where you you're from? And to Munich?

00;02;02;05 - 00;02;07;04
Ritavan
Yeah. You damn right. Actually. So I'm very German in the sense of, you know, I'm a German citizen now, and I've spent,

00;02;07;04 - 00;02;08;24
Ritavan
all my career in Germany.

00;02;08;24 - 00;02;13;03
Ritavan
But I was born and brought up on the on the southeastern coast in India.

00;02;13;03 - 00;02;19;00
Ritavan
And I went to a multilingual school, so I actually ended up speaking French and German as a three year old.

00;02;19;03 - 00;02;21;15
Ritavan
Along with 1 or 2 Indian languages.

00;02;21;15 - 00;02;24;19
Ritavan
And I started learning English only at the age of six, and,

00;02;24;19 - 00;02;26;26
Ritavan
and so in many ways, you know, like,

00;02;26;26 - 00;02;29;26
Ritavan
a, I kind of speak French and German,

00;02;29;26 - 00;02;34;15
Ritavan
for, for most of my life now. And I grew up pretty European,

00;02;34;15 - 00;02;37;11
Ritavan
in, in southeast India.

00;02;37;14 - 00;02;48;12
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and I think that's something that a lot of people don't understand about India, and especially in southern India, there are a lot of influences,

00;02;48;12 - 00;02;51;27
Craig Andrews
you know, global influences in that part of the country.

00;02;51;29 - 00;02;55;11
Ritavan
Yeah, exactly. And India itself is a subcontinent, right? I mean, you have,

00;02;55;11 - 00;03;00;17
Ritavan
you have dozens of, of languages, I think just in the Constitution, in the Indian Constitution there.

00;03;00;17 - 00;03;02;26
Ritavan
Over two dozen official languages.

00;03;02;26 - 00;03;11;16
Ritavan
And every, every, you know, every 200km, you have a different subculture with, you know, with a different language or dialect with a different cuisine, etc..

00;03;11;19 - 00;03;15;13
Ritavan
And so it is it is an insane amount of diversity. And I did,

00;03;15;13 - 00;03;19;07
Ritavan
and like you said, a lot of, a lot of influence from around the world.

00;03;19;07 - 00;03;25;15
Ritavan
Just because we think globalization is something new. But the more you read about about the history of,

00;03;25;15 - 00;03;27;05
Ritavan
of the of even the last,

00;03;27;05 - 00;03;29;20
Ritavan
couple hundred years, there was a lot of trade,

00;03;29;20 - 00;03;30;24
Ritavan
and colonization.

00;03;30;24 - 00;03;40;16
Ritavan
And over the last couple of thousands of years, there's been trade, you know, from, you know, with the Roman Empire and even and, you know, with the Greeks and Alexander the Great, etc.. And so,

00;03;40;16 - 00;03;42;15
Ritavan
this is not new.

00;03;42;17 - 00;03;53;23
Craig Andrews
Okay. I, I've got a question that's just something kind of confounds me as, as far as I can tell, the Indian Ocean doesn't touch India at all.

00;03;53;26 - 00;03;56;15
Ritavan
No, it does actually just the tip. Right. So it's,

00;03;56;15 - 00;04;09;01
Ritavan
so it's, you know, you've got like a triangle and, the Indian Ocean is everything that's south of the tip. So right at the tip, you have the Indian Ocean, and then you have on one side the Arabian Sea and on the other side the Bay of Bengal.

00;04;09;03 - 00;04;13;09
Ritavan
And so the Indian Ocean is everything that's sort of of the, of the peninsula.

00;04;13;11 - 00;04;21;03
Craig Andrews
That was wild because normally I would think an ocean named after India would touch a lot of the Indian coast.

00;04;21;06 - 00;04;27;06
Ritavan
Yeah, that's, that's true, but I think it's because these waters were being, you know, where, you know, Indian sailors were sailing,

00;04;27;06 - 00;04;38;18
Ritavan
through these waters. And that's why it was called the Indian Ocean. And also because any ships from around the world wanting to come to the Indian coast would have to go through these waters, right, if they were coming from far away.

00;04;38;20 - 00;04;43;16
Craig Andrews
Yeah. And and so then you go over to,

00;04;43;16 - 00;04;48;25
Craig Andrews
Germany. And I would imagine that was quite a shock.

00;04;48;27 - 00;04;59;16
Ritavan
It is a there's actually a little twist in, in between because I, actually flew for the first time internationally to Paris because I got a full scholarship from a math foundation,

00;04;59;16 - 00;05;04;04
Ritavan
you know, research foundation to to do my masters in mathematics in Paris.

00;05;04;04 - 00;05;09;09
Ritavan
At the École Normale Supérieure. Basically it gave an elite, you know, research institute.

00;05;09;11 - 00;05;12;07
Ritavan
And and so I spent actually the first two years in,

00;05;12;07 - 00;05;14;19
Ritavan
of my stay in Europe, in France,

00;05;14;19 - 00;05;16;04
Ritavan
and then for my first job,

00;05;16;04 - 00;05;25;29
Ritavan
I ended up moving to Germany, and that wasn't planned at all. Actually, I initially wanted to go to London and, you know, join a quant hedge fund and just retire there. But Brexit happened.

