-- Leadership has always fascinated each of us- we have seen great leaders and worked with them, and we have also seen the not-so-great leaders going off rails. But having been a student of leadership development over many decades, I see some big shifts in the way we look at leaders and the way we develop leaders. Of course, some of these have been underway for some years- not that they have suddenly reared their head. I thought it might be a good idea to step back and reflec

Key Considerations in Senior Executive Mentoring - - Mentoring a senior leader is one of the most consequential acts of professional generosity one person can offer another. Done well, it shapes careers, unlocks potential that organisations did not know they had, and creates lasting change. Getting it right requires more deliberate thought than most programmes apply — particularly at the point that matters most: choosing the right mentor, and preparing the right conditions. F

How AI, Robotics and Organisational Transformation are Redefining Employment - - Over the past few months, a series of seemingly unrelated developments kept drawing my attention: another round of tech restructuring, an automaker accelerating automation, unions alarmed over robots replacing production workers, companies withdrawing campus offers even as they compete fiercely for AI specialists. Taken individually, each seemed a separate business challenge. Taken together, they

-- Most negotiators walk into a room with a map. They know what they want. They know what the other side wants. They aim, with the precision of a chess player, to find the intersection — the famous win-win. Stephen Covey made this the gospel of effective leadership. Think Win-Win, he said. A noble idea. A necessary corrective to the zero-sum thinking that dominates most deal rooms. But here is what I have come to believe after decades at the negotiating table — in boardrooms,

How CHROs can lead the AI Revolution -- Let’s be honest: the buzz around Generative AI can feel a bit like a rollercoaster ride—half pure wonder, half "should I really be worried now?". But here is the reality: AI isn't just another software update; it is a "General-Purpose Technology," meaning it’s probably going to change our world fundamentally over time– especially the corporate world! It will impact some industries more than others- I guess tech services and knowledge wo

- - There is something rather curious about mentoring. We understand why parents invest in their children. We understand why teachers teach, why leaders develop their teams and why coaches strive to improve performance. Each of these relationships carries with it an obligation, an expectation or a clearly defined purpose. A mentor is different. There is no contract. No reporting relationship. No formal accountability. Often no reward. And yet, in every profession, every gen

Part 2 of Built to Hold — the mindsets that determine whether any framework actually runs. -- E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y The context. Part 1 of this perspective laid out the seven-move framework for Boards and CEOs navigating the Structural Decade. Two enterprises with the same playbook and the same capital end up in different places when the environment turns structural. The variable that explains most of the variance is not the framework. It is the character of the l

Every leader talks about culture. Yet many of us struggle to answer a simple question: How exactly do we create the culture we want? Culture often feels intangible. We can sense it when we walk into an organisation, but it can be difficult to describe. A useful way to think about culture is that it is simply the collection of relevant behaviours you see in the workplace. As the saying goes: Culture is the behaviours you want and recognise, and the behaviours you don’t want, b

Everyone talks about it, but very few understand it. - - The Customer-Centric Mirage Walk into any retail strategy meeting today and you’ll hear the same phrase repeated like a mantra: “We are a customer-centric company.” Executives declare it proudly on investor calls. Marketers print it on slides. Store managers nod in agreement. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a startling truth: most companies have no idea what customer centricity actually means. For the la

- - Two employee-related developments have dominated headlines in recent days—the situation at Nashik and labour protests across Manesar, Gurugram, and Noida. While the specifics may differ, both point to a deeper, systemic concern: gaps in compliance and the failure to uphold minimum workplace standards. Investigations are underway, and remedial actions are being discussed. But before we move into reactive mode, it is worth asking three fundamental questions: Should manageme

How Retail’s Best Leaders Structure Their Most Consequential Bets — and What Separates Disciplined Boldness from Reckless Conviction - - “The leaders who failed were not reckless. They were disciplined — about the wrong things. The discipline itself was the problem.” On the morning of March 28, 2007, Circuit City store managers across the United States assembled their teams and read from a corporate script. In a single coordinated action, 3,400 of the company’s most exper

As artificial intelligence, shifting demographics, and relentless new competition rewrite the rules of retail, the organizations pulling ahead share one thing that cannot be downloaded, disrupted, or copied overnight — a culture of deep trust that makes genuine collaboration not just possible, but inevitable. Retail has always been a proving ground for leadership. The decade ahead will test leaders in ways no previous generation has faced. AI, digital disruption, Gen Z expect

-- What do I mean when I state the above? To me, it's about two different perspectives towards achieving organisational performance. War for Talent : Leaders and organisations believe that to win in the environment in which they compete, the key is to hire top talent by attracting the best and the brightest. The view is that the Talent pool is limited and that there is a “war for talent”. The phrase “ War for Talent” was coined by McKinsey in 1997, extolling business leaders

-- Gender marketing, at its simplest, is how brands design, position, and communicate products based on gender assumptions. For decades in India, this meant clear binaries: men in authority, women in kitchens; men as decision-makers, women as caregivers. Advertising narratives reflected the social order of their time, when economic and social roles were relatively rigid. That approach worked when those roles were predictable. But India is no longer that economy. Today, women

How leading retailers are redesigning customer experiences, supply chains, and stores around intelligence. -- Introduction A I is the most transformative technology shift that we’ve seen in our lifetime. Many jobs that we’ve thrown human beings at over the last 20 or 30 years, you won’t need as many human beings doing those same jobs.”- Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon The signals are no longer subtle. Jack Dorsey's Block announced plans to cut roughly 4,000 employees — nearly half it

-- As leaders, what is our primary responsibility? Growth? Performance? Delivering results? But in a world defined by AI & technological disruption, shifting business models, and changing workforce expectations, one could argue that mere performance is no longer enough. I guess the real job of leadership today is simpler—and perhaps harder: build teams that know how to learn. Because skills expire. Strategies shift. Only learning endures. Yet despite lakhs spent on training,

- - Introduction As corporate governance evolves from being just a statutory necessity to becoming a true driver of value creation, Human Resources (HR) has steadily found its rightful place on the agenda of corporate Boards. Today , Boards devote significant attention to HR matters not merely as compliance issues but as strategic levers that shape long-term performance and sustainability. The HR-related areas that regularly feature on the Board’s agenda include: Leadership—

-- Global trade is undergoing a fundamental reset. While the tariff issue is still relevant, it is no longer the primary determinant of market access. Today, credibility on sustainability determines who supplies, who scales, and who is trusted over the long term. Given this shift, Indian companies can benefit from it by treating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) as a lever for global competitiveness. This is already visible in the trade agreements that our compan

Years ago, when I was at Diageo, some of us from different parts of the world were pulled into a creative setting in Chicago to deal with a problem statement. At that point in time, we found that we were losing a significant number of high-potential employees – those the company had nurtured, moved across markets, and given higher roles, etc. And yet, they were either fired or left. So the Diageo exec asked the group of us in Chicago, What do we need to do to keep people? It

Companies ostensibly trying to drive a performance culture with calibration and forced ranking systems end up with serious, negative unintended consequences. The result? Mismatched and unmet expectations, demotivated employees and a process where everyone including leaders are relieved that its done with for the year . How did we get it so wrong? Let's examine this at 3 levels : 1. Context of Calibration 2. Pay for Performance 3. Organisation Performance 1. Isn’t calibration