change

The Checklist Trap: How We Turned Leadership into a Lifestyle Product

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Leadership used to be messy, thoughtful, human work. Now, it risks becoming a lifestyle product—complete with listicles, morning routines, and pastel-quote inspiration. That is the essence of Satish Pradhan’s post titled “The Seductive Simplicity of ‘7 Steps to Greatness’“. Satish is a thought leader I immensely respect and whose views have guided me for a while now. This time, as always, his writing offers a sharp take.

He writes: “Leadership becomes a lifestyle—a performative state of constant optimisation and vague inspiration.” Ouch. True.

I couldn’t help but add this in the comments:

“Also begs the question—who made it this way?
Boards, wanting bandaids?
Leaders, craving a formula?
HR, trying to package potential?
Consultants, with frameworks that look good on slides?
Academia, chasing citations over messy reality?
Or TED Talks, with applause timed to the speaker’s smile?
Not a blame game. Just a call to reflect.
If leadership is now theatre—who wrote the script?
And more importantly… who’s still reading the footnotes? 🙂”

Truth is, we didn’t land here overnight. As I wrote earlier in a piece titled “Decline Creep,” these shifts happen gradually, then suddenly. The seductive simplicity of seven steps isn’t a glitch—it’s a feature of a broader cultural operating system.

Leadership development is a multi-billion dollar global industry. Estimates put it at over USD 350 billion annually. With that kind of investment, you’d expect profound change. We often get ‘pass me the popcorn’ stuff.

The Current Cultural Operating System

The milieu we operate in shapes our defaults. Leadership and its development has not escaped the broader shift toward speed, scale, and surface over substance. Here are some attributes of this time and space.

1. Everything must be tangible.

If it’s not tangible, it must not matter. This is a tragic oversimplification. Real progress in leadership is often subtle. A better conversation. A delayed reaction. An unexpected apology. Tangible, if you know where to look—and if you look with intent.

Deep learning and behavioural change are not immediately visible, but they are transformational over time. Sitting with the intangible, the ambiguous, the unresolved—this takes patience. But that’s precisely what we seem to be losing.

2. We live in a fast-food world.

Everyone wants nourishment in the form of a nutrient bar they can eat before catching a train. Sure, it feeds the immediate hunger. But it cannot offer the satisfaction of a full-course meal. Or the long-term health. Leadership frameworks are now nutrition bars: portable, efficient, and forgettable.

Herbert Simon, who coined the term “bounded rationality,” reminded us that humans tend to satisfice—settling for what’s good enough. Quick lists cater to that tendency. But leadership needs more than adequacy. Over time, ‘adequate’ becomes the benchmark. And then the ceiling.

3. The tyranny of the quarterly result.

The short term is now. The long term is the next quarter. It’s as if the world will cease to exist beyond the quarter. If something doesn’t shift short-term metrics, it’s dismissed. Leadership development doesn’t always give you a spike in numbers. Sometimes it just quietly prevents a disaster. Or helps someone stay.

Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying, “What gets measured gets managed.” Full stop. But that’s not where he stopped. He actually said: “What gets measured gets managed — even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organisation to do so.”

Perhaps we were in a hurry and didn’t soak up the full sentence.

4. The obsession with machine-like efficiency.

We’ve come to admire speed, standardisation, and output so much that we expect people to behave like machines. Fast. Predictable. Always on. That logic has quietly crept into leadership development too.

It’s now packaged like a factory model—designed to scale, deliver uniform results, and run on schedule. But leadership doesn’t work on conveyor belts. It doesn’t follow a clean workflow or offer batch processing.

People are messy. They take time. Conversation. Reversals. Detours. Leadership requires recalibration, not just repetition. Efficiency looks good on paper. But it rarely builds trust or courage.

This obsession leads to box-ticking: feedback session done, 360 report filed, coaching logged. But that’s not growth. That’s admin. Cookie cutters work well with cookies—not people.

5. We’ve unhooked from research.

There is a deep and evolving body of work in the social sciences and leadership literature—decades of inquiry into motivation, learning, group dynamics, and organisational culture. Thinkers like Chris Argyris, Edgar Schein, and Mary Parker Follett have explored the nuances of influence, systems thinking, and human potential. Their work offers complex, often uncomfortable truths.

But such research rarely makes it to the glossy handouts or keynote slides. Why? It demands thought. It questions assumptions while resisting slogans. And isn’t easily reduced to three boxes and a circle.

