22 years in big world-class organisations (ITC, Amazon, BCG) and startups (Pinelabs, Inmobi, Practo) taught me this crucial lesson amongst many others:
Anyone can inflate problems.
The real Most Valuable Players (MVPs) shrink mountains into molehills.
There's a Hindi saying that captures this perfectly: "Rai ka pahad koi bhi bana sakta hai, zaroorat hai unki jo pahad ka rai banaye." Anyone can make a mountain out of a mustard seed. What we need are people who can turn mountains back into mustard seeds.
The Hindi version packs more punch, honestly.
The Crisis Test.
I've sat in hundreds of crisis meetings over two decades. The pattern is always the same. Some people walk in and the temperature rises. Others walk in and everyone exhales.
The first group amplifies. They add context that increases anxiety. They surface risks that aren't actionable. They ask questions that spiral the room into worse-case scenarios.
The second group absorbs. They listen, filter, and respond with "here's what we're going to do." They take a 10-alarm fire and methodically reduce it to a 3-alarm situation that has a clear path forward.
Both groups are working hard. Only one is actually helping.
