What a fable about meerkats tells us about innovation
Discipline and maverick ideas—both are necessary for dealing with rapid change and coming out ahead, say John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber in their book ‘That’s Not How We Do It Here’
D Shivakumar
Operating Partner
Advent International
Shivakumar is Operating Partner at Advent International. Before this, he was President (Corporate Strategy and Business Development) at Aditya Birla Group. Earlier assignments include: Chairman & CEO at Pepsico India and prior to that, Managing Director at Nokia India. Before joining Nokia, he worked with consumer electronics maker Philips and top consumer goods firm Hindustan Unilever. He is an engineer from IIT Chennai and an MBA from IIM Calcutta.
Shivakumar has written three books: Reflections - a collection of Shivs articles; The Right Choice - Resolving Ten Career Dilemmas; and The Art of Management. The latter two are business bestsellers.
My contributions
71 articles written
Are you persuadable?
An ability to change decisions is not about inconsistency, it is about flexibility. Insights from Al Pittampalli’s book ‘Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Mind to Change the World’
What makes a winner
Insights from Larry Weidel’s book ‘Serial Winner: 5 Actions to Create Your Cycle of Success’
How we think and how we can get better at collaboration
Insights from Dawna Markova and Angie McArthur’s book, ‘Collaborative Intelligence: Thinking with People Who Think Differently’
Managing the matrix: How to cope with ambiguity and change
A matrix organization is more flexible and better able to respond to dynamic situations. But working in a matrix requires a different set of skills than in hierarchical structures. Insights from Kevan Hall’s book ‘Making the Matrix Work’
The most successful football manager shares how to be a great leader
Insights from the book ‘Leading’ by Alex Ferguson, former manager of Manchester United with Michael Moritz, chairman of Sequoia Capital.
How to make meetings purposeful
Insights from Al Pittampalli’s book ‘Read This Before Our Next Meeting’ on how to get more done
Does your team have runners or passive riders?
In his book ‘Move Your Bus’, Ron Clark talks about the different kinds of people companies typically have—high performers, the dependables, average workers and deadweights—and what leaders can do to get the best out of their teams
How to be an objective leader
Seeing things as they are, without letting our biases distort things, is key to taking the right actions, says Elizabeth Thornton in her book, 'The Objective Leader'
How To Be Your Best
In his book 'Are You Fully Charged?' Tom Rath says, pursue meaningfulness, not money to find joy in work and life