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Associate Editor and Bureau Chief—India

Russ Volckmann

Raghu Ananthanarayanan

Raghu Ananthanarayanan

Background

Raghu is a Post-Graduate in Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is a leading consultant to several blue chip companies–Indian as well as Multinational. Raghu has devoted almost two decades to transforming the organisational culture of several leading organisations. He is one of the founders of Sumedhas–The Academy for Human Context. He is a visiting faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He has taught at Institute of Rural Management, Anand, and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
Present Focus
Raghu’s present focus is in organisation design, change management and leadership coaching. He has developed a unique methodology called “Totally Aligned Organisation” that brings together his understanding of Manufacturing Systems, Human Processes and Yoga. Raghu has published a book “Totally Aligned Organisation” (second edition published by Productivity and Quality Publishing Limited in 2008) where he has elaborated upon some of the key ideas from Yoga and process work that he has used in a management context.
Raghu is actively involved in the developing learning laboratory landscape of India through his involvement in Sumedhas. He has pioneered the use of theatre in lab work. He has also been actively involved in taking forward the seminal work of Clare Graves and Don Beck into developmental work and coaching.
Yoga
He has studied yoga with Yogacharya Krishnamacharya & TKV Desikarchari. He has taught yoga at Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram for a decade and published a world-renowned book on Yoga “Learning through Yoga” (second edition published by Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in 2002). His post graduation in Bio Medical Engineering is based on a study of Asana & Pranayanma in the therapy of Back Pain. Raghu is a leading Behavioural Scientist and uses the Yoga Sutras as one of the foundations of his laboratory learning methodology.
Work with NGO’s
Raghu has worked with several NGO’s helping them in personal development, leadership coaching and organisation development. He is also actively involved with reviving craft groups and theatre. Raghu has worked with a Tamil theatre group called Koothu-p-Pattarai. This group is renowned for its style which bridges the traditional Tamil form with modernity. He has helped the group develop an actor training methodology that uses many techniques from laboratory learning.

Recent Papers

  1. “On spirituality and organised religion” – Religion and the Arts – A journal from Boston college – Volume 12-1-3 (2008).
  2. “Frameworks, Alignment Systems and Models for Organisation Development” – Organisation Building – Pragmatics and Perspectives – Indian Academy for Organisation Development Sumedhas, 2007
  3. “A framework for describing organisation models and a path of transformation” – Raghu Ananthanarayanan & Bruce L Gibb – Organization Development Journal (USA) – Volume 20 – Number 4 – Winter 2002

In addition, he has published articles in the Integral Leadership Review.

Raghu has been passionate in attempting a convergence between Indian traditional wisdom and modernity. He has brought this to bear on all the fields of his work. He serves on the board of a few leading companies in India. He is the Chairperson of Sumedhas- Academy for Human Context.