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Is there a lesson we can learn from the demise of Encyclopaedia Britannica on how organisations should deal with AI?

Since its first publication in 1768, until the early 1990s, Britannica ruled the encyclopaedia market. A 32-volume set, sold door-to-door by a salesforce of over 100,000 people at $1,500 to $2,200 a set. Each salesperson earned $500 to $600 in commission per sale.

Then Microsoft released Encarta in 1993, a CD-ROM encyclopaedia priced at $99, later bundled free with computers. By any editorial measure, Britannica was the better product by far.

But their response was a masterclass on the mistake we can make when we bolt-on new technology onto an old business model.

When they finally produced their own CD-ROM, they priced it at $995, ten times Encarta. Why? Because a $99 product could not generate the $500 commission a door-to-door salesperson needed to survive. So Britannica protected the salesforce and made the product uncompetitive.

The technology existed. The content was superior. But the organisation was not redesigned around the new technology. The salesforce, a human infrastructure built for a different era, was left intact. And it strangled the new product before it could breathe.

By 1994, print sales had halved. By 1995, the company was up for sale.
The technology did not fail Britannica. It was the management decision to protect an existing structure rather than redesign around what the new technology demanded. There is surely a lesson here on the successful adoption of AI. Listen on.



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I was talking to Joy Bhattacharjya yesterday about today's story, and it triggered one from his own memory bank.
This was around 2008, when Joy was the Team Director of the Kolkata Knight Riders. A recurring problem had emerged: some of the senior cricketers weren't making it to the team bus on time, the one that took players from the hotel to the ground for practice. Someone suggested a monetary fine. But that was never going to work with seniors earning in crores during the IPL. So coach John Buchanan devised a system that had an immediate impact.

If a senior player was late, the rest of the team, on reaching the ground, would have to run 5 laps or do 20 push-ups. The defaulter couldn't join in the punishment. He had to stand and watch. Oh, and he also had to be the one to choose, laps or push-ups.

You can imagine what happened next. Once you've made your entire team suffer for your tardiness, you don't do it again. No one was late for the bus after that.

This story is about creativity, yes, but it's really about something deeper: without consequence, you can't get compliance.

Today's story explores this same lesson and continues our theme of Indian Cricket.


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During my years in the corporate world, a question that had often been on my mind was what makes people want to bring more of themselves to work?

Disengagement at work does not always look dramatic.

People do not always rebel. They do not argue. They do not resign in protest. More often, they simply retreat into the minimum. They do what is required, avoid what is optional, and leave the rest of themselves outside the workplace.

Many leaders respond to this with tighter reviews, sharper targets, better dashboards, and more frequent check-ins. All of which may have a role, but they alone don’t solve the problem.

What does?

Purpose. But not the kind that fits on a strategy slide.
The kind that makes someone feel that showing up today matters — to something larger than a quarterly number, and larger than themselves.

I came across a story recently, set in a nursing home of all places, that is the most vivid illustration of this I’ve ever found. A leader walked into a broken system, tried the conventional fix, watched it fail, and then did something so unconventional that management asked him if he’d lost his mind.
What followed was one of the more remarkable turnarounds I’ve encountered in years of collecting leadership stories.

If you lead a team, at any level, I think you’ll find it worth 6:32 minutes of your time.

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