[CTQ Smartcast] Culture Debt And Empathy In A Remote-first World, With Neena Bhaskar
Neena Bhaskar is the Head of HR at CooperVision for Singapore, Malaysia and Southeast Asia and has extensive experience as a coach, working with talent and culture.
In this Smartcast, hosted by CTQ co-founder BV Harish Kumar, we discussed the concept of culture debt, how companies accrue it, and the price that follows this phenomenon. We also spoke about how managers and leaders can practise and propagate empathy, especially in a remote work environment.
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(Read the shownotes below or skip to the transcript)
SOME OF THE THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT
Culture Debt and its implications
Ways to recover from culture debt
How can leaders and managers become coaches?
Challenges faced by leaders in coaching
Ways to ensure culture and values are practised
Neena’s three takeaways from her HR career
How can businesses develop trust in HR?
Tackling generational gap and building empathy in the organisation
PLUS
Future relevance of the gig economy, LinkedIn and Bollywood
LINKS TO BOOKS, PEOPLE AND TOOLS MENTIONED IN THE SMARTCAST
BOOKS
Lean In by Nell Scovell and Sheryl Sandberg
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim
Love for Imperfect Things by Haemin Sunim
PEOPLE
Radhi Devlukia, co-founder of Sama Tea
Kalpana Saroj, Padma Shri
TOOLS
If you enjoyed this Smartcast, you will also like How Should Founders Think About Building A Culture For Future Relevance, With Ria Shroff Desai
TRANSCRIPT TO THE EPISODE
00:00:00
Harish: Neena Bhaskar is the Head of HR at CooperVision for Singapore, Malaysia and Southeast Asia. In her earlier roles, she has worked in HR at Pharma and FinTech companies. Given her experience as a coach and her work in talent and culture, we spoke to Neena about culture debt, how companies end up accruing culture debt and what is the price companies pay for accruing culture debt? We also spoke about the role of empathy, and how managers and leaders can bring trust and practice empathy, especially in the remote-first world. If you're curious about how an HR practitioner uses culture debt and what they recommend organisations to do about it, you'd want to listen to this one.
00:00:56
Harish: Welcome Neena. Welcome to the CTQ Smartcast.
00:01:00
Neena: Thank you very much Harish.
00:01:03
Harish: Yeah. So, starting with a slightly tough one. We talk about debt, people know about debt in the financial sense, and people also understand debt in terms of technical debt, right? So if you just describe debt as borrowing from your future self, let’s talk about culture debt. So culture debt is a set of short-term decisions that will impact the company culture in the longer term. So how do companies end up incurring culture debt, and what are the implications or the price that companies can pay for incurring culture debt?
00:01:41
Neena: So, you mentioned right now, the technical debt and the usual debt that we know of. So when you talk about culture debt, when a company chooses to overlook the company culture in times of growth and expansion, and it happens a lot with start-ups, that's when a company incurs culture debt. And, unlike what we understand of debt, which is tangible, culture debt is invisible and can have huge impacts on the organisation. So if it's not recognized in time, it can primarily have such an impact on the organisation that it doesn't exist. And why it happens is because organisations, when they are on high accelerated growth or either there is no HR function or it's a very basic level HR function, where they're doing is dishing out letters, but there is no solid framework, there are no processes, policies, or guidelines to support that high accelerated growth. And when you ask about the implications, as I said that, it could be very scary because you could be dealing with turnover, you could be dealing with low morale, low productivity. There could be legal implications, there could be cost implications, and all of this could lead to having an impact on your brand and your reputation, which eventually can kill your business.
00:03:05
Harish: So, as you were saying, what came out was that these are all small things, small compromises that you make which add up over a period of time and then suddenly it hits you. So can you give some more concrete examples of what these kinds of compromises that we're talking about? Are these in terms of hiring, the way things are being done in the company, can you give some concrete examples of these compromises?
