You are a leader only when people who choose to follow you see you as a leader. Which means, it helps to see yourself through the eyes of those who have opted to believe in you. Then live the traits your tribe is looking for in their leader. While your greatness may be the starting […]
Organizations, teams and individuals are obsessed with doing things themselves when a similar or better solution is already available elsewhere. Thinking that if you have to get it done right then you have to do it yourself is no less than some kind of obsession. I have seen people rejecting better ideas just because they […]
I recently read this amazing quote from Robert A Heinlein which nicely captures the essence of my own belief about learning and specialization. “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a […]
In a group activity during a seminar, one balloon each is given to all 100 participants who were asked to write their name on it. Balloons were collected, jumbled and put in another room. When people were asked to find balloon with their name in 5 minutes, chaos ruled! Then, speaker asked them to pick […]
When we think in parts, we improve in parts. Most of the business improvement is the game of ‘sub-optimization’. You optimize pieces without looking at the whole. When a customer reports problem with your software, you do an incidental root cause analysis and address the code quality problem. You deploy tools, introduce new processes, measure […]
Assessing intention is a powerful way for leaders to understand how people and teams operate. Intentions are hidden, not always clarified directly through words, and hence easy to overlook. We therefore end up focusing on behaviors and actions. A team member who always asks difficult questions (act) is looked upon as a ‘trouble maker’ when […]
A pottery teacher divides her class into two halves and gives them an assignment to create pots during the semester. One group was asked to focus on perfection of the pot and second group on number of pots they finished. First group worked hard to create their perfect pot while second group immediately started making […]
Notifications on the devices are constantly craving for our attention. We check them when waiting at the traffic signal, while having the food, during meetings and while talking to our loved ones. Constant connection with technology is not allowing us to establish real connections with others. It is taking a toll on our ability to […]
Failure is glorified. In a number of start up events that I have attended, people eloquently talk about how many times they failed before their venture took off. Successful entrepreneurs and role models tell us that failure is good. Arthur Rock, one of Apple’s board members, said, “The best thing ever to happen to Steve […]