I recently interacted with a senior business leader of a large organization. During our conversation he mentioned, “Our biggest enemy is not our competitors but our own complexity as an organization in form of organizational design, structures, processes, culture, systems, tools, scale and metrics.” Throughout my career, I have consistently seen increasing level of internal pushback as an organization scales and grows. I have also seen leaders at both ends of the spectrum – ones who worked their way through complexity to create alignment and the ones whose grand strategies failed because of in ..read more

Having a calm mind that is focused on the outcome is our greatest asset when we are in conflict at workplace. I learned this from an amazing, short and insightful podcast episode between Lisa Leong and William Ury. William is the Co-Founder Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and author of Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict (Disclaimer: I have not read the book but this podcase episode has encouraged me to pick it up soon.) In the podcase, William suggests three specific strategies to turn any workplace conflict into a constructive negotiation. Go to the balco ..read more

If you don’t frame your metrics right, they can distort behaviors.  A bank executive once insisted that I do him a favor by getting a free credit card (even when I did not require it). He was one customer short of being eligible for a quarterly bonus. He suggested that get the card now, and as soon as I get it, I can block or cancel it. He was clearly focused on meeting his numbers at the cost of a customer. Goodhart’s Law tells us that ‘when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.’ We can see variations of this in all contexts – from people losing weight through crash ..read more

There is no growth without courage.  In my career of 25+ years, I had several moments that required me to exhibit courage. I was a functional head in year 2008 when my growth had plateaued. I walked up to my boss and sought his able counsel. He was very clear, “If you want to grow further, you need to demonstrably contribute to topline growth or significantly increase your bottomline impact.”  What felt a bit too direct at the time was actually a window of opportunity. I spent next 8 weeks thinking about ways to turn my function into a business unit. I went back to my boss with a det ..read more

Maggi is an iconic Indian brand from Nestlé that faced a severe crisis of trust when it was alleged to contain excessive amount of mono-sodium glutamate (MSG) in the spice mix, raising health concerns. This controversy led to a nationwide ban on Maggi in 2015 till further tests cleared the situation. To regain consumer trust, Nestlé initiated an aggressive and transparent consumer connect campaign even during the ban period. They communicated stringent quality checks, revamped packaging and engaged in open dialogue on food safety. In parallel, they also collaborated with food safety authoritie ..read more

OpenAI’s board took a tough call of firing the founding CEO Sam Altman without having trust from their organization/people or winning confidence of their investors like Microsoft. Within 24 hours, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, offered Altman an independent leadership role for their new AI initiative, pledging full support. Altman’s move to Microsoft initially seemed to conclude the saga until 700 OpenAI employees threatened to join Microsoft. Under immense pressure from both internal and external stakeholders, OpenAI reversed its decision, reinstating Altman as CEO and restructuring the boar ..read more

Since many years, I had a 1993 edition of this fantastic self-help book titled “Thoughts to Build On” by M. R. Kopmeyer which, for reasons unknown, I could never read. Finally last week, I noticed it when I was clearing my bookshelf and was hooked to it. Sharing below, the list of ideas that resonated strongly with me in no particular order (“long list but worth it” alert) The best investment you can make is in “YOU”. All that we are is a result of what we have “thought”. What we will be depends on what and how we think today Always think “first class”. Don’t clutter your mind with second cla ..read more

I was recently invited on my friend Ashish Bedekar’s podcast – The ARB show – to speak on the topic of visual thinking. The format of the podcast is such that guests share five tips about the topic of the choice. Since my topic was visual thinking, I decided to share five tips on how can professionals can incorporate visual thinking in their day-to-day work Here are my tips in sketchnote form. For extended ideas, I recommend you to check out the full podcast episode. You can listen to the full podcast where I start by sharing the journey of how I got started into visual thinking and why it is ..read more

Relationships are built (or ruined) one conversation at a time. I have always seen effective conversation as a way to transfer energy between people in a way that fosters understanding, builds trust and inspires growth/change. I can distinctly remember every single radical conversation I had with my peers/mentors/bosses that moved the needle for me and led me to growth opportunities. As someone who has immensely benefited from the conversations other people had with me, I try to use my conversations with others as a way to transfer positive energy that leads to learning, change and growth. Thi ..read more

I recently re-read the book “How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci” by Michael Gelb and realized how profoundly the book impacted my thinking about creativity, learning and well being back in time. The book offers really valuable ideas into the mind and works of one of the history’s greatest thinkers and my inspiration, Leonardo Da Vinci – a true Neo-Generalist. In the book, Michael Gelb has explored seven key aspects of Da Vinci’s mindset that are fascinating and offers practical exercises/ideas to help us cultivate our own creativity to live up to our highest potential. Here are my key though ..read more