00:03:31
Neena: Definitely hiring. So, a lot of times when you're hiring, you're just focusing on technical skills, you're not focusing on if it's the right fit in terms of leadership qualities, in terms of certain cultural attributes. So, when you overlook those things and when you hire somebody just for technical capabilities. It's great because you know with start-ups, let's say you have to get the product out, so you have somebody who comes in and builds a product and it's great. But what happens once the product is out? What happens when you're bringing in more people? What happens to the culture then? And that's when organisations go back and see, look at who they've hired, what happened and that's too late. Because by then either that leader has brought in people who are just like him, which kind of shapes the culture of the organisation, which becomes difficult to change then, or there is a lot of attrition, there are a lot of retention issues in the organisation because people who align with the culture that you have don't survive because the leader that you have hired possibly is not aligned to the culture that you have. So literally hiring, lack of processes and policies. I've seen a lack of processes in play. So let's say an exit case, a leaver, if you don't have things to document, if you don't have data to support, people can actually sue you, they can take you to court and that also means that if you don't have processes in place, your managers don't know what to do. So if your managers don't know how to deal with an exit situation and they don't know how to document it right, you can actually be playing into the hands of somebody who's leaving the organisation, certainly leaving the organisation, not on a good note.
00:05:20
Harish: So, as you said, these are all the things that people want to do in the short term. They want to get someone in because they need to roll out the product or this feature or something like that. But eventually, they realised that no, this was probably a wrong decision when they go back, right? That is good for realization. We know that a lot of companies might actually be in this state right now, wherein the last two years it was easy to raise a lot of funding, so they've gotten people, and had to show traction to investors. So they did make these kinds of compromises. Now instead of looking back, if you were to project forward, you realised that the decision may not have been great. What do you do now?
00:06:13
Neena: So, once an organisation has realised that we have the culture debt, the first thing they should do is they should make it visible. They should be candid, they should be honest with the employees about what has happened, and why it has happened. That's very important because if you are suffering from culture debt, that also means that there is a huge impact on trust in the organisation. So owning things up is going to at least instil some level of confidence in your people that you are aware of what's happening and you're going to take steps to mitigate whatever risk is involved or at least would use it. The second thing is, aside from making it visible, ask your people what they want? How do they feel? When you talk about psychological safety at work, are they in a position to voice their opinions? Will they be heard? So that is very important because every single voice in the organisation matters and if you don't make your employees feel that, then it's a problem. You would not know what you really need to work on. You can say you have a culture debt, but what is it? What do you need to work on? Then, as I mentioned earlier, not just for technical skills, but for culture fit and I'm not saying that managers need to bring in somebody similar to them. You need diversity, you need that uniqueness, but somebody who aligns with the values and accountability, integrity, which you know, doing right when no one is watching. It could be any of the values that your organisation lives by, you see those elements in somebody that you're trying to hire. And starting at the top, we say that things shouldn't be talked down, but in this case, they should be talked down because you need to have competent leaders. You need to have leaders who are invested in people's growth. People who are emotionally intelligent; who understand how teams operate, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, and how can they make them feel safe in the workplace and allow them to grow.
00:08:19
Harish: So two follow-up questions on this. One is, are there any quantitative measures that founders or leaders can use? It could be something like an eNPS or what should they be looking for in employee satisfaction surveys, to get a sense of this. Because this cannot be a very intuitive thing, right, yeah, I think there is some culture debt, that's not something which people are comfortable with, as using means for deciding on things like this. So what are the measures that people can look at?
00:08:55
Neena: There are so many things that you can do, but to start off with something as simple as that, just do a small survey. If you are a start-up, you don't want to incur a lot of costs, you have so many online survey tools available. Survey Monkey is the cheapest and the easiest one and everyone has been using it. So, start a small survey, and try to find out the pulse of the organisation. Organisations do global engagement surveys, which are done annually or every two years, which is a great tool. NPS, as you mentioned, can do an eNPS and that's a great tool because NPS scores are not just for businesses or customers, it's also for employees and it gives you a good understanding of where your organisation sits. Whereas, somebody who's working within the organisation will be willing to recommend or refer a friend or an acquaintance to join your organisation. They could be working with you for monetary reasons. They could be working with you because they have some reasons because of which they are tied to the organisation. But are they willing to refer somebody? Are they proud of the organisation they're working with? Are they willing to go out and say, yes, this is the organisation that I'm working with and I'm not going to go to any other organisation? When it comes to some tools that leaders or founders can use in terms of getting the pulse of the organisation, it is that so many services are available and the cheapest and the most commonly used is Survey Monkey. So if you were to use that and if you were to do a quarterly survey, you can find out what your employees are feeling, how they're feeling and it could be about some changes that you made, new introductions, restructuring, new developments, moving into new markets. It could be about anything. It could even be about some small engagement activity. But trying to understand whether they are on board with it, trying to understand whether you're doing, are they liking it and also for start-ups trying to understand if the employees are still aligned with the vision that you started with. Because many times when start-ups start there is a vision and then it gets diluted and then it goes to something else and people who joined, I would say the ship in the beginning of the journey, they feel that, the direction that they thought this organisation will be going, it's not happening anymore. So trying to get a sense of understanding about what the employees feel, you can do it very easily. NPS surveys are good, I think that allows you to get an understanding about your own reputation in the organisation. And one thing that I really like about NPS is if I was to ask an employee who's in the organisation, if you would refer somebody to join us. If they say no, then you know they are not with your organisation out of loyalty. They are in the organisation because of some compulsion or something which is holding them back from moving to another good opportunity or possibly they are waiting for another good opportunity and that has not happened yet.