Instead, we pick up ideas stripped of their richness—psychological safety as a checklist item, or systems thinking reduced to bullet points. The substance is lost in the translation.

Academia speaks in nuance. Practitioners crave action. Somewhere in between, we abandoned the bridge.

We need to reclaim it. Not for the sake of theory—but for depth, integrity, and honest conversation. Leadership deserves nothing less.

6. Deliberate effort on development is seen as optional.

Focused development is treated like a side hobby—something to do if there’s time. A luxury. Not core. There’s a comforting belief that leadership emerges on its own. That wisdom arrives with age. That real work is separate from leadership work.

But the demands are more complex now. The path to leadership is often shorter, with less grounding. And the illusion of expertise is everywhere. Ten-second clips pass off as wisdom. Everyone has an answer. Few ask better questions.

What’s missing? Time. And deliberate effort. To learn. To experiment. And reflect. The pause to ask, “What did I learn from that?” feels indulgent. But without it, growth is shallow.

7. Real change happens at work. And it is bespoke.

You can have perspective in a classroom. Maybe even a breakthrough in an offsite. But change? That happens on the ground. In Monday meetings. In the pause before a reply. When noticing what you once missed.

One size doesn’t fit all. It doesn’t even fit most. What works for one leader may confuse another. The best leadership development is bespoke—stitched with care and context. You can learn from shared perspectives. But applying them? That’s personal. That cannot be outsourced.

As Manfred Kets de Vries once quipped, “Leadership is like swimming—it cannot be done by reading a book about it.”

Change is contextual. It escapes formula. It demands participation. So yes, the seven steps might sell. They might even help a little. But let’s not forget: leadership is a practice. Not a product. Not a performance. And definitely not a PowerPoint.

It is messy, slow, human work. And if we want real change, we must learn to value that again—even when it doesn’t come with a checklist or a bestselling cover.

So, there. 7 points. Stacked and ordered. I have a few more. But they won’t fit seven. I am part of the problem you see 🙂

I Am the Traffic

A road safety campaign in Sweden once carried a brilliant line: “You are not in traffic. You are traffic.” Simple. Sharp. It flipped the narrative—from blame to ownership.

That idea travels well. In leadership, culture, and checklist thinking, we aren’t bystanders. We’re not stuck in the system. We are the system. Participants. Sometimes even enablers.

It was never just about traffic. It was about agency. And responsibility. In many ways, it’s a reminder for all of us engaged in leadership and development work.

We may not like the system. But let’s admit it—we help make it. Through what we reward. What we tolerate. And what we scroll past without question.

Culture is not created in boardrooms alone. It’s created in choices. Daily ones. A ticked box here. A skipped conversation there. Over time, these become norms.

We are not stuck in it. We are it.

Development doesn’t happen by accident. It needs intentional choices. Time. Attention. Depth.

So, what do we do? I don’t know. Perhaps, start with Satish’s post. Maybe read the comments. Linger. See what resonates. What provokes. What’s missing.

Because no framework—however snappy—can replace the quiet courage of doing the hard, human work of change. And yes, let’s still read the footnotes. 🙂

The Second Story: Seeing Beyond Failures and Success

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In December 2017, Charlene Murphey, a 75-year-old patient, was admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee after suffering a brain bleed. Within two days, her condition had improved. Doctors ordered a PET scan before she was discharged, and prescribed Versed, a mild sedative, to help calm her nerves.

Nurse RaDonda Vaught was assigned to administer the medication. She went to the automated medication cabinet, typed in the drug name—but it didn’t show up. This was a familiar glitch. Staff had grown used to bypassing it. So Vaught used the override function, a routine workaround in the hospital.

But something went terribly wrong. Instead of Versed, she pulled out vecuronium—a powerful paralytic. She administered the drug and left. Murphey stopped breathing and never woke up.

The First Story and Its Limits

The hospital fired Vaught. Her license was revoked. She was convicted of criminally negligent homicide.

To many, the case seemed open and shut. A nurse made a fatal error. Justice was served.

But that’s only the surface story—the one that provides a name, a mistake, a punishment. Sidney Dekker, Professor in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University in Brisbane invites us to look deeper: Why did this make sense to the nurse at the time?

That’s where the Second Story begins.

A System Set to Fail

Vaught was not careless. She worked in a system that had quietly normalised risk. Medication cabinets were glitchy. Overrides were expected. Nurses weren’t trained on the risks of the override function. No one flagged it, because everyone used it.

