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The Startup Reality No One Talks About: Pain Behind the Glory
When I did my first startup, just updating my LinkedIn profile to "Founder, XYZ" got me tons of congratulatory messages. But soon, I realized that all that celebration was premature. Because the real grind comes next: building the product. But once...
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The Truth About Focus and Productivity
How many people ACTUALLY work 9 to 5? And when I say work, I mean: 1. Working on something you deliberately prioritised (not playing email...
The Price of Dreams: Fear, Risk, and the Life We Don’t Live
Earlier this week, a retired civil servant (IAS officer) dropped in at our house. And during our conversation, she said that on many, many...
The Real Cost of Hostile Business Environments
Sensing an opportunity created by Karnataka's self-goal (the proposed reservation for locals), Kerala's Industries minister lost no time in inviting...
Why Great Leaders Know When to Stay Out of the Way
A friend, who used to be a partner at McKinsey, occasionally conducts a training exercise for team effectiveness in which one person has to perform...
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How Framing Shapes Our Happiness and Decisions
I was once listening to a meditation audiobook by Joseph Goldstein, in which he recounted the story of a guy who had moved into a new house where he could hear beautiful bird sounds coming from the basement. And it pleased him no end. But later, he...
Why Company Values Often Fail
During my MBA, an investment bank was visiting the campus for a pre-placement talk. After the talk, students were mobbing the visiting bankers, trying to impress them with earnest-sounding questions. So one of them asked, "What makes your bank...
Guiding vs Letting Go
To be a good manager, you need to do two seemingly contradictory things: 1. Hand-hold people, guide them, and occasionally, even show them how to do their job. 2. Give people the freedom to do their job, without unnecessarily meddling or imposing...
Why Meaningful Work Matters More Than Comfort
Can you guess what terrifies Indian civil servants the most? Getting a posting with no work to do. And sadly, a lot of these positions do exist. But why would people want to work more for the same salary? Partly, it could be the sense of importance...