My New Book: Agility Anchored in Principles

First, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported my leadership book The Odyssey of Self Discovery: On Becoming A leader (https://lnkd.in/g7kZcpY3). Your encouragement, feedback, and shared stories helped it reach readers around the world and reminded me of the power of collective wisdom. I hope you benefited from my book journey as much as I did.

Now I am excited to introduce my next book-in-progress:

“Agility Anchored in Principles: Leading with Clarity and Resilience in Turbulent Times

This book explores how leaders and organizations can thrive in turbulent times. While many books emphasize the need to adapt, pivot, or disrupt in the face of change, this book makes the compelling case that what separates resilient organizations from reactive ones is their ability to adapt without losing themselves. Anchoring in clear principles, core values, long-term purpose, and strategic fundamentals provides the stability from which true agility can flourish. Too often, companies dive into transformation initiatives without addressing a fundamental question: not only what is actually changing but also what is not? This clarity is leadership’s responsibility. Leaders must voice their convictions, lead by example, and rewrite the narrative or risk being defined by it.

As I am working on the book, I would love for you to be part of the journey in four meaningful ways:

• Share your story. If you’ve led through uncertainty, navigated global shifts, or sparked innovation during chaos, please share your perspective or case. Real-world insights make this book stronger.
• Let’s connect. If you have something thoughtful or provocative to share, I would welcome a deeper conversation. Reach out to me here on LinkedIn.
• Get early access. Want to read a sample chapter before the official release? Let me know. I’d love to share it with engaged readers when they are ready.
• Sponsor with purpose. If your organization supports leadership, resilience, and long-term thinking, let’s explore how you could sponsor the book. In return, I can offer early access, acknowledgments, and tailored insights for your team.

I look forward to working with you on another exciting journey. Here’s the prologue. I hope it sparks thought, dialogue, and connection.

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Prologue: The World Upside Down

In 2008, Warren Buffett made an unlikely $230M bet for a 9.89% ownership in a little-known Chinese battery maker, BYD. The company’s founder, Wang Chuanfu, was a quiet chemist who had grown up in rural China. At the time, BYD had no global brand, no EV market leadership, and no prestige. In fact, when Buffett’s team visited BYD’s factory in Shenzhen, they found workers assembling battery components by hand. It was a far cry from the streamlined, automated production lines one would expect in a company trying to change the future of transportation.

But Buffett wasn’t betting on the present. He was betting on the future—and on Wang’s vision.

Wang Chuanfu set a goal in 2008 for BYD to become the leader in the Chinese automotive market by 2015, and to become the largest car manufacturer globally by 2025.

Over the next fifteen years, BYD evolved from a fringe player into a global juggernaut. In 2024, it surpassed Tesla in global EV sales to become the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles when Tesla made 1,774,442 EVs vs. BYD’s 1,777,965.

Its cars, like the compact BYD Seagull, were not just electric—they were affordable, mass-market, and manufactured with near-total vertical integration. While Tesla and other automakers struggled with supply chains and rising costs, BYD had internalized nearly every critical component, from batteries to chips to semiconductors.

In the rapidly evolving EV market, China’s BYD has emerged as a symbol of both speed and ambition. Beyond its competitive pricing, offering a Model 3-like EV at nearly half the cost, BYD recently unveiled a breakthrough in fast-charging technology: a system capable of delivering 250 miles of range in just five minutes. That’s more than double the speed of Tesla’s Supercharger, which provides about 200 miles in fifteen minutes. This leap not only reflects BYD’s technological strides but also highlights how innovation, pricing strategy, and speed-to-market are becoming defining edges in global competition.

Yet this stunning ascent sparked not applause, but alarm.

In Washington and Brussels, policy conversations quickly shifted from climate cooperation to economic protectionism. The same Western powers that had long pushed China to embrace clean energy were now issuing tariffs to slow down the spread of Chinese EVs. At the time, Europe is taking a page from the China playbook: technology for market access by requiring Chinese companies entering the EU car market to enter joint ventures with European companies or license parts of their technology.

