[CTQ Smartcast] How Outside-In Thinking Helps Create Value for the Future, with K.S. Prashant
KS Prashant is Managing Director of IDeaS Revenue Solutions, a SAS company. He has over 20 years of experience, having led both product and service teams. In this Smartcast conversation with CTQ's BV Harish Kumar, we speak to him about how individuals can be future relevant, how managers can uplevel to think like executives, and how to think of the value you provide.
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Some of the things we spoke about
The mindset required to thrive in a shape-changing world
Tips for managers to think like executives
How companies should think about future relevance
Dealing with knowledge blindspots
Role of mentoring in helping people build future relevance
How to take your ideas to senior leadership
Building your own social capital
AND
3 books/resources you would recommend
PLUS
3 things that the ideal professional of the next decade would be expected to do
Read the transcript of this episode
[CTQ Smartcast] How Outside-In Thinking Helps Create Value for The Future, With KS Prashant
[00:00:00]
Harish Kumar: KS Prashant is the managing director of IDeaS Revenue Solutions, a SAS company. Prashant has worked for more than two decades in the tech industry and has led both product and services teams. Prashant has always had very sharp views on strategy, execution, and value proposition. We wanted to pick his brains to talk about how individuals can be future relevant, how managers can uplevel to think like executives, how to build the right perspectives to get better at decision making, how to think of the value you provide, and if there are any parallels that can be drawn with the strategy frameworks for organizations. Prashant had some actionable tips for building social capital within the organization, and he shared a few examples from his own career, where he pushed himself out of his comfort zone, including what he considered a failure that taught him an important life lesson. This episode is packed with useful insights and advice that every corporate professional at every level will find extremely useful.
Harish Kumar: Hi, Prashant. Welcome to the CTQ Smartcast.
KS Prashant: Hi, Harish.
Harish Kumar: Prashant, at Choose to Thinq we say that we help teams and individuals build future relevance in a shape-shifting world through systematic upleveling. We wanted to pick your brains on a bunch of things around how people should be thinking about their future careers, and how organizations should also be thinking all in the service of being future relevant.
I'll start off with the first question here. We are in a shape-changing world. What should people do to develop the mindset required to [00:02:00] be able to not just deal with that kind of world, but also thrive in it? What is the mindset that people should develop?
KS Prashant: I think the answer lies in your question itself, Harish. I mean, you said that it's a shape-changing world. I think the most important thing that individuals need to build is to first recognize the fact that it is changing, right? It might sound like a cliché because we keep hearing these statements like change is the only thing that is constant, and all. It’s been said so many times that people tend to ignore it. Then, if you look at the happenings of the last year and a half, everything has changed around us. I mean, because there has not been one piece that has not been impacted. These times might end, better times would come in, but this should be a lesson that there is indeed truth in statements such as those.
Now, when things change, we have two options. One option is that we change along with the tide because the change happens. I think the winners will be the ones who control the tide. If you're able to actually anticipate change. The reason why I'm bringing this in is because I sincerely believe that what has happened in the last year, a couple of years, should be a lesson for all of us to be able to actually look at our lives and be able to stretch it forward a bit. Imagine, create a hypothesis, and then create scenarios so that when something of this sort happens. I hope something is not as drastic as this, but whenever there is a “disruption” in our lives we will have some kind of playbook ready, by which you're not completely unaware, but you are seemingly in control of the way things play out. That itself would give [00:04:00] an individual or an organization an advantage to deal with such times.
Harish Kumar: In fact, I was just reminded of a quote that I heard a few days ago. Ramanand was mentioning this quote, which is attributed to Wayne Gretzky, the ice hockey legend. It's not that you should be going after the puck, you have to go where the puck will be. It's about thinking like that, thinking about where the future is going to be, and be prepared for that.
KS Prashant: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are so many analogies one can draw from sports and sports legends. It's fun to connect dots across sports and anything that happens in our lives.
Harish Kumar: Right. In fact, I was going to ask you about that, Prashant. Any of these parallels from worlds like sports? I know you are a sports fanatic, also cricket-tragic in some ways. What are the kinds of parallels that you draw? Do you see merit in these parallels that you draw from other fields of experts?
KS Prashant: Absolutely. In fact, I will come to the sports part. I feel that in order to be ready, it's not just sports, it's extremely important that individuals and even organizations have a role to create an atmosphere for individuals. It's very important for individuals to derive from different fields. I'm a big fan of this philosophy. When we are studying in school or college, we are by force, subject to knowledge coming in from diverse fields. It's not just the STEM fields, but you know you also learn about history, geography, languages, you learn from all of this, sometimes philosophy, economics, and you learn all of this, and it's by force. The mind gets [00:06:00] trained to eclectic views. It's not just a logical rational left-brain view, but you are also subject to other views, which is typically called a right-brain view.
As we start getting specialized, as we start getting into specialized education, or as we start getting into specialized areas of work, unfortunately, it becomes one-sided and one-tracked. The development of the brain then starts getting skewed towards one particular direction. It's good initially when you're only working on that field, but as you rise higher, when you're to take decisions, that's when you realize that your decision can tend to be very one-sided if you are not aided by perspectives from the other side. Of course, there are ways around it. As I said it's important for organizations and for individuals to make sure that they're continuously being subject to knowledge coming in from other fields, either through reading, either through interactions, or through drawing connections, such as places from like sports, in a film, politics for that matter. That kind of just enriches the entire decision-making framework for the individual.
