Suresh Narayanan

Digital Mindset

In order to be relevant in this digital age, leaders need to adapt to a digital mindset. What does this mindset look like? Abhijit discusses the digital mindset in this nugget and gives anecdotes of how extremely competent leaders of the analog era are struggling to adapt to this. He also shares two important core values which can help in acquiring skills to navigate this digital world. Look out for his views on the future being an ‘&’ world rather than an ‘Or’ world.

Building Digital habits

  So we know there is a digital world out there, vastly different from the analog one we have been used to. This digital world demands new kinds of leadership, culture and relationships. We need to have a digital mindset to navigate this new world but how do we go about it. In this nugget, Abhijit gives you simple tips to start the journey and formulate digital habits. 

Staying relevant and leveraging technology

Jay talks about what how successful politicians have managed to stay relevant over time and have reinvented themselves. He also talks about how technology is begin to level the playing field in favour of people who do not necessarily come from a family of politicians with an established brand and mobilisation infrastructure.

Staying relevant as machines get smarter

Kartik speaks about the extent to which machines and algorithms have pervaded our lives. To give an example, 80% of view on Netflix is based on algorithmic recommendations and 70% of Youtube consumption is based on what it suggests. He talks about what this means for human beings to stay relevant in the future where the machines are getting exponentially smarter by the day.

Re-skilling ourselves to stay relevant

Kartik speaks about how we all could be thoughtful about equipping ourselves with some basic level of literacy around AI. Even if you are not in a technology-led company, it is likely that you will be impacted by AI in some shape or form as a leader, as a consumer or some other form.

Impact of technology

Technology is all pervasive in our lives today. But how has the world of academia been impacted by this? Hear Kartik elaborate on the increase in opportunity afforded by the tsunami of technology.

Staying relevant over the long-term

We live in a world where professions are being threatened and jobs that existed yesterday may not exist tomorrow. Atul talks about how the world of photography has been democratized with the penetration of mobile phones with good cameras. He shares his insights on how one could think about being relevant in these changing times.

Educating ourselves (and link with leadership of the future)

We are growing into a future where there are several unkown unknowns. Pramath talks about what sort of leaders would flourish in the new paradigm and how one should think about education in the context of this broad trend.

The Future of Work

Anu shares the key insights from MGI's study on the future of work. She reflects on the disconnect between what the future world of work needs and what the education system of today is delivering. She also talks about the demands of the generation that is entering today's workforce and the implications for organizations to deal with them.

Staying relevant in the future

Anu talks about her take on Leadership Development in the context of the Future of the workplace. She discusses the need for "start-up like" projects and initiatives that need to cut across functions and hierarchies.

Growing as a player and inflection points

Vishy talks about how his approach to development has changed as he has grown as a player over time. He talks about his approach to picking Coaches that get the best out of him. He also discusses the impact of technology on what it takes to be a successful player while getting the most out of the machines. He talks about the trade-off between specialization and flexibility in this context.

What it takes to compete at the top

Vishy talks about how players need to adapt their style in a world where machines are makin the games longer and more nuanced. He specifically talks about the declining relevance of a dogmatic approach due to the machines suggesting more and more combinations which are possibly outside the realm of comprehension of the average human mind. He also refers to the crucial role of fitness to be able to make sound judgments deep into a game that has only gotten longer with the increasing role of machines.

Staying relevant in the world of machines

Vishy talks about how humans should think about staying relevant in a world where the processing power of the machines has become hard to beat by the human brain. He uses the metaphor of Advanced Chess where people compete with each other but with a machine on their side (Human + Machine versus Human + Machine). He talks about the diminishing role of humans in that context. But at the same time he talks about the exciting possibilities that technology has enabled in terms of new possibilities in the game and access to “best in class” coaching and learning.

Convergence of Strategy, Creative, Tech and Data

KV Sridhar (Pops) talks about how Hypercollective (a company he has just started) operates at the intersection of Strategy, Creative, Technology and Data and combines all four diverse disciplines to present an integrated offering to the clients. He specifically talks about the crucial role of orchestrators that connect the dots across the various disciplines.

Understanding fear to decipher beliefs

Coaching is often about understanding the deeply wired beliefs that drive leadership behavior. Devdutt shares that understanding people’s fears might provide insights into people’s beliefs. He talks about the fears that often puts people on a hedonistic treadmill with materialistic markers along the way. He also talks about the notion of staying relevant and talks about the notion of rendering yourself irrelevant consciously as we move through life, something that people are often not open to dealing with.

Intro to Digital Tsunami

In his book Digital Tsunami, Abhijit contrasts the erstwhile analog world with today’s digital world. How has this shift to the digital realm impacted companies and their cultures? What is the main difference between these two and how has that influenced leadership. Confused about why a company like Google is competing with Ford and GM? Hear more about all this and more in this nugget.

Hiring for the Digital World

  Unlike the analog world, employees and customers in the digital world are at the centre and the organization and processes are built around them. This makes the hiring of employees a very significant task. How does a leader go about hiring someone and what are their markers for potential? Don’t miss the insightful anecdote about The Knowledge test that the London cab drivers have to take and how that is relevant to this nugget.

Role of Chief Digital Officer

  According to Abhijit, the CDO is the mapmaker of the new digital world of the organization. He is the one who takes up the real opportunity in looking at the digital landscape in a holistic sense for the entire organization and not just using it as an easy marketing or feedback tool. Hear more about this popular position that is seeing many hiring ads! 

Attention and Meta-Attention

We normally think of attention in broad terms but Rich breaks down the various types of attention. He speaks about Attention being the ability to focus our mind on something specific and Meta-Attention being the ability to pay attention to our attention and have the ability to bring it back when it wanders.  

Positivity and Psychological Safety

Rich speaks about why we have a negativity bias as a default setting. He traces it back to human evolution and talks about the fact that for us to survive, it was critical to attach a higher weightage to negative signals in the environment than the positive ones. He links it to the criticality of ensuring psychological safety in a team (results of Project Aristotle in Google) to drive business performance. 

Convenience versus Privacy

Kartik speaks about how different FAANG Companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google) are trying to inject hosepipes into our lives and capture data for their respective algorithms to get smarter over time. He speaks about how, as consumers we need to walk the tight rope between leveraging the benefits of these platforms while protecting our privacy while doing it.

Jobs at risk and new avenues

Kartik speaks about the impact of AI on jobs of the future. He cautions that it is not just the menial blue collar type of jobs that are at risk but a wider array of jobs where machines could replace man. He goes on to talk about the implication for us and how we should think about staying relevant in the future.