In my 'Negotiations' course at Wharton, we had a live negotiation exercise, where I had to sell a boat (or something like that) to another student. And while the 'boat sale' was fake, the impact on your grades was real since your performance on the negotiation earned...

When I was working with a private equity fund, some of the companies we invested in were performing poorly. So what was our response? We would start doing monthly 'performance review' calls to put pressure on the management to act faster and smarter. And when even...

When I became a first-time entrepreneur, one question I dreaded was: "How big is your team?" Because everyone was trying to size you up. And my startup was practically just me. 😬 Embarrassed, I craved the day when I would be leading a large team. Sadly, I got my wish....

I expected my first EdTech startup to crash but for not for the reasons it did -- here is what happened. In the early days, my biggest worry was -- what if so many users show up that the website crashes? I had endless discussions about technology stack -- should I use...

Just before I was leaving the Civil Services for my MBA, I went to say farewell to many of the senior folks I knew. One of them said that he also wanted to attend some program for senior executives at a US university, but only to network, not to learn. He said, "After...

9-to-5 jobs are not slavery. Slavery is something that sucks your soul, energy, and hope but you can't escape because you need the money, the brand, or some semblance of stability. And this kind of slavery can come in any form -- a full-time job, solopreneurship,...

You don't walk into an annual performance appraisal meeting and boast -- "I sent 20,000 emails last year." You don't flaunt the number of meetings you have attended. Because nobody cares about those things -- these metrics are meaningless. But if they don't count for...

1 year ago, I met a VC who had told me that my first startup idea won't work. And you know what ultimately happened? He was right. Thankfully, when I met him this time, he did not remember that meeting. Nor did I remind him. 😊 But why did I not accept his advice?...

When we were running the pilot batch for our Zen Productivity program, some participants said that it is practically impossible to focus while at work. The first culprit is the 'open office plan' that encourages people to interrupt each other any time for casual...

I know of billionaires who have gone broke. And here is why you should care about it. No billionaire has ever gone broke by consuming too much -- after all, how many designer clothes or jewellery can you buy? Instead, the super-rich go broke by 'investing', and doing...

In my 4th year in college, we had to choose a professor to guide us for the BTech project. At that time, I had become very good friends with a young professor of electrical engineering, who was kind, generous, and brilliant. But his area of work was not glamorous. Had...

When companies feel that their employees are stressed, they organize yoga and meditation classes. But does it address the REAL problem? Is it not yet another bandaid applied on the poor human soul, which is already heavily "bandaided?" People are stressed for many...

A decade ago, I met an entrepreneur in Goa who had built a giant medical devices company (probably worth a few hundred million dollars today). So when I went to meet him, I expected to see a swanky office. But his desk was covered side-to-side with a 1-foot high stack...

In my policing days, a fellow senior officer was very fond of daily night-patrolling and catching criminals. Sounds cool, right? In fact, the media loved and glorified it. But here is the problem -- that was not his job. His job was to guide his police station heads...

An ex-colleague of mine once worked for one of the world's best known private equity funds as an analyst after graduating from Harvard. His job was to make financial models for billion-dollar acquisitions that the fund would typically do. For one such deal in the...