This wasn’t just human error. It was a system error.

Organisational thinker Chris Argyris called the surface-level response Single-Loop Learning—fixing the behaviour without questioning the system. The real opportunity lies in Double-Loop Learning: changing the underlying rules and culture that made the behaviour possible.

Culture in Action—And Why It Matters

Every organisation has two cultures: the one printed in posters and handbooks, and the one people actually live.

One says, “We value safety.” The other says, “Don’t slow down.” When those messages clash, people choose the one that protects their job or helps them survive the day. It’s that simple.

Over time, shortcuts become habits. Risks become invisible. And when something breaks, the system often blames the person it failed to support.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. In Japanese train stations—some of the safest and most efficient in the world—staff follow a practice called “pointing and calling.” I saw them point to signals, say them aloud, and actively confirm their actions. It looked dramatic, but I learnt that it significantly reduces errors. There, safety isn’t a statement. It’s a system. It’s culture by design—not by hope.

That’s why the Second Story in organisations matters so much for managers, leaders and of course, consultants. The First Story gives you a neat diagnosis and a fast fix. The Second Story in organisations requires deeper listening and more courage—but it reveals where change is truly needed. It shows the disconnect between values and behaviour. It helps leaders shift from blame to learning and therefore, to change.

Questions To Ask

Crucially, the Second Story isn’t only for understanding failure—it helps explain success too. When an athlete wins gold, it’s not just about training hard. It’s about the coach, the physiotherapist, the diet plan, the mental support, the facilities, DNA—everything behind the scenes that made excellence possible.

In organisations, too, when a team thrives, don’t just clap. Ask: What made this work? What conditions allowed people to do their best work? When we see the system behind the success, we can repeat it. When we ignore it, we leave future outcomes to luck.

Final Thought

The Second Story is always there. It’s not about blame—it’s about learning. It helps us see not just what went wrong or right, but why it made sense, and what needs to change.

Charlene Murphey didn’t just deserve a trial; she deserved a transformation. A system that looked at what failed her—not just who did. And perhaps the Nurse RaDonda Vaught, too, didn’t just need punishment; she needed a system that supported her, trained her, and designed work that made safety easier, not harder.

Because the best way to honour a tragedy is to make sure the system learns from it—and becomes less likely to repeat it.

If you’re willing to look deeper, you’ll see more. And in that, lies the path to better systems, better culture, and better outcomes.

The Art and Attitude of Humble Inquiry: A Conversation with Peter Schein

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Edgar Schein’s work has been a personal north star for me. His thoughts on leadership, culture, and learning have shaped my work in profound ways. When he passed away in 2023, it felt like a personal void. So, it was particularly special to speak with Peter Schein, who is carrying forward his father’s legacy with clarity and depth.

This obituary described Ed not just as a founding father of organisational development but as a loving father who found renewal through co-authoring books with Peter. On his last outing, Edgar had said, “We have a new style, new topics, new interests to write about, and so it is a whole new way of being, again…” This Dad-Son collaboration is refreshing and good.

In the run-up to this event, we had a chat with Peter. Beyond Humble Inquiry, we touched upon other works, including Career Anchors, which has had a refresh and additions. I have made a mental note to refresh my understanding of this. Much has changed, but the core ideas remain powerful. These conversations reminded me why Schein’s work continues to be so relevant in today’s shifting world of leadership and learning.

What also stood out was Peter’s own journey. Unlike his father, who was a social psychologist, Peter took a different path—studying anthropology at Stanford. He was drawn to understanding how groups function, how cultures evolve, and how behaviour shifts over time. It was an epiphany for him that his father’s work had also been about groups and culture, though approached from a different lens. And yet, despite this contrast, father and son found a way to collaborate seamlessly.

Even Edgar’s own intellectual journey was shaped by another discipline—his father was a physicist. This meant Edgar grew up acutely aware of the divide between the physical and social sciences. He knew that leadership, culture, and change couldn’t be measured with the same precision as the laws of physics. Perhaps that’s what made him so committed to inquiry—asking, not telling. Understanding, not prescribing.

This wasn’t just a learning moment—it was a reinforcement of ideas I have long believed in. And I wasn’t alone in the dialogue. Ramesh Srinivasan played a key role in setting up the conversation and posed thoughtful questions, while Sushma Banthia ensured seamless tech support and community engagement. Together, we created a space for deep exploration.

