[CTQ Smartcast] How should Senior Leaders think about their own Future Relevance? With Nitin Deshpande

Nitin Deshpande is the President of Evolent Health International. He has established and grown Indian sites of companies like Allscripts, BMC Software and Geometric Software Solutions. He's been an active member, contributor and mentor at industry forums like SEAP.

In this Smartcast, hosted by CTQ co-founder BV Harish Kumar, we talked about everything that it takes to create great teams, leaders and culture and how senior leaders should think about their future relevance.

 
 

Prefer an audio version of the Smartcast? Listen below.

 
 
 

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(Read the shownotes below or skip to the transcript)

SOME OF THE THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

  • What does future relevance mean for senior leaders?

  • Need to refresh leadership styles and mental models in these changing times.

  • Importance of being open in managing change.

  • What is expected from the leaders of today?

  • How should young leaders think about their future relevance?

  • Be mindful, when taking care of your people.

  • How to use social media for learning?

  • What can cricket teach you about management and leadership style?

PLUS

  • Future relevance of IITs and IIMs.

AND

  • Future relevance of the Ranji Trophy.

LINKS TO PREVIOUS CTQ EPISODES, BOOKS, PEOPLE AND IDEAS MENTIONED IN THE SMARTCAST

MENTIONED CTQ SMARTCAST EPISODES

BOOKS

PEOPLE

IDEAS

OTHERS

If you enjoyed this Smartcast, you will also like How Outside-In Thinking Helps Create Value For The Future, With K.S. Prashant

TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

00:00:00

Harish Kumar: Nitin Deshpande is President of Evolent Health International. Earlier he has established and grown Indian sites of companies like AllScripts, BMC Software, Geometric Software Solutions. He's been an active member, contributor, mentor at industry forums like SEAP. There are too many people who can take credit for establishing offshore delivery subsidiaries not just once, but repeatedly and becoming an expert in it. Nitin has been known to create great teams and leaders who have blossomed in their own right. So we wanted to pick Nitin’s brains about how senior leaders should think about future relevance, his own leadership style, and the changed expectations for leaders over the years. Nitin has a very unique style of narrating an anecdote to make a point. And this keeps the conversation engaging all the time. We at CTQ work with leaders who are heading India sites with problems like how to build a culture of innovation, or intrapreneurship. If some of the things Nitin says about growing these sites resonate with you, you may also want to check out our work on our website and then do listen to Nitin at his radically candid best. 

00:01:36

Harish: Hi Nitin, welcome to the CTQ Smartcast.

00:01:39

Nitin: Thank you Harish, it's always a pleasure. And this is the first time I'm doing it solo. So I'm a little bit nervous there, but I'm sure you will help me along.

00:01:50

Harish: Oh, yes, I'll definitely help, I’ll pull your leg. And I will send some curveballs your way. So today we wanted to talk about how senior leaders should be thinking about future relevance? So the first basic question just to set the context, what is future relevance? And what does it really mean, for senior leaders like you?

00:02:13

Nitin: Yeah, so actually, I'm a bad example, for that matter, simply for two reasons. One, first reason is that I'm too senior, meaning whatever happens in the future, it’s okay for me. It won't bother me so much. But it's definitely an important issue for people who are not that senior, but are senior enough. So that's one thing, but the other reason why I think it's not as relevant is that, at least I consider myself as opposed to my age, I consider myself kind of more in tune with the current generation. And therefore, again, in that sense, I don't think of myself as a senior. But either way, your question is still valid. And the point is that, the way technology is moving, and I mean, pandemic, of course, was something that nobody could have anticipated. But everything else, the pace, the acceleration that is happening in terms of technology, in terms of other things, in terms of media, and so on, unfortunately, not everybody can remain relevant. Sometimes, because of the fall behind technology, sometimes they fall behind the norms of the new generation. And whether they like it or not, they have to work with the new generation. And to be able to manage people, to be able to manage the technology, and these two things together becomes a very potent, kind of a combination, if you don't remain relevant. If you are senior, and if you want to remain in that kind of a position where you are trying to guide a company or guide a group of people, then there is no choice for you, but to remain relevant on both those fronts.

00:03:51

Harish: Right. Yeah. So Nitin, you mentioned about the pandemic, some people were joking that the pandemic was the digital transformation officer for many companies, right? So the world around us is changing so fast and rapidly. Do leadership styles and mental models need to be refreshed?

00:04:14

Nitin: Absolutely. In fact, the pandemic was a very extreme example, but I'll tell you my own example. So from my own experience, the leadership style, the biases that one has, they keep evolving. I'll give you two concrete examples. One is that when I was young, unfortunately or fortunately, I was always in a managerial position and in an entrepreneurial position, so I had that, a kind of a clout or whatever I used to say to my kids were very young that time that, you know, I'll never hire a person with a pony, a man with a ponytail and or a piercing or even a tattoo. Because he should associate that in my mind, I used to associate that with casualness, not serious enough, all of that. And, you know, fortunately, I didn't have to actually act on it, because those days, it was relatively rare. And then fast forward, when I was an entrepreneur, I was working in the US and Canada and all that. And there was the first person I met, had all those three things. A ponytail, ear piercings and  tattoos, and he was supposed to be my main client. The guy was supposed to deliver and implement my software there. And I said, “Oh, my God, this is a disaster.” And then I actually started working with him. And guess what I mean, literally, in three days, I realized how wrong I was. And I realized nobody could have been more sincere, nobody could have been more intelligent, nobody could have been more dedicated than this person. I still remember his name was Rick, in Vancouver. I don’t wear jeans to the office. And that's when I realized that, just because you're wearing jeans and sneakers to office doesn't take away your sincerity or your willingness to the extent that of course, after that, I realized that that's probably become the de facto uniform of techies. So you know, things change, things constantly evolve. This is just one example. Another example I'll give you about the mental model, how to change. I was a firm believer in not working from home, I used to always think that you work from home means they are passing time, and he is not going to work enough. And of course, they were always exceptions. And, you know, I used to kind of say to myself that, if Harish asked for work from home, that's okay, because I know him. If Vrushabh asks, there’s an issue. I had these mental blocks, or I used to try to judge the person based on how many times he worked from home and things like that. In fact, the pandemic really changed that in its head. And to the extent that now I say that as and when we do go back to this hybrid model, we are broadly thinking that we will probably have six weeks at home and one week in the office or five weeks at home one week in office or something like that. And I'm telling my managers now, look at that one week, when your team is going to be in the office, assume your productivity is going to be minimal. All your productivity is going to be at home, when they come to office, they will be spending more time gossiping and abusing you and all that, rather than actually doing work and having lunches and dinners and whatnot and catching up. So just imagine I mean, this is like a 180 degree turn. I mean, from work from home being associated with low productivity to, that's the only way to work, that's where you're going to get productivity. So these are the kinds of things that need to be refreshed all the time. And these are probably two extreme examples, but I'm sure there are several others like that.