00;05;25;29 - 00;05;33;16
Ritavan
And fortunately, you know, my first interview in London was on the day of Brexit. So I did not get a business visa in time to, to go for my interview.

00;05;33;16 - 00;05;35;02
Ritavan
And so it's just, you know, the,

00;05;35;02 - 00;05;42;26
Ritavan
whole bunch of events, that led to, you know, to my getting an offer from an American energy trading, you know, hedge fund in Berlin.

00;05;42;26 - 00;05;44;00
Ritavan
And that's what brought me,

00;05;44;00 - 00;05;45;25
Ritavan
that's what brought me to Germany.

00;05;45;28 - 00;06;08;06
Craig Andrews
Wow. Fascinating. And and and we'll get a get into the data here shortly. But the, you know, and I think in the US, we have this belief that, you know, Germans are kind of monolithic. All Germans are the same. But I think German like, I think the culture of Berlin is much different than the culture of Munich.

00;06;08;06 - 00;06;08;26
Craig Andrews
Yeah, exactly.

00;06;08;26 - 00;06;16;10
Ritavan
I think these are all they're microcosms, right? Like, even with. So within Germany, we have, I'd say, a dozen or more dialects.

00;06;16;10 - 00;06;20;22
Ritavan
And, and finally, you know, if you cross over into Switzerland, it's a much smaller country,

00;06;20;22 - 00;06;28;15
Ritavan
you know, by landmass. But, every valley has a slightly different dialect, of of the Dutch, which is the Swiss German.

00;06;28;17 - 00;06;46;12
Ritavan
And so, yeah, I think, I think the amount like the, the fractal nature of culture, right where you can zoom out and it always looks like a whole. And the more you zoom in, the more you see that that has a component. I think it's so true of humans. Anyway, I think the same for the US have never been to the American continent.

00;06;46;15 - 00;07;02;23
Ritavan
Either the Nazis, you know, Central America, the South, and for me, it's also like we are one, one homogenous mass in my head. But like, I think the more I would kind of drive around and probably, you know, spend time in different parts, the more you realize you have this fractal nature and culture.

00;07;02;26 - 00;07;16;06
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Well, and one of the things I find fascinating about Germany is that the sense of precision. And so I'm, I'm speaking at a, an, an event Friday and I was,

00;07;16;06 - 00;07;23;18
Craig Andrews
I emailed the organizer looking for some guidance on when to show up. And I said, put this on the German,

00;07;23;18 - 00;07;27;25
Craig Andrews
Spanish scale. You know, if I show up at the,

00;07;27;25 - 00;07;30;18
Craig Andrews
do you want me there in the lobby checked?

00;07;30;18 - 00;07;42;08
Craig Andrews
Im ready to go to the conference room at 845 for the 9:00 meeting, which would be the German side of the scale, or do you want me on the Spanish side of the scale? Just, you know, sometime. Yeah.

00;07;42;08 - 00;07;47;16
Craig Andrews
Nine before 930. You know, where when do you want me to show up?

00;07;47;18 - 00;07;49;19
Ritavan
Yeah. I think things are changing, like there. These,

00;07;49;19 - 00;08;07;23
Ritavan
I think there are these values and these beliefs about a country and a culture. And I think precision is is still, I would say, still very much a German value, but it's not lived as much, in Germany, in contemporary Germany as I thought it would be, because growing up in India and I grew up with a German aunt who was born right after the war.

00;08;07;23 - 00;08;29;29
Ritavan
So, you know, it's really the generation that built up that kind of built up Germany again or that saw the, you know, that that kind of got to witness the destruction of the war and the rebuilding of Germany. And so it's like, you know, very hard core values around discipline and precision and punctuality and all of that. And so I grew up with it, you know, with with all that discipline, I didn't imbibe all of it, but I, I think I imbibe quite a bit of it.

00;08;30;01 - 00;08;37;24
Ritavan
And, and today in Germany, you know, when the trains are late, I get really mad, like, because I've been brought up with values that are not lived as,

00;08;37;24 - 00;08;45;28
Ritavan
you know, to the extent that I would want to see them lived and, and the German brand, I think is stronger then, then then then unfortunately,

00;08;45;28 - 00;08;57;17
Ritavan
how we do things is still pretty good, but I think we, you know, that's total world from from the Mercedes-Benz F1 team said you know, if you if you're okay with with it's part number two before you know it, that's part number 20.

00;08;57;17 - 00;09;04;29
Ritavan
Right. So you really have to keep aiming for the top. Otherwise the slide is very very fast unfortunately downward.

00;09;05;01 - 00;09;07;11
Craig Andrews
Yeah. No absolutely.

00;09;07;11 - 00;09;08;12
Craig Andrews
I, I learned

00;09;08;12 - 00;09;10;13
Craig Andrews
lesson the hard way.

