They say all leaders are readers. From what I have seen so far, it’s true that most successful people read a lot. Most people don’t read. My friend Tim Sanders tells me that from the statistics he has,  a manager reads about 0.75 business book in five years. That’s  dismal. My goal is to read… Continue reading →

It is interesting how many of us hoard information and knowledge. Knowledge used to provide competitive advantage a while ago, not anymore! I have seen this time and again in the IT services industry where if you ask for help, rather than providing the source and explaining how to solve the problem, the tendency for… Continue reading →

What we know is important. Of course, we all know that who we know is more important than what we know. What is also important is how we know who we know. This is where the membership comes in. We are not revisiting the MBA discussion. But the MBA alumni networks are quite powerful. That… Continue reading →

At first, I thought the title should be “Make effective decisions” or “Be a great decision maker” but I decided against it as our personal values are the foundation on which we make our decisions. We all know that values are important. Whether we want to believe it or not, we all have a set… Continue reading →

When describing why he is so successful, Michael Jordan once mentioned that his secreat was to demand more from himself than anybody else ever will. Michael Jordan obviously sets higher standards for himself. In order to good results, we need to set the right expectations and exceed them consistently. However, if we want outstanding results,… Continue reading →

Most of us need a big victory to celebrate but a very small failure to get upset. In other words we need really strong reasons to celebrate but to get upset we don’t need a lot of justification. In fact, sometimes we can get upset for no reason 🙂 We are smart people. We know… Continue reading →

I was thinking of a title like “Leverage” for this post but decided to be more direct and hence the title “Ask for help.” Most of us know that in some cultures, asking for help has a negative connotation (may show a sense of incapability) Most of us don’t ask for help and beat ourselves… Continue reading →

“Under promise and over deliver” Easier said than done. Most projects fail even after the team puts in a lot of hard work. Many times the project success is not even dependent on the amount of effort that is put into the project. If wrong or unrealistic expectations are set, even the smartest teams can… Continue reading →

Whenever I ask the question – “What is your dream?” I get a variety of answers from people.  Some dreams are grand, some are funny, some lack logic and some are unreasonable and so on. This is expected. However, what is interesting is most people have vague dreams such as “I want to be more… Continue reading →

What is one thing that takes a long time to build but can be destroyed in no time? There are many answers to the above question. My favorite answer is Trust. Trust is the bedrock of solid relationships. As you would have observed, it takes a while for you to trust someone 100%. For almost… Continue reading →