Harish Kumar: Right. I wanted to bring your attention to this specific example that you spoke about, where people need to move from the managerial kind of roles to say, executive or leaders. People want to move up that ladder, and we're going to talk about the specific example of managers, there is this whole individual contributor versus manager. Let's deal with that separately. For the manager to the executive leader, if you want to make that change, what specific ways in which people can actually start thinking about making that switch? [00:08:00]
KS Prashant: Okay, so I'm going to be prescriptive, based on my evaluation of the averages. It doesn't mean that people do not have this already built-in. Somehow, if I look at the averages, I think the biggest thing one needs to move to is outside-in thinking. We are mostly programmed to be inside-out in our thinking because it's the easiest thing for us to do. You know the life you're living, you know the challenges you're facing, so you extrapolate what could happen later. What could happen next based on inside-out thinking? Whether it is selling a product or whether it is rising up as an individual in an ecosystem, I think the answer always lies in what's the value you're generating in the market or in the ecosystem. The value generation is usually judged outside-in and so the consumer of your service, the consumer of your product, or the consumer of your company (I'm talking about personal reactions) lies outside you and not inside you. For example, it could be a client or it could be an audience to who you are giving a talk to. You have to realize what their perception of value is, and then make sure that whatever you're delivering as a product service or as an individual interaction is catering to that value. Only when that happens would you rise in stature.
Now, moving in our thinking to be outside-in, so whether it is the client or whether it's your boss, or whether like it's an audience, that is the first mindset change that I would prescribe to people. What's the question you need to ask? The question you need to ask is, [00:10:00] is what I'm providing differentiated? Is it something where my consumer or the stakeholder would come back to me because I provide a differentiated value? Or is it lying along with the averages? If you give someone the averages then you get commoditized. You either get hit on prices, you will have to discount, or it becomes a matter of chance that you'd be considered for something. The moment you differentiate yourself, the moment you become a Rishabh Pant, in the batting lineup, he's not a person who will score at 120 on average. I mean, when he gets going, he will score at 180 or 200. That's very differentiated. You cannot have a T20 team, or, for that matter a one-day team, these days even a test team without him because he makes a difference. That is what you need to provide to be noticed and to be considered.
Harish Kumar: I was going to ask you about one aspect that you mentioned about you being very comfortable. You definitely need to go out of your comfort zone. Any concrete ways in which people can do this within their corporate structure? We often talk about experimentation and projects to take up. How do you build that kind of thinking?
KS Prashant: Yeah. Again, there is no single plane to which you graduate. There are some people who are naturals in terms of this thinking, so they might be in a certain function, but they make sure that they're glued around to various other activities in the function in the company. They would be part of company town halls, whether it is part of your function or not, they would make sure that they attended, they would read about the company, they would read about other companies. They are glued in, they're externally glued, as well as glued within the company. When I say glued in, I'm also saying that [00:12:00] they're kind of tacitly also connecting dots. When they hear a financial statement, they’re hearing it in the context of what the company's past performance has been, what other companies in that area are doing it? They benchmark and they will do it. Now, this is training. You are getting ready. This is the least amount, because whether you like it or not, you will be subject to these kinds of things happening in the company.
At that point in time, it's important for you to be tuned in. It's just being an active participant. You need not always be asking questions, but being alert or being switched on. Now, the next level of participation would be actually by networking with people outside your functions. If I'm into product development, I need to understand how marketing works, I should know how sales works, I should know how HR works, what are their constraints, what's their key result area, how do they contribute to the company? It’s very important, especially when you rise. I mean, initially, I would strongly suggest that you become experts in your field, but once you've established a reasonable presence in your field, I think it's very important for you to network to other functions. Eventually what happens is when one has to deliver value to the client, it happens as a combination of both of all these entities coming together. It's not just because of one thing, but it's a combination of everything coming together that leads to success.
If you start building in that perspective, then you will see everything that's happening to you as an individual, or to your group within the function or to the company as a whole, you will start viewing it from a different lens. As an example, if there is a change in focus on a certain product, you will realize why it is happening, because otherwise, it's very easy for you to feel victimized. [00:14:00] But the moment you start seeing it from top-down, you will start realizing, okay, this is the reason why it has happened, it's not really that bad, or better times would come. It’s very easy then, for you to be at peace even at work. That's the least expected, but then you could also then start rising in levels when you make some of those changes happen as well.
Harish Kumar: One thought that came to mind when you were mentioning these things was how did you do any of these things back when you were still learning the ropes? Any anecdotes that you can think of? Was this a realization that happened to you that this is what is making me different? Or did you actually have the mentoring of someone who actually told you that these are the kinds of things that you should be doing? How did that happen for you?
KS Prashant: It is all of the above. It is not just one single thing. If I have to go back, I probably was, at best, somewhere in between an introvert and an extrovert. Then the people that I hung around with naturally, the one good thing that I can probably lean on is, I have been able to have a set of friends at every stage that have remained. Whether it's school friends, they still remain school friends, whether junior college or college or from my previous companies, they've remained to be friends. Even outside of work, I've been able to connect with them on a frequent basis, and they've ended up doing different things in life. They're not necessarily in the same field. The very fact that socially I'm able to go back and interact with them gives me a different perspective. I would not say I'm the most voracious reader, but I'm not bad either. Reading from books, reading [00:16:00] articles off late in the last 10 years, being hooked on to good feeds on social media, like Twitter, has helped.
At the same time, I think, if I look at my last 10 to 15 years professionally, I think I made a conscious effort to be connected with people outside. I'm from the product development side of things, but I made a conscious effort to be connected with marketing people, with salespeople. In fact, some of my closest friends are people from these particular fields. You constantly hear about their challenges, and more importantly, if you're able to extrapolate, what can I do to make their life easier? The moment you start answering questions such as these, that's when you start building in that outside-in perspective. That's number one.
