Ajith, the bricoleur

A chance encounter. An indelible impression.

During a recent trek to the beautiful Nilgiris, in the rush of showing up before sunrise, I found myself driving to a trail starting point that no map showed. I had to figure out the way myself, and before dawn.

My car is a German machine, about 95% made in India, and it has survived being tested to its limits. Most roads can't break it, and India has plenty of those roads.

Alas, one slip of attention on a tricky ghat stretch, barely two metres wide and partly caved in, and the front tyre was stuck in a muddy puddle. One of those rare moments when you wish you had a 4×4.

Stuck, with no signal

There I was. In the middle of a proper jungle. On a lonely road, or barely a road at all. Rushing to show up, yet completely stuck.

I'm usually not late. But the choice that morning was between rest and rushing, and I had chosen rushing.

And the worst part? No network. Not even a single bar.

As I stood planning how I might somehow reach a tow truck, many workers passed by. A few stopped. Most, unbothered, carried on with their errands.

Enter Ajith

That's when I met Ajith. He arrived on a tractor, smiling, and stopped without hesitation. He checked the situation and listened patiently as I asked if he knew a tow truck number or a garage nearby.

Instead of answering, he examined the problem. Quietly. Carefully. Then he stopped a few friends who were passing by.

What followed humbled me. With nothing but a tractor, a set of ropes, stones from the side of the road and pure instinct, Ajith lifted the car, filled the puddle, stabilised the ground, and slowly guided the vehicle out.

I had never thought so highly of an ordinary-looking tractor, or of a daily-wage farm worker. Yet there he was, solving the problem when it mattered.

That act of humanity in the middle of nowhere won my heart. I eventually made it to the trek, late, but lighter. Ajith and his friends had their payday. I paid them more than a tow truck would have charged. Not for the rescue. For reminding me that humanity still matters.

A textbook bricoleur

Later, it struck me. Ajith was a textbook example of a bricoleur: someone who uses the resources at hand to get the job done.

The word comes from the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who contrasted the bricoleur with the engineer. The engineer starts with a design and procures the exact tools and materials it calls for. The bricoleur starts with whatever is already in the shed, and asks what can be made from it.

No perfect tools. No ideal conditions. Just responsibility and intent.

Management researchers later picked up the idea to explain something puzzling about entrepreneurs. Many successful businesses were not built by people who raised large sums and executed a detailed plan. They were built by people who combined whatever they had to hand, a skill, a contact, a cheap space, a discarded technology, and refused to accept that the resources they lacked were a reason to stop.

Bricolage in business

In business we spend a lot of time waiting for perfect information, perfect tools and perfect conditions. The best operators I know rarely wait. They look at what is in front of them and ask what can be done with it, right now.

The same pattern shows up inside large organisations. New businesses that take off are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets or the most detailed business cases. More often they are the ones whose leaders borrow engineers from another team, reuse an existing platform, find a friendly customer willing to pilot, and show results before anyone has approved the full plan.

Bricolage strategy has a few recognisable habits.

• Start with the inventory, not the wish list. What do we already have, in people, assets, relationships and data, that others overlook?
• Act before the plan is complete. Small moves create information that no amount of analysis can.
• Recombine. Many breakthroughs are existing parts put together in a new way.
• Bring in passers-by. Ajith did not solve it alone. He stopped his friends. Partners and allies are resources too.

Where bricolage stops working

It would be wrong to make bricolage the whole of strategy. Ropes and stones get a car out of a puddle. They do not build a highway.

At some point, scale demands engineering: proper investment, proper systems, proper design. The skill is knowing which mode a situation calls for. Early in a new venture, in a crisis or in an unfamiliar market, the bricoleur usually wins. When a model is proven and needs to grow, the engineer has to take over.

The leaders who struggle are often stuck in one mode. Some cannot move without a perfect plan. Others never stop improvising, long after the business needs structure.

Some think, some study, some do

If this were a live interview, Ajith would have passed with flying colours. If I had a farm to run, I know exactly who I'd hire.

It also made me reflect on the irony of our times. Some think. Some study. And some do.

That morning, Ajith did. In a world obsessed with perfect plans and perfect tools, that may be the most underrated strategic skill of all.