327: 30.03 Vinay Sitapati - The reflection habit - decoding signal from the noise

NUGGET CONTEXT

Vinay talks about Narasimha Rao’s habit of reflection and journaling which helped him deal with the ecosystem he was in. Vinay talks about how Rao used the habit of journaling to develop a nuanced understanding of the context he was in which helped him deal with situations of grey effectively. He also talks about how he managed to gather intelligence around what was happening around him despite his lonely nature.

GUEST

Vinay Sitapati is an Assistant Professor in Political Science and Legal studies at Ashoka University. He has a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, in addition to degrees from National Law School Bangalore and Harvard University. His book - Half Lion: How P.V Narasimha Rao Transformed India (Published by Penguin Randomhouse) - traces P.V. Narasimha Rao’s journey from his modest beginnings in Telangana to the post of the Prime Minister. More importantly, the book talks about the fact that despite heading a minority government, P.V. Narasimha Rao was able to drive significant reforms that have fundamentally altered the economic trajectory of the country.

In our conversation, we spoke about P.V. Narasimha Rao’s unfettered curiosity across disciplines, his resilience that saw him manage the vicissitudes in his political career, his intellectual and implementation agility, his ability to reflect and introspect, judgment around playing like a Lion, Fox or a Mouse depending on the context, capacity to reinvent himself across various shifts and turns in his journey, how he built teams and added value as a leader, how not making a decision was a decision in itself and driving change through a complex system where there is visible short-term pain but long-term gain.

This podcast is for information and learning purposes only. All content and opinions expressed in this podcast are that of the guests and are not necessarily the opinions of Deepak Jayaraman or Transition Insight Private Limited (TIPL). Deepak Jayaraman and TIPL do not have any political affiliations or associations of any sort and this conversation is intended to be a non-partisan interaction.

Published in June 2018.

HOST

Deepak is a Leadership Advisor and an Executive Coach. He works with leaders to improve their effectiveness and in helping them make better decisions specifically around organizational and career transitions. He currently runs Transition Insight (www.transitioninsight.com) and works with leaders to handle phases of transition thoughtfully. He has worked as an Operations Consultant with KPMG in UK, Strategy Consultant with McKinsey in the US and as a Leadership Consultant with EgonZehnder (a Swiss Leadership Advisory firm) where he helped companies recruit CEOs, CXOs and Board Members and worked on Leadership Development. Deepak is a certified CEO Coach and is an alumnus of IIT Madras, IIM Ahmedabad and London Business School. His detailed profile can be found at https://in.linkedin.com/in/djayaraman

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