00:12:00
Harish: So, is there any recommended time or size of the company when you get started with something like this. What would you advise founders?
00:12:12
Neena: For start-ups, you can use a Survey Monkey, that's available for anybody to use and you can do a quarterly. That's going to help you figure out how your employees are adapting to the change because start-ups are highly dynamic and flexible and things change every day. It has been my experience that I could be working on a deck today and tomorrow I'm told that that's not what we want because a certain direction has to reach, right? When it comes to bigger organisations, the usual norm is they do global engagement surveys and these surveys happen every year or every two years. And then in between, you may also have your bi-annual survey which could be through Survey Monkey or some other formal tool. But bigger organisations when they do these global engagement surveys that are usually through some external vendors or partners like Gartner where you're using their specific set of questions and there is a method of calculating the responses, which is then put into action for the next one or two years so that before the next survey comes in, those pain areas or points you have worked on.
00:13:23
Harish: The second question that comes to mind with the previous answer, there may be some skill gap as well, for managers to be more empathetic. They may want to be more empathetic, but they're just not able to do it. It could be an unknown-unknown or it could be a known-unknown for some people and learning, especially in the case of a start-up, would probably be lower on the list of priorities. But you and I know that it is important enough to actually change the course of the whole company. So how do you then reconcile these competing priorities of, yeah, we need to ship out? Yes, there is intent, the person doesn't mean bad, but actions are not really helping. Then, how do you sort of reconcile the situation? What can you advise the founders about this?
00:14:18
Neena: This is something that I've observed and this is not just with start-ups. I personally know people who are great when it comes to execution when it comes to leading teams to accomplish objectives, but when it comes to emotional intelligence, they face challenges. So for them, it's a mix of unknown-unknown and known-unknown, because they don't know how to navigate through this. And not everyone is highly emotionally intelligent, and that's okay. Because if we were to have everybody the same, then we won't have unique perspectives, right? But I think when we talk about leaders trying to be a bit more emotionally intelligent, they can look at going for programs, where there are tools or methods or avenues for them to explore - how can they be more emotionally intelligent? They can possibly take up some coaching, where coaching is a process where you're allowing somebody to be on a self-discovery process, allowing them to see from another person's perspective so that they realise that when they respond in a certain matter or certain situation how the other person is receiving it, right? I do believe that you can listen to a lot of podcasts and you can read a lot, but unless you have some practical implementation and when we say putting yourself into their shoes when you go on that self-discovery journey and you try to do a role play sort of a thing where you're really putting yourself into their shoes and trying to see how would you feel if you were to get a certain response. That could help. So, that is what I would say because training is one thing, but it's about trying to find out how somebody feels. How do you do that? So that could be through coaching conversation, that could be through open conversation. And that is something that I truly recommend where I work. If you're facing challenges with your manager, let's say one person is emotionally intelligent, quite high there, but the manager isn’t. My recommendation to the employee or the team member is to go and have a conversation, and tell them you need this space. Tell them this space is needed not for work, but to have a candid conversation and tell them what you need. Tell them you can't go beyond this if you don't have this and tell them that, this is the support that you need, to perform to the best of your ability. And I can tell you that it has worked, people have felt more comfortable with their managers. I've received feedback where they've said, it kind of opened conversations in a more informal manner and I feel more relaxed now.
00:17:18
Harish: We spoke about managers and leaders getting coaching but how can leaders and managers become good coaches for their team? What do you recommend for that?
