This is back in the day when we only had landlines. My father was a General Manager of this large pharmaceutical company. He used to keep so busy that I rarely saw him much on weekdays. However, almost every day after school, I’d dial the landline number of his office (I didn’t know the extension). …
“…Because I’m happy Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof Because I’m happy Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth..” I’ve been humming Happy by Pharrell Williams for the last couple of days. You know how a song gets stuck in your head, and suddenly, everything seems to …
A few years ago, I had a moment of realization that changed the way I think about leadership. I was working on a particularly thorny challenge one of those problems that doesn’t have a clear solution, just layers upon layers of shifting variables. At some point, I found myself longing for a simpler time, a …
Yes, we know—it’s a bit of a cliché to start a Women’s Day post with Maya Angelou. But honestly, nobody puts it better than she does. So sometimes, cliches are good. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them …
The Leadership Catch-22: Why Complexity Trips Us Up (and How to Beat It) A funny thing happens when we face complexity: instead of leaning into it with curiosity, our nervous system often sounds the alarm. Fight, flee, freeze anything but engage. It’s as if our brain mistakes a messy spreadsheet or an uncertain future for …
𝐈𝐟 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐀𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 “𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮?” 𝐈𝐬 𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 “𝐈’𝐦 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐲,” 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞. How often do we respond to “How are you?” with “I’m busy” as if that somehow validates our worth? Jennifer Garvey Berger’s conversation on The Conscious Hospitality Podcast with David Arraya made me realise that busyness is often a mask. …
More often than not, the greatest obstacles we face aren’t external challenges they’re the mental traps we’ve unconsciously created within ourselves. These subtle yet powerful barriers can cloud our judgment, limit our growth, and obscure our path to authentic leadership. And lead us to look for external solutions when the challenges (and hence solutions) potentially …
I remember a moment from my early years as a professional that changed the way I think about work. I walked into a meeting completely drained, deadlines looming, stress mounting, and everything around me felt heavy. Before we started, a colleague paused, looked at me, and said, “Are you okay?” It wasn’t the usual “How …
Imagine being in the captain’s seat of a ship navigating stormy, uncharted waters. The map? Outdated. The weather forecast? Unreliable. The crew? Looking to you for direction. As a leader, it can feel paralyzing when you don’t have all the answers. But here’s the twist: leadership in complexity isn’t about certainty’ s about communication. Jennifer …
Have you ever felt like the rules of the game are changing faster than you can adapt? That no matter how much expertise or experience you bring to the table, the challenges you face seem messier, less predictable, and harder to solve? I see this all around us today. The corporate world, especially in India, …
