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How Much Does Culture Enjoy Eating Strategy For Breakfast? ( first published in Business World on 6th April 2019) Company culture is often described as the personality of a company. While some management experts prefer to call it the backbone of a happy workforce or the glue which keeps a company together, it can also be compared to that of a ‘compass’ which keeps a company’s strategy well on its course. Ever since Peter Drucker, Father of Modern Management theory, coined the phrase “Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast”, there has been a lot of debate in the corporate boardroom on what needs more focus – culture or strategy. However, reports on hyper-job-hopping witnessed among Gen Z and some high-profile exits due to sexual misconduct allegations, only allude to the fact that culture has a voracious appetite, and in particular, is fond of devouring ‘strategy’ which is cooked in a toxic oil of ‘constraining behaviours and beliefs’. A research by Deloitte states, that 94% of execut...

Encouraging disagreements at workplace could lead to more innovations  (first published in Business World on 8th May 2018) When Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, said that Indians lacked creativity, millions of Indians were left shell-shocked. According to Wozniak, it is the “risk-averse culture” which prevents Indians from experimenting and innovating. This audacious claim, though, could be a cause of disagreement, as India prides itself of a vibrant culture even amidst average socio-economic conditions. Nevertheless, it looks like Wozniak has opened the “Pandora’s Box,” which was left untouched in the corporate arena for a long time. In fact, even the Indian tech czar NR Narayana Murthy has lamented this fact a while ago, when he said, “There has not been a single earth-shaking invention from India in the last 60 years that became a household name globally." Creativity, it seems, springs only from an atmosphere of trust, respect, and empowerment. And the question ev...