Modern times – 1936 to 2025 and beyond
Dear Friends Modern Times is a 1936 American part-talkie comedy film produced, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. This was Chaplin’s last performance…
Articles
A collection of articles on topics related to leadership and coaching, written by experienced members of the CFI Fraternity.
Is Development A Privilege Or A Responsibility
I have a rather tough-minded question to ask of leaders. The question is this: Is the offer for…
Is Coaching Earning A Bad Name?
Is coaching earning a bad name? Let me try and answer it in a somewhat constructive manner. Truth…
Why and I afraid to tell you who you are?
Why and I afraid to tell you who you are? What comes in the way of building and…
Is the service excellence as a culture broken?
Is service excellence as a culture really thriving? Caution: this post is about the cultural dimensions of service…
Conformance, the drive to achieve and the hot stove rule
Organisations seem to expect two things from its employees across levels:1. Conformance2. Drive to achieve My question is…
Leaders responsibility in shaping employee relations
One dimension of a leader’s responsibility which seldom receives the attention it deserves is around employee relations. Every…
AI and me, 2025!
Friends There is so much of popular curiosity, interest and anxiety about artificial intelligence and what role it…
What were your WIGO moments in 2024?
While acronyms like VUCA and BANI were intended to describe the complexities of the world we live in,…
The importance of hardship
If we look around, we will find ample evidence about role of hardship in shaping the character of…
Is the professional socialization process broken?
Have you heard team leads and managers lament about today’s young employees not being passionate, not having the…
The operating manual to live your life
Friends, I have a question for you. Do you have an operating manual to live your life? Hard…
Sorry does seem to be the hardest word!
I tend to agree with Elton John when he said sorry seems to be the hardest word. I…
The under 40 Did Not Show Up Awards for Men
Are you aware of the Under 40 Did Not Show Up (DNSU) Awards for Men? Well, truth be…
Buzz words and responsible semantics
Friends, let’s talk today about buzzwords and responsible semantics. I was introduced to the idea of responsible semantics…
Why is managing others hard?
Why is managing other people very hard in today’s time? Lets take a somewhat empathetic view about the…
Can Captains of leadership teams also be coaches?
Can captains of teams in organizations also play the role of coaches for those teams? It is natural…
It it easier or harder today to give employees feedback?
Friends, In the world of work today, is it getting easier or difficult to give feedback? It would…
Have you ever been professionally unreasonable?
Friends, Have you ever heard the term “being professionally unreasonable”? What does it mean for a leader to…
Why are my leaders not ambitious?
Friends, I’d like to share with you a somewhat strange phenomenon that I’ve been observing in the last…
totus consulting turns 25!
Friends, I am delighted to let you know that on 11th of June, 2000, totus consulting, my boutique…
Journal and make each day your masterpiece
Dear Friends CFI believes strongly in the power of journaling as a daily habit and tool to promote…
MeHR – Mentoring for HR Professionals
A few days back, I had announced the launch of MeHR, a Mentoring program for HR professionals who…
40th work Anniversary and Launch of MeHR
Ganesh Chella, at work since May 10, 1984! 40 years ago, on May 10, 1984 I started my…
Coaching for communication effectiveness
Is communicating effectively a critical leadership competency? At first glance, one may assume that by the time one…
Risk Taking as a leadership competence
In continuation of my efforts to demystify some of the critical leadership competencies, I focus on the subject…
Networking – for speculative gains or long term investments
The ability to network and engage meaningfully with diverse stakeholders within and outside the organization is seen as…
The travails of transition
Behind every leadership hiring move and every talent management move is a significant transition for the leader involved.…
Celebrating Men on International Women’s Day!