Number two is I always have relished the opportunity of being with clients. Number one. Number two, also being the leader in that group, front-ending client meetings. It's not about that moment of truth. but it's about the preparation that leads to that moment of truth, which I believe is an extremely important experience to have for people. As I said, again, in that experience, in that entire process of preparation, you build upon various scenarios, what would the client ask? Who are the other people in that meeting? Who are influencers? What are their leanings? How do you prepare for those? That itself builds in that entire outside-in thought process within you. You don't want to screw up in that moment of truth.
Harish Kumar: I've had the opportunity and privilege of hearing some of those anecdotes and anecdotes about how to prepare for these kinds of sales calls and meetings. Would you want to share anything that comes to mind about this diligence [00:18:00] and preparation, especially in sales meetings?
KS Prashant: Yeah. I will start with a failure of mine. This was about 15 years back, it was a French client, and we had a very good cookie cutter presentation on how our company would be delivering services. It was a French client. I went along with the sales in the region, feeling reasonably prepared because that is a presentation that we used to ace always, very well prepared and all. In about five or seven minutes of that presentation, the Senior VP on the other side said, Mr Prashant, this all looks good, but where are the specifics? I need to know the specifics of this particular thing. How is this engagement going? What are the pitfalls? How do you see it happening? We weren't prepared for that, so it was a disaster. It was a disaster. We did a mini salvage, we got another meeting. It was a disaster, but it was like an opening.
My eyes opened because of that particular thing, saying that you cannot just go with an average preparation. In the sense of what has worked for the averages, the average in client preparation is good for statistics only. It doesn't pan out in the room. You can never go into a room prepared, with the average. Every instance has its own nuance, and you need to be prepared for it. That was my first setback, which turned out to be a learning experience. I've never ever again stepped into a client meeting without preparation like this.
Now on the other side, excessive preparation. I mean, again, in the same company, I was once asked to lead the engineering side on a major deal. It was a deal that we had to win with another incumbent. We were given about 50 minutes, five-zero minutes with the chairman of this large company. [00:20:00], a large listed company in the United States. 50 minutes to convince them that we are able partners to take over not just engineering, but the IT part as well. I was given the charge of leading that 50-minute meeting. This Chairman was going to visit us for 50 minutes, and I had to lead everything. 50 minutes had to be well taken care of. I actually went through the Six Sigma Methodology of Failure Mode Analysis. We broke down those 50 minutes, did an FMEA, and then came up with various, I think, about 130 interventions that needed to be taken care of to make these 50-minutes successful.
Examples could be, there was a company lawn. We had thought that our chairman would escort the other chairman, and just show around the place. I had to make sure that the lawn was not watered that morning, because if it’s water if it gets slushy, that's number one. Number two is that one of our VPs had a habit of going overboard in presentation. We had decided where that person would stand and right in front of where he would stand, we got a clock fixed so that there would be a warning. Number three, there's usually going to be about 15 or 20 people in the meeting room, usually a lot of time gets wasted in exchange for business cards. I made sure that the business cards are already exchanged, our business cards are given to them on that drive to our office. Some of these things were taken care of so that we focus only on the value aspect, the content aspect during the presentation.
Another thing is that we did research to find out that this Chairman does not like Pepsi, but he likes Coke products because Pepsi was not their client. Coke was the client. I made sure that everything was Coke-oriented. I also made sure we found out that this chairman's daughter went to Stanford. Luckily for us, our chairman's daughter [00:22:00] had also spent some time at Stanford. We made sure that our chairman included that part. All these small things need to be taken care of. It doesn't happen in the averages. The average thing gets missed. There is a lot to be understood in the preparation, because all we wanted at that point in time, was an outside-in. This person had to perceive us to be good on all fronts.
Harish Kumar: I think that's a fantastic story. In terms of diligence of preparation, I always go back to that story whenever I am thinking of similar situations. One thing that comes to mind, Prashant, is like you said, you always like to lead from the front. We also hear of these cases where people say that they like to do that, but there is something that is stopping them, especially in the larger organizations. Many times, these opportunities won't be given to you on a platter. How should people carve out these things for themselves? Again, if you can give me some concrete examples of how people can make sure that others have that confidence in them to try them out in certain risky situations?
KS Prashant: The first thing is, of course, you're going to build competence around yourself. There is no substitute for that. You cannot just appear there and expect that you will be put. No one's going to risk putting you in situations such as these. You have to do well in the nets before you are put in the matches, there would be internal meetings, there would be small data dates that could happen where you need to be able to showcase that you are indeed worth it, you are valued here, what you speak has value, your thought process has value. There will always be practice, net practice situations, they'll be available in companies. There is enough access in the company. [00:24:00] Access to senior leadership has flattened. It’s very easy to get this access these days. The hierarchical form of companies doesn’t hold anymore, at least in the tech industry, definitely you have access. Now with social media, you get even more access to reach these people. Doing well in the net practice sessions is extremely important. Number one.
Number two, it's extremely important also to create a circle of influence in the companies. It's not at all about just individual practice, but you need to make sure that you have circles of influence with who you're interacting with, by who on their own would have better access to decision-makers. It's through these circles of influence also, that you can do it.
Now, the way I put it makes it seem like a lot of this could be artificially engineered. That's not what I meant. These things happen, right? Nothing happens immediately. If you're investing in being good, creating value around yourself, getting you in better learning, more evolving, then the circles of influence get created on their own, you get net practice sessions on your own, you get invited to meetings. Then you get to play the real match. I think it's about investing in yourself and also being patient about the progress.
