Tag: leadership

The Narrative of Muthulakshmi Reddy by V R Devika

It was K S Narendran who spoke about the book first and i thank him for not just pointing to this gem but also lending it to me to read across a short trip to Ahmedabad. There are times, when one is offered beautiful gifts and Naren, this was a real gem Introduction It is […]

What may crawl beneath the façade of growth and aspirational purpose?

Introduction The movie, Nightcrawler, was released in 2014, and terrified US and other audiences across the world, revealing how sensational and bigoted journalism thrives on its equally bigoted, racist, classist, and terrified middle class audiences – in many ways the two feed on each other. Nightcrawler pays homage to the middle class audiences, who consume […]

Inter-generational Conflict in the Modern Corporation: The Unconscious Politics of Yayati & Puru

Introduction There are so many occasions when one comes across a powerful creative leader or a band of leaders straddling organizations, and who relentlessly lament that the next generation of managers has not lived up to expectations, and let the system down. The next generation of managers are accused of being cowardly, over-compliant, cynical, and […]

The Terrifying Potential of Social Innovation & Yet the Heart Aches …

Last week, I was privileged to be invited as a part of the staff for the Group Relations India’s 10th annual conference in Mumbai on a theme – “Meeting the Other, Meeting Ourselves:  Fear and Longing in working with difference.”   If I were to look at the theme itself – the recruiting of members […]

Ferdinand: A Manna of Hope and Love today …

Ferdinand: A Manna of Hope and Love today …   The Context Last night, I saw the 4-D version of Ferdinand – an animated film adaption of a classic story that refuses to die down in a world that is besotted with achievement, success, greed and masculinity. On one hand, there have been a series […]

The Simulacrum of Meritocracy

The Trigger… A few weeks ago, I was teaching ‘Managing Change’ at a premier business school in India – a batch of fifty odd young consultants from one of the big 5 global consulting firms, to my shock and dismay indulged in rampant cheating, colluding, and copying from each other in every assessment process – be […]

Anticipating TransformAction 2017

  Historically, in the month of March each year, in the Riviera, just a few miles away from Nice, International Forum for Social Innovation (IFSI) – a not for profit body founded in 1976 in France, holds its annual group relations conference titled TransformAction – a seminar on Authority, Leadership, and Transformation.   Over the […]

Wasting away in the VUCA World

Preamble If there is one acronym that has proliferated at a nauseating pace and at an evergrand scale, revitalizing management and strategy text, as well as nonsensical jargon across the last decade, and catching the attention of analysts, academicians, consultants, and senior managers globally – it is VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity).   The […]