Key Reinforcements from the Conversation with Peter Schein

  1. Humble Inquiry is an Attitude, Not Just a SkillHumble Inquiry is about embracing what you don’t know. It’s not just a leadership technique—it’s a way of being. Real influence doesn’t come from authority but from drawing out the collective intelligence of a group.
  2. From Transactions to RelationshipsWork is no longer neatly separated from life. The idea of personizing—bringing one’s whole self into interactions—creates deeper trust. Organisations that innovate foster strong relationships, not just functional exchanges.
  3. Unlearning the Habit of TellingMany leaders struggle with the instinct to tell rather than ask. The ‘learning trios’ method—where one person asks, another responds, and a third observes—helps leaders practice listening and creating discovery rather than defaulting to pre-packaged answers.

Expanding on Three Key Ideas

1. Leadership Through Inquiry

Leadership today isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about knowing how to ask. True leadership is about enabling collective wisdom to surface. Leaders who practice inquiry build teams that are more engaged, self-sufficient, and innovative. Asking thoughtful questions—rather than giving quick answers—creates a culture where people take ownership of problem-solving rather than waiting for directives.

Peter reinforced that inquiry also makes decision-making stronger. When leaders create an open space for dialogue, they expose blind spots and identify nuances they wouldn’t have considered on their own. The most effective leaders are those who foster a culture of shared curiosity rather than just direction-setting.

2. The Digital Shift—Can Inquiry Survive?

Virtual workspaces present a challenge to humble inquiry. Emails and Slack messages strip away nonverbal cues, making it harder to sense curiosity, intent, or hesitation. Video calls are helpful, but they need to be designed for meaningful conversations, not just efficiency. Peter highlighted that sometimes, removing visual distractions—like during a phone call or a ‘walk and talk’—can actually enhance listening.

Another key challenge is the tendency to over-rely on efficiency tools at the cost of deep engagement. Organisations must be deliberate in creating time for structured dialogue. Inquiry can survive in digital spaces, but it requires conscious effort—leaders must model it, encourage it, and create safe spaces for open-ended discussions.

3. Silence as a Leadership Tool

One of the most underrated aspects of inquiry is knowing when to stay silent. Peter shared a story about a leader at an organisation he worked with, who wielded power not through commands, but through silence. Instead of rushing to offer solutions, he created space for people to think, reflect, and contribute. His presence alone shifted the room.

Silence is uncomfortable for many, but it can be a game-changer. Leaders who hold back and allow moments of quiet give others permission to step up. Silence also helps in difficult conversations—rather than filling the void with explanations or justifications, staying quiet can allow new perspectives to emerge.

Great facilitators and leaders use silence strategically, allowing the weight of a question to sink in before rushing to the next point. Inquiry is as much about listening as it is about asking the right questions.1. Leadership Through Inquiry

Inquiry and My Own Reflections

This conversation also led me to revisit some of my own writings on the subject. Over the years, I’ve explored the themes of inquiry, facilitation, and conversations through different lenses. In The Lost Art of Fine Conversations, I reflected on the power of dialogue and the unseen impact of simple exchanges. In  Building an ‘an attitude of interes’- Humble Inquiry, I examined how Edgar Schein’s principles resonated with my experiences. And in Characteristics of Awesome Facilitators, I delved into what makes facilitation truly transformative. These themes continue to shape my thinking and reinforce the idea that learning is a lifelong journey.

Essential Truth

This conversation reaffirmed an essential truth: Humble Inquiry doesn’t make leaders passive. It makes them effective. The real test of leadership isn’t in confidence, but in knowing when to listen.

In an age of loud voices, true leadership may just be about asking better questions. Edgar Schein understood this deeply. And thanks to Peter, that legacy continues. And it’s a much needed legacy in the brusque times that we live in.

It was a fun evening with the members of the International Association of Facilitators and Peter. Thoughtful questions, engaged participation, and a shared curiosity made it memorable. If anything, it reinforced why inquiry—not assertion—is the foundation of real leadership.

Learning from Experience: A Leadership Journey in Stories

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Some conversations stay with you long after they end. They challenge you, nudge you, and sometimes, quietly reshape your thinking.

A leadership workshop with a diverse group of professionals from the South Gujarat region turned into one such experience. It wasn’t about grand theories or textbook leadership—it was about stories. Stories of beginnings, growth, setbacks, and decisions that shaped careers and lives.