00;09;10;13 - 00;09;15;08
Craig Andrews
You know, I was mentioning that Siemens was a customer and, you know, we told,

00;09;15;08 - 00;09;25;19
Craig Andrews
we told Siemens that we would deliver something by Monday, you know, and I think it was Monday or or whatever. And,

00;09;25;19 - 00;09;37;28
Craig Andrews
and I come into the office and I log into my email and 8:00 US time, I have this just angry, angry email from somebody in Munich.

00;09;38;01 - 00;09;50;10
Craig Andrews
And he's like, you promised this would be here today. It's not here. And fortunately, we had somebody, a European sales person who was on copy on the email and he called him up and said, you know, I think we have

00;09;50;10 - 00;09;59;22
Craig Andrews
I think it's a cultural difference. You know, when Americans say it will be their Monday, they they mean you know, maybe by the end of the day, certainly before midnight.

00;09;59;25 - 00;10;01;10
Craig Andrews
And.

00;10;01;12 - 00;10;03;14
Ritavan
Yeah. And I think that's true also with, with,

00;10;03;14 - 00;10;29;18
Ritavan
with, you know, with coming, you know, sort of the bridge to the book, but like in what value creation paradigm you operate, you know, in the industrial, you know, when you're making high end industrials good, when you make when you make high end industrial goods. Right. The like precision is so important because if you try to make a good timepiece, you know, try to make a Rolex watch or you try to make a, you know, a internal combustion engine for a race car or something.

00;10;29;21 - 00;10;41;28
Ritavan
A lack of precision is going to cost you everything, right? That's quality is through precision. But if you think more about software and and digital experiences, it's much more about ship first and then optimize later. And I think,

00;10;41;28 - 00;10;53;19
Ritavan
finally, you know, that's why probably the US has had all these tech companies and, and has been able to capitalize better because sometimes, you know, you just have to be okay with shipping something that 70%.

00;10;53;23 - 00;10;56;28
Ritavan
And and then, you know, you optimize the rest after it shipped.

00;10;56;28 - 00;11;00;25
Ritavan
Unfortunately you can't do that with physical products because once you ship something,

00;11;00;25 - 00;11;01;27
Ritavan
you can't change it.

00;11;01;27 - 00;11;03;04
Ritavan
But but I think,

00;11;03;04 - 00;11;10;28
Ritavan
precision can it helps you when you're making physical products, and precision can kill you when you're trying to make digital experiences.

00;11;11;01 - 00;11;18;00
Craig Andrews
That's a fascinating insight. And it really is. That's a fascinating insight.

00;11;18;00 - 00;11;34;09
Craig Andrews
Because a Germany is a very strong exporter. Germany, you know, in terms of physical products, Germany lay outperforms every other nation by landmass in terms of, you know,

00;11;34;09 - 00;11;36;18
Craig Andrews
euros exported. And,

00;11;36;18 - 00;11;44;07
Craig Andrews
and I think for a while, Germany was the number two exporter in the world, you know, in the US was behind, I think the US has since pulled back into number two.

00;11;44;07 - 00;12;19;16
Craig Andrews
But I mean, the US is massive in Germany is, you know, about the size of Texas, you know, physically. And you guys absolutely kill it. So that's an interesting insight. So let me ask you this and we'll get over the data here in a second. If. Getting something 70% there has allowed the United States to kind of pull ahead and and software, what would you say is how would you deem the threshold for when good enough is good enough to ship.

00;12;19;16 - 00;12;24;10
Craig Andrews
And then improve? Do you have a process for figuring that out?

00;12;24;13 - 00;12;27;28
Ritavan
Yeah, I think it really depends on on the expectations of your customer.

00;12;27;28 - 00;12;34;03
Ritavan
And but it's something I think that you speak about a lot. Also, you really want to understand that because,

00;12;34;03 - 00;12;39;11
Ritavan
for a physical product like, you know, thankfully for medical devices or for aircraft,

00;12;39;11 - 00;12;44;12
Ritavan
the amount of testing that, that these products go through before they're approved is just very, very high.

00;12;44;12 - 00;12;49;12
Ritavan
So it's not even like the manufacturer gets to decide, you know, when they can ship it.

00;12;49;12 - 00;12;52;01
Ritavan
There are very strict norms that are on this. And,

00;12;52;01 - 00;12;58;02
Ritavan
yeah. Speaking of of fun anecdotes, it was, you know, we flew to Mauritius with my from my friend,

00;12;58;02 - 00;13;01;08
Ritavan
my, one of my best friends from from university in France.

00;13;01;11 - 00;13;07;17
Ritavan
He's from Malaysia originally and was getting married there last year. And so we flew there with my wife and my parents, and we,

00;13;07;17 - 00;13;20;05
Ritavan
for the first time flew the Airbus A380 has the largest aircraft when, you know, with two full decks. And there was some there was something on my bucket list and we flew Emirates. And so we flew the A380 on all four,

00;13;20;05 - 00;13;20;22
Ritavan
you know,

00;13;20;22 - 00;13;23;02
Ritavan
flight flight stretches via Dubai.

