Insilico

Let's explore the idea of Leadership from a cultural point of view and investigate if the traditional ideas and concepts are relevant to the corporate world. Let’s start with the definition of “leader”. English dictionary gives the definition as a person or thing that leads; a guiding or directing head, as of an army or movement; a conductor or director, as of an orchestra, band or chorus; the player at the head of the first violins in an orchestra… The definition is quite explicit. Let’s see what could be the best word for leader in Indian languages, a representative of which could be taken as Sanskrit. Loosely, the term “neta” is used widely for leader in India. But “neta”, coming from the root “ni”, etymologically means an upholder of justice, nyaya, and hence may not be an apt word for “leader”. Interestingly, one of the Sanskrit words for leader is agraga, which means, someone who goes in the front. That goes very well with the general meaning of someone who leads. So we sett...

(An abridged transcript of a TEDx talk given my me on 23rd Apri, 2016 in Bangalore - https://www.facebook.com/TEDxBMSCE/posts/1320728574621010:0 ) In an online survey comprising 8000 respondents only 30% were found to be doing their dream job. That is a terrible statistic. That’s almost 3 out of 4 people not getting to do something they had desired to do. So, what do they do then? Live life in frustration and anger and be complacent about it? Absolutely NOT. They can still live their passion, despite doing whatever they might have chosen to do, perhaps under duress. You all would have heard a number of times people saying, “Guys, you have to follow your passion…” But how do you do that? How do you know what you are passionate about? The first thing about passion is shiddat, intensity. I’ve plagiarized the word shiddat from Minakshi, a friend of mine. I wasn’t finding publishers for my second book, which was not in fact a sequel to The Ekkos Clan. I gave up in between and started ...

Recently we did a very good exercise. Five of us, who have known each other for quite some time, had come together to co-found a company. In the excitement of starting our own venture, each of us was so engrossed in hundred nitty gritty things that we forgot some basic etiquette. The work on setting up the new company was going on very well, rather fantastic, but soon we realized that we were getting into situations we were not at all comfortable with. A day came when we really started thinking if this team of five was indeed the right one to work together in the long run or even capable enough to pull up the feat of forming and running a company. Having known each other for a long time, we had the conviction that we would surely make a good team. But when, within just a few days, we started having serious issues working with each other, we felt it was time to introspect. And that was when we realized that each and every behavior of ours, that was causing irritation to others, was act...

Jerry Colonna, a successful VC, who turned into an acclaimed coach for the founders and a compelling speaker on topics ranging from leadership to starting businesses, very aptly calls his blog “The Monster in Your Head”. Very few terms or expressions could be so curtly precise and boldly naked in its realism. Having been associated with two startups in the past one decade, with not so enticing and grandiose experience, and having taken the plunge once more – the third one –, I’ve been quite bothered about what all could again go miserably wrong. Failures are no doubt the pillars of success, but a monument of only pillars of various forms and styles wouldn’t be an interesting thing either. So I was trying to do some introspection, not as much to discover the Holy Grail, in the form of another startup, as to douse my basic curiosity about the reasons behind the failure of a startup. A cursory Google search yielded a lot of material, in various forms, highlighting top five, ten...