Why? Because BYD’s success had rewritten the script.For decades, the dominant assumptions in business strategy and global economic policy were clear:

• The market economy would remain the central organizing principle for global trade.
• Shareholder value would be the guiding light for corporate decision-making.
• The rise of the Chinese middle class, a market of 400 million consumers, would fuel global corporate growth.

These assumptions had shaped everything from boardroom strategies to global supply chain. Western automakers like GM, Mercedes, Toyota, VW, and Tesla all placed big bets on the China market, assuming it would provide not only scale but margin. In parallel, Western governments pushed China hard to reduce fossil fuel use and accelerate energy transition, viewing the EV shift as a win-win for climate and business.

But now, the story has turned.Instead of opening new markets, the rise of China’s EV sector has led to a defensive posture in the West. Instead of driving shareholder returns, many global automakers are facing margin compression, political scrutiny, and policy uncertainty. And instead of market-driven cooperation, we are witnessing a breakdown of global economic alignment.

What happens when the very foundations that supported business strategy begin to erode?

A Tectonic Shift in the Global Business Landscape

This is not the first time the world has changed. Business, after all, has always been dynamic. But what defined the last few decades was not just change, it was predictability in the direction of change. China would continue to open. Globalization would deepen. Free-market principles would guide international policy. These became the default mental models of globalization.

Then came the pandemic. Then came geopolitical fragmentation, technological decoupling, and climate urgency. Now, we find ourselves in a different world, more chaotic, less predictable, and far more contested. It is not just the pace of change that has shifted, it is its nature.

In this environment, many of the old assumptions no longer hold. And yet, new ones have not yet formed. This is the central tension for global leaders today. How do you lead amid uncertainty? How do you plan when the rules are in flux? How do you grow when growth itself becomes controversial? And just as important, when so much seems to be changing, what must stay the same?

On the surface, the competition between Nvidia and Intel resembles a classic case of disruptive innovation, where a new technology reshapes an industry, but this time, the rivalry has transcended business, becoming deeply entangled in a broader geopolitical contest over technological dominance and national security. It reflects the macro trend of a fast-changing world, where breakthroughs in AI, chip design, and computing architecture are accelerating at an unprecedented pace. In such an environment, traditional incumbents are being challenged not only by nimble innovators but also by shifting global power dynamics, making technological leadership both a business imperative and a national priority.

Both Intel and Nvidia faced the same external headwinds and tailwinds, from geopolitical complexity to the acceleration of AI. Yet it was internal decisions, about focus, leadership, investment, and execution, that set them apart. NVIDIA reimagined itself as a platform for the future of computing, while Intel struggled to adapt its legacy strengths into a new era. This contrast reminds us that while turbulence may be external, thriving through it is often the result of internal clarity and conviction.

For decades, Intel, the company that put the “silicon” in Silicon Valley, the technological powerhouse Gordon Moore and Andy Grove built, was the undisputed king of semiconductors, powering everything from personal computers to data centers. Its dominance seemed unshakable, until the rules of the game changed. NVIDIA, a company once known for making graphics cards for gaming, saw a different future. While Intel was doubling down on its legacy CPU business, NVIDIA placed its bets on GPUs and AI computing.

At first, GPUs were seen as a niche product, primarily for gaming and high-performance computing. But NVIDIA’s visionary founder, Jensen Huang, recognized something Intel did not: the computing world was shifting from traditional processors to AI-driven architectures. The rise of deep learning and artificial intelligence created an insatiable demand for GPUs, and NVIDIA was perfectly positioned to capitalize on it. Meanwhile, Intel struggled with delays in its chip manufacturing and missed opportunities in AI, allowing NVIDIA to surpass it in market value and technological influence.

