Episodes

  • Viswanathan Anand - The Full Conversation

    Viswanathan Anand - The Full Conversation

     Play to Potential, Episode 1
    Aug 22 2019

    Viswanathan anand- The Full Conversation-

    Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former World Chess Champion, considered as one of the greatest chess players of all time. Anand was the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991–92, India's highest sporting honour. In 2007, he was the first sportsman to receive India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan.

    Harnessing the full potential of our mind and staying relevant in the context of advances in machines is something that all of us wrestle with as we go through our respective journeys. Chess is a great canvas for us to explore perspectives on these two questions. During the 90 odd minutes that I spent with him in Chennai Vishy spoke candidly about how he got into Chess as a career how he thought about his own development at various stages of his growth how he harnesses his mind and leverages the right brain and the left brain how EQ matters as one grows through the ranks how he stays level-headed and grounded despite his towering achievements his thoughts on harnessing human potential and more.
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    1 hr and 41 mins
  • Stewart Friedman - The Full Conversation

    Stewart Friedman - The Full Conversation

     Play to Potential, Episode 2
    Aug 22 2019
    Stewart D. Friedman is a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding director of the Wharton Leadership Program and Wharton’s Work/Life Integration Project. He has been on the Wharton faculty since 1984 and became the Management Department's first Practice Professor in recognition of his work within the fields of Leadership Development, Human Resources and Work–Life Integration on the application theory and research on the real challenges facing organizations. In our conversation, we spoke about how Dr. Friedman thinks about 4 domains - Self, Work, Home and Community and how we can harmonise across the four domains by going after what he calls “4 way wins”. He also talks about positive spill-over effects from one domain to another and urges us not to see these choices as trade-offs but as porous elements with osmosis across them. He goes on to talk about how we can craft experiments and interface with the various stakeholders to create a life that in line with what we care about and what matters to us.
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Nandan Nilekani - The Full Conversation

    Nandan Nilekani - The Full Conversation

     Play to Potential, Episode 3
    Aug 22 2019
    Nandan Nilekani is a leader who has worn several hats though his illustrious career. He was part of the founding team at Infosys and held several leadership roles with the company including being the CEO and Co-Chairman. In 2009, he moved from Infosys to serve as the Chairman of UIDAI and in the five years there, enrolled about two thirds of the country. He subsequently contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election and post that has moved onto a portfolio of initiatives that includes his work with EkStep Foundation and other philanthropic initiatives, India Stack evangelisation and working with start-ups. In this conversation, he shares his perspectives on leadership especially in a start-up and a scale up context. He also shares his insights around what it takes to transition effectively across different domains and why he has done what he has done at various points in time.
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    51 mins
  • Zia Mody - The Full Conversation

    Zia Mody - The Full Conversation

     Play to Potential, Episode 4
    Aug 22 2019
    Zia Mody is an Indian legal consultant and the Managing Partner at AZB & Partners. She is considered an authority on Corporate Merger and Acquisition Law, Securities Law, Private Equity and Project Finance. She is an alumnus of Harvard Law School and worked for 5 years in the US with Baker and Mackenzie in New York City before returning to India. She started her own practice in Mumbai in 1984 and over the years, she has built AZB & Partners as one of India’a largest and most reputed law firms. She has frequently appeared on Most powerful Businesswomen and Most Powerful CEO lists over the last several years. In our conversation, we spoke about her take on how people should think about law as a career, her take on women growing to become leaders and the leaky pipeline there, trade-offs between work and life, what it takes to be a trusted advisor with a client, what it takes to build an institution of repute and more.
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    39 mins
  • Rich Fernandez - The Full Conversation

    Rich Fernandez - The Full Conversation

     Play to Potential, Episode 5
    Aug 22 2019
    Rich Fernandez is the CEO of Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI). Prior to this he was a Director of Executive Education and People Development at Google. SIYLI began as an initiative in Google in 2007 when a team of leading experts in mindfulness, neuroscience and emotional intelligence developed an internal course for fellow Googlers. It quickly became incredibly popular within Google and given the interest outside Google was so great, SIYLI was set up as an independent Not for Profit in 2012. Since then SIYLI has become a globally recognised programme and continues to work with Google as well as other Corporate, Nonprofit and Government Organisations around the world. In our conversation, we spoke about Rich’s take on Leadership Development in a “rocket ship” such as Google and talk about the distinction between performance and potential, something that several organizations mix up. We talk about the various types of attention (open, focused and meta-attention) that we need to cultivate and discuss how one could think about baking in a meditation habit. We also discuss other themes such as response flexibility versus reaction, meta-distress, building a positive mindset, 3 levels of resilience and more. This conversation is likely to be of value to any leader (specifically in the tech world) who is at the cutting edge of disruption and innovation and is trying to build his/her leadership capability as he/she scales up the organisation.
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    1 hr and 13 mins