Search

Results for “Karthik Ramanna”

5 interviews · 10 quotes

Conversations

Interviews

All Interviews

The Truth About Democracy

In recent weeks, we have seen uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan where members of the populous have taken to the streets, demonstrating and disrupting a country over issues ranging…

5 min read

From the archive

Quotes

How many CEOs or heads of government agencies have taken the trouble today to say, 'Who are my five most-thoughtful antagonists? How have I reached out to them, and what efforts do I have in place to create a listening community across those antagonists for when I really need it when the crisis hits?'

— Karthik Ramanna

Managing in the age of outrage is not the same as managing outrage. Managing outrage is crisis management—you can turn it over to a part of the organization that's pro at it and then get on with your day. It's firefighting.

— Karthik Ramanna

If you're managing that way in the age of outrage, basically you're saying your organization will be in constant firefighting mode. That's unsustainable. The organization will very quickly wither and die.

— Karthik Ramanna

One of the best analogies I've heard in this scenario is that, just as you wouldn't want a surgeon to go from one operating theater to the next without having washed their hands, you don't want a manager to go from one context to the next without being in a position where they can actually do some good—or at least do no harm.

— Karthik Ramanna

The idea that you will sit down with someone who's had 30 or 40 years of lived experience in a particular situation, and has been conditioned to analyze the world that way, and then somehow get them to change their mind in one sitting is implausible.

— Karthik Ramanna

There's this sense that our institutions have failed us. The very rich generally pay lower effective tax rates than middle-class and lower-income individuals. There's a sense that the system is broken, the rules of the game are rigged.

— Karthik Ramanna

All three of these causal forces manifest to such a degree of intensity as they do today. They have always been present but have not had this degree of intensity and not all at once. That's what makes this a particularly dangerous moment.

— Karthik Ramanna

The idea that you will sit down with someone who's had 30 or 40 years of lived experience and then somehow get them to change their mind in one sitting is implausible.

— Karthik Ramanna

What you might think of as a cognitive response is really a product of the lived experiences you bring to the table. You might think of them as irrational, but in their analysis, it may be you who is irrational.

— Karthik Ramanna

Just as you wouldn't want a surgeon to go from one operating theater to the next without having washed their hands, you don't want a manager to go from one context to the next without being in a position where they can actually do some good—or at least do no harm.

— Karthik Ramanna