00;13;23;05 - 00;13;23;19
Ritavan
And,

00;13;23;19 - 00;13;24;06
Ritavan
then we did,

00;13;24;06 - 00;13;27;15
Ritavan
a short trip to an island and that was in the water. And it was,

00;13;27;15 - 00;13;33;03
Ritavan
we were it's for some reason the tour operator put us with Germans and, you know, and Swiss and French people.

00;13;33;03 - 00;13;34;05
Ritavan
And so there was this,

00;13;34;05 - 00;13;38;12
Ritavan
this professor looking guy walks up to me in the water,

00;13;38;12 - 00;13;41;28
Ritavan
on an island off the coast of the main Mauritius island.

00;13;42;01 - 00;13;48;16
Ritavan
And he happens to be the guy who designed the A350 and the A380.

00;13;48;16 - 00;13;59;02
Ritavan
He was one of the lead engineers. And so I was just telling him, you know, we flew an A380, and that was insane. And what an experience. And and he goes like you've. Yeah, he's like that. That was, you know, this was this was one of my babies.

00;13;59;02 - 00;14;22;04
Ritavan
You know, like we spent so much time designing just conceiving it. And he said the first time they conceived this aircraft, the existing jet engines were not powerful enough to provide the thrust needed just to make this thing go in the air. And so they had to work very closely with the engine designers and manufacturers to to just build these turbines and these jet engines.

00;14;22;07 - 00;14;33;03
Ritavan
And then and then he spoke about like nuances of the aircraft I would have never dreamt of, which was things like, every time someone gets up and goes to the loo, you know, to pee or goes to get,

00;14;33;03 - 00;14;35;15
Ritavan
you know, a glass of water from, from,

00;14;35;15 - 00;14;36;03
Ritavan
from,

00;14;36;03 - 00;14;37;27
Ritavan
from the kitchen area or whatever.

00;14;37;27 - 00;14;51;28
Ritavan
There are sensors measuring that, and they pump fuel from one part of the aircraft to the other to keep the balance, because if 3 or 4 people get up from somewhere and walk, that's like, you know, several hundred kilos by 700 pounds, right?

00;14;51;28 - 00;14;59;08
Ritavan
And when they move around the aircraft, it could destabilize the aircraft. And if too many people do that on both decks, it could cause turbulence.

00;14;59;08 - 00;15;09;27
Ritavan
And so they have sensors to measure people moving up and down, and they and they have pumps that pump fuel up and down to keep the balance. And so it's these nuances, you know, which is which.

00;15;09;29 - 00;15;22;04
Ritavan
I didn't say it. And so physical products have a but, you know, had a very high bar thankfully. And I'm glad they do all of that because otherwise I wouldn't feel safe flying. Right. Or even medical implants or devices.

00;15;22;04 - 00;15;28;22
Ritavan
But coming back to your question, it's a long winded answer, but I think I wanted to just put in this anecdote because it just kind of shows,

00;15;28;22 - 00;15;30;28
Ritavan
how you think about product,

00;15;30;28 - 00;15;36;10
Ritavan
you know, product design and engineering in different, categories.

00;15;36;12 - 00;15;38;05
Ritavan
I think for most products,

00;15;38;05 - 00;15;38;11
Ritavan
that,

00;15;38;11 - 00;15;43;06
Ritavan
digital experience, I think something between a 50 to 70 range is good.

00;15;43;06 - 00;15;58;08
Ritavan
Because you don't really know what your customer expects. Right? So the more you know what your customer expects, the the higher you can set the bar. Right? So the aircraft has to be safe. So that already sets the bar at, you know, 99 plus.

00;15;58;11 - 00;15;59;03
Ritavan
Right, right.

00;15;59;03 - 00;16;15;23
Ritavan
And so so it's two things. It's like, how well do you know what the customer expects? And two, what are the implications of racking up. Right. The cost of a cup? I think that is so important because if you if the cost of a cup is very high, like like I said, we know the air travel with medical devices, with automotive,

00;16;15;23 - 00;16;17;00
Ritavan
you know, components, etcetera.

00;16;17;00 - 00;16;25;21
Ritavan
These are all things where, you know, if something goes wrong, you die. And I think those are situations where you want to make sure you're not too cavalier with how you ship things.

00;16;25;21 - 00;16;38;22
Ritavan
But, you know, when it comes to learning and adapting to human behavior, these are things you can't know in advance anyway, right? In fact, even if you think you have learned human, you've learned kind of what your users want.

00;16;38;23 - 00;16;42;27
Ritavan
That will evolve over time, right? So that's why I mean, like data driven,

00;16;42;27 - 00;16;45;08
Ritavan
a systematic approach to data driven,

00;16;45;08 - 00;16;49;22
Ritavan
decision making is, is super important when you're dealing with humans because,

00;16;49;22 - 00;16;57;15
Ritavan
the human behavior changes. And so you cannot just have a black box and you cannot have a one time trained black box to deal with this.

