Category: Leadership

Leadership

Solving Tough Problems Using The Rules of Alchemy by Rory Sutherland

Premise: I have just started reading “Alchemy” by Rory Sutherland and am already loving it. The first thing that he writes in the book are his Rules of Alchemy. If you don’t read anything else in the book but read, understand and put in practice these rules, you would already see interesting progress in your projects. So, lets look at these rules of alchemy: The Opposite of a good idea can also be a good idea I have personally experienced this multiple times. We see this in the marketplace often – we have winners in the extreme high price luxury […]

Leadership

Why Logic Is Overrated: How Leaders Worth Following Can Learn to Hack the Irrational Mind

Premise: In the last post, we saw how leaders can benefit a lot by learning from the field of Anthropology. In this post, I am going to share how leaders who learn from the field of behavioural economics can have a better shot at becoming leaders worth following. I will reiterate the importance of the need to understand the complexity that we need to address as leaders in this ever changing environment and in order to address this complexity, our understanding also needs to evolve and learn how to bring different different mindsets/skillsets and toolsets to solve difficult challenges that […]

Leadership

Four Ways Anthropology Teaches Us to Become Leaders Worth Following

Premise I know that becoming and being a leader worth following is not simple. It is a complex endeavor, which requires us to sense the situation we are in and change our mindset accordingly. It also requires us to bring in skills from different fields if we really want to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in – making the most of the “RIGHT NOW” moment.  So, I want to look at different roles that we end up playing when we are being a leader worth following and also explore what we can learn from the real […]

Leadership

Should your Next Hire be Cultural Fit or Culturally Aligned

This was the topic of my recent conversation with Yuvan Gupta on our podcast – Culturally Speaking! Here are some of the key ideas we covered: What’s the Problem with “Cultural Fit”? Some companies say they want people who are a “culture fit.” What they often mean is:•⁠ ⁠Someone who will settle in quickly•⁠ ⁠Someone like everyone else in the team•⁠ ⁠And so can feel right at home and hence “hit the ground running” But this can lead to hiring people who all think the same way, which creates echo chambers—places where only similar ideas are shared, and new thinking […]