Podcast Themes

Ramesh shares his perspectives around why he has chosen to stay with McKinsey. He also speaks about an informal Board of advisors/mentors that he has architected to stay relevant and to stay interested and interesting in the world.

RG speaks about how transitioning from one context to another is a bit like moving from driving a race car to rock climbing. You need to feel the surface before you transfer your weight and move forward. He speaks about the criticality of adopting (not appointing) mentors around you. These informal mentors often act as a feedback loop for the leader to course correct ensuring that hairline cracks becoming fractures.

Rajat speaks about how he grew as a leader through his tenure in the firm. He speaks about the combination of mentorship, apprenticeship and entrepreneurial space where there is a vacuum that one has to rise upto as a recipe for developing leaders effectively and speaks about how that played out in Scandinavia for him.

Jayashri discusses her observations of Shri Lalgudi Jayaraman and how he would unlock the potential of each of his students by tailoring his approach and finding a different set of tools for each individual. She also talks about how he would role-model standards of excellence in his practice of the art form

Mouli underscores the criticality of having sound mentors in today’s world where there are more forks in the road and several choices to be made for all of us. Mouli also talks about his framework for how we all should think about selecting the mentors that guide us. He talks about how Mentors should have seen some parts of the “movie” that you haven’t and should be completely vested in your success with no conflict of interest.

Amit talks about how he has benefited from mentors along the way starting from Hemendra Kothari at DSP Merrill Lynch. He also goes on to talk about how mentors need not be from within the company and how clients could sometimes be great mentors. He talks about how the circle of mentors (which includes KV Kamath, Kalpana Morparia and KM Birla) has evolved organically over time than him going out in an explicit, conscious way to build a group of mentors around him.

We all benefit from mentors at different points in our careers. Pramath talks about his approach to configuring his personal Board of Directors. He describes how he has leveraged his Board of Directors at various points in his career.