Author name: Vijayshree S Menon

Giving permission to understand | Action comes before motivation | Expressing gratitude

Listening, Living well, Mindset / By

Giving permission to understand My work revolves around conversations. Hence, I found this simple advice from Carl Rogers, an eminent psychologist, deeply insightful. “I have found it of enormous value when I can permit myself to understand the other person… Is it necessary to permit oneself to understand another? I think it is. Our first …

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Reminder of Superpower | Defining Success | Futility of being dead serious

Success and Failure / By

Reminder of Superpower Superpowers are not lost. They are forgotten or taken for granted. The best way to develop superpowers in others is to remind them about it. If you are a person of credibility or someone in authority remind others of their superpower and they will start seeing it again in themselves. Kalpana Chawla …

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Readiness for great ideas | Leadership and parenting | First-day mindset

Mindset / By

Readiness for great ideas There is no dearth of ideas to solve a problem. However, there is a reluctance to accept a good idea as it requires courage to change and imagination to see a different possibility. As leaders, you may find yourself fighting hard to convince the people around you of an idea. It …

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Removing the creases from our chutes | Reason is not Rational | Having faith in people

Leadership, Mindset / By

Removing the creases from our chutes Parachute jumpers follow a unique practice to hang their reserved chutes every once in 60 days for 24 hours to let the creases out, and get the life back into the material. What can we do to remove the mental creases that we have accumulated over the years of …

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Obaitori – Every flower blooms in its own time | What can change us? | Socratic Leadership

Leadership, Mindset / By

Obaitori – Every flower blooms in its own time When everyone sees everyone else as their competitor in the mad rat race, Obaitori, a Japanese idiom, comes as a great mental model to instill sanity in us. It refers to the four trees – plum, apricot, cherry, and peach that bloom at their own time …

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The difficult part of learning | Separating motivation from demotivation | Coming out of bad decisions

Decision Making, Mindset / By

The difficult part of learning Learning is hard if it requires us to let go of our own personal truths. Indian philosophy uses the term Avidya. It means the presence of mistaken conclusions about ourselves and the world that we value as knowledge. The only way to learn is to ask ourselves if what we …

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A valuable leadership trait | Seeking support | Taking time to heal

Leadership / By

A valuable leadership trait Responding to bad news deftly is a valuable leadership trait. It involves truth-seeking, decision-making, and course correction. These can happen only from the space of response rather than knee-jerk reaction. Good leaders do not shoot the messenger. They do not ignore the message. They do not scare others by saying, “We …

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Appreciating interdependence | Career management tip | True indicator of generosity

Career / By

Appreciating interdependence In today’s increasingly interconnected world, collaboration has become a crucial success factor. Paul Petzoldt, who coined the term Expedition Behavior, emphasized the importance of being aware of all the relationships that influence a group work like expedition. The success or failure of an expedition is usually determined by the dynamics of the team …

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Unnatural leadership skills | Lesson on evaluation | Pygmalion effect on team members

Decision Making, Leadership / By

Unnatural leadership skills All leadership skills do not come naturally to all leaders. Some leaders struggle with executive presence, while some struggle with being decisive, and many struggle with being empathetic towards their team. There are always areas that need improvement. Real growth happens when leaders acknowledge and are willing to learn, even if it …

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Valuing surplus time | Vision and purpose as binding forces | Expecting to win

Living well, Success and Failure / By

Valuing surplus time We value money over time. As Seneca rightly said – “People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”The decision to spend time is driven by the need …

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