Importance of ethics in research

Research, the way I understand, is to uncover the nature of reality. Irrespective of what I believe, what I think and what seems to be, research is finding a path to establish the true shape of reality - whether it’s the physical world, sociological phenomena or the metaphysical. It has to be an honest endeavour grounded in right and correct data, robust analysis and transparent presentation of results. It needs humility to acknowledge its limitations - known and unknown. Our understanding and explanations of the nature of reality - the theories - help us make sense of this world, yet can never claim to have fully solved the puzzle. But to get closer and closer to developing an understanding we build on prior research and add incremental blocks to construct better explanations. It’s therefore the responsibility of each and every researcher to be uncompromising in his/her data, approach, results and interpretation - so that future research finds a stronger base to build on and past studies get the honour and respect they deserve.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 24 March 2026

How to forge better leaders?

Managers are expected to be almost perfect - clear communicators, good with people, sharp with data, and composed in how they present themselves. There is a visible checklist, and they are constantly measured against it. If they fall short, it shows quickly.

Leaders, on the other hand, seem to operate under a different lens. They can be unconventional, intense, sometimes even a bit irrational, and yet, this is often read as vision or conviction rather than a flaw. Part of this difference comes from where expectations sit. Managers are expected by others to meet a standard. Leaders, in many ways, shape the standard themselves, and the rest of us adjust to it.

This difference becomes sharper when you step outside firms and think about countries. In a firms, you can choose, or at least attempt to choose, the leader you want to work with by moving to another firm. But you rarely get to choose the leader directly. In a country, you live with the leader, whatever the process that brought them there. In a democracy, sometimes the leader reflects your choice, but often they don’t. You don’t really opt out - you adapt, engage, or endure.

Which makes you wonder what exactly we are preparing people for. Much of management education seems designed to produce well-rounded, reliable managers - people who meet defined expectations. But leadership doesn’t quite emerge from checklists. It comes with ambiguity, intensity, and a willingness to push beyond what is already defined.

Can management education add a stronger ingredient of true leadership into its recipe, so that the ability to handle ambiguity and difficult situations is matched by equally strong wisdom, analytical depth, and grounded judgment? So that we see fewer leaders driven by impulse, and more who combine conviction with clarity. Work-ex seems to be a bad teacher when it comes to leadership.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 26 March 2026

AIs and opinions

We expect that opinions based on data and facts would be reliable, although not indisputable. Since these are still "opinions" they are bound to contain giver bias that would spring from intuition, experience, judgement or quirks. It's human, and we understand the mechanism.

When it comes to AI, though, it gets troubling when we get opposite opinions from different tools. Being "tools" and driven by "computing", we are inclined to trust what they say, not as "opinions" but as some version or degree of "truth". But what if after consuming all the data, ChatGPT suggests, even encourages, that you do something, while Claude tells you that it's stupid, even suicidal, and you shouldn't do that ever. The data is the same. Are the tools acquiring "personality"? They are expected to, given the effort to mimic human faculties. But with humans, we have a way of figuring out. With AI, we have a totally different kind of quagmire to deal with that's neither unique, nor consistent, nor revealing in the way humans are. And in the background, it's being built, taught, designed, tweaked and tinkered - all by humans. And worst of all, it's not allowed to say "NO".

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 16 Mar 2026

Problem definition - Attention span or too many options?

We keep hearing that attention spans of people have come down, especially the younger folks can’t seem to focus on any one thing for long. It’s usually blamed on addiction to short sized content like tweets, reels, shorts and bites. In his recent podcast, Trevor Noah had a different perspective on this. He said it’s not the attention span that has come down. It’s actually the availability of many alternatives at any moment that are competing for our mental resources, and the availability and access to choices makes us want to switch when something seems not so great. Our tolerance for anything not so captivating at any moment has become low because of infinite range of alternatives we can easily divert our minds to. Something truly mesmerising can still tie us down for a long time, but such things would need us to be in an isolated setting so that we don’t get distracted with other equally good or better options, unless the thing is really unique, exceptional, out of the world and without a close and easily accessible match.

The framing of the problem determines what is seen as the root cause and then how you go about solving it.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 15 Mar 2026

Strategic thinking has many layers

Glorification of fail-fast and iterative approaches in business have misled many leaders into believing it applies in every context. Ability to adapt is subject to prior conditioning that must have involved failure and calibration. A true leader has to be confused on where he/she stands, yet mask the confusion with sincerity of effort. This is at the root of a genuine leader's chosen strategy.

