Devdutt Pattanaik’s talk at Ohio State University

October 17, 2013

The Ohio State University was one of the stops on Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik’s 2013 USA tour. The evening of October 14th saw students, both Indian and American, from diverse backgrounds, come together to listen to him. The tag of being a celebrated TED speaker and his innovative designation of ‘Chief Belief Officer’ at Future Group certainly piqued one’s interest.

Over the next half an hour, Dr. Pattanaik spoke about different Hindu deities and correlated them to different styles of leadership in management. Sounds offbeat? The audience certainly seemed to think so. The Q&A session was lively, with audience members striving to understand this new view of management better.

The session touched upon topics like differences in perception between cultures, the subjective nature of management and focused on styles of leadership and managing. Simple analogies and vivid images made the talk easy to follow. Dr. Pattanaik was able to extend his analogies to the domain of personal relationships as well, and there were quite a few nods from the audience when he described how different personalities could affect those around them.

The best part of this talk, for me, was how familiar characters from childhood morphed into models to understand concepts like managing a business and household. It definitely put a new spin on long-familiar ideas!

We wish Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik the best for his future talks and work, and hope to hear more thought-provoking stuff!

Interview with Dr.Devdutt Pattanaik

Dr.Pattanaik’s blog

Janani Hariharan
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Janani Hariharan

Editor and Writer at IndiaBookStore
Wanderer, nature freak and lover of all things science-y. Certified devourer of all printed matter.
Janani Hariharan
Find me at

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