“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say ‘Thank You’. In between, the leader is a servant.” – Max De Pree Gone with the industrial age is the concept of traditional leadership where people at the top of pyramid exercise the power in a hierarchy. In a creative […]
Technology and sociology are two different disciplines. But when technology transcended the boundary and met sociology (or the other way around) – social media was born. It completely transformed how we communicate, consume information and sell. If you are playing a guitar, you are dealing with two disciplines. The art of dynamically arranging musical notes […]
Having worked in Quality management role for a long time, I could not have afforded to miss insights from Dr. W. Edwards Deming whose thinking was way ahead of time. Dr. Deming is remembered for transforming Japan into a formidable business competitor through his management and leadership practices, especially Deming’s 14 principles. In 1994, at […]
QAspire blog completes 9 years this month and here is how I feel at the moment.They say and I agree that time flies when you are having fun. 2006 was a year when I had just transitioned into my first leadership role. Every single day and interaction with others was turning out to be a […]
Smile. It is a universal language of compassion, care and love. Greet people by their names. Share positive feedback about the work they are doing. Ask them about their advice on a critical problem. Listen with an intent to understand. Learn about them, their work, their process and their challenges. Help them in getting […]
A cat that lived in monastery distracted evening meditation of the monks. One day, teacher ordered that cat be tied up daily during the evening meditation. Years later, when teacher died, the cat was still being tied up in the evening. When the cat died, another cat was bought and tied up to maintain […]
“The tools of the mind become burdens when the environment which made them necessary no longer exists.” – Henry Bergson When solving problems, we love standard solutions and tools. What worked for us in the past becomes our tool to solve problems in the future. A psychologist named Raymond Cattell termed this as “crystallized intelligence” […]
Last week, I was invited to speak as a panelist at Agile Carnival, Chandigarh where I expressed my thoughts on Agile as a method and as a mindset. Agility in our approaches is one of the most potent ways to deal with the challenges of a constantly changing world. Here is the summary of a […]
I remember being inspired by a Maths teacher who once told me, “If you start loving the mental stimulation and excitement you get when solving a problem, mathematics is easy.” He did not try to inspire me by the grades I must achieve, but by something more deeper. That did not change the fact that […]