00;16;57;18 - 00;17;08;19
Ritavan
There is a lot more nuance required, and especially when there are trade offs. Right. The more you have to understand these trade offs, the earlier you need to ship. Just making sure that the cost of work up is not too high.

00;17;08;22 - 00;17;41;03
Craig Andrews
That's that's you know what? That's a really interesting point you just made there. The more you need to understand the trade offs earlier, you have to ship that is or or sample or whatever, put something in their hands to see what it's it's like, you know, and one thing of the singing about when you were talking about managing expectations, it actually reminded me something after, you know, we made that mistake of, you know, you know, I'm saying the Germans because we had a different definition of time,

00;17;41;03 - 00;17;47;03
Craig Andrews
after that, every, every single time we promise something and say, hey, we'll have this to you next Friday.

00;17;47;05 - 00;18;05;10
Craig Andrews
And I'd pause and say, you know what we mean when we say next Friday. And the Germans would start laughing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know, we know. That means midnight before you go to bed. We're not expecting it till the next day. And so it became something where they could laugh at it. It wasn't,

00;18;05;10 - 00;18;08;11
Craig Andrews
you know, it was about clearly communicating expectations.

00;18;08;11 - 00;18;17;12
Craig Andrews
And once they understood it, we turned it into a joke. You know, something that we'd laugh about and bond over. But we communicated the expectations.

00;18;17;15 - 00;18;34;05
Ritavan
Yeah. I think well, yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's about alignment, right? They're not like it's not about a specific requirement, something it's about alignment. And the fact that you communicate it in a way that both sides agree you achieved alignment. And I think this is alignment also. You know, align is like a step in my framework in the book.

00;18;34;05 - 00;18;36;12
Ritavan
And I think alignment is super important.

00;18;36;12 - 00;18;40;03
Ritavan
And there's a historical example that I find, you know, I just find,

00;18;40;03 - 00;18;44;06
Ritavan
extremely insightful when it comes to the importance of alignment.

00;18;44;06 - 00;18;50;10
Ritavan
And I found this when I was researching the books, you know, in the archives of the US Marine Corps and,

00;18;50;10 - 00;18;58;26
Ritavan
in their library and apparently Napoleon had a blind and old, an old illiterate soldier on his general staff,

00;18;58;26 - 00;19;02;26
Ritavan
because he would make sure that every written command was read out.

00;19;03;02 - 00;19;06;23
Ritavan
So, of course, the soldier was illiterate, so he couldn't read, so it was read out to him.

00;19;06;23 - 00;19;26;14
Ritavan
And then he would make the soldier explain the orders back to, to himself. Right. So Napoleon is sitting, listening to the soldiers because we interpret the orders that have been read out to him. And then if the orders matched the expectations, then they would be then those written orders, you know, would be sent to the unit.

00;19;26;17 - 00;19;31;00
Ritavan
And if not, they would be rewritten until the blind,

00;19;31;00 - 00;19;36;21
Ritavan
and he was a low ranking soldier. Like, we're not talking of a senior officer or something. We're talking of really rank and file soldier,

00;19;36;21 - 00;19;45;04
Ritavan
illiterate and old. And if he understands it, then there is clear alignment, and the commander's intent is being clearly communicated to all the units.

00;19;45;07 - 00;19;49;14
Ritavan
And this is so important. And I always think about, like when I work with teams,

00;19;49;14 - 00;20;06;05
Ritavan
if you, if, if that's the bar you set for communication, you will achieve alignment because you need to make sure you're you're communicating your intent in a way that everyone understands it. And if you take it, it's a bit of effort. But if you do that, then the execution is so much better.

00;20;06;07 - 00;20;08;27
Craig Andrews
That and that's such a brilliant point.

00;20;08;27 - 00;20;19;26
Craig Andrews
You know, it's easy to get frustrated when people don't understand our communication, but the. I didn't realize that about Napoleon. I'd never heard that story. What a powerful story.

00;20;19;26 - 00;20;24;21
Craig Andrews
Because people think of Napoleon as a little bit intolerant, you know, a little bit impatient.

00;20;24;28 - 00;20;37;24
Ritavan
He was very methodical. You the he was like a he was like a complete nerd, right? When it came to thinking things through. Right. Like he was extremely first principle. That's how you won all these battles, right? I mean, I was just looking at his success rate.

00;20;37;24 - 00;20;42;08
Ritavan
You know, against the against the Prussians, against the Austrians, against the Russians.

00;20;42;10 - 00;20;50;01
Ritavan
He having the, on the European continent in land battle side, which is like his main, you know, kind of his mainstay.

00;20;50;01 - 00;20;54;18
Ritavan
He has success rates like upwards of 70%, 70, you know, 80%,

00;20;54;18 - 00;20;56;05
Ritavan
with some even 100%,

00;20;56;05 - 00;21;05;18
Ritavan
and that's insane because this guy just goes in, he picks the battlefield, he thinks from first principles, and he studies how his opponents act, and he does that for every battle.

