368: 34.08 Arun Maira - Being heard in a noisier world

NUGGET CONTEXT

Arun talks about the downsides of being a good listener and says that sometimes, it might be harder for people to notice you given the noise around them. He also goes on to talk about how sometimes, we embark on a path of making some noise (through marketing, branding etc.) to be heard but he says that sometimes that path changes who we are in the process and by the time we get to the point where we are being heard, we may not be the same listeners any more that we were when we started out. He quotes Sir John Dalberg-Acton and says that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

GUEST

Arun Maira is a former member of the Planning Commission of India and former Chairman of BCG India. He had a distinguished career in Tata Motors (then called TELCO) and rose to be on the Board of the company. He then had to relocate to the US due to a personal situation and had to reinvent himself at 45\. He has written several books, the most recent one being “Listening for well-being: Conversations with people not like us”.

In our conversation, we discuss some of his key transitions post Tata Motors to the world of Advisory Services. We talk about how he went about making some of those choices and settled into the new context. We also deep-dive into his book on Listening and discuss its impact on various domains. We talk about the art of asking deeper questions, how we could steer through listening, how we can have tough conversations and give hard feedback by listening, the trade-off between richness and reach of conversations and more.

Published in September 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

OTHER GUESTS

1.Vijay Amritraj 2.Amish Tripathi 3.Raghu Raman 4.Papa CJ 5.Kartik Hosanagar 6.Ravi Venkatesan 7.Abhijit Bhaduri 8.Viren Rasquinha 9.Prakash Iyer 10.Avnish Bajaj 11.Nandan Nilekani 12.Atul Kasbekar 13.Karthik Reddy 14.Pramath Sinha 15.Vedika Bhandarkar 16.Vinita Bali 17.Zia Mody 18.Rama Bijapurkar 19.Dheeraj Pandey 20.Anu Madgavkar 21.Vishy Anand 22\. Meher Pudumjee 23.KV Shridhar (Pops) 24.Suresh Naraynan 25.Devdutt Pattanaik 26.Jay Panda 27.Amit Chandra 28.Chandramouli Venkatesan 29.Roopa Kudva 30.Vinay Sitapati 31.Neera Nundy. 32.Deepa Malik 33\. Bombay Jayashri.

DISCLAIMER

All content and opinions expressed in the podcast are that of the guests and are not necessarily the opinions of Deepak Jayaraman and Transition Insight Private Limited. Views expressed in comments to blog are the personal opinions of the author of the comment. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Company or the author of the blog. Participants are responsible for the content of their comments and all comments that are posted are in the public domain. The Company reserves the right to monitor, edit, and/or publish any submitted comments. Not all comments may be published. Any third-party comments published are third party information and The Company takes no responsibility and disclaims all liability. The Company reserves the right, but is not obligated to monitor and delete any comments or postings at any time without notice.