Engaged minds

Few Alums including me were invited to attend the 3rd annual Executives-in-Residence event for alumni and Executive MBA students on Monday, May 19th 2014 at the Asia campus in Singapore - the last one here in Singapore.  This event offered free and unconditional access to students and alumni’s to my knowledge, experience and wisdom.  We were required to provide mentoring and coaching in a small group environment.  After initial discussion on personal introductions, the focus shifted to my personal journey, my experience at UChicago, on the job and the general management roles and responsibilities. I provided guidance and shared tactics used to navigate to a senior level position and be successful or fail; overcome failure and/ or be modest and humble while being successful. I also discussed how passion, engaged people and  teams, attitudes and behaviors make a difference and how much of a family support is essentially to be successful. I also shared e...

Party time, my best friends son leaving for an Ivy League education!  What an amazing journey so far and the best is yet to come !!!  Our best wishes for a fulfilling journey ahead.  Bon voyage! All the young (and the old) Live your dreams Explore the world Discover yourself Lead the pack Remember your roots Make yourself and your family proud Be happy, Live well!! All the best.

While writing this article for GTnews what appealed to me was the importance and connections between the mother earth, commodities, the impact of sustainability on mankind and the mandate that we all need to work, in our respective areas of operations, to ensure that we preserve and sustain the environment and the carbon footprint.  Mother earth provides commodities in all form that humans harvest; all commodities ultimately convert to energy, sustain a living, provide comforts before they perish.  We have inherited and have been entrusted with the mother nature, we need to pay it forward with improvements. The scratches created by harvesting commodities have started to cause environmental damage and unpredictable weather conditions that threatens mother nature, ecosystem and mankind until Mother Nature heals itself, which is a long and dangerous process, or with the intervention of humans which is quicker and natural.  Sustainable and balanced growth al...

  My family and I have been vegetarian all our life. My early life of being a vegetarian was shaped by my family and our religious teachings (the principles of non  violence) however during my growing years I recognized that vegetarianism has become my natural choice, habit and a conventional way of life. The perceived positive contributions towards reducing  carbon footprint and preventing animal mortality has helped personal gratification and ensured continuity of being a vegetarian. I did not find any valid and substantive reason, health or otherwise, to switch off from my vegetarian fare; vegetarian choice  was available in almost all cuisine and that we just had to ensure that we adapt to the local vegetarian fare. Vegetarianism can be often confusing as it has diverse shades; culture, geography and interpretation of non-violence (animal mortality) influences its shades. Vegetarians can be classified as Vegan, Lacto-vegan, Jains, Buddhist vegetarian, Jap...

Decision making at corporates is  a complex process; simple decisions making process often end up in  conflicts, policy paralysis, inertia or  envy and politics that are all detrimental to the interest of the company. People deal with people, each have different economic and business objectives, interest and responsibilities. However, it is 'of  the business, by the business and for the business!' Unfortunately, there will always be  unexplainable political, cultural and personal challenges involved in resolving conflicts and decision making process. There isn't much to discuss about unexplainable factors as decisions eventually in the long run have to converge to company's interest! Inertia, conflicts and policy paralysis alter the culture of the company, damage and destroy talent and their morale, impact the corporate credibility and the company business.  Many theories have been written on conflict resolution, importance of communication and corporate...

Joint ventures are assumed to be a perfect and flawless match as partners pool complementary skills, assets and strategic needs that each partners cannot fill on its own. Despite all success factors, the performance of JV are sub-par or fail.  Over a period of time, revenues decline, bitter disputes erupt, and irreconcilable differences emerge—and partners, leadership and management call it quits. Partnerships fails or succeed for many obvious commercial, financial and legal reasons however there are many reasons that remain unnoticed and unacknowledged - many of them are behavioural, cultural, attitude, and leadership related.   An analogy from my experience is that all JV's and partnerships are born out of marriage of equals; their success is based on principles of mutual care, trust and respect, compromise, success and happiness. JV's like childrens have an life cycle of their own - they need to be nurtured, empowered, and trusted. Finally, JV outgrow the parents and...