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Inspire Inclusion”. We therefore believe it is only appropriate…
Please refresh my profile picture in your mind
When a leader undergoes coaching, especially to address some aspects of his or her style or behavior based…
There is no such thing called Reverse Mentoring
Mentoring as we all understand is an at-will collaborative value-adding relationship, traditionally between someone who is older and…
Shaping the narrative in the Indian IT Services industry – leadership lessons from the original AI
Disclaimers: AI in my lexicon is Appreciative Inquiry, not Artificial Intelligence. I am a student of Leadership and…
This thing called collaboration
We keep listening to leaders of organizations and teams lament about the fact that there isn’t enough collaboration…
The Significance Of Stakeholder Management
Anyone involved in leader development and coaching including leaders themselves will recognize that stakeholder management is seen as…
The Truth About Personal Truths
What I believe to be true is what is my personal truth. The operative term is “what I…
Navigating Power Dynamics in Coaching
Power and coaching? What is the connection one may wonder. One would at first glance even feel uncomfortable…
Is an organization a family?
Have you heard promoters, founders and leaders claim that “we are family” when referring to their relationship with…
Mental Health – My Journey
We seem to be more accepting of challenges around physical health. On the other hand, the subject of…
Manage millennials? Really?
The world is filled with advice and tips and secret recipes on “how to manage millennials” or other…
Did Talent Management dilute the spirit of Sponsorship
When we discuss the subject of grooming or developing leaders, the role of a sponsor often comes up.…
Do you coach a role holder or a person?
When an organization hires a coach and gives the coach a brief, does the work of the coach…
Task vs People Orientation
For several decades the world has been obsessed with striking the right balance between the two factors of…
The right age to get coached
Leaders in organizations become “eligible” for coaching often based on their level, given that coaching is considered expensive.…
Do captains of industry need to be coaches?
I was in a workshop with a group of Managers trying to impart the skills and tools to…
Ethical dimensions in Coaching
In this video, I share nine ethical dimensions that coaches may like to bear in mind while they…
How Much Does It Cost To Hire a Coach?
I often get asked this question: How much does it cost to hire a coach? I find it…
HiPo Revisited
HiPo are individuals identified as displaying the potential to raise to future positions. Organizations typically identify such HIPOs…
Hire for skills and deal with attitudes
Attitude: “predisposition to behave in a specific way in certain situations”. Skills: the learned ability to do something…
Greed In The Corporate World
Over the past few years the corporate world including the start-up world has been seeing a series of…
Who is the Sage Narada in the entrepreneur’s life?
Legend has it that Maharishi Valmiki was Ratnakara, was a young boy who was found by a hunter…
The real Chat GTP
Every once in a while, during my life time, I have witnessed some new technology idea that appears…
Dear Coach, have you felt vulnerable and sought help lately?
Have you in the recent past felt vulnerable, felt you were not sure, did not have the answers,…
Who is the Best Coach?
Can we make a list of “the world’s top 50 friends”? or “The world’s best Spouses” or “The…
Doctor, I already cut open the patient, please complete the surgery
Imagine someone says this to a surgeon: “Doctor, I ran some diagnostic tests, detected what needs attention. In…
Don’t you want my job?
An entire generation of senior leaders (including business owners and Promoters) are shocked that the people they thought…
Krish Shankar is retiring from Infosys
I saw a recent press announcement about Krish Shankar retiring from Infosys soon. Krish is my classmate and…
Your style in a meeting – editable word or read only PDF?
When you enter a meeting, what is your approach or mind-set most often? Do you go with a…
The Power to Choose
Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand came into the limelight with her compassionate and decisive leadership during…
Hey employees, leave your manager alone!
We don’t need no training programsWe don’t need more pulse surveysNo dark sarcasm around the water coolerTeam, leave…
Are you “headcount” or “employee”?
It appears that these are hard times for some people in some places. Storied corporations with blemishless brands…
Does grey matter
My friend Neeraj Sagar has founded a company whose mission statement is to “retire retirement”. I call it “making grey…
Will Artificial Intelligence replace Executive Coaching?
The latest Chatbot technology called ChatGPT has users all over the world excited and reasonably impressed. A news…
2023, Getting Real, In More Ways Than One!
