Play To Potential Podcast

GUEST Jeffrey Pfeffer has been teaching at Stanford since 1979. He has Co-Authored or Authored 16 books, the last one being, 7 Rules of Power. He is in the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame, a list that celebrate the all-time greats in the world of Business that are moving the world forward with their original ideas.  We spoke at length about his recent book on Power. More specifically, we spoke about the tension between Power and various other concepts that are doing the rounds in “pop wisdom” - Power vs Autonomy, Power vs Humility, Power vs Vulnerability, Power vs Authenticity and much more. He has a knack of telling things the way they are without mincing words.  Published in Jan 2023. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nuances of the context and then armed with the mutual trust and understanding of the context, strives to

NUGGET CONTEXT Jeffrey speaks about how he came around to studying Power. He also goes on to speak about the kinds of career choices he has made and what he has said No to over time as his Power increased over time. This is a “sampler” of what a nugget looks like in our podcast. While we have a few nuggets on popular podcast platforms, entire library of Nuggets (Categorised by themes) is available at www.playtopotential.com in the Members section. To understand more about membership benefits such as Curated Nuggets, Hand edited Transcripts, Customizable playlists and Learning Community, please see the Video here. GUEST Jeffrey Pfeffer has been teaching at Stanford since 1979. He has Co-Authored or Authored 16 books, the last one being, 7 Rules of Power. He is in the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame, a list that celebrate the all-time greats in the world of Business that are moving the world forward with their original ideas.  We spoke at length about his recent book on Power. More specifically, we spoke about th

Merry Christmas and Best wishes for 2023!  As we wind down 2022, we share the Highlights from the year gone by. If you have been following the podcast, you would appreciate that we are offering the Podcast as a service. All the content is free and there is no advertising on our podcast. If you are deriving value from the podcast, this festive season, consider taking a moment to share your gratitude (by sharing an email or contributing directly) with the chefs who are toiling away in the kitchen. Link here - https://bit.ly/PayItFwdP2PStaff   10 insights from the speakers in 2022 that really stood out for us. This includes: 1) Dorie Clark on how we measure progress when we pivot 2) Ayse Birsel on why Nelson Mandela was a great Life Designer 3) Dan Pink on why Bronze medallists are often happier than Silver Medallists 4) Ravi Venkatesan on deploying different forms of capital we have 5) Alisa Cohn on why Founders should give away their “Legos" 6) Thomas Wedell Wedellsborg on the Elevator problem and getting t

GUEST David has been teaching the landmark Interpersonal Dynamics course (informally called as Touchy Feely by many) at Stanford for over 50 years. He has distilled some of his learnings and insight from these five decades in a recently published book titled – Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues. It is always a pleasure to speak to somebody who has spent decades honing a certain craft. We start with discussing the six markers of an exceptional relationship, then move on to talking about the criticality of the right language, then we talk about the notion of crossing the net, something that is possibly at the root of a large part of the misunderstanding between humans. This is one of those things that is so simple and can have such a transformational impact on our lives if we can apply it consistently. We then talk about how we can build the interpersonal muscle with kids and the right kind of vulnerability that we should consider showing at our work place. This co

NUGGET CONTEXT David shares 6 markers of what he calls as “Exceptional Relationship”. 1) You can be more fully yourself and so can the other person.  2) Both of you are willing to be vulnerable 3) You trust that self-disclosures will not be used against you 4) You can be honest with each other 5) You deal with conflict productively 6) Both of you are committed to each other’s growth and development. This is a “sampler” of what a nugget looks like in our podcast. While we have a few nuggets on popular podcast platforms, entire library of Nuggets (Categorised by themes) is available at www.playtopotential.com in the Members section. To understand more about membership benefits such as Curated Nuggets, Hand edited Transcripts, Customizable playlists and Learning Community, please see the Video here. GUEST David has been teaching the landmark Interpersonal Dynamics course (informally called as Touchy Feely by many) at Stanford for over 50 years. He has distilled some of his learnings and insight from these fi

GUEST Ethan is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. He is an award-winning professor in the University of Michigan’s Psychology Department. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science. He has recently published the book – Chatter. The book goes deep into talking about the voice in our heads and how we can harness it. Through the book he shows that instead of trying to silence your monkey mind, you can learn to educate it, motivate it, and even reason with it. All of us have experienced what Ethan calls "Chatter". A never-ending loop of negative thoughts that engulf us and paralyse us at certain periods of time. Ethan speaks about the criticality of how we can work with these emotions and harness them without getting stuck in a vicious loop in their grip. Some of the topics that we covered include: a) The role of rituals and how Rafael Nadal uses it in a tennis match b) The fin

