Tag: culture

Leadership

Culture is Your Primary Job

Death valley is known for its harsh weather and for being the place where the highest ever ambient air temperature was recorded (134F). It is a desert valley for most of the year. However, in 2005, the valley got heavy rainfall which led to, what is called a super bloom. The valley was blanketed with blooming flowers all around. When the environment becomes conducive, even the most harshest place for life to exist comes alive. The same thing is true when it comes to the performance of people. If we are able to create a conducive environment, people bloom and […]

Leadership

Masterclass: Leading Large Scale Transformation

In this masterclass, I share my insights on some of the most important things that we need to keep in mind when we are leading large scale transformation efforts. (You can watch the recording here.) Once the transformation is initiated (inspired or for survival), there are 4 phases: 1. Initiate: This phase is all about explaining the reason behind the transformation, recruiting your change agents, identifying the different stakeholder groups and understanding our own apetite for change or transformation. This phase is all about building the foundation on which we can lead our transformation effort. 2. Mobilise: This phase is […]

Leadership

Impact of Culture on our Thinking

The teacher, philosopher, J Krishnamurthy’s insight on the impact of culture on our thinking is deep and I believe right on target. We are social beings and our evolutionary biology still plays a significant role in how we show up, think and act in social settings. This in turn has an impact on what we think about, how we think about it and what are the boundaries within which we think about it. It is very rare that someone is able to go beyond these boundaries and think outside the cultural norms, usually the few exceptions to the rule. So, […]

Leadership

Foundation for a High Performance Culture

One of the most fundamental foundations of a culture that enables high performance is a sense of belonging amongst the people who are part of that culture. This sense of belonging takes root when we trust our colleagues enough to show up as who we are, with all our strengths and faults. This sense of belonging takes root when the arguments and debates are about ideas and their merits and not about people and their beliefs. This sense of belonging takes root when the people know and trust their leaders to have their best interest in mind. This sense of […]

Innovation, Leadership

Breaking Norms to Breakthrough

I stumbled onto a TikTok video about a skating race and how one athlete out-thought her competitors to register a historic win. You can watch the video here. The athlete won the competition right at the start by breaking the norms of how you are supposed to race to win. The norm was that everyone start slow to preserve their energy and then as they come close to the final laps, put all your effort and energy and get away from the pack. The winner of this race did the exact opposite. She broke away from the pack when no […]