QAspire

SEPTEMBER 18, 2016

Here is what leaders often do – when faced with a complex situation at work, they add procedures, rules and structures to make things more complex. What we need to handle complex challenges is simplicity that leads to effectiveness. Simon Terry , whose thinking I really admire, write a short post titled “ Five Ways to Make Work More Effective ” offering vital ideas about efficient work.

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Simon Consensus Efficiency Environment 153

QAspire

MARCH 15, 2016

Before leadership be effective, it has to be true. And the truth of leadership is essentially human. If we have to raise the bar of leadership, we need to first cultivate truer leadership at the core. In his article “ Why The World Needs Truer Leaders (And How to Be One)” , Umair Haque defines eudaimonic leadership as, leaders who expand human potential to its very highest, so everyone can live a life that matters.

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Quality Charisma Resistance Politics 154

QAspire

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

Disruptive forces compel organizations to undertake large scale transformation initiatives to stay relevant. The speed of executing these transformations is as crucial as the initiatives itself and a lot is at stake. In such situations, it is easy to get carried away by the enormity of task at hand and lose the sight of what could go wrong. If you are undergoing a large scale transformation or planning for one, I highly recommend ThoughtWorks article titled “ Seven Pitfalls to Avoid During Organ

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Agility Process Article Planning 153

QAspire

JANUARY 24, 2016

Leadership starts with influence and influence starts with trust. Ability to truly connect with others is vital for leaders to build an environment where a leader is trusted for the intentions before being respected for competence. I once worked with a new CEO who came on-board, took charge and immediately got into action. I remember when he first met a group of senior folks, he started with his introduction and talked at length about his past experience, competence and all the great things he h

Leadership 153

Leadership Influence Compliance Open-book 153

QAspire

JANUARY 11, 2016

I once worked with a CEO who was paranoid about results, so much so that he never cared for relationships with those who delivered the results. The end results weren’t surprising – the intended results were never delivered because people either stopped caring or moved on. The loss was almost irreparable. Leading in a complex world is almost like a tight rope walk and leaders cannot afford to have singular focus on either task or relationship.

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Goleman Video Influence CEO 154

QAspire

JANUARY 5, 2016

The rate of change in the business world today is greater than our ability to respond. In a world that is often described as VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and ambiguous), there are major tectonic shifts that demand a new mindset of leadership. First, let us look at these shifts. In recent years, we have seen disruption of market leaders like Kodak and Nokia amongst many others.

Leadership 154

Leadership Self-aware Supply Chain Human Capital 154

QAspire

MARCH 31, 2016

Do you consider yourself as an artist and your work as art? Art isn’t just about doing fancy stuff or indulging into painting, dancing etc. Your work becomes art when it changes others for better. When your ideas and insights change the conversations. When you overcome resistance to start, execute and most importantly, finish what you start. When you have the humility to accept what needs to improve and change.

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Godin Resistance Learning-by-Doing Review 152

QAspire

NOVEMBER 23, 2016

In moments of uncertainty, inspiration came to me in form of a tweet with a visual that read, “If you see shadows, it is because there is light.”. I instinctively told myself, “If you face the light, shadows fall behind.”. The mindset of abundance asks, “What’s possible?” instead of “What could go wrong?” and focuses on those possibilities because constraints are almost a given in work and life.

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Constraint Uncertainty 151

QAspire

MARCH 22, 2016

The purpose of an organization is to enable people in doing meaningful work that delivers value to the customers and hence to the business. Organizations start purely with this promise but when they scale, they end up stifling people’s ability to deliver value. In his insightful post titled 8 Symptoms Of Organizations On The Cusp Of Change , Mark Raheja says, “In theory, organizations are meant to enable us — to make us faster, stronger and more effective than we’d be on our own.

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Organization Incentives Policies Process 152

QAspire

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

We either wait for inspiration to happen to us or try finding it from somewhere (books/blogs/videos etc). I have spent countless hours trying to wait or find inspiration. It helped, but only for a short while. A better way to create inspiration, in my experience, is to get down to doing things. Once you dedicate yourself to the cycle of doing, delivering and improving, that becomes the source of your inspiration, the one that feeds more inspiration.