00:08:03

Harish: Right. So Nitin you gave these examples, and you've talked about how these were like this hit you in the face, right? But in order to acknowledge this, you also need to be open, you need to be ready to acknowledge that, yes, there is a change. So how do you manage to do that?

00:08:22

Nitin: No, you're absolutely right, actually, I always say that the first thing that you need to improve is willingness to accept that the current situation is not the best, or the way I'm behaving is not the best, that there could be a better way of doing it. And oftentimes when we give feedback to people also about their own individual performance, etc, I find that there's some people who come with a very defensive mindset and there's an excuse for everything that you will say, and in my mind, I know that this guy is not going to improve because he's not willing to accept that he could be doing something which can be done better. I'm not saying it was bad, but it can be done in a better way. So I think that's what is the most important, the attitude that if you listen to others and in my case, it helps that I am always surrounded by people much younger and much smarter, generally. So, once you acknowledge that, the younger generation, unlike ours, is smarter than you are. Some characteristics might be different. I mean, not just physical and visible characteristics, but mental characteristics might be different but they think of better ways of doing things, they think of better ideas, and you should be willing to listen and introspect. And again, it might sound cliche, but you know that's really what it is. I mean you should be willing to. If somebody is doing something differently, you should be willing to examine it with an open mind. Is it better than what I'm doing? And if so, embrace it. We have four core values in my company and one of them is to start by listening. And I really thought that it was a really brilliant way of putting it. Start by listening, don't start by talking or telling others, start by listening no matter who you are. So that's one thing. And the other thing, that second value, is radical candor, which is to communicate with candor, which means that not only do you want to listen, but also you want to speak as frankly as you possibly can without being rude or without being insulting. So once you put these two things together, and this just so happens that my current company has these two values, but I realized that innately, the first one, particularly starting by listening, is something which I've always believed in but was not articulated like that. But you know, I have a quick anecdote. So in another previous company, we used to collect feedback and all that, from 360 degree feedback, typically. So my HR head actually told me that the only thing I'll tell you is that you give your time too freely to employees, and to vendors, and everybody else, which means that, and that's why you have to work harder, because you have to spend more time. So why don't you cut it down? And I thought about it, I said, “No, this is something which is very important to me, because this is exactly what I want to do. I want to listen to people down the line, not just people who report to me, but across the board, and my vendors and my customers.” And you know, that's only then you learn the truth. Otherwise, if you rely only on the reports, and what your reportees tell you, then you are going to be living in an ivory tower. So that's another thing which helps me do that.

00:11:51

Harish: Right. Nice anecdote there and probably that is going to lead to the next question. So what is expected from you today as a leader? That was not expected, say, back in the early 2000s? Or even before that?

00:12:09

Nitin: Yeah. So first of all, one thing, I mean, specific years may be different, but in general, the opportunities were not as many. And right now today, when we are sitting in the end of September 2021, it's gone to the other extreme, where I remember the saying that there was a board put up in the campus, saying that trespassers will be recruited. So it's that kind of a thing right now. But even if you take this extreme situation aside, in general, the kind of opportunities which are available are much more now. So it was a little easier to retain people, even if you know, the technology was not there, for example, I grew up on COBOL. When I started we didn't think of any problem working on COBOL, even though people kept saying that this technology is going to be dead soon, and etc, they still work on COBOL, by the way, but even in the 80s and 90s, people used to say that this is going to be outdated, etc. But you know, there was not this fear of losing people because of technology. Also, training people was very different. It was in some sense, it was more difficult because, that time we had to do a classroom training, you had to have a batch, you know, so you couldn't afford to have individualized trainings today with all the, like, everyone and his dog is doing Python now and calling himself a data scientist. So that seems to be like the flavor of the month.

00:13:40

Harish: Started with Pavlov’s dog.

