Business Lessons from Lord Voldemort
Lord Voldemort is the villain without the nose. He is an ideal and vicious businessman. Even though he failed in the end, did he not manage to create a spell of utter terror, right from the day he unleashed the Basilisk in his school days, till the day he cast his last Avada Kedavra?
I invite you to look closer into this widely hated character and learn some important business lessons from him.
1. In Hogwarts, act like wizards do.
In Half-Blood Prince, we learn that Tom Riddle Marvolo was an extreme bully, even before he knew how to harness his immense dark magic. He misused his feeble magical powers to frighten his fellow orphans and as a result everyone was quite scared of interacting with him.
All that changed when he joined Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He knew, thanks to Prof. Dumbledore’s kind but strict advice, that bullying would not be tolerated in the school. Hence, he changed tack and started creating an illusion of trustworthiness and humility with his snake-like deceptive skills. He fooled everyone to the extent that he was made Head Boy in his seventh year.
But his alter ego ‘Lord Voldemort’ was a tribute to his childhood. The Magical World knew him as merciless and coldblooded, someone who killed for the pleasure of it. A personality that the kids from Wool’s Orphanage would attest to.
Think for a moment: Could the humble Head Boy have terrorised the world, or could the wand-brandishing, murderous-spree-and-glee maniac be a Head Boy?
It’s a confusing statement, since we know that both people are one. And therein lies the first business lesson: your personality must suit the role you wish to assume. If you’re an introvert, you may feel like you are cheating yourself and others when you go for business events and network like there’s no tomorrow. But unless you are planning something as sinister as world domination, you must brand yourself in the qualities and skills necessary in your profession. Having the inappropriate image for yourself can cause your customers to Avada Kedavra you.
How to implement:
Instead of taking the Voldemort-route of fake it till you make it, learn more about successful people in your profession. Analyse their traits and ponder over how it has helped them. You can also pick out people from your office or circle whose traits you feel are well adjusted to the job at hand.
2. The Dream Team
The Death Eaters were feared as much as Lord Voldemort. That’s the power of a good team.
When every member of your team has the dedication to see a goal through till the end, that’s when you know that you have the dream team. It’s not easy. Even Lord Voldemort had a few weak links. Example? The Malfoys. But if you have a team full of Bellatrix Lestrange’s, ready to do each and everything at your beck and call, wouldn’t it be too easy?
Lord Voldemort hired Fenrir Greyback to convert unsuspecting kids into monsters, Severus Snape, a man brilliant at Legilimency and Occlumency to be the perfect spy, Kreacher, a lonely and grieving elf to give him one last chance to show his devotion to his deceased masters, Pius Thicknesse, a delusional Minister of Magic to be the insider puppet, Barty Crouch Junior, a hardworking and motivated teenager who had revenge to mete out, Wormtail, a subservient wizard, multiple skilled Dark Arts practitioners to unleash an array of tortures, giants, Inferi, and unwittingly, even Harry Potter (The Department of Mysteries and the Prophecy scene?).
The diversity in this set is crazy. None of them were motivated by the same reasons or to the same end goals. Some did his biddings out of fear, some out of love, some because of pride, some did it because they frankly didn’t know what else to do to save their own mortal lives. Likewise, motives behind ‘why I want a job’ are different for everyone. It is important to find people with the same or similar motives to build cohesiveness in a team. While 100% similarities are impossible to find in larger teams, degrees of motivation could be another binding factor.
How to implement:
To avoid Voldemort’s mistake of hiring a mix of differently-motivated idiots on your team, keep interviews flexible. Some start-ups do not follow the traditional route of interviewing. Instead, they place the interviewee in a room full of existing employees and ask them to contribute and participate in a meeting. As a recruiter, you can figure out the new person’s approach. As a recruitee, you’d get a first-hand experience of what the next of your life is going to look like.
3. All that glitters could be gold
If you are an Economics student, you may be familiar with this term: Consumer Surplus. Consumer surplus is the difference between the price that the consumer is willing to pay and the price that is actually payable by the customer. For example, if you wish to buy a diamond-studded watch, and you are willing to pay Rs. 1,00,000 for it, but the list price is Rs. 80,000. The consumer surplus in this example would be Rs. 20,000.
Now, the ideal situation for the seller of goods would be to charge exactly the same price that the customer is willing to offer i.e. Rs. 1,00,000. It would help him maximise profits to the highest extent. But as a rational consumer, would you actually disclose to the seller that you are willing to pay Rs. 1,00,000 when he is only asking for Rs. 80,000?
This reluctance of the buyer creates a problem for the seller: Predicting the price which the consumer is willing to pay is difficult, because the consumer is not always incentivised to truthfully declare the price they are willing to pay.