GUEST Manjari Jauhar is Bihar’s first IPS officer and one of the first five IPS officer in India (Kiran Bedi being the first).  After an unexpected turn of events upended the homemaker role her parents had planned for her, Manjari Jaruhar overcame extraordinary odds to become the first woman from Bihar to join the country’s elite police cadre. Her journey is a masterclass in courage, resilience and leadership by a woman who broke new ground and thrived despite being viewed with disbelief and derision by her colleagues. She has recently authored the book - Madam Sir, which captures her journey against several odds. It is a stirring account of a sheltered girl’s rise to the top echelons of the Indian Police Service. Set against the backdrop of significant events such as the Bhagalpur blindings, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Lalu Prasad’s reign in Bihar, “Madam Sir” is an inside look into the IPS through a woman’s eyes. In our conversation we spoke about her childhood, her challenges in her first marriage and

GUEST Tarun Khanna is the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School (HBS), where he has sought for two decades to study the drivers of entrepreneurship in emerging markets as a means of economic and social development. At HBS since 1993, after obtaining degrees from Princeton and Harvard, he has taught courses on strategy, corporate governance and international business to MBA and Ph.D. students and senior executives. For many years, he has served as the Faculty Chair for HBS activities in India and South Asia. He was named the first director of the university-wide The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard in the fall of 2010. Outside HBS, he serves on numerous for-profit and not-for-profit boards in the US and India, including AES, a Washington DC headquartered global power company, and India-based Bharat Financial Inclusion Limited (BFIL), one of the world’s largest firms dedicated to financial inclusion for the poor.  He is a co-founder of several entrepreneurial ven

GUEST Raghu is formally trained as an engineer with an MS in Bio-Medical Engineering from IIT, Madras, He has been in immersive involvement in questions of human life.  He says that three extraordinary teachers mentored him when he was going through a very difficult phase of life, namely, J Krishnamurti, Yogacharya Krishnamacharya and Pulin K Garg. He was intimately involved with them for more than a decade from his late twenties. This engagement not only transformed him, it gifted him with the path that he has walked, his sAdhana.  He has been Cofounder of the Sumedhas Academy of Human Context since 1995, and of the Barefoot Academy of Governance with TISS since 2012. As Director of FLAME TAO Knoware Pvt Ltd his work spans the commercial world of consulting by helping redesign the client organization for greater alignment and synergy. His work revolves around helping individuals, groups and organizations discover their dharma, and become the best they can be. This aligns with his own personal Sadhana. ​H

GUEST Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg is the author of What’s Your Problem? (Harvard Business Press, 2020), a book on how to solve the right problems. His research has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, BBC Radio, Bloomberg Businessweek and the Financial Times. His work on innovation led HR Magazine to recognize him as a “Top 20 International Thinker”. I believe that we are taught how to solve problems in our growing up years but one of the distinctive elements of leadership is about knowing which problems to solve and which ones not to solve. How we frame problems and which ones we go after is arguably one of the meta-skills of the times we are in.  Published in July 2020 HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nuances of the context and then armed with the mutual trust and

GUEST Ayelet Fishbach, Ph.D., is the Jeffrey Breakenridge Keller Professor of Behavioral Science and Marketing at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and the author of Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation. She is the past president of the Society for the Study of Motivation and the International Social Cognition Network. She is an expert on motivation and decision making.  In the podcast conversation, we start with her journey from the sharing economy of the Israeli Kibbutz which is based on the principles of equality, public ownership and voluntariness. From there she goes to the other extreme which is the University of Chicago which is all about Capital Markets and incentives drive human behaviour. We then dive into her recent book and talk about the various elements of motivation – how we think about goal setting, psychological reactance and what it can teach us about parenting, motivating ourselves during the long middle, mining the silent graveyard of failure,

GUEST Alisa has been coaching startup Founders to grow into world-class CEOs for nearly 20 years. She has recently authored the book - From Start-Up to Grown-Up.  Alisa is a guest lecturer at Harvard and Cornell Universities, Henley Business School and the Naval War College. She serves on the board of the Cornell Advisory Council. Her articles have appeared in HBR, Forbes, and Inc and she has been featured as an expert on Bloomberg TV, the BBC World News and in the New York Times. In our conversation, we spoke about how Start-up founders should police their passions, think about "giving away their Legos”, monitor their triggers, handle the Boards, transfer context when senior leaders come on Board and much more. Given my work with Founders, I have come to realize that this transition from a Founder to a CEO is like getting your Pilot training certification in your first and only flight where you are learning as you are learning to fly the plane.  Published in May 2022. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of

GUEST Daniel H. Pink is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including his latest, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, published in February. His other books include the New York Times bestsellers When and A Whole New Mind — as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have won multiple awards, have been translated into 42 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.  He has been a contributing editor at Fast Company and Wired as well as a business columnist for The Sunday Telegraph. His articles and essays have also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and other publications. He was also a Japan Society Media fellow in Tokyo, where he studied the country’s massive comic industry. Before venturing out on his own 20 years ago, Dan worked in several positions in politics and government, including serving from 1995 to 1997 as chief spee