00:13:42

Nitin: I know. So, imagine those days Infosys and TCS and everybody else, Wipro. I remember going to Infosys and looking at the training center. Oh my God, I mean, it was like a university. And I had gone there as a customer so they showed me with great detail as to what all they did, which was very impressive. They had like a battalion of PhDs who were educationists. I mean better than any university that I could see. So that was a big job, it was not easy. Now, it's so much easier when you want to get somebody trained. Also, one other thing which was very different was and I'm not saying it's good or bad, but different was the whole political correctness and this whole ‘Me Too’ and grievances and all that, I think, the skins have definitely become thinner now. And again, like I said, I don't mean to say it in a bad way. I mean, it's, I'm not saying it's bad.. but like it or not, you could give feedback using some words which would be considered harassment or more than that today. Even some of the terms did not exist. If at that time you had mentioned LGBTQIA, they would have thought you were mad. Today, it means something. And you immediately realize that, yeah, you have to be sensitive to these things. So this was different. And, of course, the whole vuca thing. I mean, we all know how the world's volatility is just accelerating. In those days, it was relatively secure. I remember when Y2K was around the corner. I mean, people were working on Y2K for years. With the pandemic, you realized that one fine day you have to pack up and start working from home. So that's the kind of volatility that has come about today. And of course, as the world is now much flatter, and therefore your reach is global. I mean, today, when we arrange an event for let's say, you are talking to me when we happen to be in the same city right now. But you could be talking to somebody sitting across the globe. And we now have events where we call them. The other day, we had an event where we called Amit Phadnis who was speaking from Wisconsin, you know, so those are the things which have started making now those are good things and bad things. So today, if Google wants to recruit from Pune or Nagpur, they can do it right. And you and I, or at least we have to compete with them to offer a job and the salary and the kind of work that they do. So all these things put together, the job has become so much different. And it's exciting. In some ways, it is difficult. And that's probably why it is also exciting.

00:16:51

Harish: Right. So you spoke about what has changed. So what has remained the same in terms of expectations from a leader?

00:16:58

Nitin: Lots of things, actually. The most important thing I would say is the culture. The cultural aspect, which means being honest, transparent, having integrity, being humble, I talked about listening, genuinely caring for people and their growth. People see through it very easily. Companies talk about it, it will give you this growth. But if it is not sincere, it's pretty apparent very soon that it is not what it is. And that's why attrition rises. And I'm not saying we don't have attrition, but typically, we tend to have lesser attrition than others, we tend to get much better engagement, results, and so on, so forth. So just as an example, our internal engagement surveys are always very good, like 95% plus, proving it on every count. But we just did a Great Place To Work certification. And literally like two days ago, with the total that we have, we don't know the details, but they said that you're certified, they put our name on the list. Now this doesn't happen, unless you genuinely care for people. And that doesn't change, no matter what. All the other things are changing. And how you show that caring can be manifested in different ways. COVID times you have to show your care in different ways. At other times, you showed in different ways. But that's something which will always be there. I mean, so long as people are there, people caring for each other, and being honest and listening to each other there will always be equity, the fairness bit right. No matter what your inclusivity I mean, I put the two together equity and inclusivity. The other thing which doesn't change is customer focus. Lots of new tools have come in, the whole CRM thing is so big and but then ultimately, there's no substitute for you genuinely caring for the customer's success and genuinely caring for what the customer is saying. So, in some situations you feel that you can be a winner, I'll give you a classic Pune example. People used to joke about Chitales. How they don't care about the customer today, look at them, they show their care about the customer much more so I don't know whether you're forced to do it because of the competition or the new generation that came in to change it. But today, I mean, it's like they're growing like crazy. We've always got, but probably not as customer-focused as they are today. And then the growth automatically comes. So that's the other part which doesn't change, you care about the customer, you either fulfill a need for the customer or you fix a hotspot for the customer, one of the two, right. Unless you satisfy a genuine need. You're not going to go anywhere, and how do you know that unless you actually relate to the customer and try to find out.

00:19:53

Harish: Right. Yeah. So I think what you basically talked about is human centricity, whether it is employees or customers. Think of your customer, as somebody that you care for empathizing with both sides of the, of the boundary, I guess.

00:20:11

Nitin: Absolutely. And by the way, I should just add, because I said about employees and customers a third dimension, which people often forget is the vendors or partners. I mean, calling your vendors sounds a little insulting, but ultimately they're giving you some service or goods. Again, I'll give you a quick example. So, during the pandemic, so many people went back and you know, obviously, the officers were shut for a long time. So all the office staff, housekeeping staff and security, all those people were laid off, right, and usually they're not your employees anyway, so you feel less bad about it, let's put it that way. Not that you don't feel as bad. And you tell the company who work with them that we don't need them, we can manage without it. We didn't do that. We told the companies that were giving that manpower to as well as the housekeeping, pantry boys, and, all the security and all that, that, look, we don't need them. But so long as they're there, and they are available, if you need them tomorrow, we will keep paying you and you have to keep paying them. You have to prove to us that you're actually paying. And we have been doing that, our offices are still closed now for one and a half years, we have not let go a single person even though they were not on our roads. And because ultimately, even though they are vendors, I mean, see if we don't pay them, they will probably have no choice but not to pay their employees. And then we have more of the problems that we have today. This is one example. Another example, I'll say is that anytime you know somebody tries to negotiate, my procurement department tries to negotiate too much, etc. And if I found out and I said, “Look, remember that unless that guy makes a reasonable profit. It's not in your interest. If it doesn't make reasonable profit. You want him to make a reasonable profit.” Yes, it should not be an abnormal profit, but you want him to prosper. You want him to do reasonably well. And that's again, that's an attitude which most people don't understand, particularly on the procurement side.

00:22:17

Harish: Yeah, again, I think that's a great example. Nitin, we know that you love your quizzing. So we're going to interject this interview with a couple of quiz questions. And I hope the latter part of this question is factually correct as well. So Sajjan Lal Purohit acted in many Bollywood films from 1948 to 1996. The 96 one, I think, was an untreated one. But his most memorable role was in a Ramanand Sagar produced TV show, starring Arun Govil. How is his role? The character connected with Pune and I'm guessing your current background as well.

00:22:56

Nitin: How is his role in the series? So that's basically Ramayan.

00:23:02

Harish: It’s not Ramayan. With Arun Govil, it is produced by Ramanand Sagar.

00:23:09

Nitin: Ah, okay. So this must be related to the Bhandarkar Institute.