Strategy can, and has to, emerge, but it's important to have a sense of 'by how much'. One can't endlessly trust 'learn as we go'. Most projects in the world, especially those with the highest stakes, are waterfall, rather than agile. The real agility, in fact, is required in the leader's mind - yet only to a certain degree.

Most leaders fit their favorite approaches in every context. And to back them there's always some leadership gyaan and a school of thought. However, competing schools of thought exist for a reason - not every approach applies everywhere and every time. Like a chef, a leader must know his/her recipe well - the ingredients, their proportion and the process - based on who's eating. Some times it needs careful balance, even variants, based on different tastes and preferences. But unlike with a chef, a leader must also understand that the volume of the dish changes the recipe as well.

One can't afford to experiment if the stakes are too high. Yet a leader must choose. How? The system typically offers 2 options:

Trust his/her gut? - that's a function of conditioning and may be corrupt.

Take calculated risk? - follow the process, decide action plan, identify risks and have a mitigation strategy.

The former is noisy, has a casino-like charm and has high rate of failure. The latter, done repeatedly, leads to stronger and more sustainable outcomes.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 12 Mar 2026

We are all Spartacus!

I recently finished watching Spartacus on Netflix. It's a truly inspiring and eye-opening saga involving love, honour, respect, pride, revenge and death. The context, at the core, is master-slave relationship. That slavery was practiced to such an abominable level was difficult to believe initially as I started watching. But gradually I could relate more and more to it. I began to see that while we moved past the raw nature of it, we embraced the core tenets into how we conduct our economics in this world.

I realized my usage of the word "we" squarely implies that I'm putting myself on the master side. 'We' practiced slavery. 'We' put an end to it. 'We' embraced all as equal. 'They' are human too! It's funny - I speak the language of the master, yet by feelings I resonate with the slaves. Ways of the world...

I learnt from Spartacus that there is honour and pride ascribed to being a gladiator, which is meant to offer a semblance of meaning to their assigned purpose - of fighting to survive in the arena, while spectators get entertained by the sight of blood and the act of killing. It masks the sheer stupidity of what they are made to do while their masters - the domini - seek power and make money - coin - at their expense.

Slaves are branded with marks on their bodies - like "B" for those belonging to the House of Batiatus - a ludus for training gladiators. They are supposed to feel proud about it, as the house looks after them, nurtures them with food and place to stay, trains them, and gives them opportunities to fight, earn fame and recognition for their valour. The best fighters get rewarded with titles - the undefeated Gaul, the bringer of rain, and so on. If the dominus is generous enough, he may reward a gladiator with freedom. But such a freedom is fragile and can be taken away at any moment. Such freedom is still better than trying to break free from the master, coz then the gladiator deserves to be punished by being killed, brutally, in front of all the other slaves, so that nobody else dares to even bear the thought of escaping.

And yet, craving for freedom is deep in all humans. So are emotions - love, pain, hate and revenge - especially in that order, they can make any human take on the mightiest.

Gladiators are seen to exemplify true human fighting spirit involving exceptional courage, endurance, fearlessness in front of near-certain death, along with hope, passion and brotherhood - ingrained by conditioning and shared pain. Yet it's an irony that this spirit is evoked under hopeless enslavement leading only to brutal death in a constant cycle of kill-or-get-killed - games that are recreation for most, adrenaline-rush for some, and patriotism for a few. The free masters claim all the comforts yet commit to no such values, while keeping slaves tied down by duty, honour, hope and hopelessness... and God! It's all God's will, isn't it?

Times changed. Power and access to resources no longer necessitate their seekers to physically enslave people. Control changed from physical to mental. The chain of control doesn't have an ultimate top or bottom here. It's a chain that's endless on either side. It's not circular, but it does have various loops. Ways changed. Sight of blood became less exciting (for most but not all, it appears now). Everyone lives, mostly. Yet, on different levels still, aren't we all playing Spartacus?

Strategy must be understood, respected, shared and imbibed across the organization

Aspirin, to be effective, needs to first dissolve in water. So does Strategy. You are unlikely to achieve your visions by throwing plans and roadmaps at your workforce. Strategy has to be understood, respected, shared and imbibed across for it to truly drive organizations. Under the pressure and in the busyness of delivering short-term outcomes, leaders often fail to recognize that they are not truly leading, but are just filling positions that satisfice. Employee engagement has become more about making employees feel “happy”, while making them “motivated” and “proud to be part” has taken a back seat. In fact, if you “ask” these employees, they’ll “tell” you. But most leaders don’t care enough. Without adequate importance given to strategic alignment within, organizations just fool themselves and their shareholders with vision statements and fancy roadmaps never to be walked upon.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on 14th January 2026