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Video Blog Books 151

QAspire

OCTOBER 11, 2016

When our mind is like a mountain, it is nothing but a heap of fixed beliefs and knowledge that does not evolve. To have a mind like a valley, we need to pursue things with a sense of wonder, knowing that we don’t know and having a receptive frame of mind ready to absorb. An open mind enables critical thinking, diverse experiences, experimentation and iterative learning by connecting the dots.

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Diversity Development 149

QAspire

MAY 2, 2016

Leadership in a business context is challenging because its effectiveness depends not just on a leader’s key traits but also on organizational decision making, competitive forces and constantly changing external situation. On the other hand, people want to work in healthier organization cultures where they can maximize their chances of adding value – both to their own selves as well as to their organizations.

Leadership 150

Leadership McKinsey Situational Leadership Quality 150

QAspire

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016

What do you look for when you look for talent? Competence is the key to solving problems but competence alone is not sufficient for success. In current context, I would define talent as a combination of competence, commitment, learning agility, attitude/character, communication skills, ability to collaborate across different cultures, critical thinking and creative problem solving.

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Agility Commitment Reference Creativity 148

QAspire

APRIL 17, 2016

Great coaching is at the heart of meaningful accomplishments. In an organizational and team context, being able to coach people means helping them overcome their own resistance, get unstuck and move forward in the direction of their goals. Great coaching catalyzes great results. But too often, we see managers and leaders getting so busy on the treadmill of getting things done that they lose focus on how those results are achieved.

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Books Handbook Mentor Resistance 147

QAspire

SEPTEMBER 13, 2016

The books I love the most are not the ones that offer off-the-shelf “solutions” but ones that start a conversation, catalyze thinking, elevate understanding and help in thinking about a topic in novel ways. And that’s why I loved reading “ The Neo-Generalist ” by Kenneth Mikkelsen and Richard Martin. It is a book that bridges the gap between two extremes of specialism and generalism and introduces a neo-generalist as: “The neo-generalist is both specialist and generalist, often able to master mu

Magazine 146

Magazine Books Diversity Learning-by-Doing 146

QAspire

APRIL 8, 2016

We learn the most from that which challenges us the most. I remember having learned server side scripting many years back completely on my own. I had no special resources, no advanced tools and no external guidance – just a lot of willingness to pick up the skill. It wasn’t easy and that made it all the more interesting. But as we grow in our career and life, we avoid the discomfort involved in learning new things, which eventually slows down the process of learning.

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Entrepreneur Article Tools Report 140

QAspire

JANUARY 17, 2016

Learning, the real learning, happens…. When you are intentional about learning When you are driven by an intrinsic need to advance and not only by external triggers and rewards. When you ask more questions to get to the WHY of things (and then to what and how) When you carry an open frame of mind that is receptive When you look for process and patterns even in discrete situations And when you use your understanding to connect the dots and look at a larger picture When you enjoy the process of le

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Self-aware Mentor Learning-by-Doing Process 123

QAspire

MARCH 2, 2016

Change does not always mean transformation, but transformation by itself changes everything fundamentally. At a time when a lot of people use terms “change” and “transformation” interchangeably, it helps to know the difference between the two (and my sketch note on the same topic may be helpful). I have seen people in process improvement use the word transformation quite often (in fact, I have been guilty of using the word “transformation” when I was only tweaking or improving the ways of workin

Review 120

Review Article Process Organization 120

QAspire

JULY 10, 2016

Last week, during an internal team event, we organized an interesting activity. Team members were asked to form a human chain by holding hands. A round hoop was then passed through one end of the chain and participants had to pass the hoop through themselves to other end without breaking the chain. The team that passed hoop across in least time would win.

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Emotional Intelligence Team Agility Diversity 115

QAspire

APRIL 14, 2016

There is no real leadership without change. If you are simply “sustaining” what already exists, you are not a leader because real leadership is about change – moving people, processes, outcomes and culture to a better place. In an organizational context, there is no change without some leadership. Without any leadership, things still change but often, in a southwards direction.

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Leadership Consensus Resistance Energy 111

QAspire

MARCH 6, 2016

If the job of a leader is to take people to a better place, they first need to take people’s imagination to that better place. One of the biggest mistakes leaders make when communicating about the future is to show future in form of data, numbers and charts. They are good to capture the mind of people, but people will only endeavor to go there when their hearts are engaged.