00:23:18

Harish: Not Bhandarkar Institute.

00:23:25

Nitin: Law College? Sorry, Film Institute?

00:23:27

Harish: No, think of the second most famous TV show on DD starring Arun Govil.

00:23:33

Nitin: Mahabharat.

00:23:34

Harish: He was not in Mahabharat.

00:23:37

Nitin: Arun Govil was in I can’t remember, sorry.

00:23:40

Harish: One season, I think hardly 26 episodes, 26 stories

00:23:46

Nitin: Arun Govil. Now I can't remember.

00:23:48

Harish: Arun Govil’s character was Vikramaditya.

00:23:55 

Nitin: Okay, okay. Yeah, I didn't see that one. Vikramaditya related to...

00:24:03

Harish: Think of the other character Vikramaditya and who?

00:24:08

Nitin: Yeah, Betaal. Oh, yeah. Vikram aur Betaal. Oh, yeah, I should have known that. I should have definitely known that. Yeah, by the way. I mean, somehow for a moment I was in my mind. I was picturing Nitish Bharadwaj. And surprisingly, you may not know this, but he came on some Marathi musical reality show. And the guy not only speaks Marathi, but his Marathi and his knowledge of Marathi literature and music is phenomenal. Phenomenal is the only word.

00:24:46

Harish: I didn't know that. Yeah. He also plays tennis at Fergusson College occasionally. So if you are ever in that area, you bump into him.

00:24:56

Nitin: I see. Okay, all right. I didn't know that. Yeah.

00:24:58

Harish: So the hill In the background was basically Betaal temple and Sajjan Lal Purohit played the role.

00:25:12

Nitin: Yes, that's absolutely right in fact. Yeah. And with Sajjan Lal Purohit, I kept thinking of all the different roles. Nice.

00:25:21

Harish: All right, let's move on to the next part. So how should younger leaders, entrepreneurs think about their future relevance, their individual future relevance?

00:25:33

Nitin: I think a lot of the things that I said earlier. I mean, those are the principles that you got to embrace. So one, constantly willing to learn. Learning is not just through formal means, but also learning by interacting with people, learning by adapting to technology. So, oftentimes, I have been companies where you've been using something and somebody comes up with an idea that look, look, can we change the technology and generally the established view is, “Oh, it's things are going well, why do you want rock the boat, lets you know, everything is fine, right.” But that's the wrong way of doing it. If you want to be relevant in today's world, particularly with the vocal things that I talked about, I think people will have to constantly be willing to try things out, maybe failing a lot of them. And this is not just about entrepreneurs, I mean, for entrepreneurs, I think entrepreneurial people will understand this, you know, that you have to keep experimenting, keep trying and keep failing forward and so on. But leaders in the conventional sense in who are in managers, in companies, etc, oftentimes, you try to be too risk averse, and the problem with that is, if you continue to sort of stick to the status quo and not really try things out or not really change with the times, soon you'll become irrelevant. I often quote my good friend Anand Deshpande. He had once told me long ago that the way the Indian IT industry is going, the middle management picks people typically with 15 years experience, they have come to a stage where they only forward emails and he said, “Mind you, I'm not saying write emails, this is not even writing the forward. FYI is the only thing that they write.” And that's the layer which will obviously become very irrelevant and redundant. Already that has started happening. And a lot of companies have done that, they’ve pruned out that layer, which was not really relevant in that in any other sense. And this whole concept of just being people managers, and by the way, I'm kind of in that situation today, but I would like to believe that I do add value in terms of understanding what should be done, the strategy and so on, but a lot of them don't understand that if you don't add value. And if you're just a people manager, it can't last for long. So, particularly in today's world. So younger leaders have to either have that technology edge or you have to have some other you know, marketing edge or you have to have something which apart from just kind of taking care of people, and yes, taking care of people is important, very important. But you got to have something else also you have to keep yourself relevant.

00:28:35

Harish: Right, right. And even in the context of taking care of people I think a lot of things are changing. So you have to be mindful of that as well. Right?

00:28:44

Nitin: Absolutely. And, sometimes if your people feel that you are not adding any value to them also then they will stop respecting you. And that's the worst thing that can happen to a leader.

00:28:56

Harish: Right. Yeah. And Nitin, what are your primary sources of knowledge and insight? You spoke about spending a lot of time talking to people. I personally know you're very active on Twitter as well. So besides these, what are your primary sources of knowledge and insights?

00:29:15

Nitin: You took away most of my answer. Some people are active-active on Twitter and some people are passive active. What I mean is they may not contribute but they use Twitter as a very important source of information. So I do a lot of that, apart from writing once in a while, which is not too much. But you know, whether it is Twitter, Facebook, articles from journals, like HBR, etc. The only thing which I don't do, unlike most of my family, is subscribe to CTQ Compounds. I do know that they are really very good. I keep recommending it to people by the way, I don't know whether you know that I keep recommending it to people, but I don't do it myself and not because, I really think it's good but I just that I get that kind of thing from various other sources also. So I do a lot of reading, which I used to read a lot of books. Also, I'm not a great fan of, you know, the, what they call what I would call the Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, etc. You know, I call it pop psychology. I don't really enjoy it much. But you know, if things like Good to Great by Jim Collins or some of the books by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, for example, things like that, you know, I like reading Sapiens and I don't always enjoy the whole thing. But that's something which is important. But more importantly, again, newspapers, so you know, many people have stopped subscribing to newspapers, particularly after the pandemic. We get about five every day and I think eight on the weekends. Different kinds, including the Hindu for various reasons, you know, something you buy for the content, something you buy for the crossword, something you buy for the comic, something you buy for the local news, etc, something you just because you want to read in varieties. So earlier, I used to read a lot of Hindi and Gujarati also, but those, don't get them here. But I do try to read that if possible. So just read as much as you can, even though time is always limited. That's one. And of course, the other thing which you told us, you mentioned, meeting people, but also, I am active in a lot of industry forums. So I'm active in SEAP, as you know, and then I used to be with Time, no longer with time, but I'm also with the Indo American Chamber of Commerce. So you know, in these forums, you meet a lot of people, you exchange notes, so my best source of information for what's happening in the industry, whether it's attrition, whether it is no show statistics, or whatever, recruitment challenges, etc, is just talking to a few friends when you meet and during the pandemic, it was more virtual. I just started meeting people again. But that's what actually gives you a lot of insights. And luckily, I don't know whether it's true with other cities also, because I've always worked in Pune, in India. So luckily, in Pune I find that people are very open and willing to collaborate. And so long as it's nothing very confidential, people are very free with talking about what they are finding and what they are doing, and so on even sharing sources, sharing contacts, all of that. So that really sort of gives me that knowledge.