00;21;05;18 - 00;21;09;07
Ritavan
So if you put in that effort, right, of thinking from first principles,

00;21;09;07 - 00;21;23;10
Ritavan
and doing your homework, right, you cannot but win because, like, what could go wrong and all the other guys on the other side, you know, children of nobility or of some influential person, and they lose the battle, you know, they perhaps get chided a little and then they are left in their position.

00;21;23;10 - 00;21;40;13
Ritavan
And then, you know, three months later is facing the same buffoon on the battlefield and beating them again. And so he was he was one his rigor and his approach and his nerdiness when it came to battle. But it was also the stupidity of his opponents and the fact that they were not meritocratic, that there were no consequences to poor performance.

00;21;40;16 - 00;21;44;18
Ritavan
And put these two together. And you have the you have the legend of Napoleon, right?

00;21;44;21 - 00;21;45;23
Craig Andrews
Wow. So,

00;21;45;23 - 00;21;51;19
Craig Andrews
explain what first principles is. And I know it's something that Elon Musk talks about, apparently,

00;21;51;19 - 00;21;58;13
Craig Andrews
Napoleon talked about it not drawn in comparisons, but what are first principles and why do they matter?

00;21;58;16 - 00;22;02;23
Ritavan
That's actually quite simple, you know, most of the time,

00;22;02;23 - 00;22;07;02
Ritavan
in life you want to work by analogy, right? So if I'm looking for something,

00;22;07;02 - 00;22;12;07
Ritavan
I don't know, I'm trying to pick a club where I can play a certain sport, or I'm picking a restaurant where I can go out for dinner.

00;22;12;07 - 00;22;16;08
Ritavan
I would just ask someone, like, if I'm in a new town, I would just ask friends who live there, right?

00;22;16;08 - 00;22;37;16
Ritavan
Or look up reviews and see what other people say, etc. and so most decisions we make in life, we just try to find the best person, like the best approximate solution out there and then we try to act on it like, you know, perhaps we modify it slightly, but usually we just act on it because we don't want to be bothered investing time, effort and mental power in figuring things out from scratch.

00;22;37;18 - 00;22;44;15
Ritavan
And that's absolutely fine, right? But when it comes to the critical stuff, when it comes to the stuff that is super high level, super high impact,

00;22;44;15 - 00;22;57;02
Ritavan
you want to take a step back and think from first principles because of a couple of reasons. One, because the context is unique, right? Which means that Napoleon is thinking about each battle independently from scratch.

00;22;57;02 - 00;23;03;12
Ritavan
Why? Because every battle is different. It's a different terrain. It's a different army. It's a different context.

00;23;03;12 - 00;23;15;18
Ritavan
It's a different time of the day, perhaps. So there are all these factors like the the overall context vector, if you want to think mathematically, right. If you want to kind of, you know, store it as data, the overall context vector is different.

00;23;15;21 - 00;23;30;27
Ritavan
And so when stakes are high, that's when you want to think from first principles. Like if you don't take your wife out for dinner, I'm not. I wouldn't recommend necessarily thinking from first principles. I mean, you could, but most of the time it is not like is, you know, the just the stakes are like the impact is not that high.

00;23;30;27 - 00;23;55;28
Ritavan
The difference between great and average is not that big. But the moment the difference is great between like when it comes to winning or losing and when you and the outcomes are binary, or when the delta between insanely good and average is big and you want to be insanely good, then you have to think from first principles. And thinking from first principles is looking at the specific context you have and reasoning logically,

00;23;55;28 - 00;24;00;17
Ritavan
and building a rigorous strategy about what you want to do.

00;24;00;19 - 00;24;10;02
Ritavan
And when it comes to strategy, I think a lot of people have kind of very nebulous notions of, you know, what strategy is, right? Like, this is something you see very often people say,

00;24;10;02 - 00;24;11;09
Ritavan
strategy is,

00;24;11;09 - 00;24;18;05
Ritavan
you know, sort of slides or something that sounds fancy very often. You know, it's mixed up with a vision or with a mission or something like that.

00;24;18;05 - 00;24;36;11
Ritavan
But but it started with a strategy is only effective, right. When you have abstracted execution out to a point where you have a well-defined problem. Right? So because when you have a well-defined problem that is empirically valid, right. Which means that it follows,

00;24;36;11 - 00;24;39;19
Ritavan
the laws of the system, you know, you're operating it,

00;24;39;19 - 00;24;43;29
Ritavan
in, you're operating in and you have a valid set of variables and trade offs.

00;24;43;29 - 00;24;48;09
Ritavan
Right? Because at the end of the day, a strategy is supposed to help you,

00;24;48;09 - 00;25;02;12
Ritavan
make better decisions. And if you're able to do that, then you have an effective strategy that you've kind of built out from first principles. And now what's there to stop you from winning, right. Unless the other side has done the same thing. And that's what happened at Waterloo, right?