Harish Kumar: Building your social capital, both within and outside the organization, I think given we're talking about the availability of channels, like social media these days, is extremely important. Right?
KS Prashant: Yeah, there are company parties. A lot of us don't, don't go there, right? We'll say okay, there are so many people. You should go there because these are chances and times, where you get to interact. It's really flattened, right at that point at the bar or at the dinner table, it's flattened. You could be standing next to the CEO. [00:26:00] It's your chance to say something nice. Chance to comment. That’s where all the net practice would have helped. You should not refrain yourself from socializing even in professional environments. I mean, it's extremely important to have your head above the water.
Harish Kumar: Right. I think another important thing is when you get that opportunity at the bar with the CEO, you need to be well prepared in advance. You need to be solid in whatever you are doing, to be able to have that meaningful conversation there.
KS Prashant: Absolutely. You need to have played the things in your mind. You should have played, what if I come across a senior executive CEO, what would I be saying? Very few people have the gift of just being very spontaneous about it.
Actually, that takes me back to Sachin Tendulkar. You just look at it. Any batsman for that matter, I mean, Sachin Tendulkar is right at the top. For that matter, any batsman. How much time does the batsman have to react to a bowler? It's probably about 0.3 seconds or even less than that. Imagine if the batsman has to first decide where this ball is going to fall, and then based on that, he says, look, the time is over. Usually, the way they work is in terms of pattern matching. They have played out various scenarios, based on how the ball is being held, which is the direction of the arm. They kind of play these scenarios and only prepare themselves for the shot before the short is actually played. The great people have a reasonable, much higher amount of accuracy in terms of their prediction of where the ball is going to be, where it's going to land, and what short they are going to play. The greatness lies in actually being able to have practised before. It's about [00:28:00] all the practice that's done that comes out on the playing field.
Harish Kumar: I think but the challenge remains that you know that as a five-year-old, you can go to a Shivaji Park and start hitting those 1000s of balls. You know that if not by age 14 as Tendulkar, by 21 you will be able to hit the balls the way a professional batsman should hit. What is the equivalent of that practice in the corporate world? Especially when this is not what is being taught in B-schools as well. People need to stumble and figure this out themselves. What is the playbook that people should adhere to?
KS Prashant: Let's look at the cricket example, and let's try to build on that right. In the cricket example, you get a ball, you have a choice, you can defend every ball, every ball that comes in whether it's a full toss or a short pitch ball, or a good length ball or a swinging ball, you can defend the ball. You get no runs for it, zero runs for that.
The same thing will happen even in a corporate scenario. You come across the CEO or a senior VP at the dinner table, or picking food right next to you. Then he says, Hi Harish, how's it going? Or he says, what's up Harish? You have a choice saying that all good.
Harish Kumar: Food is tasty.
KS Prashant: Food is tasty; the weather is hot. Then he just moves on, you know, he or she will just move on out of that. But if you practice enough, you will be able to very succinctly speak about the project that you're working on or the challenges that you faced. You can say that yeah, you must have heard of this latest client that we've got, I'm the guy designing it, it's very challenging, because it's a very different scenario. Then it preempts, it actually prompts that person to ask you the next question. If you're lucky, if you really prepared even better, you get a meeting [00:30:00] appointment. He or she will say, the leader would say that I would like to know more about this. Can you speak to my secretary? That is victory. That is victory out there.
You have a choice. The choice is yours. You cannot say all of that unless you've played it or unless you actually have done it. That's what I'm saying, the content is extremely important. This is about perception building around the content, it's about how you position yourself. The next thing, a similar deal has to be done, the leader would remember that, let's call Harish from the technology team over because he seems to have good ideas.
Harish Kumar: I think it's again coming back to that outside-in perspective, thinking, evaluating yourself, the why around what you're doing. We'll switch tracks a bit but then come back to this point again, because in the realm of companies, when we talk about companies needing to change their strategy and about being relevant in the future, it is easy to come up with these one-liners that you know, this organization should pivot to something else. The problem is not in where they should be going, the problem is in figuring out how you go from here to there. How should companies be thinking about this? Is there a framework around something like this? If there is one, what are the components of it? How should companies be thinking about the how part of this?
KS Prashant: There are frameworks, of course. I mean, all strategy frameworks are very prescriptive around this. Most of all these frameworks basically say, it is as important to answer the question of what you would be doing, as it is to answer the question of what you would not be doing. It's about creating… One of the frameworks that [00:32:00] I normally lean into is the one described by Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley, in their book Playing to Win. They have a set of questions. One is about where I will play? How are you defining the boundaries? Clearly about where you would play and where we will not play? It's very clear. Certain players are saying that I'm going to focus on Test matches, or I'm going to focus on the T20. Which means I will not be playing the other one. I'll not be playing tests if I'm playing T20. I'm going to focus only on this, and do everything to become good out there. The mental tuning, the physical practices that I have, the time spent at the gym. For example, I need to bowl only four overs, I don't need to bowl longer than that. How do I go all out? All these things would then make you look good for the T20 game. You're a T20 specialist, or better.