00:32:53

Harish: Right, right. Yeah. So you know, a lot of what you're talking about, I'm reminded of other podcasts that we've done, where similar ideas, concepts have been mentioned, of course, we did one with Dr Anand Deshpande, he spoke about this. We did one with Arun Iyer who actually moved from a business consulting kind of role to now a product manager kind of role. So he talked about how this whole thing about constantly reinventing himself was talked about. And what you mentioned about Twitter was, again, something that Navin talked about when he spoke about using Twitter as something like a tuning fork, right, we keep talking about the things that you are interested in, and it will resonate with someone. Yeah. And that's how you can actually put social media to good use for innovation for learning as well. 

00:33:46

Nitin: Actually, particularly Navin, and of course, Amit Paranjpe, these two are classic examples of how to use Twitter in a really good way. It's amazing, and they even got tips from them about how to sort of search within that and how to kind of get what you need, without getting bombarded by all the junk that that is toting around,

00:34:07

Harish: Right, right. Yeah. So do you have any systems or routines or hacks for capturing and reflecting on what you learn about the world and people who deal with it? Do you make notes, do you have something like that?

00:34:21

Nitin: Actually, in that sense, I'm quite disorganized. I wish I was much more systematic. My son, for example, people like to talk good about his sons but a couple of things that he does, I wish I was as good as him in that sense. One, he keeps meticulous to do this every day. I mean, strike off and what is urgent. Fantastic, I don't do that. I'm a little more. I personally hate paper, I've given up pen and paper and sometimes your people can sign by hand. It's really tough to say signs, particularly their 50 signatures. But so I don't do that, but I do use some tools. So tools like Outlook have so many features and you know the reminders and on the phone also you have that. So if I want to remember something to be done every week or every month I just put a reminder. And I'll tell you so for all my batches, both from both my college, undergrad and postgrad, I'm the kind of official birthday timekeeper for the batch. So every morning at like five o'clock or six o'clock, my thing goes out of the group. One day something happened and I was sick or something like that, and didn't wish somebody and he got offended, he said, You are not the first to wish me. Also, one simple hack that I use is just creating a ‘to read’ folder on a computer. So anytime I don't have the time right now but I want to read it, I just put that link or the article in that to read folder and then go back to it whenever I find the time. I did the experiment, but I didn't was not successful with it. And I forgot to now, there is a tool which comes, you might actually know it, which you can bookmark kind of a thing across all devices. Pocket. So I tried to go to Pocket but somehow I didn't, I should try it again. But that's another thing, which I thought was really useful. But most importantly, you know, I have a routine where for example, there are some things which I do every morning at five o'clock when I get up and while I'm having my tea, so half an hour that time. Then at lunchtime, usually one to two I book for lunchtime. So lunch doesn't take one hour, lunch takes about 15 minutes. So for the remaining 30 to 45 minutes I do this kind of thing. So that's a daily routine. So every day no matter what I'm doing, that's the time in the morning and in the afternoon. And maybe if time permits at night before sleeping. So these are sort of three slots, which I use.

00:37:07

Harish: Yeah. So tell us about the courses, books, podcasts, articles, sites that have influenced your way of thinking and help you stay relevant in the future, even people for that matter.

00:37:21

Nitin: I mentioned a couple of them to you earlier, Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell, of course, Malcolm Gladwell, his Outliers was a book which I really enjoyed, and I quote that 10,000 hours of work and then later I found out that it was all bogus. Guess what I mean, it's still a good idea. But sometimes it does happen. In fact, that is a Marathi saying I can't remember exactly now but something about you know, when you go too close to a hero, you find that his feet are made of mud or something to that effect. So that's the feeling I got about that Malcolm Gladwell thing, but sometimes what happens is that in your formative years, you read something which at that time you don't even understand. For example, when I was a small kid, like in primary school, I used to live with my grandparents and for some reason, they were obviously much older and they were much more religious etc. So I read the whole Gita, the Marathi version. I read the whole thing, didn't understand most of it, even today, I don't understand much of it. But what happens is that you read it, you may not understand it, and that happens with a lot of literature also, you know, like you read something, you don't understand the full thing, but then sometime later, it comes back to you in some situation, and you think, ah, you don't even realize it but it comes from there. So that's the thing, which I think is very important to keep reading. You know, like the other thing, which I really think is that and this is something which I don't know whether people will agree with it or not. But now when people talk about the cricketing legend, Sachin Tendulkar, right, people say oh, yes so much time for the same ball. Same thing with Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma whatever. But I think what, you know, you think that they think and do it they don't they absorb a lot of them have said that. It's instinctive. But then, is it really instinct? Is it just luck? Or is it just like something? No, it's probably because they've worked so hard at it and they've done it so many times in the nets, in various matches, that it becomes muscle memory. And even they may not be able to explain to you exactly what the physical or chemical science behind that, how they played or be able to showcase. I think a lot of leadership also can be like that. Meaning if you start analyzing it too much then you end up with that analysis paralysis and I've known several leaders unfortunately who have been prey to that. I don't like to analyze too much. In fact, I always tell people don't try to achieve perfection because of the marginal increase in value so suppose you have done some presentation credit representation in let's say, two hours and which you think is 95% okay. How much time will it take to go to 97%, maybe another two hours, to 98% another two hours, 98.5 another two hours, to go from 99.5 to 99.9 will probably take a day so I'm saying that you need to as leaders in real life you have to be able to sell. Okay, the concept of MVP. When you have a viable product, so everything that you do you can take the approach of minimum viable product. I'm not saying that you compromise on quality, that's not a message at all. But you have to know where to draw the line in spending more and more time on trying to improve something which is good enough. Same with decisions because even if you never reach 100% in any decision, there's always some chance that it will fail but you shouldn't try to achieve 99.9% guaranteed and you will never do anything. You'll never be able to move ahead so that's the kind of thing that I learned. So I don't know don't do too much reading, too many chances to use too many tools. Yes, you need the data, you need to ponder over it. You do a little bit of a thing and then go ahead and do it. So that's the other thing which I think is a quality which I think serves me well. I don't know if that will serve others well or not.