00;25;02;15 - 00;25;23;05
Ritavan
Yeah. So Wellington really took the time to study each of Napoleon's battles like the guy did. You know, he was one iteration ahead. And of course, a lot of bad luck. You know, I mean, there are a lot of factors that are out of your control, right? But like overall, if you if you if you think from first principles for success, probability just goes up massively.

00;25;23;07 - 00;25;33;28
Craig Andrews
So and we we talked about some fascinating things. I want to tie all this back to data before we wrap up. What are first principles and data and how do we put them to use.

00;25;34;01 - 00;25;50;27
Ritavan
Yeah I just summarize it into this six step framework. I how would have you know it is abbreviated as Arc. So it's safe by not following groupthink up. Thing is the opposite of first principles. Thinking that group thing is just copy what everyone else is doing. You leverage your highest, your highest value opportunities. You align everyone to it.

00;25;51;04 - 00;25;59;09
Ritavan
You simplify by dropping all the complexity. You optimize, and then you can grow. That's my framework. And that is data driven.

00;25;59;11 - 00;26;10;26
Craig Andrews
All right. Yeah. And let's go through that little bit slower. All right. So you start by save. That's the first step. And what's the essence of that.

00;26;10;29 - 00;26;19;24
Ritavan
The essence is not to follow groupthink or quote unquote best practices. This is something I see very often. Best practices is basically asking your friend, hey what work. You know, what's a good restaurant, right?

00;26;19;24 - 00;26;26;24
Ritavan
They don't work in business because your business is unique. You have a unique customer demand that you're servicing the customer demand profile, etc..

00;26;27;00 - 00;26;39;25
Ritavan
So you really need to think from first principles. You cannot just copy paste stuff from elsewhere. So the best practices do not make logically any sense, because what is best for you is not best for someone else and what is best for them. And the best for you. So stop doing that. And there are two common things, you know.

00;26;39;25 - 00;26;53;18
Ritavan
One is pray and pray. Let's try this. Let's try that and hope something works out. You know, you know, Soviet style digital transformation, you know, will budget five years and then we will, go move to the cloud and we'll upgrade our CRM and we'll do ten other system changes and process changes, but we don't know why.

00;26;53;19 - 00;26;56;15
Ritavan
Right? Like, how do the customer care, what systems use.

00;26;56;15 - 00;27;10;19
Ritavan
So don't do that kind of nonsense. Just save that money. And the next step is leverage. Right. And why leverage? Because when you think from first principles, there are a couple of things that, that that are your unfair advantage. And those are the ones you want to double down on.

00;27;10;19 - 00;27;12;28
Ritavan
Like, you know, those are the ones you want to really,

00;27;12;28 - 00;27;14;08
Ritavan
invest in leverage,

00;27;14;08 - 00;27;25;26
Ritavan
because that's where the returns will come from. And those are things like, you know, your, your legacy assets as a, as a business. Because if your legacy business, you have legacy assets, which is physical assets, but also your brand and other things,

00;27;25;26 - 00;27;27;23
Ritavan
it's your unfair, non-digital advantage.

00;27;27;23 - 00;27;40;19
Ritavan
There are things that you can do that purely digital competitors cannot do, etc. so you want to leverage those. The next step is align, right. So it's leverage is like the bullseye you want to hit. Then alignment is really the tip of the spear.

00;27;40;19 - 00;27;42;14
Ritavan
And that's why I have a lot of military,

00;27;42;14 - 00;27;44;05
Ritavan
stories, analogies, frameworks.

00;27;44;12 - 00;28;07;06
Ritavan
I use commander's intent from the military. I think that's something that would be so much better if just people worked with that level of clarity and and thinking and briefing and communication, to make sure what you want to achieve. Because if that is clear, you will achieve it. Instead of drawing these absurd roadmaps, you know, where like, you have like bars going over certain weeks, which is just completely, you know, it's just arbitrary.

00;28;07;09 - 00;28;22;09
Ritavan
And once you have this alignment, now, is now you ready to simplify? Because now you know where the bullseye is. You've sharpened the tip of your spear. Now you can get rid of all the other clutter that that stopping you, you know, from your spear going, stand in that bullseye. So you move out everything.

00;28;22;09 - 00;28;28;01
Ritavan
And once you've removed the clutter, now what's left is what really matters to you, right in the system you're operating in.

00;28;28;03 - 00;28;49;07
Ritavan
And now you're ready to optimize and optimize with an empirically valid model of the world. Right? Because that's the world now. So what are you trying to achieve, like the high ROI opportunities, the alignment you've got that all the other clutter removed. That is the environment you're operating in now. You can mathematically optimize it with an empirically valid understanding of the system.

00;28;49;10 - 00;29;14;03
Ritavan
And once you do that, you can grow and I think the growth step is super important because a lot of, you know, legacy businesses are thinking in terms of industrial paradigm challenges, like, you know, the supply side constraints and all of that, right? Which is you have fixed costs of replication, fixed costs of personalization, all of that changes in the data driven digital paradigm, replication cost essentially zero of personalization costs essentially zero.