At the heart of it was Vivek Patwardhan, whose wisdom and experience anchored the dialogue. Learning alongside him is always a privilege, and this time was no different.

What made it truly special, though, were the participants—their openness, their willingness to share not just successes but struggles and turning points. They gave themselves fully to the process, making the space richer for everyone. Learning wasn’t just something that happened; it was something we built—together.

Himanshu Bhatt steered in the participants with remarkable passion and persistence. Atul Industries and its leadership proved to be perfect hosts and provided the perfect setting for these reflections to unfold.

One moment stood out—a letter from the future. Writing to our 2025 selves from 2040 sparked something deeper. Reflection, possibility, and perhaps, a quiet resolve to shape the road ahead with intention.

This was not just another workshop. It was a shared journey—one where the greatest learning came not from a stage, but from each other. And that made all the difference.

Here is Dr.Kunal Thakkar, a participant, writing in Linkedin.

AI Natives Are Here: Are You Keeping Up?

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It’s a question that used to be common. “What’s your native place?” It was a way of asking where you were from, where your roots lay. The word native carried warmth. It evoked childhood memories, a sense of belonging, and the unmistakable comfort of home.

The word native, I have since learned, comes from the Latin nativus, meaning “born” or “innate.” It later traveled through Old French as natif and reached Middle English, where it took on meanings tied to birthplace and inherent qualities.

Years later, in 2001, Marc Prensky introduced me to a new kind of native—the digital native. His essay Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants described those who had grown up in the digital world, instinctively fluent with technology, unlike the digital immigrants who had to painstakingly learn it. The metaphor was compelling until David White and Alison Le Cornu refined it further. They suggested that digital engagement was less about birth year and more about behavior—some were Visitors, using technology as needed, while others were Residents, living deeply within it.

For the first time, I understood what it meant to be an immigrant—not just in a country but in a way of thinking. To be a native was to belong effortlessly; to be an immigrant was to adapt, often clumsily.

And then, last week, I read about HudZah.

A New Native

Meet Hudhafaya Nazoorde aka HudZah. HudZah is changing how people interact with knowledge. He built a nuclear fusor—a device that accelerates ions to create nuclear fusion. And he did it with the help of an AI assistant, Claude, right inside his rented house in San Francisco.

Using AI, he gathered information from fusor.net, spoke to experts, and studied diagrams. AI refused to help at first. But HudZah found a way. He asked better questions, breaking big problems into smaller ones. Slowly, AI started guiding him. Piece by piece, he built the fusor.

It’s a fascinating story. (Read more here).

The AI Native

The part of HudZah that really caught my attention in that piece is this:

“I must admit, though, that the thing that scared me most about HudZah was that he seemed to be living in a different technological universe than I was. If the previous generation were digital natives, HudZah was an AI native.

HudZah enjoys reading the old-fashioned way, but he now finds that he gets more out of the experience by reading alongside an AI. He puts PDFs of books into Claude or ChatGPT and then queries the books as he moves through the text. He uses Granola to listen in on meetings so that he can query an AI after the chats as well. His friend built Globe Explorer, which can instantly break down, say, the history of rockets, as if you had a professional researcher at your disposal. And, of course, HudZah has all manner of AI tools for coding and interacting with his computer via voice.

It’s not that I don’t use these things. I do. It’s more that I was watching HudZah navigate his laptop with an AI fluency that felt alarming to me. He was using his computer in a much, much different way than I’d seen someone use their computer before, and it made me feel old and alarmed by the number of new tools at our disposal and how HudZah intuitively knew how to tame them.”

Managing the Shift

Change is never easy. Some people jump in eagerly, others hold back until they have no choice. Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations model explains this well. There are innovators, the risk-takers who embrace the new before anyone else. Then come the early adopters, who follow closely behind. The majority waits and watches, taking time to adjust. And at the very end are the laggards—those who resist until change is unavoidable.

HudZah is an innovator. He hasn’t waited for AI to become mainstream. He has explored, experimented, and pushed boundaries, using AI to do what few would even attempt—build a nuclear fusor in his bedroom. His approach isn’t just about technology; it is about mindset. He sees AI not as a tool to be feared but as an ally to be mastered. That’s what sets innovators apart.

The question is, where do you stand? Are you adapting, exploring, or waiting for change to push you forward?