00:17:30
Neena: Personally I feel coaching has become a very important leadership trait of late. And why is it of late? Because, even though coaching, as a science, has been there for more than a decade, its importance and relevance have only come to light in the last five to six years and more so during the pandemic. So, I feel managers have realised how a coaching culture leads to higher productivity, and higher engagement, there is loyalty, and retention versus the culture which is talked down. And in the last two years, we've heard this term called great resignation, which is now being called great reshuffling because if you realise it's not that the people left the organisation because they wanted to leave work, they just did not want to work under certain leadership styles, certain ways of working, which is why they're going back to the workforce, but they're not going back to the same organisations. So, when you ask me how managers and leaders can be effective coaches, the first thing is to display a high level of emotional intelligence, which is only possible if they work on improving, as I mentioned earlier, their level of emotional intelligence. Because when you work on your emotional intelligence, it allows you to first understand how you react, you respond, and then it allows you to understand others, and their emotions and come from a place of non-judgment. That can only happen if you get into a space where you're not trying to judge somebody. Because if you're trying to judge someone, they're also going to get defensive and that's going to fail the entire process, be it coaching or be it trying to build a relationship. Some things that I can share because I'm a certified coach and some things that I do or some of my peers do when you are in a coaching conversation, you listen more, you speak less. So it's a 30 - 70 combination. So a coach would typically speak for 25% to 30% and 70% is by the client. So they are in the driver's seat and they decide the direction of the conversation, right? Managers should try to act as a sounding board and not a space where they know all the answers because then you're not empowering them. You see a problem, you give them the solution and then you expect them to come up with solutions. How is that possible? That is not possible. In coaching, we do ask a lot of how’s and what’s, open-ended questions. How did this happen? Why did this happen? So, showing that level of curiosity is very important because when you ask how's and what’s, that’s when they think deeper and they try to figure out, okay, why did this happen? Because many of the times people don't think about how’s and what’s. You just come up with something and it’s about this happened, but how did this happen or what happened? Creating a space where, as I said, thinking beyond and asking a question. So if somebody says, how should I solve this issue? You may want to ask, how do you think you will solve it? And letting them know it's okay, no answer is wrong. We're just trying to brainstorm and possibly the answer that I give you, but the answer that you give me could be better than mine. So building that space and asking for challenges, it's very important, even in coaching conversations we do that. When we set a goal with a client, we always ask, what are the roadblocks that you see and then we look at support or resources to overcome those roadblocks. And lastly there is no coaching conversation that happens without accountability. You need to have an action, you need to have accountability, that could be individual and that could be shared. But there has to be accountability so that they know what they are going to achieve.
00:21:35
Harish: So you mentioned, over the last two years, can you also talk about some of the challenges that came up in the last two years and how you overcame or saw others overcome in the process of coaching their team members with the pandemic? Because I don't think this seems to be ending anytime soon, some of the challenges seem to be there for good. So that would be an interesting take for people to know about.
00:22:05
Neena: Some of the key challenges, I think everyone faced, especially people who work in corporate setups or who run organisations, was the remote working and when you are remote working, how do you trust people? Because we all based our trust on the basis of seeing and meeting people. If somebody is in the office, you'll trust them. If somebody's seen working in the office, you’ll trust them. So visibility was one thing that was kind of the basis or the foundation of trust, pre-pandemic, isn't it? So, some of the key challenges I think people faced were building that trust, having that trust on teams, and showing empathy. How do you show empathy when you can't give a pat on somebody's back? When you can't shake hands at somebody, right? So, empathy became a big question mark or a point of conversation. Then, how do you keep the teams engaged? How do you keep them motivated? What do you do to bring that stickiness back within the teams, into the organisation? So these were I think the key things because these were the things that kind of forced leaders to also think about how we retain people. Because the great resignation thing, as I said earlier, started happening and then everyone was saying, oh, it's because we are not meeting each other. It's because employees don't see each other, so they are not engaged. But that is not really the reason, people can still be engaged in a remote setup. It's about how much do the leaders invest? Do they schedule meetings and talk about the meetings and then at the end of the meeting, they decide the outcomes and then they disconnect or are they taking additional time to invest in people? Are they making personal time with people having those conversations? So you can get personal with your employees, you don't have to get private, right? As long as you understand that, and you make space for that time, that bonding, these challenges won't be there. But these are some of the key challenges that I saw.
00:24:17
Harish: I think that that's a great line that I'm going to steal from you. “You can get personal, but not private.” So taking this to a larger scale, right, how can companies ensure their culture and values are actually being practised by people? What can you do at a more institutional, if you want to call it, institutional level to ensure people are practising this, what can companies do about it?