GUEST Pradeep Chakravarthy is a behaviourist who uses Indian models of L&D to alter behaviour. He has recently published the book - Leadership Shastra which looks at some of the rulers of the past and culls out lessons in leadership and culture. He has written a book - Thanjavur - a Cultural History (2010) and A Road Less Travelled - A Historian’s Guide to lesser known temples in Tamil Nadu (2012).  In our conversation, we speak about how Kings and Queens were groomed for their roles, how they thought about expansion and consolidation at various times, Jahanara’s political savviness, Decline of the Mughal Empire and the role of the Corporate Office and more.  Published in April 2022. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nuances of the context and then armed with the mutual trust and understanding of the context, str

GUEST Ravi Venkatesan has been on the podcast about 5 years back. In that conversation we spoke about his journey and his transition from Cummins to Microsoft to Board Roles. In this conversation, we dive into his recently published book - What the Heck Do I Do with My Life.  Some of the topics we cover include the notion of a punctuated equilibrium and the implication on how we adapt, being intentional about life, cultivating an abundance mindset (irrespective of how much we have), different forms of capital that we can work with, specialisation versus generalisation (do you want to be a bird or a frog) and what we can learn from the phenomenon of stotting in the animal kingdom (and the link with personal branding).   Published in March 2022. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nuances of the context and then armed wi

GUEST Ayse is an accomplished Industrial Designer and has worked with Brands like Herman Miller, IKEA, Amazon and Toyota. She is the author of Design the Life You Love and gives lectures on Design the Work You Love to corporations. She was on the Fast Company’s list of Most Creative People in 2017 and on the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 people that are likely to shape the future of organizations. Her work can also be found in the Permanent Collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Today, she gives talks, lead workshops, and teach masterclasses at companies to help leaders and their teams design their work and life, using 5 foundational principles of optimism, empathy, holistic thinking, collaboration and an open mind.  In this conversation, we explore various themes around how we can use Design principles to design the life that we love. You can follow her thinking by subscribing to her newsletter at https://www.aysebirsel.com/newsletter Published in February 2022. HOST Deepak Jayara

GUEST Dorie Clark is an American author and executive education professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She has recently published her 4th book - The Long Game - How to be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. Her previous books include Reinventing You (2013), Stand Out (2015), Entrepreneurial You (2017).  She completed her Master in Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and has had a career in Journalism and as a Political Speech Writer before creating a niche around helping people reinvent themselves and create compelling personal brands. She has been on the Thinkers 50 list in 2019 and 2021. She was also recently named the #1 Communication Coach in the World by the Marshall Goldsmith Coaching Leading Global Coaches Awards. Published in Jan 2022. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nua

GUEST Rajiv Vij is a life and executive coach, author and speaker. He works with senior leaders of several Fortune 500 companies and other large organisations across Asia and India and has been a coach to industry leaders. He also voluntarily coaches a number of founders and leaders of social-sector organisations. He is the author of Discovering Your Sweet Spot: A Soul-searching Guide for Creating the Life You Really Want. Prior to finding his calling and starting his coaching practice in 2006, he served as Managing Director, Asia for Franklin Templeton. Published in December 2021. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potential. He strives to spend significant upfront energy in understand the nuances of the context and then armed with the mutual trust and understanding of the context, strives to be of value as a (behind the scenes and discreet) Coach / Sounding Board for their journeys. LinkedI

GUEST Harsh Mariwala is Founder and Chairman of Marico, an FMCG giant well known for brands like Parachute and Saffola. He has recently Co-Authored the book - Harsh Realities (Published by Penguin Random House) along with Management Guru, Ram Charan. The book is a story of how Harsh broke away from the shackles of family-run Bombay Oil Industries Ltd, which was a commodities business to set up a professionally run Marico including all the trials and tribulations along the way.  Some of the themes we covered included how he tactfully separated from his family business, how he broke away from the shackles of mediocre talent that often haunt SMEs, his evolution along the way as a leader, his transition to a Professional CEO and how he has managed to assemble a set of advisors in his Board and otherwise to guide him on his journey. Published in Dec 2021. HOST Deepak Jayaraman, the host of this podcast series, works with Leaders and Organizations with a growth mindset and helps them play to their full potenti

GUEST Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is one of Google’s and Silicon Valley’s most respected leaders. She has worked at various tech and media companies including Google, Amazon, NewsCorp, Yodle and Polyvore. At one stage she was heading Latin America and Asia Pacific in Google in 2008. She is credited with building Google’s presence across 103 countries in LATAM and APAC. She has recently authored the book – Choosing Possibility where she speaks about embracing micro-risks as a process to unlock growth and professional fulfilment. Some of the themes we spoke about included the notion of the myth of a single choice, Embracing risk as a discovering process, her experiences with her Coach David Lesser with whom she engaged for over a decade, her take on Bill Campbell. She also shares candidly what went wrong when she transitioned from Google to Accel to Polyvore as an external CEO. She speaks about some of the challenges in getting senior leadership transitions right in a Scale up. She also spoke about the notion of