My philosophy for 2025: Make the ugly runs
Why aiming for progress over perfection might be the way to growth this year
I’ve been wanting to write this since January, but work has absolutely blindsided me since this year began. Which is why I’m late. Sorry about that.
Plus, I’m not writing this little essay, which has been on my mind for a while, in the perfect way I would want to be writing it: Over a nice filter coffee at my desk, or over a beer later in the evening at the same desk.
I’ve actually started writing it on the countertop of a hotel room in Las Vegas, where we are shooting segments with IT professionals and thought leaders on AI, plus a bunch of other marketing material. The Atomicwork team is at Pink ‘25, an ITSM industry conference where we are exhibiting, and where our CEO also just had a talk on the impact of AI on ITSM.
This is on the heels of two sets of video podcast recordings in the Bay Area last week, one of which was a customer case study. Just a day before this, we announced our Series A fundraise of $25 million, led by Khosla Ventures and Z47. The PR and the work around it was so all-consuming that I was awake for about 36 continuous hours to figure out the back-to-back US and India announcements.
I was tired, jet-lagged, and cold. I wasn’t at 100%. But I got the job done.
All of which is a neat segue into what I think is my work philosophy for 2025: Make the ugly runs.
My team is sick and tired of my cricket analogies, which is why I’ve decided to foist it upon you, so bear with me.
First, let me tell you what the term means. In cricket, there’s a term about a batter being 'in-form', as opposed to being 'out-of-form'. This means that the batter is in rhythm, is seeing the ball clearly, is getting into good positions, and is playing good shots without trying too hard. But when a batter is 'out-of-form', it’s the opposite. The batter seems fidgety, gets into bad positions, is unable to hit the ball cleanly, and looks and feels out of place.
It’s generally easy to make runs when a batter is 'in-form'. And the batting looks good.
(An aside: Cricket is a bit of an aesthetic pleasure as well, as cricket writers have always attested. As a cricket fan of some vintage, I know this to be true.)
Batting when 'in-form' is easy on the eye, and immensely pleasurable, both to the player and the watcher. This is not the case when a batter is struggling. Runs are difficult to come by, and shots they would play in their sleep usually, become incredibly difficult and ungainly. For a batter, it is easy to give up at such time, or dance down the track and swing wildly at a ball, which is what usually happens, either out of frustration or hope.
But that’s not what a good batter should do. A good batter should wait, and make the ugly runs. The runs that come when they are not playing shots that are pleasing, the runs that come by playing the plainer shots, the stolen singles that take them to the other end, so they get another over to face.
This is a difficult thing to do, especially for cricketers who are used to always playing good shots and making the beautiful plays. But to play the long game, the real long game, the great batters understand that you can’t always be in form. You have to keep playing, you can’t throw your wicket away.
You can’t just make the beautiful runs, you have to make the ugly ones too.
Which is exactly what I’m asking you (and myself) to do this year. I wrote last year about a bunch of people I know being in the middle of things. I believe a lot of us still are in that kind of a phase. And to get to some sort of completion will require you not to content yourself with just the good-looking runs. You will have to play longer than that, and make the ugly runs, sometimes very ugly ones.
And that’s fine.
This year, I want to play the long innings, and make the ugly runs. I think you should as well.
Dear readers, we are nearing the 5th anniversary of this newsletter, and there a couple of ideas I have been toying with to celebrate. I need your help to figure this out.
One, would a WhatsApp group of readers be something you would want to be a part of? If yes, please email me at sairamkrishnan@outlook.com, and let me know. I would be grateful. Two, I’m thinking of a get-together of readers sometime in March or April in Bangalore. Would you like to come meet me and more readers? Again, please email me at sairamkrishnan@outlook.com and let me know?
Of course, I’m open to other ideas as well.
And if you are new here, do subscribe! It’s a new year of marketing, everything is changing, and it’s good to have a guide along for the journey. :)