00:24:46
Neena: It's about walking the talk, isn't it. We always say they should walk the talk. So it's about walking the talk, but when we say walk the talk, what is it? Firstly, having a clear purpose. I think the way the world has changed and we see people joining different kinds of organisations or industries versus where they were before. People want to work with organisations that serve a higher purpose and who have a sense of purpose. So being very clear about your purpose and your direction, that's very important and being able to celebrate that, because if you have a good purpose, if you have a clear purpose, but you're not celebrating it, who's seeing it. Who's going to join you then, right? So being able to celebrate that, acknowledge that, that is very important. The second thing is inclusivity. So you can't go diverse without being inclusive. So first thing is, being inclusive, starting from the bottom line to top, everyone should be able to have a say and that means, as much as there is a distinction between the bottom line and the top line in terms of rank and roles and all of that, when it comes to interactions, that distinction should not show up. They should be able to comfortably interact and have a conversation with their leadership. They should not think, well, this person is at a certain level and that's where humility I think comes into play for leaders, right? High level of integrity. So as I said earlier, doing the right thing, even when no one is watching, is very important and it's not just to show external people or stakeholders, but it's about as a person, what level of integrity do you have? And if nobody was watching, would you do the right thing? And that's the kind of people and leaders if we have in the organisation, employees are going to see and they are going to invite that. Lastly, I would say servant leadership, that's a topic that has come up a lot in the last few years. I think the leaders who practice servant leadership are extremely popular, they are highly influential and that's because they don't believe in leading by giving commands or orders. They believe in leading by empowering their team members by providing support, resources. They are the ones who are actually standing at the end of the line and then just wishing well for their teams and just providing that support and motivation. It's like how parents stand on the sidelines and they cheer their kids when they are in a sports race or something. It's like that, those are the kinds of leaders I’m talking about when we say servant leadership. So that's very crucial.
00:27:33
Harish: This is more of a reflection question for you. Over the years you have worked with all kinds of companies, global MNCs, what if I were to ask you the three takeaways that you could sort of distill your HR career into, what would those three lines be?
00:27:56
Neena: Okay. That's a tough one, there are so many things that come to my mind. The first thing would be, to be a business partner, not be operational. When I say be a business partner, try and understand your business, try to know more about your business. What are the challenges, what are the highlights, the product that you have, because if you know about those things you’ll think like a business and that's where you add value? So when I say be a business partner, think like a business. The second thing would be if you have a seat on the table, don't lose that seat. We've been talking about, let's have a seat on the table, we don't have a seat on the table, businesses don't understand us. We do have a seat on the table. So, if you have a seat on the table, don't lose that seat and if you don't have a seat on the table, find out why you don't have one. We can’t be saying that businesses don't see us as an important business partner or as a business partner, there is a reason why they don't. Possibly there is a need for education, possibly there's a need for awareness, possibly there's a need for visibility or some value add. Figure out why you don't have that space and then you don't do things to find that space for yourself, that voice for yourself. Because if you don't have that, you will remain a backend process and that is not what HR is. Lastly, I would say invest in yourself. As HR, we curate programmes for employee development, leadership development, but what about us? So a lot of times we kind of overlook our own development. So I would say for HR practitioners and for HR leaders, invest in your teams, be it mental well-being, physical wellbeing, or some developmental programs; allow them to upskill themselves because that's the only way you can actually be a true business partner.
00:29:52
Harish: I think those are three very petite takeaways. But, what that has done is, brought under the follow-up question for me. So if you're talking about leaders and managers, being able to develop trust, right? Build that trust among their people, what you are talking about is business needs to develop that trust in HR. So, similarly, how do you actually operationalize this? One is that yes, there is a trust deficit, so obviously, trust needs to improve. How does business trust HR and is there a parallel with leaders trying to gain the trust of their teams? Is there something similar there or are they two very different things? Comment on both.