The Immigrant Elephant

Even as the world debates immigration and NIMBYism, an elephant grows in the room. Borders are tightening, and immigrants are being sent back. Yet, at the same time, a new kind of nativity is emerging—AI natives, like HudZah, who navigate the digital world with an ease that others struggle to match. And then there’s the rest of us—the AI immigrants, trying to find our place in this rapidly changing landscape.

But here’s the real question: if the world is sending back immigrants, where do AI immigrants go? What happens to those who can’t—or won’t—adapt? That’s the elephant in the room, and it’s only getting bigger.

I am an optimist. There are some realities that can’t be ignored. The pace of AI development is rapid, and there are legitimate concerns. At the same time, we cannot underestimate the prowess of the human mind and humankind. We have adapted to every technological shift in history, and we will do so again.

AI is not something to be feared. It is something to be embraced. Perhaps the best way forward is to experiment—to incorporate AI into our daily rhythms, much like HudZah does. Of course, this is going to greatly change how we all work and, most importantly, who we will become. Like Marshall McLuhan said, man shapes the tools, and then tools shape the man!

If the world belongs to the young, AI might just be the elixir that helps the rest of us stay young at heart—and in deed. More importantly, it can help us engage with the world in new ways, rather than being stuck in old paradigms.

Perhaps the only thing required? A willingness to experiment and take to it.

Travel For Growth

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Travel is a pathway for growth and development. That’s why I say travel to grow. After years of conscious travel, I can say with emphasis that I have packed and unpacked disproportionately large self-awareness, new learnings and beliefs than I have of bags and suitcases. If there is one more thing that I can add with equal if not more emphasis, then it is this: Travel is hugely under rated as a catalyst for development.

My love for travel got accentuated after reading Pico Iyer’s famous ‘Why We Travel’ piece from March, 2000. It was comforting to realise that there was nothing wrong with me if I just didn’t want to go check places off a “must-see” list. For I was (and continue to be) slow in soaking up a place. In small conversations, observations and just hanging out!

There are four paragraphs from Pico Iyer’s post that have been my guideposts. They are here.

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”

“Yet for me the first great joy of traveling is simply the luxury of leaving all my beliefs and certainties at home, and seeing everything I thought I knew in a different light, and from a crooked angle.”

“Thus travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty. For in traveling to a truly foreign place, we inevitably travel to moods and states of mind and hidden inward passages that we’d otherwise seldom have cause to visit.”

Shorncliff Pier, Brisbane

“So travel, at heart, is just a quick way to keeping our minds mobile and awake. As Santayana, the heir to Emerson and Thoreau with whom I began, wrote, “There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.” Romantic poets inaugurated an era of travel because they were the great apostles of open eyes. Buddhist monks are often vagabonds, in part because they believe in wakefulness. And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.“

Every time I have stood in the queue of a land where I clearly am ‘foreign’ irrespective of the passport I hold, I learn something new. Especially so, when am not peering into my phone or consumed by the desire to see more. Just being present to all thats happening around me and reflecting on the experiences and thoughts those experiences brought alive for me have been life-altering in many ways. Because, even if I dont immediately change or do something different, I am very present to the fact there is a different way.

When I get back to where I start from, I rarely find that some pronounced changes have taken place since the time I set out. But to my eyes that sprout new lenses because they have absorbed different places, everything seems different. My mind colours old realities with new beliefs, ideas and hopes. Giving new energy for action and reflection.

If that is not a pathway to development and change, I don’t know what is.

Pico Iyer’s essay is here. Go read.

Arrivals and Departures

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I have been on a break and taking the time to examine the life I lead. Between quiet times, copious notes and filter coffee, unvarnished truths strut around. I hope to write and post some thoughts, ideas and “notes to myself” here. This post ‘Arrivals and departures’ is based on some notes I scribbled sitting at a roadside coffee shop.

Many moons ago, English August by Upmanyu Chatterjee gave me an unforgettable line. A line that I have used many times over now about arrivals and departures. It goes like this.

“The excitement of the arrival never compensates for the emptiness of the departure.”

Arrivals are filled with joy and celebration. A birth in the family. Joining a new organisation. Starting a new account. Buying a new car. Or a phone. Arrivals are joyous. Departures in contrast are quiet affairs. Sometimes, happening without a trace with a hint of “let’s get done with this quickly’. At other times, they are solemn. With a muffled tear, a hint of sadness or a full throated wail.