00:41:49 

Harish: Right, right. I think all these things that you've talked about, I think it's important for them to be enablers and you're not being subservient to them. They have to be aiding you. As long as that is being done. It's fine. But you can’t be hostage to these kinds of things. Yeah. So then you spoke about cricket so I think it's time to bring out a quiz question. I think this is going to be very well located out of the park. So only Bombay, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Delhi and one other team have managed to win the Ranji trophy consecutive years, which is the other team?

00:42:32

Nitin: Vidarbha

00:42:32

Harish: You get that right.

00:42:35

Nitin: Most people won't get it. It’s only because I’m a Vidarbha fan at heart. Wasim Jaffer is a hero because of that for me. Even though he was an import from Mumbai, yes, he transformed and you should look at his tweets and all that. He is such an amazing guy.

00:42:58

Harish: Yeah, and you could see that Vidarbha was a project that was being built towards that right. I mean it was not a flash in the pan. It was over a period of time that they built towards success.

00:43:04

Nitin: Since we're talking about that. An interesting anecdote so probably one of the people who influenced in all this was Shashank Manohar, he was ICC president from Nagpur and Vidarbha and then later became all the way up to ICC president. It's an interesting sort of trivia so Shashank and I used to play tennis ball under 10 cricket when we were like five years old and we were neighbours.

00:43:29

Harish: Nice and you played cricket at a competitive level?

00:43:35

Nitin: Yeah so school, yes. Nagpur schools also and then I played for IIM and inter industry tournament in IIT. So my biggest sort of a when people say whatever you were the most proud moment it was not about academics or anything else it was when I got introduced and to the great Mushtaq Ali when we had gone to play inter varsity cricket. So he was the chief guest and got introduced and got a cap from him, that was my proudest moment.

00:44:06 

Harish: Great yeah, so any lessons from cricket that you apply in your management and leadership style as well?

00:44:19

Nitin: I'm sure I do, but I don't know whether I'll be able to articulate them like I said a lot of distinctive things but the example that I gave about being instinct taking over that definitely I mean, even when you're answering questions in a rapid fire way etc. You know, it's like a fast bowler bowling to you. You don't have time to think, analyze and then play. You have to immediately let the muscle memory take over. So a lot of times there are situations which are like that, past pulling at you. You don't have the luxury of analysis, this model and that model. You're on the time for that you have to decide and move on. So that's what you do in such cases.

00:45:06

Harish: Right, right. Yeah. Moving to the next few questions, what do you look for in your leaders in terms of how they think of their own future relevance?

00:45:18

Nitin: So I think when you're trying to hire. In fact, when somebody asked me, How do you grow these companies and we have done that, like three times. Now the key is to hire the right kind of people. And when I say the right kind of people, it's exactly what I said about the people who are thinking like you, not necessarily agreeing with you on everything, but who have the same values like you, meaning care for people. That's one example. Integrity, or, you know, being honest, being candid, being open to feedback, listening. By the way, it's not very common to find these people in many of the companies that I've worked in there, you don't see them all around you. So if people are genuinely interested in making a difference. So now, does it mean that I'm always able to identify these characteristics? No, I try but sometimes I fail miserably. Without putting names, I'll tell you that one person, which I thought was the best person ever hired, and like, how could I get so lucky? I had to fire them in two weeks. So that also happens. But fortunately, that ratio is very small. I mean, very, very rarely that I've had to actually do that, by and large people reciprocate. So if you analyze the basic parts, so you assess it, you try to work, what I do is I try to ask them about things like, I give you an example of what moment I was most proud of right? So I asked them, What are you most proud of? I asked them, you know, what was your most challenging thing? And how did you tackle it? What was a single failure that you had? And how did you deal with it? Why did you think you failed? And what changes did you make? You know, give me an example of some people's issues that you had and how you went about it? And then, you know, if somebody was not working out, how did you deal with that poor performer? Or did you have an example of a poor performer becoming a star? These are sort of situational things that you ask, and then through that, you try to because if you ask somebody, do you have integrity? Obviously the answer is yes, right? No matter what, whether it is yes or no. So those are not the right questions. So ask these situational questions. Ask about some, depending on what role they are in some ethical dilemma that they were into, how did they resolve it? If I'm looking at a procurement person, I might even say that, okay, give me an example where the vendor sort of was trying to be influential in some way, what do you do about it? Now even if he took a bribe? He’s not going to tell me that. But you know, when you figure it out as to what the way the person speaks about it, about the person, etc.

