Streets, Roads, Stroads and Leadership Effectiveness

I was listening to a podcast episode on 99% Invisible hosted by the inimitable Roman Mars and they were talking about Stroads, which piqued my curiousity. So, today, we will explore this topic but from a leadership lens. Before we go ahead, I think it makes sense for us to define each one of these terms and what it means. Roads: A road is defined as a medium to move vehicles (cars, trucks, etc) from one point to another as quickly as possible. By this definition, all your highways and express ways are all roads. Streets: Street is a medium […]

The Responsibilities of a Leader

Observe: As leaders it is our responsibility to observe what is happening inside the organisation, within his team, with the people who we are leading. It is our responsibility to observe what is happening at the periphery of our organisation, with our customers (internal or external). And to observe what is happening within the industry that we operate in and at the intersections of the different industries that we might be participating in. And lastly to observe what is happening at the societal level. We can use all the different tools that are at our disposal for this. We can […]

Driving Significant Results

I was going through my notes from the past few years and I stumbled onto my notes from a book called “Turning Goals into Results” by Jim Collins. In the book he talks about the power of something he calls “Catalytic Mechanisms”. These are devices that we put in place within our businesses that play an outsized role in translating our lofty aspirations into reality. We can understand what a catalytic mechanism is and how it helps us by looking at an example. I would like to introduce you to Granite Rock. They are a California-based construction materials and contracting […]

Seeds of success

Premise: After the hustle bustle and the celebrations of the new year, we are now entering the time of the year, which is fraught with opportunities and dangers in equal measures. This is the time to celebrate the past year, the peaks we scaled and give a pat on our backs for all that hard work. I am sure every team does that. This is also the time to reflect at the valley’s we encountered in the past year and think about the reasons we ended up in there. And think about what did we do get ourselves out of […]

7 Lessons for CEO’s from Aam Aadmi Party’s Revival in Delhi

In a remarkable feat, upstart political party – Aam Aadmi Party, consisting of non-political contestants swept across the elections for the Delhi Assembly poll. People across the nation had expected them to put a decent fight but not many expected them to win 67 of the 70 assembly seats. What makes this feat even more remarkable is that they did this after suffering a humiliating defeat during the national lok sabha elections that concluded less than a year ago. In my opinion, there are a lot of lessons for CEO and business owners if they understand the way this party transformed […]