ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSION FORM

This will be the first page of your assignment

Course Name: Corporate Entrepreneurship

Assignment Title: iDNA Journal #2: Associating
Submitted by:

(Student name or group name)

Student Name PG ID
Siddharth Jain 62110563

ISB Honour Code

• I will represent myself in a truthful manner.

• I will not fabricate or plagiarise any information with regard to the curriculum.
• I will not seek, receive or obtain an unfair advantage over other students.
• I will not be a party to any violation of the ISB Honour Code.
• I will personally uphold and abide, in theory and practice, the values, purpose and
rules of the ISB Honour Code.
• I will report all violations of the ISB Honour Code by members of the ISB
community.
• I will respect the rights and property of all in the ISB community.
• I will abide by all the rules and regulations that are prescribed by ISB.

(Please start writing your assignment below)

3rd January 2022, Monday

Had an eventful day today! Three classes in a row, it was exhausting. But the good thing in

context of the COEN class was that we stepped us the Innovator’s DNA chapter- we finally

learnt associating different concepts and different questions. Never could I imagine earlier

that we can so beautifully relate two unrelated questions. Just like in modern companies,

diversity is valued since it brings in a holistic view of a problem, similarly, questions might

seem unrelated at a point of time, but an innovator has the ability to associate unrelated

questions. Steve Jobs rightly said, “We can connect the dots backwards.”

Well, while a few questions in general were popping up during the day in my mind, I

consciously tried to link those questions. While I was casually thinking about the business

model of Subway, since I had ordered one that day, I thought that how me being in stress of

placements was indirectly influencing me to order from Subway. That is how I associated a

business problem of Subway with my own issues, things which I earlier felt were completely

unrelated.

4th January 2022, Tuesday

I spent the entire day doing cases today. Who would have thought that while doing cases, I

would actually be using the iDNA framework. While I was getting some clarity on the

problem statement in the case study, I started asking somewhat intelligent question, which the

interviewer felt were not very relevant. But that was probably because he wasn’t aware of the

concept of associating. When he asked me the rationale behind the questions, I was

successfully able to tie those questions even though they seemed to be unrelated. For
example, the problem that we were solving was that the Delhi airport was facing some

accidents. I first asked some clarifying questions:

• Where are the accidents happening? (Answer was on the runway)

• Are the accidents happening while landing or while taking-off? (Answer was while

taking-off)

• Are the accidents happening during the day time or the night time? (Answer was the

night time)

When I explored such questions, the interviewer was confused why I am asking such

questions. However, then I connected the dots, associated the answers that he gave me, and

came to the conclusion that it must be that the landing markers or the landing staff has

changed. To the interviewer’s surprise, he later realized that the questions though seemed

unrelated at the time, but were well structured to find out different pieces of information to

come to a final conclusion. It was a great experiential day, I must say.

5th January 2022, Wednesday

Today was the second day of my quarantine. Things started to add up to me. I could now

connect the warnings of the management at ISB. They used to warn us of the potential

dangers of not masking and going out unnecessarily. I could not relate that advice to today’s

situation earlier, but now I realize that their fear came from a place of genuineness.

Associating is not only about associating questions, it is also an important concept to connect

various incidents in life. It is also a useful tool in connecting the past with the present, it is
useful in connecting hindsight with foresight. Associating, when consciously applied in life,

can be a super useful life tool.

7th and 8st January 2022, Friday and Saturday

Got tested today. Scared that I might come Covid positive since two of my closest friends

came out to be positive. Let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Otherwise, it was a

very learning-oriented day for me today. Out of interest, I was reading about Steve Jobs. I

absolutely loved how he innovated the designs of what today is taken for granted- the fonts

and the phones and the music players. But he showed some exceptional entrepreneurial spirit,

which I must say, inspires me. While watching his address at Stanford, I got the best sense of

associating things. He mentioned that he dropped out of his college, which enabled him to

attend courses of his interest, not the courses mandated by the college. He attended

calligraphy classes after dropping out. It was after many years that he developed the fonts

which are so common in computers today. He thus gave the conclusion, that we might not be

able to connect the dots forward, but we can connect the dots backward. And that the dots

always join. Hadn’t he taken the calligraphy classes, hadn’t he dropped out of college, we as

students wouldn’t have been able to access the fancy fonts on our computers.

This gave me an important lesson on associating. And I know that with consistency of use

and practice, my brain will get used to making natural associations.