It’s said that each of us have a minimum of 5 natural talents or strengths. My top 5 CliftonStrengths® are Activator®, Strategic®, Restorative™, Responsibility®, and Communication®. I have been exploring, discovering and working with these Talent themes for almost 15 years now and here's what I've noticed:

The reality was that I was very blank political bureaucracy-wise. In fact, I wish he had helped me to gain that awareness. Political savvy is a key success factor not only for politicians but in the same way for business leaders.

A role model is often perceived as aspirational, someone who has already achieved what you want, who could be from another country and have a vastly different trajectory from the one you're currently seeking. Therefore, you feel separate from it.

Many companies offer only a limited number of paid 'festival leaves' that a person can avail of within a certain period. These days include the big holidays such as Diwali, Eid or Christmas. This seems reasonable since there are multiple festivals and religions in India.

Teaching is the best way to ensure that you have understood something thoroughly; that's nothing new. But, to experience it again after quite a long time was an excellent reminder. Also, while teaching you have to make things explicit that you have understood without knowing or rationalizing why.

The notice period - it's that murky gray area where for some odd reason, dynamics between employers and employees often take a turn for the catastrophic.

Hands up if you’ve said, “I’m too busy,” or “Too tired right now,” or “Don’t have the bandwidth.”  These are all little sentences that give your mind a legitimate excuse to not do the work your were supposed to do. They cause you to delay important tasks endlessly and eventually it leads to procrastinating. But if you look deeper, maybe you are simply afraid of doing the work.

A common question I get asked at events is, “What do you do?” Normally I would tell people that I am a professional coach or trainer. The word or label trainer/coach has some connotations which are more along the lines of conditioning (dogs), or sports people, etc.

One of Gallup’s CliftonStrengths® I’ve been giving more thought to lately is Focus®. People who have high Focus® essentially have a natural talent to center everything around one thing and push that through.

A couple of months ago, my business partner, Jill Sheldekar and I facilitated an off-site team development workshop. On one hand, there was a lot of cognitive content, but on the other, we required the team to go out of its comfort zone and think creatively about its future. We knew the “success” of this team development workshop hinged on them pushing through this barrier.