00:30:47
Neena: So, I’ll take it in two parts and the first thing I would say is there is a difference. The first is the HRP. So if the leaders are not seeing us as a business partner, as I said earlier, that's because either we don't understand the business or we don't understand how the leaders operate and at the same time, we are not confident enough to communicate. Because there is a lack at our end and that could be understanding the business, that could be understanding the potential challenges, and expectations, or it could be simply, our inability to communicate what works and what doesn't work. So, as HR business partners, it's very important, as I said earlier, to upskill ourselves, to understand the businesses right, so that you can add value. And also to be able to say no, but to know when to say, no, you can't be saying no to everything. So, this is something I got from one of my professors from Temple University, he said, you know, the first six months as an HR practitioner, you never say no. Because then when you say, no, people will say, oh, there is a reason why she is saying no, she never says no and people will buy that. So that's very important to know when to say no, but not always say no. Then when it comes to employees, I would say the trust element, that has been a challenge and a matter of a topic of conversation for a very long time and especially because of the pandemic, I think it has come up more so. So, it's a two-way process and I remember there was research that was done where people shared that 45% of the people shared that lack of trust in leadership is detrimental to their work. They feel less motivated, they feel unproductive and a lot of leaders expect the teams to trust them and this is something that I asked a leader recently. I said, “Do you trust them?” Because the leader kept saying that they don't trust me and I said, “Do you trust them?” And the other response that I got was not very convincing, but that's the thing. They feel it, you know, as human beings, we feel the vibe, we feel the energy. So if you're not trusting me, I will have that uncertainty and I will not trust you. So it's a two-way process and this has been there, but as I said earlier, highly emotionally intelligent leaders are pretty good at managing this, even if they are new. Because they know how to navigate these uncertainties and challenges and they try to use their level of emotional intelligence to understand each and every person in the team, what drives them, what are their motivators, and what are their challenges, without questioning their ability to perform well.
00:33:57
Harish: Yeah and another follow-up question, these days, empathy is something that we hear a lot. But sometimes there is a genuine challenge for people at decision-making levels because they've not been through the kind of situations that their team members are going through. You could actually have things, everything from ageism, right? I mean, there are people that I know who are in leadership positions, whose children and their classmates are now working in the same companies. So obviously there's a difference in generation. The way they think, what they've been exposed to, the way they decide, the way they multitask, all these millennials and all that talk that we have. That's a genuine sort of challenge for people and with the pandemic, socio-cultural backgrounds and contexts are also very different. In this kind of situation, how do people actually develop that empathy? How do I know if I'm a 55-year-old leader, what does the 22-year-old person joining from campus think? How do I even answer that question?
00:35:19
Neena: I think organisations really want to cultivate a culture of empathy. The first thing is talking about it, making it visible when I say making it visible, talking about it's required, it's needed, why it's needed. Because unless you talk about it, you show that it matters, nobody's going to really care. So it's very important that you talk about the fact that you want to be an organisation that practices empathy. Why is it important? What changes is it going to bring? Then being present, that's very important, being available and this is where leaders, this is where management, where you can say that we want to incur, be an empathetic organisation and all of that but are you present, are you available when people need, and then if you're available, are you curious about what's happening with them? Because that's where the investment comes into play. If you're not curious about what's happening and then being curious, it's again not getting private with somebody, but being able to understand somebody's body language, being able to understand somebody's behaviour, when you are day in day out working with somebody, you kind of start paying attention to how somebody acts or reacts. So those nonverbal cues are you able to understand, and identify? Because somebody could be, on a normal day behaving in a certain manner, but all of a sudden for a week or so, they start displaying a very different way of behaviour or some issues with their temper, then that is a sign that there is something wrong. Are you able to identify that as a leader? That is again empathy because you're being mindful, you're being proactive. So we need to encourage our leaders to pay attention to those non-verbal cues. We need to encourage our leaders to pay attention to things which are not being discussed in a meeting. So having that kind of a gut feeling or a sixth sense. Another thing is being vulnerable. I'm a person who's generally sold on vulnerability because I feel that brings out the realness in the person. So being vulnerable and when I say being vulnerable, being emotional, it's not about crying or something, but being able to courageously talk about some of the things where you failed possibly or some of the challenges that you've faced because people don't dislike you for sharing vulnerable stories. They like you more, it allows you to build trust. So do that, being genuinely open to feedback and ideas, because that shows humility, that shows self-awareness, it doesn't bring you down or it doesn't make you less of a leader. It just shows that you're open to ideas and feedback from everybody and it's one team. Organizations can look at building programs where employees can understand how to apply emotional intelligence and how to build an empathy culture so that they can support their colleagues. Because empathy is not just for you, not just for me, it also is a way of understanding how our colleagues are feeling so that we can support them. Because you never know who's fighting what battle, right? Showing appreciation, even if it's a small celebration, but showing appreciation really uplifts a person. If you are able to do that, that shows that the person matters, you value that person. And as I said earlier, being able to care for somebody personally, making time, even if it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes to just pick up the phone and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” It could be that somebody's life is not okay, or it could be somebody's son's first day at school and they shared it with you and even if it may not seem like a very crucial piece of information, just a part of their day-to-day life. But if you were to remember and just ask them, they'll be very happy, they'll come surprised that you remember that and that's again a mark of empathy, or I would say humility.