Hopin, a virtual events start-up (thanks to the pandemic) that raised over a billion dollars in less than…
Story Telling vs Success Theatre
I keep hearing more and more organizations urging that their leaders learn the art of “story telling” –…
Exit, Voice and Loyalty
Exit, Voice, and Loyalty – responses to decline in firms, organisations and states(1970) is a treatise written by Albert O.…
The Four Labour Market Forces
There are several forces that determine competitive advantage. The labour force is an important determinant of competitive advantage…
An Empathetic View to Generational Differences
As we look at generational differences, is there a broader framework that can be used by each one…
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
In our recent cohort-based learning session with the latest batch of the SheLeads Programme, we invited 5 male…
Getting Over the Networking No-No
“Your network is your net worth!” screamed the poster. Anita took one look at it and wondered why…
Why Employees Don’t Take Ownership
The term “ownership” is used by leaders and managers most often to describe its absence at a time…
Are Your Dreams Big Enough?
In continuation of our series on women leadership based on the research we carried out for the SheLeads…
What Sacrifices Are You Making Today?
It was Tulasi’s 20th annual school reunion in the evening. She was excited about meeting everyone after ages.…
Is there a new way of learning and leading at GE?
GE’s famed Crotonville, started way back in 1956 to grow leaders from within has been put on sale.…
Did you first fill the form?
As an HR professional and consultant, I have spent a while designing forms that employees need to fill…
Learning to travel light
The manner in which we travel bears lot of similarities with the way we wish to live our…
Shedding some sunshine on Moonlighting
A lot of sparks have been flying in the past few days on the subject of moonlighting, specifically…
As you think of retirement
As you think of retirement …You have just a few years left to retire and you have been…
Great rewards, great resignations and grueling layoffs
I am for a few moments putting myself in the shoes of a young employee and taking an…
Managing Perceptions – A Special Challenge for Women Leaders
Managing Perceptions – A Special Challenge for Women Leaders Ms Marin, Prime Minister of Finland is in the…
The rise and fall of professionally unreasonable jobs
The rise and fall of professionally unreasonable jobs A job that offers a certain level of stretch and…
Allowable dishonesties of organizational life
Whenever you meet employees across levels – CXOs to front-line employees and engage them in conversations about culture…
When Did You Last Put Yourself First?
First to wake up, last to eat and last to set her head down to sleep. An Indian…
Are you hard working?
Chances are most of us would say, “of course yes”. I start my work early and end pretty…
When The Clock Strikes Six
Sarita glanced at the clock. It showed 6.30 PM. Office hours were 9.00 AM to 6.00 PM. She…
Listening and the boiling milk
How many times has this happen to you? You are standing in front of the stove to boil…
10 sure signs that you are listening
One of the common behavioural changes that leaders commit to make to their coaches is to listen better.…
How HR and Talent Professionals are Shaping Coaching and Leader Development
I have been engaging with client organisations for their coaching needs for well over 15 years and I…
HR 2020 and Beyond, well, It depends
One of the common jokes that employees and line managers make about HR professionals is this: When you…
Hot coffee conversations
I read with great interest the bold experiment launched by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks to encourage his…
Seven Conversations that every HR professionals must master
The success of HR professionals depends in good measure on the quality of their conversations with a wide…
Cognitive Empathy for HR Professionals
The CEO has been talking about risks to key talent and the urgent need to do something. The…
Five real problems that concerns our employees today
What are the things that concern our employees today? What seem to be the most common causes for…
Best employers or workplaces
Every year, a clutch of consulting firms routinely release their “much awaited” list of best employers or workplaces…
A Sponsor’s Guide to Coaching
This Guide is meant to help Potential Sponsors of executive coaching engagements help their team members (the coachees)…
Appreciating Before Assessing
Assessment has an important place in leader development, given that it creates the necessary disequilibrium to motivate change.…
Enhancing Coaching Effectivenes
Considering Coaching as part of your leadership development approach? Or perhaps you already have an institutionalized coaching process,…
Coaching & You
Your organization has just offered you the opportunity of working with a coach as a part of your…
Should CHROs be wise or young?
Every time I catch up with my friends who are CHROs in reasonably large organisations, one thing strikes…
Is HR’s tripod structure working?
For years now, many HR leaders have been busy implementing what is popularly referred to as the tripod structure…
Peer Supervision and Support – the CFI Experience
A participant of CFI’s CEO Coach Accreditation Programme was looking forward to his coaching internship to apply the…
