Anuradha Sridharan

I'm a stickler for timings when it comes to my meals. I prefer to eat on time (mostly!). If someone takes up my time while my stomach is growling, I get extremely irritated. The Sneakers ad must have been based on my reactions, I suppose. Due to a certain miscommunication, I had to wait at my daughter's pediatrician clinic today for nearly an hour during lunch time. My temper was at its peak and D was her "naughtiest" self during the wait time. Though I ensured she ate her lunch, it didn't occur to me that I should have atleast grabbed a banana before stepping out. Thankfully, I kept my temper under control and it wasn't lashed out on anyone close (*hubby* dear!). While eating my lunch at 3 PM today, I couldn't help but remember one of my ex-bosses who had this habit of scheduling meetings between 12 and 2 PM. He is one of the best bosses, mind you. But I didn't have the guts to tell him that the timings weren't working for me. Those were the da...

peteoshea / CC BY 2.0 For anyone dealing with knowledge work that requires deeper thinking, analysis, unraveling assumptions and developing solutions, writing is a must-have skill. Whatever be your role - a developer, designer, product manager, marketer, analyst etc, I would highly recommend that you develop writing as a conscious practice. I'll give you 5 reasons why you should invest diligently in this practice. 1) Provides clarity A vague problem for which I seek solutions becomes more clear if I sit down and write about the problem statement in actual words. It gives great clarity and helps me to think through the problem scenarios in great detail. 2) Gives directions As I write down the problem statement, I automatically reflect and think through the causes and context. It also helps me to go deeper into various aspects of the problem and the expected outcome. As a result, I have a good "approach" or steps that I need to take to solve the problem. It doesn't hav...

I'm starting off 2015 reading list with this interesting book on organization culture and customer service - " Delivering Happiness ". When we talk about best work culture, there are few firms that come to our mind instantly - Google , Hubspot , Buffer and the pioneer of them all, Zappos. This book is a first-person account of how Tony Hsieh grew Zappos from ground-up, the challenges faced and the foundations laid towards the best customer service and inspiring work culture. There are multiple lessons for people building startups as well as for those who are looking to focus on customer experience/service as their core strategy. What I really like about in this book is that it doesn't jump into the HOWs of customer service. Rather, Tony has taken the time to talk about his entrepreneurship journey and the lessons learned along the way since childhood. It gives the reader good insights into the thought process of WHYs of customer service and organization culture.  ...