Mentoring Mondays: 5 myths about negotiations
All of us face negotiation situations regularly in our professional as well as personal lives. While negotiation is an art, there is certain structure as well that can help you plan your negotiation...
View ArticleMentoring Mondays: A slice of real life negotiation
We started discussing negotiations in the last post: 5 myths about negotiations. Before I go into structure and science of negotiations, I thought of sharing a real life negotiation example. Context A...
View ArticleThousand Points of Light – The changing face of leadership enabled by technology
I started my professional life when email was already there. Sharing of information was easy and a click away. As I interacted with more experienced folks, I realized how big a deal this was in the...
View ArticleWhat is a good problem to solve?
One of the key things you are supposed to know about your business is – “What is the problem you are solving?”. If you are an entrepreneur pitching to investors, you repeatedly get this question probed...
View ArticleLeadership: Vision-directed, not visionary
Many a times you would read about some of the great leaders from history – they were true “visionaries”. They saw the future and they achieved it. There certainly have been some instances where this...
View ArticleLeadership: The value of trial and error
“The Undercover Economist” Tim Hartford came out late last year with “Adapt”. He argues that the world has become so complex that even deep expertise is finding it hard to predict turn of events with...
View ArticleLeadership – Does intent matter?
Small, entrepreneurial setups make for very fertile ground for studying and testing management/leadership theories. Historically much more attention has been on large companies. I think the reason is...
View ArticleLeading to make evolution happen – favorably!
Lets for a moment believe that Tim Hartford (see my previous post on trial and error) is right. The world is becoming too complex and the best decisions are made through a trial and error process. If...
View ArticleHiring in the adaptive world
Most companies recognize today that hiring right people is a key to continued success. Larger organizations spend a significant amount of money and effort to hire well. 6-7 rounds of interviews are...
View ArticleLeadership: Collaborative Innovation
Over the last few days, I interacted with and attended a session by Gaurav Bhalla – he is a prolific writer on Innovation and what he calls Collaborative Innovation, i.e. innovation done in partnership...
View ArticleQuantitative model for angel investing!
If you are investing in the public markets, you would know that quantitative trading (also known as quant. trading) has over the last decade or so eaten up all kinds of arbitrage opportunities. In...
View ArticleIt’s a dreamer’s world!
I find the reality shows on TV fascinating. Specially the talent hunts. And the best part is the auditions. Thousands of aspirants turn up for say, 25 spots in the finals and a shot at glory. The...
View ArticleWhen do you stop!
This is in continuation to my last blog “It’s a dreamer’s world”. The question is that while entrepreneurship is a lot like talent hunt reality shows but the major difference is that there are judges...
View ArticleBuilding a culture tolerant of failure
Clearly, it’s easy for successful people to talk about their failures. They are much more secured in their success and find it easy to talk about things they learnt from. Struggling artists find it...
View ArticleNot being able to find a co-founder? Beware the symptom than the result
If you have ever tried to raise money, you would notice that there is a strong reluctance in investing into single founder companies at an early stage. If the startup has already become an organization...
View ArticleBuilding an engineering culture focused on customers
Great products are ultimately built by engineers, and great services are rendered by engineers too. A great engineering culture boasts of some quality folks, a fearless attitude, intense knowledge...
View ArticleA slice of real-life negotiation – Part II and closure
You need to read the first part, A slice of real life negotiation, of this post to be able to make any sense of this one. This was a real life situation. This transaction has now closed and hence now...
View ArticleThe well-rounded professional – Boon or Bane
I had a very professorial discussion with a very experienced colleague of mine at our school about what a well-rounded professional is and if that’s valuable in an organization. I have sometimes heard...
View ArticleProduct vs. Commodity
One of my students Aditya Gupta raised an interesting question in my strategy class: “While reading certain material related to topic we are covering in Strategy module, I came across multiple...
View ArticleManagers have infinite bandwidth
I have had a really interesting thread of discussion running with our alumni group about managerial capability and bandwidth. Many managers feel overworked and under-appreciated. I have had the good...
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