"CEOs can't wait to read Sunny Bindra's articles every week."

Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature last week, and it meant a great deal. He is only the fifth person of African birth to win the prize, and the closest to our own shores—his birthplace is Zanzibar, that captivating, mysterious island across the waters from Kenya. Why is this such a big deal? […]

A fond memory from childhood popped up in my head the other day. The neighbourhood kids were all out playing, as was the norm back then. There were no “devices” available to us other than makeshift toys, perhaps a ball or two. Entertainment was confined to a single cartoon show from the Voice of Kenya […]

This gentleman once had a big corporate job. He was an executive director at a large business, at global level. Finding his work bereft of meaning, however, he didn’t last. He catapulted himself out of his office chair and into a life of doing the work he actually loves—studying, teaching, guiding, advising, writing. James Suzman […]

Lionel Messi cried. A lot. Football’s leading icon showed up at a press conference to announce his sudden departure from his beloved club, FC Barcelona, after two glorious decades there. As he stood to make his speech he faltered, his voice breaking. Then came the flood of tears. After recovering, he went on to say […]

An admission: I have been wrong many times – right here on this page. That should not be news to anyone, but somehow it is. We are, all of us, prone to error. We can not only be wrong, but egregiously, terribly wrong. To err is human, as Alexander Pope pointed out aeons ago (and […]

The owners of the elite European football clubs seemed to plunge themselves into a collective sudden-onset madness a couple of weeks ago. 12 top clubs announced they were to be part of a breakaway European Super League, to replace the UEFA Champions League on their calendars. The difference? The elite clubs would run the new […]

Don’t keep score. That’s the advice professor Scott Galloway gives people, often imparted on his podcasts. He refers to the habit of tallying that bedevils our closest relationships. Some of us mistake relationships to be merely a series of transactions. You were good to me, so I can return the favour. You were generous yesterday, […]

Plumbers are needed by everyone. It’s a vital service, because all homes and buildings will encounter plumbing issues. What needs to be done is usually straightforward, but it’s also messy and awkward – and so not many folks aspire to be plumbers. Those who do take it up as an occupation seem to despise their […]

First hide from your own shadow Then, you may cry. Turn down all the lamps Then, you may cry. What do most of us do when we suffer adversity? We spread it around. We offload. We look for our nearest and dearest and our kith and kin, and even complete strangers, to complain about our […]

If you work in corporate life, questions of meaning keep bubbling up. Really, is this all there is to a good life? For a few more megacorps to make more megaprofits? To devise even more cunning ploys that yield even more short-term payoffs to an elite band of shareholders and executives? Those questions took me […]

Have you ever come across a restaurant that says these things about some of its menu items? “This one is not THAT good.” “This one is NOT authentic…” “I am surprised some customers still order this plate.” Those are actual dish descriptions on the menu of the Aunt Dai Chinese restaurant in Montreal. The owner, […]

The classic novel Siddhartha was first published by Hermann Hesse in 1922. It is the story of a man on a journey of self-discovery. He tries everything to seek wisdom. He renounces material possessions and becomes a wandering ascetic. He reverses into sensual pleasure and material accumulation. He then wearies of the game of life […]

In 2020 I managed to pass a mark I previously thought unreachable – 100 books read in a calendar year. It’s been a very unusual year thanks to a certain virus, and an enforced pause sent me to my bookshelf even more than ever. Here are the best books I read, new and old. My […]

My last column of 2019 was about respecting nature. Little did I know then what the natural world was about to unleash on us in 2020. But I did know this: “Each and every day, a beautiful sunrise occurs. The birds strike up their orchestra to herald another day. The light streams through the leaves; […]

I recently gathered some of the alumni of the leadership programme I founded, to reflect on this craziest of years. My question to them in this virtual congregation was this: yes, we were all caught napping by the pandemic; yes, we all achieved some remarkable business pivots; but what are the lasting lessons of this […]

The man with the hammer is ready to start work. He is employed on a construction site. His job is to attach metal sheets to steel girders. It is a very noisy job. A high-decibel racket is about to ensue. The site is on a quiet residential road in Nairobi. The time is 12 midnight […]

There’s a global pandemic on, for crying out loud. I say this because some of us seem not to understand the gravity of the situation. Some of us seem to regard this thing as a minor irritation, a temporary encumbrance, to be ignored or wished away, so that something called “business as usual” can continue. […]

Amidst the drama of the US presidential election last week, a significant development may have escaped your notice. The Fox News Channel turned on candidate Trump. Fox News and Donald Trump have been kindred spirits for a long time. Fox’s anchors and opinion leaders have supported Trump through thick and thin, backing him to the […]

The coronavirus is the worst virus most of us have encountered in our lifetimes. It has killed more than a million people worldwide; it has brought entire economies to their knees; it has changed the everyday lives of billions. Even as we thought we had a grip on it and managed it and flattened its […]

Face-masks? Who apart from a few knew about them before 2020? Now they are a daily necessity, a wardrobe item. Most of us may think we never put on a mask before this pandemic, but actually we did. I refer not to the triple-layer protection we now sport, but to the masks humans wear by […]

Before 2020 I did not, I am ashamed to admit, really know what a virus was. I knew a little bit, certainly. I knew that viruses are bugs that seem to come out of nowhere; I knew that they cause some terrible diseases; I knew that antibiotics don’t work on them and we really just […]

By December 2019 I was pretty sure I would be writing this particular column in May 2020. Then a certain virus arrived… Jürgen Klopp just took Liverpool Football Club to its first English Premier League (EPL) title for 30 years. Anyone interested in leadership should take a close look at the unique qualities this particular […]

A few months into the lockdowns and slowdowns caused by a pandemic, perhaps we should pause. This is my 900th column for the Sunday Nation, so let me commemorate the occasion by sharing some personal reflections from my own experience of recent reversals; of isolation and distancing; and of thinking about the world to come. […]

People really reveal themselves in a crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most challenging global situations in human history. The health crisis has morphed into an economic cataclysm. And it will reveal who we really are. When times are good, we can all look amiable and generous. When times are bad, whatever […]

The coronavirus has upended the world. A few tiny dudus that seem to have emerged from a market in China have taken over our daily discourse. One country (Italy) is in complete lockdown; many others will have to follow. Wherever you look, airports are empty; airplanes are grounded; hotels, malls, stadia and public squares are […]

Like many of you reading this, I grew up in the tumult of a large extended family. The social milieu was complicated; many uncles and aunts and cousins and family friends were always milling around. Many diverse opinions on pretty much anything under the sun were on offer, all the time. I was a quiet, […]

Time, we can all agree, is really precious. We have very little of it; and we don’t know how much. So where do we expend it? Let me continue the discussion about the time of our lives, begun here last week. As time marches on, and when we have had our fill of trying stuff […]

If a telephone is ringing, it must answered. If you are of a certain generation or earlier, that was just a fact of life. The phone rang, we answered it. Did we want to receive the call right then? Were we expecting it? Did we feel like talking to a random person? Were we busy […]