Author Archive for KR Ravi

Try these two exercises with a group of adults. Assemble three dozen people of which roughly half are women. Tell them that you are trying to do a test to confirm research findings that women fare poorly in a test of their math skills when compared to men. Try another exercise. Assemble another class in [...]

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see” – Henry David Thoreau Young executives can draw much insight into the art of innovative thinking from this Thoreau wisdom. In World War II, British and US air forces faced a rising number of their planes being either destroyed or having to hastily [...]

In a hilarious sequence in one of his immortal films Charlie Chaplin ambles into a shipyard and finds himself right next to a big ship with no one around. He cannot resist fiddling with the ship. He notices that the ship has been tethered with ropes. In his inimitable bumbling way Chaplin loosens just one [...]

I decided to test my favourite food-related hypothesis. My hypothesis is based on my own behaviour as well as my family and friends. My hypothesis is as follows. We tend to eat more of a food item – say dosas – when we eat at home and less when we eat the same item in [...]

On a visit to India, internationally renowned creativity guru Dr. Edward de Bono was asked in what way the Indian mind was different from those he encountered elsewhere in the world. Dr Bono replied insightfully, “Elsewhere people could be accused of missing the woods for the trees. In India people miss the wood for the [...]

Recently I bought a couple of management books at a bookstore in South Mumbai. The books cost me a minor fortune. As I walked out of the store something struck me as very strange. This store was situated right in the midst of a locality with several business schools and headquarters of many companies including [...]

The editor of a Delhi based newspaper wrote an article bemoaning the fall in standards of the Indian Foreign Service. It was but natural that this article would be followed by a barrage of letters from readers, some agreeing with him and some not amused. Some of the letters were truly insightful and gave glimpses [...]

I had occasion to discuss the ongoing Wall Street crisis with two of my friends. One of them lives in Singapore and the other works for a nationalised bank in Chennai. My Singapore friend remarked that with capitalism having capitulated his executive friends are reading Karl Marx with great respect! My Chennai friend who dreaded [...]

In an article in The Hindustan Times, television star Barkha Dutt contrasts presidential debates in the US with poll campaigns in India. I notice that, on most occasions, when Indians (including yours truly till I moved to the US) compare India to the US, they go misty eyed, gushing with total admiration for the US [...]