A similar thing happens in a company, that I'm going to be focusing only on the elite market segment. I'm not going to be focusing on the masses, or the other way around. I'm going to be focusing only on the masses, I'm not going to be focusing on the elite segment. That first creates the boundary lines. It's very important, even for individuals, stating that I'm going to be only technology, I'm going to be only this specific technology model with a depth of it, this is my differentiation. Once you start creating that, and start investing your resources, either as a company or as an individual, you now realize that in the time available, which is a limited resource, you are spending more time, more money or more whatever resource into that and getting better than the average. The average would be good for all. They would be saying that we're going to spread doing this, learning this technology and that technology and that technology. When it comes to scenarios where you will want to derive a premium. The average gets an average value. The differentiated gets the premium. [00:34:00] The premium is available to people who are able to first create those boundaries and get better at that. The first question is, where will I play? The next question is how will I win? What's the winning logic?
Now, how will I win, and what is the winning logic is outside-in thinking. It's not about how I feel that if I know this much, I should be winning. Saying that by doing this, the stakeholder will derive value from me. This is about the stakeholder saying yes, I will repeatedly go to this person for a service because I get the value. I mean, you should be able to know what you are going to do? What capabilities will you build? That's the third question. Where will I play? How will I win? What's the winning logic? What are the capabilities I need to build? The capabilities you build are not just about developing technology skills. It is also about creating presentation skills and being able to sell a certain solution. You build a capability around the first thing, and then because at the end, the client wants to hear a story. The client wants to see how their business problem is going to be solved by that. Not just saying that this technology and good, but how are we going to use this technology? This entire capability needs to be built around that particular story.
There are frameworks that are defined for it, and there is enough. I would highly recommend people reading that book as at least a starting point. There are, of course, abridged papers around it if people do not have the patience to read the book, but go through that. What I've realized over the years is that using that philosophy, even in individuals’ lives and professional careers also helps a lot.
Harish Kumar: I was going to come to that because it clearly seems like a framework that can be used for individuals as well. One thing that came to mind, Prashant, when you were saying this was organizations needing to build the knowledge around the capabilities that are required. When you're taking that [00:36:00] outside-in approach? I'm sure there will be some knowledge blind spots. How should organizations deal with these knowledge blind spots? How can these unknown unknowns be addressed? You are going to go with some assumptions. Have you seen any cases where these knowledge blind spots have been a challenge, and how have organizations tried to overcome them?
KS Prashant: There are multiple ways. I would say that every organization has its blind spots, just like every individual will have their blind spots. More so as an organization grows, let's say we have a small organization, the small organization market size, or the segment of the market they will be dealing with itself is limited. You are aware of the space. What you provide is, you have probably covered the range of requirements that the clients in that space would have. The moment you start growing, the requirements of clients increase. You cannot just go with that portfolio. The moment you go with that portfolio, you are now stating that it worked for me in this segment, it's going to work for me in the other segments. You have basically then created a blind spot for yourself. You are not going to be as successful in the other segment, and then you grow even further because there are pressures to grow, then it becomes even worse. Companies that do not realize it obviously perish. There are very few companies that actually go through that tragic story.
I mean, it's not like a complete perish, but every company tries to do something to move around. What are the various ways? Then you get people from outside, people with a broader experience to come in, and depending on what their import in the company is, they are able to steer the company another way. [00:38:00] They work with consultants, management consultants who come and say that it worked yesterday, but for your plans for today, this is not going to work. Long and short of it, I think being tuned, what I want to bring in is being tuned to what's happening in the external world, number one.
Number two, allowing inputs on the external to come in and merge with what is your strength. I'm not saying replace, I'm saying merge because you have to create a unique identity. It’s very academic to say that you’ll replace the thing, but the important thing is to be able to merge with your particular strength or your points of pride. That becomes an extremely important thing. Larger companies work on acquisitions. They'll go and acquire companies that take care of the blind spots, and then they'll have a mechanism to bring that company into the mainstream. There are various ways in which companies deal with this.
Harish Kumar: Right. How do you think individuals can deal with these kinds of knowledge blind spots? Does mentoring play a role to address some of this?
KS Prashant: Yeah, mentoring definitely plays a role. So does, as I said, being eclectic in your knowledge inputs, going in and attending conferences, mixing with a lot of people, being socially active with a profession in mind. All those things help. Mentoring, I'm glad you brought it up because if you look at the role of a mentor, the mentor doesn't have a stake in your output. The mentors are actually providing an orthogonal view, probably from a slightly elevated frame of reference where he's able to see down on that, being able to identify the blind spot.
For example, if you are in a situation or if you have a certain aspiration within the framework of your company, the mentor will definitely be able to provide you perspectives. In most cases, a mentor is usually a person with more experience. [00:40:00] He or she will be able to provide you perspectives based on his or her experience on how things have panned out, of the readings that the mentor would have gone through. Then they will say, this is how we need to play. Even better if the mentor can actually give you an outside-in view. If the mentor is able to examine what your goals are, and start from the goal and work backward, help you build that perspective, it gets even better.
Harish Kumar: I noticed that you use the word giving perspective. It is not really advice that you should be going to a mentor for.
KS Prashant: Yeah, because let's put it this way, the mentor is involved in that particular problem only for that hour, or a couple of hours that you're dealing with. At best, the mentor can provide you a broader perspective, but you are living that, you know the details. As I said, it's important for the external inputs to come and merge with your strengths. Remember I mentioned that earlier, you cannot replace it. The mentor’s perspective cannot be a replacement for what's happening now. You need to be able to derive those three or four things out of the twenty things that came out in the discussion and connect the dots, connect it to your perspective, create your own. It's extremely important, in anyone's development journey to take external inputs also, from mentors, of course, from other places also, but create your own experiences. It's your own unique perspective because the experience you're living is unique, no one else lives that particular experience. You have to be able to create your own and then create a slightly different experience for yourself. That becomes very important.
