Podcast Themes

Wendy Smith speaks about 3 common responses to Either / Or problems. Rabbit Holes (going deep into a strategy), Wrecking Balls (over compensating and swinging hard to the other side) and Trench Warfare (not listening to cues from the world and finding reasons to double down on our beliefs)

Wendy Smith speaks about the paradox between exploring new possibilities and exploiting existing strengths. She explains that while leaders often frame this as an Either/Or choice, enduring success comes from continuously balancing both—doubling down on what works today while simultaneously investing in learning, experimentation and preparing for tomorrow. She argues that the goal is not to divide time equally between the two, but to remain committed to holding both tensions over time.

Viral speaks about the fork in the road when he and his father shut down the Alloys business in early 2000s. He mentions that if he hadn’t come down this path of counselling children, he would have loved to be the headmaster of a Boarding School.

Viral speaks about his journey from Cathedral to Cornell to Wall Street to setting up a Super Alloys business with his father. When he shut down the business in early 2000s, he speaks about pivoting to what he always enjoyed doing – Mentoring young students.

Hitendra’s career arc — pure mathematics at St. Stephen’s, applied mathematics at MIT, strategy and behaviour at McKinsey — is a story of progressively widening the lens while staying close to one’s core. In this segment he reflects on what drove each transition and what mathematics left behind in him long after he moved on: a discipline of precision, pattern recognition, and the search for core truths.

Bill Burnett speaks about how we hold on to some beliefs about careers that might have worked for us given our lived experiences but are irrelevant in the world our children are growing into.

Jaspreet Bindra speaks about how he thought about “flipping the donut” in terms of the mix of earning and learning. He also speaks about how he got provoked in one of the leadership workshops about how he was wearing his work identity too tightly.

Alan Eagle speaks about Bill Campbell’s journey and the various transitions he has been through – from being a Football Coach to becoming a Business Executive to Leadership Coaching where he worked with several luminaries such as Steve Jobs, Founders of Google, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg, Al Gore. He also speaks about how Bill transitioned from one canvas to another and what stayed the same across these stints.

Raghu Raman talks about how we could think about leveraging the pool of leadership talent that the army produces. He compares India to markets such as US, where there have been generations of Corporate Leaders who spent their early years in the Armed Forces. This is not just about providing an education around some of the elements of business. It is a complete rewiring that needs to happen.

Having moved from the army setup to the corporate world then onto a government organization and back to the corporate world, Raghu Raman has worn many hats in his professional life. All of these shifts have involved transitioning across cultures- some well-established, others being established and yet others, desperately needing a change in culture! Hear Raghu talk about how he navigated these transitions to integrate into the organization he joined.

Michiel Kruyt speaks about the arc of his journey and how he shifted trajectories over time and over time his interests and passions shifted from Sales, Marketing and General Management at Unilever to driving Personal Transformation at McKinsey and beyond.

Jeffrey Pfeffer speaks about being true to oneself as a limiting construct. He says that by being true to some version of self in the past, we might be limiting our possibilities.