The ceremony of the arrival and departure obscures the time in between.

Arrivals and departures through the lens of learning and change

I view every new learning is an arrival of sorts. There is an aha moment and a flicker of bright lights. A new piece of information or skill brings a heightened moment of possibility filled emotion. There is a genuine happy emotion of discovery. An arrival that is filled with excitement.

But change is a different matter altogether. Change requires a ‘departure’ of a way of living or working or being. It requires a letting go for the letting in to happen. That is not an easy act. The excitement of picking up a new skill does not automatically translate to change happening. That is a long boring process by itself.

Every departure is its own arrival. And every arrival, a departure. To learn hard things quickly, you must focus intensely without distraction. To learn, in other words, is an act of deep work. If you’re comfortable going deep, you’ll not only win now, you will also develop the foundations for future victories.

If you instead remain one of the many who skim the surface, for whom depth is uncomfortable, life will be on the hamster wheel.

My current challenge levels at work have gotten me to stare at a new horizon. A horizon that spans newer geographies, greater scale and an incessant complexity that redraws the ‘Normal’. It’s a good problem to have for it reveals areas that I am out of depth in!

To discover new depths I have to depart from my old ways that have brought me success (and comfort). And for that, I have to depart from where I have been.

Arrivals and departures are inevitable part of our lives. When we live our lives consciously, we chart a plan to live by. In more than one way, it makes the journey worthwhile!

Reacting to change

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On December 31st, 2018 an interesting article appeared in the New York Times. It was titled “Wielding Rocks and Knives, Arizonans Attack Self-Driving Cars“.  It wasn’t a lazy review of some crazy future book. The fourth industrial revolution is here and our tools seem to be testing us. And some of us are running out of patience. The world is reacting to change. Like in Arizona, people were pelting stones at driverless cars! Including one man who jumped in front of one driverless car and waved a gun at it saying, ‘he despises it’!

Energy Revolutions

Every revolution is about a shift in energy. From physical to mechanical. From mechanical to digital.

The first industrial revolution (sometime between 1760 – 1840 or so) had the power of ‘steam’ as its thrust area.  Steam. Steel. Machine tools. Industrial looms. And the like. 

The second industrial revolution a.k.a “The technological revolution”, is about scale. Electricity. Petroleum. Iron & Steel. Railroads. Turbines. Engines. Etc. And the like. Perhaps a mention of Fredrick Taylor and his management principles is due. The second industrial revolution happened between 1870-1914. 

The third industrial revolution is the giant shift from mechanical to digital. Commencing sometime from the late 50s when computers began to make their first appearance. An important marker on the ground was the movement of music from vinyl records to CDs in the 80s!

Some argue that the fourth is primarily a continuation of the the 3rd. Obviously, it’s not that simple. Wearable devices. Implants. Networked devices. Data. Robotics. Internet of things. All point to a fusing of the physical, biological and digital. 

Reacting to change

Example after example from history points to non linear change leading to a forceful response .  Every significant change that disrupted an existing status quo provoked people of that time. Be that a wave of dismissal, royal proclamation or violent protests! 

Is it different this time?

If change is natural, so must our reactions to it. Isn’t it? Only this time, the scale of change isnt quite the same. Changes that are reaching us are more intense, simultaneous, interconnected like never before.  Klaus Schwab, who wrote “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” speaks of the difference in terms of Scale, Scope and complexity. The fusion of physical, digital and biological worlds will break boundaries of a number of disciplines. From economics to research. From biology to technology. 

Artificial Intelligence is changing professions. Lawyers. Doctors. Construction engineers. Construction engineers. Armed Forces. You name a domain and a passing lark will point to how AI and related stuff is sitting outside the door. 

The ramifications of such sweeping change presents dilemmas at scale. Most of it dished out simulataneously. Complex and interwoven, mankind’s sense of preservation is being tested. The scenario of mankind not cherishing all the progress made by its own is real. Worse, it is already happening every day. 

There is something more 

The fourth industrial revolution has in it an innate ability to amplify and showcase the inequalities that are omni present in the world. These inequalities have been a result of a thinking that gave ‘Capital’ a lot more heft. Perhaps this time it will be a tad different with ‘talent’ getting more attention than before.  

The amplification of inequalities and the new opportunity to amplify independent voice is a different deal. This change is not the usual change! 

