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In the past few months I’ve been traveling a lot globally. One of the striking things I’ve been observing is the increased number of people of different nationalities I’ve been seeing in different cities. In the past, if you went to, say Dubai, you’d mostly see people of Arab heritage there and if you were in Hyderabad, the majority of the people visible would be Indians, and so on. This no longer holds true—one of the major changes that have taken place over the years is that large cities across the world have become more cosmopolitan in nature. You visit one of the larger cities and you come across people from every corner of the world—in fact, in cities...

As you go through life, you might be asked how many hours of work you put in every day. I am usually confused as to what people actually mean when they ask that. What is their definition of work? Is it the amount of time that you spend in the office, or the amount of time you put in thinking about your job, or is it something that you are doing in parallel with the rest of your life? Is it something you enjoy doing, in which case the number of hours you put in seems immaterial. What about the 15-20 minutes you might spend in the office talking or reading something unconnected with work? All these breaks add up, so if you spend an hour a day at work doing other things, would you still say you...

Something that has always intrigued me is how people tend to react emotionally rather than rationally. An example is the article I read the other day about how a lottery is offering free gasoline for life as its second prize and people say they’d rather win that than the 1st prize. Never mind the fact that the total payout falls far short of the 1st prize. One of the reasons I believe people tend to think like this is it’s a lot simpler in life to eliminate anxiety than to figure out a logical way to solve a problem. This reminds me of something Henry Ford said: “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” It can&rsquo...

While we would all like to be in the ideal situation where we get along well with all our co-workers, this does not usually happen. So, how do you work with someone you don’t like? I have found that it is usually a good idea to separate your feelings of dislike and concentrate on the professional relationship. It is natural, when you don’t like someone, to focus only on their aggravating habits. But I try and ask myself what good points the person has and try to focus on those instead. After all, he is there in this organization because someone sees value in him, even if I am unable to do so.