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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...
Recent Posts
You Don’t Need 10 Hours of Productivity, just 2 hours of deepfocus
You cannot be 100% focused, 100% productive, all day long. In fact, don't even try -- it is a guarantee for self-inflicted agony. Life ebbs and...
Why Continuous Improvement Beats Market Leadership
Around 2006, Steve Ballmer, the then CEO of Microsoft, came to Wharton for a talk. After he finished his talk, a student asked why Microsoft was not...
Real Leadership Means Absorbing Pressure, Not Passing It Down
During my service in the police force, we once had a massive political riot after which, we arrested about 200 people. Now, before producing these...
A Leadership Lesson in Prioritization
In my first job, what used to really piss me off was that whenever I got a task from higher ups, almost always, it would be urgent. And sometimes,...
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Why One Hour Meeting Can Destroy a Workday
To understand this late-night-work mania, let us analyze what happens when we do a 1-hour meeting. 1. Let us say the meeting involves 6 participants. So a total of 6 hours are lost. 2. Typically, before a meeting, if there is only a little time...
There Are No Shortcuts in Financial Markets
A few months ago, a youngster (in mid-twenties) working in a tech role asked me how to get a job in a PE fund. When I asked him why he wanted to do that, he said, "To make a lot of money." Fair point -- these firms can pay quite well. Then I asked...
Why Nobody Tells the Truth About Their Jobs
One of the culture shocks I got on joining the corporate world (on transitioning from government) was that nobody tells you the truth about their jobs -- especially in the US. During my MBA, whenever I asked anyone about their jobs or summer...
The Power of Youthful Ignorance: Why Naivety Sometimes Wins
Fresh out of college, in my very first job, I picked up a fight with a powerful figure in Kerala over a very small matter. Clearly, I had little idea about how the world worked. But at least I was fighting for a principle. And I escaped unscathed...