00:48:14

Harish: Right, yeah, and talking about these India sites of product companies, MNCs typically whatever we call them, you spent a significant amount of your time building and growing these kinds of sites. So how can these sites remain relevant in the future? And what should leaders, site heads be doing in order to increase the value they add as a site to the parent company?

00:48:46

Nitin: Yeah, very, very important question. And I think I can speak for a day just on this, but so, let me tell you a few things that come to the top of my mind. One is that you should benchmark yourself against peers all the time. You know, whether it is through Glassdoor or Ambition Box, I told you about how Zinno has its own, for GCC, they have their own sort of maturity model, and so on. So we, I, at least we tried to keep doing that, to figure out where you stand with others. And you always try to benchmark yourself with people who have been there longer than you bigger than you so that, you know, you can be aspirational. And of course, wherever you find that you are not doing as well, then, you know, try to illustrate how you could do better, talk to people, try to figure out what they're doing. The second thing is that, I think site leaders, particularly site leaders, should dare to do things differently from their headquarters. And I'm not saying don't be aligned with the headquarters philosophy or ethos. Obviously you have to be aligned with that. But the Indian context is quite different. And you have to try to do things differently and for that, you need a lot of things like influencing ability. I'll tell you a quick story. When I was being considered for the job at Eclipsys, which later became Allscripts, I was meeting the CEO in California and over dinner with us so he asked me about something which you did in the earlier company. And I gave him an example and said, we did this kind of a scheme and this is how it worked. Now basically, how we could retain people, attract people, etc. Then he said, suddenly, he said how did you convince the management in the US to do this? Because this is unheard of in the US. So I said, I'm probably going to either get the job or you're going to throw me out? Because the answer is I never asked them, I just did it. And luckily, the gamble worked, and he gave me the job. But I told him, I don't ask for every single thing. So long as I know, I am doing the right thing, I'm not blowing the company's money, and I have the budget is appropriate, etc. I would rather do it myself. And unfortunately, a lot of GCC leaders don't do that. They are too dependent on everything. They have to ask for everything and that, you know, then why are you needed? Right, they can run it from there. And by the way, a lot of companies have gone that route also.They have eventually got rid of one leader in the GCC, and each of your sort of department of business units reports into the US and there's no real head here. No, there's no nothing like that here. And that happens because you're not adding any different value. And this typically happens when it's become bigger, when you're smaller than they need you because as you as you become bigger then, and like I said I could talk about a day. But you know, I'll tell you one example that I'll give you is parking. Traditionally in the US or anywhere else, the company gives you free parking. In India, it's a huge premium. Also, you know, cars particularly to either parking. Cars are not so easy to get. So, what I did in my previous company was something which was completely opposite. I said, we are going to provide free transport for everybody, no matter which shift you are coming to, of course, you have to come at specific times etc, but we will give you free transport. But if you choose to come on your own, absolutely be my guest, but you very well pay for the parking. So not only do you pay for fuel, insurance, etc. And it was not small, I mean, way back in 2009-10 something like that, it was about 2500 rupees a month, which is like today's 5000-6000 rupees for cars, and something similar 500 rupees or 700 rupees for the two wheelers. And all the time this was a standard question every employee meeting, why do you make us pay for parking, all the others give it for free? I said do all the others give you free transport also? No, I'm giving you that, I don't want you to be stressed out when you come to the office, I want you to be peaceful. I'll give you the whole air conditioned cab to come here. But it takes a little more time because you have to be 15 to 30 minutes earlier. So yeah, that's fine. But you know, while we are solving the parking issue, we are solving the pollution issue. And the traffic congestion issue. Three things I'm trying to solve at the same time, and I'm giving an alternative. Now, so people asked me, US people used to be absolutely flabbergasted when they heard this. When I said that, that's what is required in India today. Unfortunately, not many. I don't think anybody followed this advice. Some people do give the free transport but that would typically be for shifts and parking, I don't think people charge. So this was just an example of how to think differently because that's relevant in this case, it was relevant in the Indian context but not necessary for the employees. For employees, we created something called a housing assistance plan, which was like you know, if you're paying EMIs for your house in Pune, in the city of posting, then 20% of that subject to some one month's salary or something will be reimbursed to you and I used to joke thing that if you have a three bedroom house, kitchen house and one room, you should credit to the company. Okay, but again, tremendous things because two things happen. One is that and now I wouldn't do it today because those days to reduce your prices just to kind of double every four or five years. I used to say look, invest in that. It's a wealth creation programme for you. And selfishly, what happens is that once you buy a house there, then you kind of get routed to that city. Your competition is only then within the city, you don't go to Bangalore, you don’t want to go to Hyderabad. So in a way, it was also a retention mechanism.

00:55:22

Harish: Right. Yeah. So what I find interesting is that most of these sites usually start with a cost arbitrage kind of a model, right? And then as they start growing, there are bigger aspirations for the site head, for the site itself, people that you have, we want to do more meaningful work, but now you're in a higher position with different kinds of people with different kinds of expectations, now you're trying to do something different. So how do you then, you know, make that switch? Is that switch possible? How easy is it?

