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How Seniority Can Hide Incompetence
I once knew a guy who had spent decades in investment banking and had climbed up the hierarchy but he was clueless about finance and deal-making. I often wondered how he got there. My guess is that in many organizations, if you don't antagonize the...
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We don’t need long hours to be productive
Conventional wisdom states that, as an entrepreneur, I should be slogging 12-16 hours a day. Yet, on any given day, I never exceed 4-5 hours of real...
Beat Decision Fatigue by Building Habits
Imagine this: Every morning, when you get up, you have to take these decisions: 1. Should I brush my teeth? 2. Should I take a shower? 3. Should I...
Leadership Is Not About Staying Busy
To get into and succeed in senior leadership roles, you can't just solve the problems in front of you -- you have to anticipate and solve problems...
Fake action is not progress
A lot of people have gone to their graves with a ton of untapped potential. So what comes in the way of realizing that potential? It is the wisdom...
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Shape Your Environment to Shape Your Life
When I was last traveling, I downloaded the LinkedIn app since I did not want to open my laptop. And just with that one small action, my frequency of checking LinkedIn went up. On my laptop, I log out of LinkedIn when I don't want to use it but on...
Why Short-Format Videos Hijack Your Brain
During one of my travels, sitting next to me was a college youngster who furiously swiped through hundreds of short format videos in a very short time -- I am surprised his thumb did not break! Of course, there is nothing wrong with some...
Why Zombie Work Destroys Productivity
During my consulting days, I once worked 16-18 hours for two weeks straight, estimating the losses that US banks would suffer in the 2008 financial crisis. This was a big project for the company since a lot of clients wanted to know this. Finally,...
Unconscious Competence
A few years ago, I was interviewing an expert physics teacher for my previous startup. And to any question I would ask, he would rattle off formulas like a machine gun. But I was not getting a sense that he really understood things. So I asked him,...