Why most 9-box conversations reward organisational memory instead of organisational evidence. The first time I sat through a talent calibration discussion, I walked into the room with a quiet confidence that now feels almost naive. I had spent days preparing what I believed was the right material for a serious conversation about people. There were…
There is a number floating around leadership circles right now…. 64% of leaders predict a full HR-IT merger within five years. Most people who read that stat nod, file it under “interesting,” and move on. I could not move on. Because hidden inside that prediction is a question nobody in HR is asking out loud….
Every appraisal season, somewhere in a conference room in Mumbai or Bengaluru or Gurgaon, a manager is fighting for a rating. Not for a person… for a rating. The employee’s actual work stopped mattering forty minutes ago. What matters now is the distribution sheet on the screen, the one that says only 10 percent of…
I was sitting in an HRMS evaluation a couple of years ago when a vendor said the sentence that eventually became this article. We were deep into the demo. I asked how their screening algorithm ranked candidates…. what data it learned from, what it penalised, what it quietly rewarded. The salesperson smiled and said, “Ma’am,…
A friend of mine applied to a large tech company last year. She spent four hours on the application. Eleven minutes after submitting, she received a rejection. Not a polite one. A cold, auto-generated line that misspelled her name and thanked her for her interest in a role she had not applied for. No human…
Last month I watched a manager write performance feedback for his team. Except he did not write it. He typed three bullet points into an AI tool, got back four polished paragraphs, changed one word, and hit send. The whole exercise took ninety seconds. Six months ago, that same feedback would have taken him forty…
I still remember the ritual. Every year, around budgeting season, L&D leaders across companies would open last year’s strategy deck, stretch the timelines, add a few new competencies, and call it a three-year roadmap. It felt responsible. It felt strategic. Leadership nodded because a three-year plan signals seriousness. Here is the uncomfortable truth I have…
I want to tell you about a conversation I had with a senior manager in a financial services firm. He had been with the organization for eleven years. Deeply loyal. Deeply trusted. The kind of person whose name comes up in every succession planning conversation. When I asked him what he was working on that…
There is a story I keep thinking about. A mid-sized financial services firm in Mumbai was known for two things inside the industry. First, sharp quarterly numbers. Second, an HR team that was perpetually hiring. Every year, the leadership would celebrate revenue milestones in glossy town halls. And every year, quietly, somewhere between 28% and…
Part 1: The Sentence That Nobody Questions I have noticed that there is one sentence every organisation seems capable of saying with extraordinary confidence. “She’s High Potential.” The confidence has always fascinated me more than the sentence itself. Nobody interrupts the meeting to ask what the phrase actually means. Nobody asks how the conclusion was…