00;29;14;05 - 00;29;35;18
Ritavan
So you don't have a supply side problem, right. You need to figure out the demand. It's about Peter Drucker, right? You exist because there is a customer yourself. And so you need the better you understand your customer demand, the more you can grow. Because if you think of it as an investor, right, the initial the like, the fixed cost of building something is irrelevant compared to the growing future cash flows that you can generate.

00;29;35;18 - 00;29;43;11
Ritavan
So focus on that, because if your discounted NPV rate is high, then it doesn't matter what you invest initially.

00;29;43;14 - 00;29;51;22
Craig Andrews
Wow. So, how do you how do you work with business? Who do you work with and how do you work with them?

00;29;51;25 - 00;29;55;22
Ritavan
I mean, for now, I think the important thing is like, I want to put out a set of ideas that,

00;29;55;22 - 00;30;07;23
Ritavan
and, and enable people to engage and try those idea that don't necessarily want to sell something because I always say, you know, the first step is to be convinced that something makes sense.

00;30;07;23 - 00;30;12;29
Ritavan
So what I would really be happy with is just if businesses, you know, buy the book, read it, apply it.

00;30;13;06 - 00;30;19;19
Ritavan
What I'm what I'm also planning to do, which is something that helped me when I wrote this book, is be part of the community because,

00;30;19;19 - 00;30;27;26
Ritavan
I wrote my book with a bank with a whole bunch of other authors for useful nonfiction books, and I was able to write the core chapters of my book in about six weeks.

00;30;27;28 - 00;30;30;16
Ritavan
And so when you're trying to do something hard,

00;30;30;16 - 00;30;34;06
Ritavan
with high failure rates, because, you know, 90, 95% of books don't get,

00;30;34;06 - 00;30;46;15
Ritavan
you know, don't get written once they're started and 99% don't get published. So similarly, now I want to build a community where people who want to apply this framework have like minded peers that they can learn from and that I can also engage with.

00;30;46;21 - 00;30;47;24
Ritavan
And so,

00;30;47;24 - 00;30;48;28
Ritavan
what I would really,

00;30;48;28 - 00;30;58;10
Ritavan
want to offer is, you know, buy the book, join the community, and, and try to implement the ideas because the magic is really in the execution.

00;30;58;10 - 00;31;01;00
Ritavan
Ideas mean nothing, right?

00;31;01;02 - 00;31;13;10
Craig Andrews
And the book is data impact how legacy businesses save, leverage, align, simplify, optimize, and grow to win. And you can get it on Amazon. Is that right?

00;31;13;12 - 00;31;34;07
Ritavan
Yeah. It'll be ready for preorder at the end of March. But you can go to retail. Buncombe and I have a little assessment because, you know, no one wants to buy like everyone wants to, like, you know, try before they buy. And so they have a little assessment for you. You want to answer a bunch of questions, and it tells you how much it tries to quantify how much value the book could bring you.

00;31;34;09 - 00;31;51;08
Ritavan
Right? So that, you know, you can see if the idea in the book is really going to enrich your life. And so you don't have to wait for it to be ready for preorder on Amazon, you can just take the assessment. And that way I can engage with you, because if you think of modern publishing, it has really disintermediated the, the, the author from the audience.

00;31;51;08 - 00;31;59;06
Ritavan
And so if you, you know, if you fill out this assessment, you get a personalized report and it allows us all to stay engaged, like,

00;31;59;06 - 00;32;01;18
Ritavan
and I can share things with you in the future.

00;32;01;21 - 00;32;05;22
Craig Andrews
Okay. And how can people reach you if they will reach out to you?

00;32;05;25 - 00;32;09;19
Ritavan
If you go and read 1.com, like I said, take the assessment. I will have your email.

00;32;09;19 - 00;32;11;00
Ritavan
And, and, and,

00;32;11;00 - 00;32;15;04
Ritavan
you know, you can reach out to me there or just go to LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

00;32;15;04 - 00;32;19;09
Ritavan
You know, follow me on LinkedIn. You can ping me on LinkedIn. I'd be happy to hear from you.

00;32;19;11 - 00;32;24;29
Craig Andrews
Well Ritavan. This has been such a delightful conversation. I appreciate you coming on. Leaders and legacies.

00;32;25;01 - 00;32;25;20
Ritavan
Thanks, Craig.

00;32;25;20 - 00;32;36;00
Ritavan
Just one quick shout out to you about, you know, for the amazing work you do and also the fact that you kind of bring attention to this topic and really your inspiring story. Keep up the great work.

00;32;36;02 - 00;32;38;26
Craig Andrews
All right. Thank you.

00;32;38;26 - 00;33;05;22
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Alize for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;33;05;22 - 00;33;07;17
Craig Andrews
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00;33;07;19 - 00;33;30;29
Craig Andrews
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00;33;31;01 - 00;33;39;06
Craig Andrews
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00;33;39;06 - 00;35;41;11
Craig Andrews
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