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Storytelling Power Leadership Article 111

QAspire

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Research says that the rapid pace of work is taking a huge toll on our ability to focus, be productive, remain engaged and be creative. A majority of people at workplace today seem to be struggling to cope with severe stress resulting from conflicting work priorities, hyper-connectedness, onslaught of notifications and information overload. How do we cope up with this stress?

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Open-book Stress Training Download 109

QAspire

SEPTEMBER 1, 2016

Friday Five is a new weekly series at QAspire where I curate five articles (with excerpts)/quotes/tweets/visuals shared on my personal learning network each week that I found particularly useful, and hopefully you will find some of them valuable too! This edition features insights on authentic leadership, change, rationality and transformation. Quote Via Neil Walker.

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Leadership Belief Systems Maturity Innovation 124

QAspire

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

If you are dealing with a mediocre team or average performance from people, check what you are expecting from them. People respond to expectations (implicit and explicit) and raising the bar of expectations is a great way to enable growth and potential in people. Raising Expectations Doesn’t Mean Pressurizing People. Setting high expectation means providing clarity of purpose, helping people find meaning of their work, helping them see what success looks like and then helping them along the way.

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eBook Download Creativity Operations 105

QAspire

JUNE 14, 2016

My journey in life and career is largely inspired by what other generous folks have shared – both online and offline. A boss who believed in me when I didn’t, a book that altered my perspective for better, a few blogs that clarified my thinking one post at a time, an inspiring video that uplifted me, a podcast that I often revisit, a virtual friend who opens a door of possibilities, a family member who guided my perspective about life and the list goes on.

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Open-book Video Blog Career 104

QAspire

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

Dr. Liz Alexander (who I interviewed in 2013 on the topic of thought leadership ) and Naveen Lakkur (Director, Founder Institute, India) wrote a new book titled “ FOUND – Transforming Your Unlimited Ideas Into One Sustainable Business ”. The book is short but powerful enough to help entrepreneurs and ideators in bringing their ideas to life by following a proven five part framework.

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Entrepreneur Books Charan Follow-up 104

QAspire

SEPTEMBER 9, 2016

Friday Five is a weekly series at QAspire where I curate five articles (with excerpts)/quotes/tweets/visuals shared on my personal learning network each week that I found particularly useful, and hopefully you will find some of them valuable too! This edition features insights on the softer aspects of leading others and why they are so important and on how streams are changing the way we lead and learn.

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Management CIO Fashion Teamwork 101

QAspire

APRIL 24, 2016

You cannot change your reflection in the mirror if you want to change how you look and feel about yourself. YOU have to change and the reflection changes accordingly. And to enable that change, you have to do all the right things based on what you wish to achieve. Trying to change an organization’s culture is much like that too. Culture of an organization is a reflection – a by-product – of what people within the organization do.

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Organization Mission Statement System Process 100

QAspire

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Organizational transformation initiatives come in many forms – restructuring, cultural transformation, service transitions, rapid innovation, process overhauls, turnarounds and acquisitions to name a few. Studies by universities and consulting firms suggest that 70% or more of transformation initiatives fail. I have been a part of systems that were transformed, companies that were acquired, companies that could not pull of a successful transformation and the ones that did.

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McKinsey Restructuring System Article 98

QAspire

JULY 27, 2016

The anxiety we feel when we are worried about an uncertain outcome (or guessing our failure before it happens) can be very disabling. We fight it out to an extent that the only thing we really do is defend our ground. When we are focused on defending, minimizing our exposure to anxiety, complying and cruising along the path of minimum resistance, we can hardly create anything meaningful.

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Resistance Reference Creativity Team 91

QAspire

AUGUST 25, 2016

Image Source: Unknown. Friday Five is a new weekly series at QAspire where I curate five articles (with excerpts)/quotes/tweets/visuals shared on my personal learning network each week that I found particularly useful, and hopefully you will find some of them valuable too! This edition features insights on motivation, leadership, future of work and the multidisciplinary mindset.

Motivation 101

Motivation Leadership Learning-by-Doing Article 101

QAspire

AUGUST 19, 2016

Introducing a new series on this blog – Friday Five – where I will curate five articles (with excerpts)/quotes/tweets shared on my personal learning network each week that I found particularly useful, and hopefully you will find some of them valuable too! Noam Chomsky on The Purpose of Education. “In the colleges, in the schools, do you train for passing tests, or do you train for creative inquiry?”.

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Mentor Learning-by-Doing Education Blog 93