00:55:54

Nitin: It is possible to operate on different planes. So in our current company, we employ claims adjudicators, we're probably, you know, the lowest of the rung, meaning just any graduate would do, they would come in, don't even need great combinations, it's based mostly higher from the BPOs, and we pay better and we give much better treatment. And, you know, even the dignity is much better, etc. So that's one the other end we hire high end data scientists with an LP and everything else, we're doing that cutting edge kind of work also, and everything in between. But I don't buy the argument that cost arbitrage is no longer an issue. It is an issue. I mean, if I was living in the US, and if I didn't have cost arbitrage, I would not hire anybody, even as an Indian. Yes, I won't call cost arbitrage. But at the same time, I want equally good, if not better quality, I want an equally large number of good talents available. That's what distinguishes us. Lots of people are available, even Eastern Europe and other Asian countries. So but the combination of costs arbitrage plus the talent availability plus the scalability, that is what India is known for. And that's why people come here. So I don't look down upon any. I've run a call center, also I run BPO operations, and I've run high end engineering jobs. Each one of them is equally important, because a company needs all these jobs. It's not, you know, you can't choose them. And we have people who can do these jobs. So you have to be conscious of making sure that all of them are, they may not be paid the same, they will be paid whatever is appropriate industry benchmark, and that is driven purely by demand and supply. But all of you should get the same dignity. None of our policies are like BU specific or level specific. I mean, everybody gets the same kind of treatment, same kind of policy. Think of your parent company as your customer. What is their pain point? What is their need? They want to achieve the same or higher quality at a lower cost. That's a pain point because they have to be competitive in the market again. And that's what you have to offer.

00:58:29 

Harish: Right. Yeah, yeah. So I think it always boils down to that customer focus. You know, I spoke to Prashant and he was talking about this in the context of individuals as well. And he was talking about what is the value that you are adding? So yeah, I think this chat is like the best stuff. from multiple conversations that we have had. So, on that note, Nitin will come to the end of this, where we will ask you this is the last section where we will ask you for your hot takes on the future relevance of some things that will ask you about. Okay, it's not really a rapid fire, but you can give me a hot take, right? So what do you think is the future relevance of IITs in India?

00:59:18

Nitin: So IITs themselves I think, are getting more broad based meaning when I was there, there were 5 IITs. Now I've lost count of how many there are. It's a good thing in my opinion, right? That elitist kind of thing which was there that if you are from IIT, then you know you're special. I don't think that's a good thing. Yes, but we need to broadbase that we have 1.3 billion people. We have many more engineers required, just like doctors also. We need to have more high end education. So I think they are relevant, but they need to continue to broadbase. People, some of my colleagues, classmates etc. They feel bad that there are so many. It is now I think it's the greatest thing that has happened.

01:00:02

Harish: Okay, the next one, what is the future relevance of IIMs?

01:00:08

Nitin: Same story. IIMs have grown tremendously and see the thing is MBAs have been almost devalued. I mean today I am sorry to say but I hire MBAs in healthcare after some clinical education who chose to do MBA in healthcare and come and work with me as pretty much adjudicators which is I find it a real pity. Of course they are good, they rise in the company, but I think the whole MBA degree got devalued because of the proliferation just like the engineering colleges did right. So that's why at the IIT you can be assured of a certain standard so that's exactly what is needed for the MBA direction. Therefore IIMs are spreading their wings and IIM Udaipur for example, a good friend of mine runs it. It's a phenomenal institution. I mean, the more I read about it the more impressed I am. So you know, this is what is required in cities like - Indore, Nagpur. You know when it doesn't have one but you know, these cities require IIMs not because they are big cities but the sheer number of students who can really make a difference is huge.

01:01:33

Harish: Right. Okay. And final one what is the future relevance of the Ranji trophy?

01:01:36

Nitin: Yeah, so there are diehards like me who fortunately are feeling vindicated with the latest in the way things have gone in Test cricket. Right the obituary was written you know, several years ago when one day cricket shattered and of course when T20 it became even more obvious that Test cricket doesn't have any relevance but Test cricket has shown that it has actually tremendous relevance and use when you see packed stands in the UK for Test cricket and every test going into the you know, not knowing even though the last year who's going to win or lose it's going to be a draw. When that starts happening consistently, you change and you start realizing the relevance. Now for the Ranji trophy. Some format changes may be there you know, in terms of the way the points are calculated, etc etc. But I think it's a great building ground for Test cricket and if Test cricket is going to be relevant in the future, the Ranji trophy automatically becomes relevant for the future. Or whether you should aim for a country like India. I do believe that we can afford to have two or three different sports. Just like you know in a winter sport, you have this same basic skill but you have different varieties. Or even in running you have sprints within that 100 meter, 200 meter, then you have 400m, 800, marathon, and you have hurdles, so many varieties, right? Why not redirect three different sports and not just think of it as cricket because I enjoy the T20 game as much as the one day game. And of course the Test is the perennial favorite. So there is enough scope and enough people both wanting to play and wanting to watch so I don't think there's any problem of relevance.

01:03:21

Harish: Yeah. And do you think there's going to be any change in format or do you wish there's any change of format for foreigners playing in the Ranji trophy?

01:03:30

Nitin: Yeah, I think it should be like the County Cricket in the UK where you do get just like T20 IPL really. After the foreigners came in, it really made a difference. So suddenly, I mean, see the first change that they made was people like Wasim Jaffer going and playing here, Hrishikesh Kanitkar going somewhere, Rohan Gavaskar playing for Calcutta. So that was the first step. Now the next step can be, you know, like a Labuschagne coming and playing for Maharashtra for example. So by that, I mean so we can have those quotas, you can have no more than two or whatever you know, those rules are can be and the other thing could be in terms of while it's still a three day four day game, you can try to make it result oriented. So right now it's not that result oriented to some rules, which can make it more result oriented.

01:04:15

Harish: Right. On that note, Nitin, thanks a lot. I think this was a great interview for many reasons about the content of what you spoke and also for the best background that we've ever had for any of our CTQ Smartcast guests, most serene and picturesque background we’ve had till now. But like always, this is a great chat. We learned a few secrets about your own routines, your thoughts about future relevance and the kinds of books and things that influenced you, what you look for in people that you hire. So thanks a lot for this.

01:04:56

Nitin: Thank you very much, my pleasure.

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