Harish Kumar: When it comes to something like mentoring, or like you mentioned, individuals need to take charge of making sure that others are taking them seriously, in order to present some new idea or whatever. This is from an individual's point of view. Is [00:42:00] there a role for the organization to actually enable this kind of environment? Do you see that as an enabler?
KS Prashant: Of course, I mean, the organization has to create forums by which individuals get to interact with the leaders. Then I would actually take one step forward in this, and I will say if it's possible then even organizations should do it. I think it's more the individual prerogative. If the organization can actually provide access to people from outside the organization, because inside the organization again, it's like inbred, the same philosophies you'll keep hearing it in different forms, and there are constraints, also, for leaders to keep saying the same thing. You cannot break free and say a few things.
I know there are a few organizations that also provide access to people from outside who don't have any constraints. That is important. It is important for those organizations to provide access to people because let's face it, more than a very large percentage of people that work and I'll speak from the Indian diaspora, are not inherently extroverted or good networkers. They would expect a few things to happen to them. Organizations can cater to that, providing them access to external people. More importantly, allowing that relationship to flourish, I think that becomes very important in the organization's role because it might not necessarily always align or resonate with the organization's philosophy. Then if you're reasonably secure as a company, stating that we are doing this with a larger purpose in mind, then allowing that relationship to flourish. At the end of it, there's a very good chance that the person who is going to the mentorship is going to actually augment or [00:44:00] make your organization itself better. I think that becomes a very mature stance that the organization can take.
I fear that, when organizations realize that it's not aligning with the current organization's purpose or the organization's current purpose, now, that's when you know there might be a few bottlenecks that would probably come in. If organizations will go beyond that, that'd be great.
Harish Kumar: With respect to all the things that we have spoken about, how to think about future relevance and the dynamics around coaching, building your own social capital. In this sphere, what do you think has changed post March 2020, which has seen a major shift in a lot of ways of working for organizations. Has any of this changed fundamentally?
KS Prashant: I go back to my favourite statement, I made this at the beginning of the pandemic. A lot has changed, but nothing has changed. If I say what has changed, it's the mechanisms of accessing leadership, the mechanism of accessing mentors, and the mechanisms of accessing or dissipation of knowledge or acquisition of knowledge. I think the virtual mode has become predominant in all of this. At the same time, nothing has changed because the end outcome or the goal out of this is basically about creating value. The same has to happen through different forms earlier, now you have ways of doing it differently. The important thing to note is that apart from the ultimate truth that exists, which is gory, but then the other truth is the fact that you know you can only raise your stock by raising your perceived value. I think this will never change, this will stand the test of time. [00:46:00]
With that in mind, if that is your pursuit, then you would seek different ways of reaching that particular goal, despite changes, or shifts or disruptions that are happening out there, because that is never going to change. You should know who your stakeholder is. If you know the answer to what your stakeholder sees as value, then the only thing you need to know from your current state is what are the changes you're going to make to make sure that value is getting generated? I mean, that's a simple equation to do, but this journey is very difficult to follow. The difficult part is, of course, getting an answer out there, but the equally difficult part is to execute on that journey, because a lot of people live in the present. Jumping away from the change is not something that, unless you're forced to do it, or you don't have any choice, you would still try to stick to the same routines.
Harish Kumar: The fundamentals and first principles still remain the same. You just need to give attention to the details of the how.
KS Prashant: It brings me to a slightly different example. I wanted to bring it in. I had the privilege of listening to Pullela Gopichand. Gopichand was asked by the interviewer, how have you been successful? At the onset, it seemed like such a mundane question to ask, but then the answer made the question very special. The answer Gopichand gave to that question was, ‘it was very easy for me because when I was playing tournaments in school, I knew that I had to be better than those one or two people in school for me to move to the next level. The next level was the district level. I knew that at the district level, I just had to be better than those one or two people to get success. Then I moved to the state level, I realized there were just [00:48:00] one or two people that were there, and I was state champion. Then it was nationals, and then I realized there were just those one or two people who I’d to be better than to be the national champion. At the international level, there are just one or two people that are there, and I could win All-England.’
This ‘one or two people’ makes it sound very simple. You have to realize one thing, is that the entire benchmark itself was changing from the school level to the district level, the state level. Pullela Gopichand could do all that, to come to that benchmark level, and then differentiate from those two or three, or one or two people that he's talking about. Raising the benchmark is a continuous development journey. You've got to be at that level.
I mean, let's assume that you are an architect in a company. You have to be at the level of architects in your company, at least, or in the market or whatever. If you're like a marketing specialist, you have to be at that level. What would differentiate is that looking at your playing field around, let’s say that there are three or people who are top architects, what do I now need to do to be better than them? Being able to identify that and what does better than them mean? What is the perceived value they bring to the people who consume their services? How do I now create a value that is better? That is what becomes extremely important to do. Like I said, it's important to build the basic skills, but it's extremely important also to build differentiated skills.
Harish Kumar: When you're talking about benchmarking, again, what I'm taking from that is the outside-in perspective. That's been one of my biggest takeaways from this chat for the last one hour.
I'll move to the last section where we'll ask you a couple of prescriptive things and then I'll ask you about some hot takes. First, let's go with the prescriptive ones, three books or resources that you would recommend for any corporate professional?
KS Prashant: Playing to Win by Lafley [00:50:00] and Martin, awesome book on strategy, very practical talks about A.G. Lafley’s experience in Procter & Gamble and how it’s laid out. Very practical, if you are able to take it up. You don't need to read all the chapters, but then if you're able to get the essence, I would highly recommend this book.