In search of new frameworks and new mental models

Ways of thinking and working that aided us all these years are coming apart now. Not because they are wrong but because, they were designed for a different era. The new age citizen needs a new assortment of skills and mind maps. Needless to say that holds true for leaders and leadership as well. 

Klaus Schwab notes, “We need leaders who are emotionally intelligent, and able to model and champion co-operative working. They’ll coach, rather than command; they’ll be driven by empathy, not ego. The digital revolution needs a different, more human kind of leadership”.

We need to keep thinking and talking about this. It is only in our interest to do the same.

The Chemistry In Digital Transformation

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Back in school, the chemistry lab with its test tubes, beakers and such stuff was a pure joy. It was magical to see new substances emerge out of old ones in beakers. And it was created right there! On a few occasions, my experiments went completely awry, in a deeply invigorating way. The lab was special. Because the lab was the first place for me to witness transformation before my eyes. That is where I learnt about mixtures and compounds as well. The days in the labs help me make better sense of the chemistry in transformation. The chemistry in digital transformation as well!

The distinction between mixtures and compounds was simple to understand. A compound was a new substance. You couldn’t separate its constituents even if you wanted to. Unlike a mixture. In essence, a compound represented a transformation. A compound meant the original constituents gave up their properties for a new set of properties. Oftentimes it was physical and magical too. An irrevocable change.

What about chemistry in digital transformation?

There isn’t any shortage of Digital Transformation projects that are announced. The question really is, do end results from these projects resemble ‘mixtures’ or do they resemble ‘compounds’?

When digital technology is slapped on top of existing work/ways of work, where it runs as a parallel stream, it is analogous to a mixture. It is a mixture when leadership thinks ‘transformation’ is for “those others”. That it is done to other teams! With sanctions of resources and leadership bandwidth.

The output of real change and transformation is more like compounds. That is when work is reimagined for digital! Digital is not a layer atop work. Digital technology gets enmeshed into work so much so, that work looks different. Such transformation is lasting because the old way of working has ceded space to a new way of working.

I will go so far as to argue, that complete transformation takes places when the change alters the way organisations think and approach their dilemmas. It may take a while and it is difficult. But there are no shortcuts in the long road to transformation.

As much as the allure of a transformed future is inviting, any organisation that seeks to go through digital transformation journeys needs to be prepared to endure pain. The change will cause enough and more disruption to current ways of working and leadership teams must be ready to face these.

There is no dearth of the technology that is available for change. The problems rest in us and our incapability to imagine work differently.

You Are Enough

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Occasionally, there is one message that surfaces on Whatsapp that staves off the deletion of the app from the phone! This video below is one such. It got me thinking. Reflection lead to journaling. And on a long haul flight, I typed this out in my personal journal. With warts and all that. And on a whim, am posting it on the blog. It has an interesting theme: You are enough.

We live in a world where there is a constant strife for more. Even as that cancer scrounges everything that the Earth has and more, there is one more (worse) cancer that has seized us all. That is the feeling that we somehow are all ‘inadequate’. That who we are, as we are, is not enough. Where we seek something to complete us!

 

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The seeking for something to complete our own feeling of inadequacy is cancerous. Can we ever get completed by a material object? If so, how long? It is a silly song playing on your shiny new phone on a loop mode. The song that the soul needs, you will catch yourself humming when you are exerting yourself doing something worthwhile.

Does that mean, we should not strive to get better? No. That’s not the point. The central theme is this: Completion happens within. Completion begins with the belief that I am complete! Completion begins with accepting myself with my warts. Completion begins with me changing as a person. That change comes about through conversation, having multiple experiences, reflecting on these experiences. And changing over a period of time. Completion is not available for home delivery. No, it’s not in the store down the road or on the internet to download.

Completion is not the end. Perhaps its a recognition that there is no need for any completion but to live in the moment. To just be. To reflect and adjust sails to get better at ‘just be’. The power to begin the internal change starts with recognising that there is nothing to fix. There is nothing broken.

But a morphing to something is inevitable. And as the morphing happens, the opportunity to shape the change and morph is present. Not beginning with an inadequacy but a desire to get better as a living being.

Change happens all around.  The world changes to adapt to the change. Everyone changes with time. Some more. Some less. Sometimes consciously and at other times, otherwise. To remain conscious and stay light can keep us going towards living richer lives.

Lives where I don’t need material objects to complete me. Where the seeking for change is not from inadequacy but from the shaping of an inevitable: Change!