But if Lord Voldemort worked at Borgin and Burkes, don’t you think he could have used Legilimency and figured out the exact price which the consumer was willing to pay? Just kidding. He would have Imperiused the buyer to pay more than what they were willing to pay.
From these last two lines comes two possible approaches to influencing prices: One, sellers can conduct a market research study and figure out what the buyer wants, needs, and how much he is willing to shell out for it. Two, the value of a product in the mind of the buyer starts building up thanks to advertisements, customer reviews and the omnipresent influencer.
How to implement:
Since you cannot take the Voldemort-route and blast your way into everyone’s minds, trying out the Minimum Viable Product Approach is something similar. Testing the market with a minimum viable product is an approach given by Eric Ries in his book ‘The Lean Startup’ (A must-read for anyone trying to start something revolutionary). A minimum viable product is like a skeleton product: You create a product with a basic function as intended by you. By frequent testing, taking feedback from consumers and modifying the product. You get access to your user’s minds, learn what they want, who they are, the experiences that define them, and use it to create a good product with the least amount of effort. The consumer ends up wanting your product as they played a pivotal role in developing it. This approach is said to be better than creating a finished product and praying to all the gods in the holy skies that the consumer picks it up from the store/Play Store.
4. The old-boy network
Crystallized pineapple. Constant flattery. Contacts in the Ministry. Club of Slugs, oops. Slug Club.
Prof. Slughorn was the best Connector in the history of Connectors.
And who knew, and used, this fact? No points for the answer.
In his book “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”, Malcolm Gladwell writes about this one group of people who seem to know anyone and everyone. These people are called Connectors.
No doubt, Prof. Slughorn used his connections for his hedonistic needs, but Lord Voldemort used his Slug Club parties to 1. meet future Death Eaters 2. learn about the Horcruxes.
Even though Lord Voldemort had major trust issues, getting into the Ministry of Magic in the Order of the Phoenix was not a task capable by one person. With a combination of Imperius Curses, multiple Death Eaters planted in the Ministry at high posts, bags full of Galleons, and voila, the Ministry of MAGIC has fallen.
Imagine what you could do with the right contacts.
How to implement:
Avoid taking the Voldemort-route by blasting inconvenient contacts out of the way. Do not consider networking as a chore, instead think of it as the first day of school and do the same thing that you did on the first day in school: Make friends. Figure out which group of people is likely to bring nice and tasty food in their lunchboxes, and more importantly, share it with you. Don’t forget to carry your lunchbox too!
5. Seven birds in a basket
Not one, but seven. Lord Voldemort created seven parts of his soul (actually, eight, but that’s not the point) so that he could be invincible and be the true master of Death.
You can create seven backup plans (eight, if you are paranoid), so that you can protect your backside from potential failure. It’s easier typed than done. But didn’t Lord Voldemort have to do too many painful tasks to get his invincibility too?
How to implement:
Have a solution to every problem you can predict. Consult with team members for the ones you cannot solve. This helps you to be calm curing a crisis, even though you may have a solution for just 3 of the 7 problems you are facing. You can then focus on the remaining 4 and get them solved. Further, don’t end up stressing too much on the back-up plan and forget to work on the actual plan.
6. Too many potion masters spoil the potion
Every business does not have just one goal. There may be one main goal, but n number of goals must be reached before even considering the main one.
For Lord Voldemort, world domination was the MAIN goal.
But a tiny midget with a lightning scar on his head managed to thwart him at the tender age of one. How amazing. Now, Lord Voldemort had to figure out a way to eliminate Potter (as neither lives while the other survives) and also fulfil his main goal of world domination.
Think carefully. Will both the goals would be accomplished one after the other? Yes and no.
Lord Voldemort also had to get rid of Prof. Dumbledore, the greatest wizard ever. He had to keep his Horcruxes safe. He had to ensure that he got the support from all the people who had supported him in the first Wizarding War (from around the time when the Order of the Phoenix had come into existence). And, he had to find the Elder Wand.
So you see, it wasn’t as simple as killing Harry and lording over the world. Lord Voldemort had to invest his time and energy for all these problems, in such a way that they all were given adequate attention to. And even though he was who he was, he still couldn’t find a way to keep all his Horcruxes safe. It’s pretty simple for a competitor to get an edge over you if he/she figures out that you aren’t paying full attention to some aspect of your business. Doing everything else perfectly would be of no use then.
How to implement:
Delegate. Severus Snape was asked to spy on the Order of the Phoenix. Bellatrix Lestrange was ordered to keep the Hufflepuff Cup and the Sword of Gryffindor in her Gringotts vault. Barty Crouch Jr. was in charge of bringing Harry safe and sound to the graveyard at Little Hangleton. Understand your strengths and weaknesses and the ones of others, and delegate accordingly.
While Lord Voldemort was not successful in his goals, learning from his life and his mistakes can direct us to the Hogsmeade of success.
