Analysts refer to LEGO as the Apple of Toys. And the system continues to thrive. LEGO’s steadfast belief in continuously learning, experimenting and reinventing, speaks to our research on the attributes that make businesses thrive and be resilient in the face of chaos and complexity.
As a Coach, as a Leader and as a Leader who is a Coach, perhaps the greatest gift to the self and others is a Beginner’s Mindset. It is the ability to be fully present, listen actively and not be thinking “I already know the answer to this”.
My coach once asked me: What is that one thing that holds you back from doing what you want? I said: Overthinking. The consequence is inaction. Analysis-paralysis – that’s my biggest challenge. I was reminded of this when my friend T, called me a couple of days ago, to give me the big news that …
The dread you feel of being ‘found out’. The anxiety and foreboding that the ‘fraud’ will be revealed one day. That you have been lucky in your career stints, the bosses and peers you have met. The new role will reveal not your hidden potential, but your actual incapacity. Like me, perhaps when you commit to an audacious …
As a mid-career professional there comes a time when you ask “Am I doing what really aligns with how I want to contribute?” “Should I change direction, and if so, where should I go?” After all, Herminia Ibarra’s seminal work on crafting career transitions does reveal that during our working lives most of us will …
Discover the unconventional career of Shweta Anand Arora, Founder and CEO of The Core Questin in conversation with Dr. Ramya Ranganathan.
As a Coach, I listen to clients describe the problem or issue they are trying to tackle. For ‘A’ the pandemic provided a big bang opportunity for her business, yet productivity is slipping because attrition rates are high. As CEO of the company, ‘D’ is struggling to address resistance and fear amongst her colleagues to …
For very long, leadership has been defined in a certain way. A charismatic yet distant presence that wields authority and power. However, in today’s world, leaders like Jacinda Ardern for example, point to the fact that a new model of leadership is emerging. One that is based on a very different set of principles.
Purpose can play a powerful performance-enhancing role for individuals, and for organisations. This is supported by neuroscience, and by research on company performance. Yet, there is distance to go.
Last year, a coach I deeply respect told me a story I often keep going back to whenever the topic of culture comes up. For several years, she had worked with a founding CEO whose journey is the kind that gets told at start-up conferences. She bootstrapped the company from nothing and, over a decade, …
I have heard it in townhalls, written it in culture decks, and said it to my own team more times than I can count : ‘bring your WHOLE self to work’. For the better part of a decade, though, what it actually got read as was something soft: put a plant on your desk, mention …
This is from my days working in an agency. A week after our company announced a restructuring, I sent Piyush, one of the strongest designers on my team, a message that read, “Can we talk tomorrow about the onboarding redesign? I expected more from the second half.” I typed it between meetings and sent it …
This was my first trip to the US, and it happened on day one. In the Washington town I was visiting, this gas station store called Tom Thumb does a great to-go breakfast buffet alongside the usual knick-knacks. Having forgotten my toothbrush, I stopped in to grab one, and my churning stomach clued me in …
On January 7, 2002, Paul Levy became CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, a hospital reeling from a difficult merger and years of deficits. Levy was an unusual choice to fix it, not a doctor, no clinical background, an outsider walking into a building full of specialists. The obvious move for an …
A new strategy is announced on Monday. By Wednesday, budgets are being revisited, someone is worried about their role, and delivery is still expected to continue as planned. Almost none of that gets resolved by the strategy document. It gets uravels, or doesn’t, at one layer: that of the managers standing between the decision and …
I am a relatively new driver. An anxious one at that. Which means every time I get behind the wheel, my nervous system is already doing more work than it probably needs to. It also helps very little that I drive in Delhi. And yet, every day, I pull up to a traffic light and …
As facilitators, we rarely witness this moment. It’s the three weeks later moment, when one of the participants is sitting in a difficult performance conversation. Or walking into a board review. Or deciding whether to ask one more question instead of rushing to an answer. Those are the moments that determine whether the work has actually …
I am walking into a pitch meeting. The slides looked impeccable. The numbers were absolutely defensible. My team, on stand by with a rehearsed strategy. Under my blazer and the calm face however, my body is preparing for an unknown danger. The heart rate has shifted. Breathing has become shallower. The body, in its ancient …
There is a childhood memory that remains remarkably vivid for some of us: the first sighting of a lighthouse. Impossibly tall, unwavering, and reassuring, an absolute beacon of hope calling lost sailors home. For others, this perception may have been shaped by a steady diet of Enid Blyton’s adventure books. And then there is also …
