R Gopalakrishnan

Is business a living machine? The capitalist-enterprise model is broken

The capitalist-enterprise model is broken. It focuses on shareholders, but those who aspire, dream, sweat and yearn are usually not the shareholders, but its employees and vendors

Thomas Mathew's book explores the legacy of Indian business icon Ratan Tata

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Is the capitalistic model broken? India needs many more leaders like Tata

Ratan was not the first group head to receive adulation. Archives show when Jamsetji died in 1904, the public was full of praise and love for him

Ratan Tata: India's business icon and visionary who saw the future

Brand Tata has remained on the top of its list of peers for a gravity-defying period of 85 years - ever since 1939, when the size of India's top corporations was first reported upon

AI must be guided by humanism and compassion, not just tech experts

It is futile to resist change because tech progress is autonomous; nobody oversees developments. Only natural intelligence - humanism, conscience, and compassion of leaders -can provide oversight

A key lesson from Jamsetji to the leader of the future: Develop four Qs

To achieve all that he did in his lifetime, besides IQ and EQ, the Tata group founder must have been rich in adaptability and spirituality quotients too

A leader is just a comma

Long-remembered leaders desist from trashing their predecessors

A toxic triangle

Charismatic leaders by themselves cannot be considered dangerous. But when they acquire cult status and become megalomaniacal, then beware

Megalomania plus cult is dangerous

We box our leaders into a moral binary - all greatness or all sin. The reality is that it is a mix, and what you see is what you get

Change and future-readiness

Profits and growth are the oxygen of business. It is possible to get 'too much' and damage the enterprise irreparably

Leader as 'friction fixer'

Successful friction-fixers are assured of a long-lasting functional job that is for sure

'Greatness' need not mean fame & size

India is right to celebrate big firms, but must also celebrate its valuable small giants

Startup & family business governance

Boards must rely on and act upon early warning signals of behavioural aberrations beyond the boundaries of business sanity and neeyat

The power of neeyat in enterprise

Neeyat is not a new management jargon to replace vision and mission, nor is it an attempt to nativise an Anglo-American concept in Bhartiya hues, but it is relevant for all businesses, big or small

A poetic book on prosaic leadership

Exploring leadership through historical lenses, Moshik Temkin's book offers valuable lessons for larger-than-life leaders of today

Public opinion long before legal judgment

Legal courts follow procedures (niyam) because they seek near-perfect proof; that may be why cases go on interminably

Common sense for CEOs

Steven Bartlett's book offers practical advice for successful managers, especially those navigating the challenges in the middle of the corporate hierarchy

Cumulatively ravaging effects of inequality

The drumbeats of corporate inequality are being heard in many ways - from compensation differentials and working hours to work-from-home and gender pay parity

How wonderful SHE can be

Azim Premji transformed himself from being a businessman into a philanthropist

Management adages vs contextual reality

At the heart of Busted lies a profound truth that dismantles the long-held shibboleths of management