THOUGHTS &
NOTES

You know that moment when someone jumps into a PE-backed role… eyes shining, MoM targets dancing in their head, thrilled by the challenge, the build, the “I’ll help write the value-creation story”. And then reality hits.   The learning curve is addictive. The work is fun, intense, endlessly stretching you. But the exit, that whispered promise in the interviews, keeps drifting further away.   What starts as a series of sprints becomes a marathon.   And just when you think you’

Yesterday, he told me a story from his childhood on a farm that stayed with me. A duck was given chicken eggs to incubate. She warmed them, protected them, raised them. And when the chicks were born, they followed her everywhere. One day, she did what any duck mother would do: She led them to the pond. She jumped in. They followed. And they drowned. Not because they lacked courage. Not because they weren’t trying hard enough. But because they were not built for that environme

Across companies and countries I keep noticing the same thing. It ’s not that people can’t think strategically. It ’s that they don’t bother anymore. Why would they? Most employees, even smart, senior ones, have been trained by experience to stay in their lane: ·      Strategy is decided somewhere else. ·      Their role is to “execute,” not to question or reshape it. ·      When they did try to think differently at some point, no one listened. Or worse, they were punished