Veterans Unpacked

Harvard Business School Professor and former Medtronic chair and CEO Bill George on the big shift in management, being an authentic leader and meeting the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.

Veterans Unpacked | Harish Mehta: "Spend 10% of your time on building and growing your industry"

"Growing the overall pie has a compounding effect on growth of your share of the pie."

Veterans Unpacked | "Digitalisation has overtaken the world. This is a huge change": B. Muthuraman, former vice-chairman, Tata Steel

"I don’t like the word 'retirement’. It is not in my dictionary. I have just moved from one phase of life to another phase—one that is even more fulfilling."

Veterans Unpacked | Narotam Sekhsaria: I would be on top of AI and data mining today

"So much is happening in artificial intelligence, data mining, etc. If I was running a large firm today, I would be on top of it all, harnessing its benefit for the company and the shareholders."

Veterans Unpacked | Sudarshan Jain: “Adopt technology very fast and find the time to understanding it as much as possible”

"Because the world is changing fast, so you have to be in learning mode: learn, unlearn and relearn."

Veterans Unpacked | Rakesh Sarna: "The leader's job is to ensure a robust workforce not just a robust balance sheet"

"Empathy has become a buzzword today but it has always been there and has been defined differently. My parents would say treat others like you want to be treated."

Veterans Unpacked | "Today, age is not the criteria to be a leader," B.S. Shantharaju, former CEO, Indus Towers

"My focus and investment in people stay with me even today. I am proud to know 18 of my team members are CEOs today and more than 75 of them are CXOs in various companies."

Veterans Unpacked | Sanjay Kapoor: Your next competitor can come from anywhere, and the winner can't take all

"Customer experience and not customer service will decide the winners; great talent will have supply constraints and will command high premiums."

Veterans Unpacked | "This is the age of the ‘never satisfied customer’": Sandip Das, former MD & CEO, Reliance Jio

"The pandemic has universally changed our perspectives at work and put us on the fast track to some seminal changes."

Veterans Unpacked | Sangeeta Talwar: "Getting to the consumer today is all about embedding experiences"

"On leadership, my concept is 'flyvision': fly with the birds at 20,000 feet and recontextualise where you are from there."

Veterans Unpacked | Pradeep Poddar: “India needs to move upwards to a branded economy which will make valuations significantly higher”

"The time frame for strategic planning has reduced from ten to five and now three years."

Veterans Unpacked | I don’t believe in rebirth but if there was one, I wouldn’t sell my airline to Vijay Mallya: Capt Gopinath

Air Deccan founder Captain GR Gopinath on what he has been up to in recent years, what he misses about the corner office, which corporate leaders among the current crop impress him and more.

Veterans Unpacked | D.S. Brar: "Your network is your net worth, and your credibility is your currency"

His advice to young leaders: "Focus on relationships and building trust with your customers, your partners and your employees."

Veterans Unpacked | Vineet Nayar: 'Listen to your employees and they will tell you how to get it right'

Advice to the next set of corporate leaders: Don't listen to guys like me from the previous generation. We haven't dealt with the challenges and opportunities you have now.

Veterans Unpacked | R. Seshasayee: "You have to respond with speed today in the market or you perish"

'Risk taking by itself is not a problem but most don’t have the resources to back that with capital. Going global also means taking risks of a different level.'

Veterans Unpacked | Ravi Kant: "Work backwards in an 'Outside – In' approach to make an action plan and always use collaborative strength"

"Younger people coming to the forefront means that 'seniority and experience' are no longer protective armours. The young generation is innovative, creative, more conscious of the environment, value systems... entrepreneurial and vastly bolder in breaking established rules and creating new ones."

Veterans Unpacked | Pradip Shah: 'Create the right culture in an organization - for competence, integrity, cooperation, and empathy and respect amongst team members'

'Live in a way that you can be trusted to always do the right thing, and work not only for money, but for a greater purpose... in your own way, do something for others with no expectation of returns.'

Veterans Unpacked | Vinita Bali: 'Leadership is about what you do and how you do it, not what you say'

'Not enough has changed when you look at diversity, including, but not restricted to, gender diversity. There is more talk than action there.'

Veterans Unpacked | Ishaat Hussain: 'The corporate discourse has to completely change and we have to focus on the basics'

'To manage the increased size and scope of business today, you require highly efficient and nimble managers, and I think we have plenty of them in the ecosystem in India.'

Veterans Unpacked | Gurcharan Das: 'Make a life, not just a living'

'Have a purpose in life, and whether in Covid or normal times, retired or working, you’ll know what to do after breakfast each morning.'

Veterans Unpacked | Subroto Bagchi: 'The more virtual the world around us becomes, the more real leaders must be'

Subroto Bagchi on how India/Bharat has changed since the 1970s, gaps in our understanding of the government's reach and why the C-suite must also be 'I-suite' or India-suite.

Veterans Unpacked | Biggest role of a CEO is to connect the dots and sometimes override the excel sheet, says Pawan Goenka

I believe that a leader must work for a superordinate goal, that becomes the reason to come to work every day and aligns and inspires the team, says Dr. Pawan Goenka

Veterans Unpacked | Sunil Alagh on advice he received from Dhirubhai Ambani, importance of sense of humour and more

If you’re a manager in an owner-driven company, then learn to run the business well and leave managing the business to the owner, says former managing director and chief executive of Britannia Industries Sunil Alagh.

Veterans Unpacked | Winning gold all the time isn’t necessary: Sandeep Goyal

Sandeep Goyal, former Chairman Dentsu India, on why it’s not important to win every single time, the value of thinking big and lessons he’s learned over the years.