The next one is the latest book by Adam Grant, Think Again. I think very relevant to the things that you've been asking, Harish, in terms of challenging your own paradigms, and what you build with it, and continuously evolving. Adam Grant is one of my favorite management thinkers, authors. His book on networking is also fairly epic. Think Again is something that I would highly recommend. These are as far as books are concerned.
I would also suggest it for people in the management. I would suggest that if not anything, at least, subscribe to Harvard Business Review, or MIT Sloan Review. Certain Twitter feeds like Farnam Street and Naval Ravikant. All these people bring a slightly different perspective, if you're able to take even their one-liners, and kind of think about it, ruminate on it and then apply to your context. I think these are very good sources to derive from.
Harish Kumar: What would be the three things that the ideal professional of the next decade would be expected to do?
KS Prashant: The first thing is, accept that there will be ambiguity. I'm again talking about how you rise in stature because when you're in junior levels or just entering, you're going to have a lot of definitive tasks to do. As you rise higher, the levels of ambiguities increase. Being able to be comfortable in ambiguity. [00:52:00] I keep this as a very favourite thing. The CEO of a company is asked to predict the company's performance for the year when it's 10% growth, 15% growth, 20% growth, profitability, and the CEO would do it without knowing where it's going to come from. It's an intelligent guess, but then the CEO doesn't know what the currency fluctuations would be, how the market would condition because once that is done, the market is going to be unforgiving. You cannot give reasons for that. Then the CEO has the confidence of saying that I'm going to state this, knowing fully well that there is a reasonable amount of ambiguity in what I'm asking for, and my team and I, we will figure out how we’ll do it. Having that confidence of being able to embrace ambiguity and deal with it is extremely important for it.
The next one is again, in the spirit of Think Again, by Adam Grant, the entire essence of this conversion is always look for making yourself irrelevant. How can you make what you're doing currently, how can you make that irrelevant? Then that's the other way of looking at it. Very simple. If there's a certain business process that you're following, that is paying your salary, make sure that you find out ways of automating it or reducing the dependence on it so that you can move on to other things. You should have the confidence that you would be able to elevate yourself to create more value and then create time by making your current job irrelevant. It could be either by delegating, governing, and then moving off that, but then making yourself irrelevant to that particular job is important. It definitely means that you have created a good amount of sustainability in the outcomes that the job creates. You cannot be compromising on that, doesn't mean you just walk away. You create sustainability for the organization and then move away, through whatever mechanisms. Through [00:54:00] an org structure by delegating it, or through automation by making sure that we don't need people, we need less people to work on this and we move on to other things. That's important.
The third thing is about being comfortable with data. I kept talking about hypotheses, being able to extrapolate, bringing the outside-in thinking, and all that. Eventually, when you have to convince stakeholders okay, the stakeholders are convinced only by two things. One is through the words of other credible people, through credible examples, like if I say that Sachin Tendulkar told me so this is how a power drive has to be mastered, no one's going to second guess that particular thing. I mean, I say that this is what Sachin Tendulkar told me and this is such a Tendulkar sport, that this is how we should cover.
For people who do not have that access, then the only way to build credibility is through data. Making sure that you're creating credible stories to validate your hypothesis through data. I think that becomes very important, which means that you need to embrace data. When I say data, I'm not saying static data. Remember, there is data, then there is information that comes from the data, then there is the analysis that comes from the information that comes from data. People normally see data that comes out there, that is in the form of a table. When I convert that data into graphs, I see information, something is increasing, something is decreasing. What is not very evident when I come in as an audience, is why is that happening? That is where your cognitive skills come in. When I say be comfortable with data, I'm saying build all these skills, use the data to show information, and then show your cognitive analytics. That is where you differentiate yourself. By being able to analyze the information. I think these three things, at least. I mean, there might be more, of course, but you asked me for three, and I'm giving you these three. These three, for me, come right away to mind. [00:56:00]
Harish Kumar: Right, I'll probably add a 3.1 there about storytelling with data. I think whatever intelligence you're deriving out of that, has to be conveyed in the right form of a story.
KS Prashant: Storytelling is very important. You need to intrigue the audience, you got to make it interesting for them.
Harish Kumar: We'll come to the last section, Prashant, where I'll ask you for your hot takes. I know, the first one could probably be a separate one-hour-long Smartcast interview as well. I will still go ahead with that. I expect a short answer from you. What do you think is the future relevance of HR?
KS Prashant: HR is relevant. I go beyond that. Again, I'm saying out here that the future relevance of HR lies in being relevant to the business. I know a lot of steps are happening in that direction. When I say business, HR clearly has to identify its role in either the revenue or profitability or whatever, it could be in the business. I mean, if you are HR in a business for the social cause, then you know, a social cause could be... Then HR, or whatever the charter has to clearly be able to map out in their mind, what is the connection to the company's goals? Again, bring it outside-in perspective. I mean, nothing changes. HR is a function, bringing in the outside-in perspective saying that, okay, my company is making forays into this geography or into this segment, what is HR’s role in doing it? You have to move away from your current, adjust your regular paradigms. I know that there is the nine-box paradigm, these are good tools to have, but how do we use all these tools and frameworks that we have. Those cannot be the end in itself, because the company doesn't benefit from the HR rules, for that matter, any function rules, being the end in itself. The end has to [00:58:00] hook on to the company’s and business outcome. Once HR or for that matter, any function realizes that then there is definitely a relevance.
