Rathi Murthy

Calm should be treated as a design principle at work. Too many workplace systems optimize for speed and constant activity instead of clarity and focus. In Fast Company, I explore why designing for calm leads to better decisions and stronger teams. fastcompany.com/91504301/the-c…

Teams pay close attention to what gets interrupted. What meetings get cut short. What conversations get paused. What work is allowed to run long. These moments teach people what really matters more than stated priorities. Culture forms around what leaders interrupt… or don’t.

Not everything that grows is scaling. Some systems scale cleanly. Others spread complexity faster. A simple test: If growth adds leverage, you’re scaling. If it adds coordination and stress, you’re just moving the mess. The work isn’t faster growth, it’s clearer systems.

A leader can say quality matters. But if every slipped deadline triggers a conversation about speed, the signal is clear. No speeches required. Just repetition. Teams follow what consistently gets attention. Over time, those signals become culture.

I’ve seen transformations stall even when the strategy was solid. Often it’s because trust didn’t grow at the same pace as ambition. When execution moves faster than belief, teams may deliver, but they don’t buy in. Progress sticks when people understand why change matters.

Being right feels efficient. But when leaders are always right, something subtle can happen. Fewer questions get asked. Fewer edge cases surface. Fewer people test ideas out loud. Over time, certainty can shrink the learning capacity of a system, even when intentions are good.

Less signal. Fewer inputs. Clear ownership. That’s often what restores focus, not another framework.

The job of leadership is about reducing noise so the right priorities can stand out.

Misalignment isn’t always the real problem. Sometimes teams are just overexposed.

Honored to be named by Women’s World India as one of the Most Transformational Women in Tech 2026. The work continues; building technology that is thoughtful, inclusive, and worthy of trust. womenworldmedia.com/the-art-of-amb…

AI moves fast but leadership should not move blindly. In this Forbes piece, I share why presence, clarity, and emotional grounding are needed to allow AI to deliver. @forbes #AI #ArtofLiving forbes.com/councils/forbe…

Financial inclusion” can sound abstract. But it’s simple: can everyone access the tools to earn, save, and grow without unfair friction? Tech can close that gap if we design for trust, clarity, and accessibility, not just convenience.

“We listen to views that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard.” — Adam Grant Every leader should sit with that line. Growth begins where comfort ends. Think Again is one of those books that helps you practice it.

As the year winds down, I’m reminded that progress isn’t only measured in output, but in awareness, patience, and care. Grateful for the people, teams, and lessons that made this year full of growth. Wishing you a calm and restorative holiday season.

The fastest way to waste energy in a company is to treat symptoms as root causes. Chasing rabbits. Systems thinkers trace problems upstream, where incentives, process, or clarity broke first. Fix the system once, and you prevent the next hundred fires.

I used to think burnout meant running out of energy. But it usually starts earlier, when your work stops feeling connected to why you started. You can’t calendar your way out of that. The actual fix is rediscovering meaning, not managing time. drgarymorse.com/meaning-and-pu…

Early in my career, I equated urgency with speed. Now I know: urgency requires clarity to be effective. The faster the environment moves, the more your nervous system becomes the bottleneck. Calm is controlled by extra bandwidth.

Every decision writes code into your culture. Small choices compound into system behavior. Systems don’t fail suddenly; they tend to drift. Leadership is noticing the drift before it’s a problem. Great leaders fix the systems that created them.