This shift was not just a business rivalry, it became entangled in a broader geopolitical contest. As AI became the new arms race, the U.S. and China placed semiconductors at the heart of their economic and strategic competition. The U.S. imposed export restrictions to curb China’s access to advanced chips, particularly those from NVIDIA. China, in response, accelerated efforts to develop its own semiconductor capabilities, investing heavily in domestic alternatives.

This battle between Intel and NVIDIA mirrors the larger forces reshaping global business today. For decades, companies assumed a stable world order, one where globalization, free markets, and shareholder value were guiding principles. But as the semiconductor industry has shown, the landscape can shift rapidly. The assumptions that defined past strategies may no longer hold.

The difference? One held on to outdated assumptions, while the other redefined what truly mattered.

Today, businesses across industries face similar crossroads. The story of BYD is not merely a tale of Chinese industrial success, it is a mirror for global strategy. It reflects how businesses must now navigate asymmetric advantages, policy backlash, and the complexity of winning too fast. It reveals the risks of being too reliant on stable macro assumptions, and the cost of failing to ask: What if the world turns upside down?

Through Turbulence, Toward Clarity

Agility Anchored in Principle is written for those navigating this new terrain—not with certainty, but with clarity of thought, principles to anchor to, and strategies for adaptation. We will explore how businesses can respond to a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) by challenging outdated narratives, asking better questions, and holding on to enduring values and principles. Doing so requires not only experience and conviction to change, but humility—the humility to unlearn what no longer serves and the willingness to learn anew in a rapidly shifting environment.

Too often, companies dive into transformation initiatives without addressing a fundamental question: not only what is actually changing but also what is not? This clarity is leadership’s responsibility. This isn’t the first time the world has faced economic turbulence and while there may be no one-size-fits-all solution, leaders can draw lessons from history to craft new ideas and strategies for the road ahead. Leaders must voice their convictions, lead by example, and rewrite the narrative, or risk being defined by it.

In turbulent times, people need anchors. Leaders must be able to say: This is what we’re doing differently. And this is what remains true. Some of those anchors are deeply human, such as values, purpose, and the behaviors that define a healthy leadership culture. Others are hardwired into business itself: the fundamentals don’t go away. Whether it’s the principle that return on equity is still driven by margin, asset efficiency, and leverage; or the simple truth that sustainable growth is limited by retained earnings and operational discipline. These principles endure. Cost discipline still matters. Innovation remains imperative. Strategy must evolve. But when leaders draw that line with conviction between what must change and what must stay, uncertainty becomes navigable, and change becomes something teams can commit to, not just comply with.

At the same time, we will explore the shifts required in today’s dynamic climate: planning under shifting sands, pursuing growth that endures rather than explodes, innovating by experimentation and validating assumptions, decision-making informed by intuition as much as data, agility that transcends mere speed, and negotiation amid deep uncertainty. From BYD's strategic pivot from batteries to electric vehicles in an uncertain market, to Zoom’s meteoric rise during the pandemic, and Amazon's relentless drive for operational innovation in times of change, this is a story about companies that have thrived through relentless adaptation and resilience. Whether responding to tectonic shifts in China’s economic role or leveraging constructive ambiguity in business contracts, and from Toyota's rescue mapping for disruption management to Marsh & McLennan’s fire-drill culture, this is a book not just about leading in turbulence but thriving in it.

Human beings have thrived not by resisting disruption, but by adapting to it. Throughout history, it's been our ability to pivot, to learn, and to evolve that has propelled progress. The journey ahead is often riddled with turbulence. But it’s in that chaos, when uncertainty is thick in the air and plans unravel in real time, that true resilience is born. Growth isn’t forged in comfort, it emerges when we’re forced to adapt on the fly, to question assumptions, and to create new paths forward.

Because as one Chinese proverb reminds us: “The same wind that carries a boat forward can also capsize it. What matters is how you steer.”

The question is: Will you drift, or will you chart your course?

Read My Leadership Book: The Odyssey of Self-Discovery: On Becoming A Leader

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