Look at the whole word ‘relevance’. The word relevance has become relevant because times are changing. You need to be at least up front. It's like the Red Queen hypothesis from Alice in Wonderland. You need to keep running to even stay static. So much is also true for HR, the whole paradigm is changing, the paradigm changed completely last year. How are we being relevant? Are the same engagement models going to work? Are the same training methods going to work? No, certain things need to change in order for you to even be relevant. If you actually have to go beyond relevance and add value, then you'll have to be constantly aligned to business outcomes and making sure that you earn your seat at the table.
Harish Kumar: The next one, what is the future relevance of managers?
KS Prashant: The same thing. You look at managers, right, I'm going to simplify by saying there are three levels in a company, there are the doers who earned the dollar, the person who codes, my client actually pays for that code, or the outcome of the code. Then there is the executive layer, the people who decide, let's say, the strategy vision, product roadmap. Then there is a layer in the middle, which I call as a manager for simplicity. Now, it's in a very unique position, because it's in between the executive layer and out here. The manager's role is to be able to first understand what's happening at the top. Why are our executive decisions being taken? Then being able to translate it into action below. That's like the more. You cannot just be aggregators because typically managers are known to be aggregators. Aggregation happens from the bottom and is pushed to the top. There is zero value coming out there. Especially these days with everything going remote, there is direct access [01:00:00] for layers about layers below. The manager’s role you know can get redundant. Unless the manager realizes that he or she can be a linchpin, When I say linchpin, of course, you will do aggregation, I mean, you have to do it, you have to do the reporting and all, but then what are you doing in two dimensions of the company's work? One is, in being able to translate the company's objectives into the way your team is functioning. For example, if the company is under cost pressure or profitability pressure, then how are you creating your org structure below you or creating processes or investing in automation to make things that you are delivering things better, faster, or cheaper. You have to focus on these three aspects.
A manager is expected to add value on these three dimensions of what his or her team is delivering. How am I doing it better? How am I doing faster? How am I doing it cheaper? In the context of the company. The company might say that we are going to differentiate on quality, we are going to be the best, so better becomes more prominent. If the company is on a huge, very fast growth path, then faster becomes prominent. I am not saying compromise on the other two axes, but being able to understand that this is where the company is headed, and being able to have your beachhead for your group, focusing on that particular piece, while keeping an above-average performance on the other two becomes very important for the manager to focus on. That's where his or her stakeholders will all say, okay, this particular person gets it, so I don't need to monitor him so much, maybe let's scale his or her responsibilities. That's how growth would also happen for that person.
Harish Kumar: Yeah, I think that's very pertinent. The third one, Prashant, GIC as they call it, global in-house centers, but I want to refer to these geographical sites. Are those geographical sites [01:02:00], is there an identity of an India site or a Pune site, or a Bangalore site? Is that going to change?
KS Prashant: Are you saying identity within the country or the country as a whole? What are you referring to?
Harish Kumar: Yeah, so these sites that are there for these MNCs, their development centers, which have started as a geographical location. On the whole, whether it is part of India or the global footprint of a company, is there any relevance for this identity of a geographical site?
KS Prashant: If I have to live in a completely imaginary world, there will be no relevance. That's the right thing to say also these days because we've gone all virtual, so whether the talent is in Cupertino, or whether it is in Pune, it should not matter. It's eventually going to generate value. Then that's easier said than done because there is still a physical manifestation of the talent. There's a physical background to the talent that we are talking about. Talent just doesn't emerge by the switch of a button. There is a whole upbringing, there is an academic upbringing, there is a social interaction-based upbringing that leads to talent being what it is, right? It's not just about knowledge in the field, but it's also about the mindset.
For example, the Silicon Valley mindset is that of growth, of data innovation, I mean, whether you like it or not even an average person is actually elevated to a higher level. Similarly, I mean, you go to the IITs or even the top colleges, you are forced to survive in a higher plane. You become better. There is a role for the location also to play, there is no question about it. Of course, the current time is going to make [01:04:00] those boundaries hazier. Then, at least in the near term reality, I would still say that the location would have a role to play, your background would have a role to play. Where you are working from might not matter, but what you've gone through in your life or what you are subjecting yourself to otherwise would definitely have a role to play.
Harish Kumar: I think that makes a lot of sense. I'm not going to let you go without me asking this final question, what is the future relevance of Test cricket?
KS Prashant: You know towards the later part of this window when it's going to be extremely relevant for us. I really hope they do end up winning. Then you also have to look at it in the context of all that. Test cricket itself has evolved. If I look at the positivity rate of Test cricket, I've been using that word in today's context, we see results happening out of almost every match. That's because of the influence of T20, and one-day cricket. Clearly, we are seeing results coming in with the mindsets of captains, the mindsets of players. In my view, I think one-day cricket might start losing its relevance because I don't know when it’s time, it’s too long for a day. T20 caters to that.
I mean, we're talking about T10s also. I don't know how that will work. At the same time, Test cricket is like a test of strategy. It's a test of your tenacity. It's a test of many other skills that come in. In my view, Test cricket and T20 might have a future. The one-day part is the one that probably risks relevance.
Harish Kumar: Yeah, I think it's neither here nor there. They haven't figured out what game they want to play with ODIs.
I think this was a fantastic conversation, Prashant. In spite of having interacted with you so many times on similar topics, I've had some great things [01:06:00] to pick up and glean from this one-hour-long chat. Thinking outside-in is going to be my mantra for the next few months or years because I think that that's extremely important. Thanks a lot for this great conversation.
KS Prashant: It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure always talking to you Harish, either virtually or physically. I myself derived a lot. Your questions were great. So thanks for having me on this.