00:39:37
Harish: Yeah. I think the big takeaway that I'm taking from this is just bringing that to the fore. The fact is that there are differences and you need to be empathetic. I think that's the first step, bring that to the fore, make it part of the narrative, let people connect to each other at a more human level, and engineer opportunities for people to connect with each other. Like one of our clients was saying you have APIs programs to talk to each other. We still don’t have APIs for humans and that's what I think you need to do. So if you are able to build those APIs, everything is sorted. So to the final questions, right now. So what are the books, podcasts, courses, and people who have shaped your thinking and whom would you recommend to our listeners and readers?
00:40:36
Neena: That's a very interesting one Harish because over the last many years I've evolved from being a voracious reader. I used to read so much that I used to say that I drink up books, but from being that kind of a voracious reader, I evolved to be now a listener or an observer. I don't read much to be very honest and that surprises people. But what happens is, I don't read a book, but there are social media, there are so many channels. So, I just look at things and I try to, it's like taking a leaf of learning out of something, just lodging it to my subconscious and just moving forward with it. That's what I do. And trust me then I said, I have a very good memory, but I never remember movie names, I never remember book titles, I just remember something small from a book or something and that's about it. But if I have to give you names of some things that I would say, okay, I would read possibly. Something that may surprise you is I've always been fascinated by Bhagavad Gita since I was a kid and there used to be this painting in my house which had one of the ‘slogans’ and at that point in time, I didn't even know what it meant because it's Sanskrit. But, I would just read it in Sanskrit and just walk away, but I kind of realised that I was always fascinated and it has nothing to do with the culture or the religion that I've been raised into because I'm pretty secular that way. I go to a mosque but it's just that I find it to be very practical in nature and I think it applies even more so in today's world where we talk about being unconditional, selfless or doing things for others or being kind to each other or what you do comes back to you. Things like those and as I was growing and I realised that those are the learnings that I was taking from that book. Having said that I can't read the original Bhagavad Gita, not at all, I don't have the mental bandwidth for that. I got my learnings from different soaps that you watch or different mythological serials that you watch. But I really wanted to get hold of Bhagavad Gita in some simplified version or form, which actually happened because Radhi Devlukia-Shetty, apparently shared five top books that she recommended and one of them was a simplified version of Bhagavad Gita, which is available on Amazon, in blue colour and the moment I saw it, I was like, okay, I want this because it's simplified, it's easy and I can understand. Then, there are so many other books like Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, which talks about choosing work as well as a family when it comes to women or there are books from Michelle Obama, Becoming. But I also like the human stories that you come across possibly on LinkedIn or some other platforms, one example would be about Padma Shri, Dr Kalpana Saroj how she rose from where she was to be the chairperson of Kanmani Tubes and that's incredible and I do have people in my life, friends who have actually gone from rags to riches. But that's something, as I said earlier, vulnerability, I'm sold on it and I love that. And one last book I can recommend is something which was given to me by my ex-manager. It’s from Haemin Sunim, the author of Love for Imperfect Things and the book is The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, I personally like it because some days when you feel a little chaotic mentally, I would just go and open one random page and there is something written which could be totally unrelated to how I’m feeling. But still, there is something beautiful in those lines that you can pick up and you can say that uplifts me.
00:44:51
Harish: Okay. I think these are very useful recommendations which we even add to our show notes along with links for people to purchase. So coming to the end of this conversation, we even want you to give your hot takes on certain things, words, topics, and themes that I will ask you about. So I will be asking about the future relevance of each of these things. So the first one, what do you think is the future relevance of the gig economy?
00:45:23
Neena: I would say that people want the freedom to be able to work, be able to earn, but also at the same time, enjoy life and post-pandemic it's become more important for everybody. So it's going to be there, but I don't think people are going to leave corporate roles too. They may go in for a part-time role, they may go in for a blend, but people who want to have something on the side-lines, for some additional revenue stream coming in so that if times were to change, like what happened in 2020, they can fall back on that and they don't have to worry about what if I get fired from the job.
00:46:08
Harish: Okay. What do you think is the future relevance of LinkedIn as a platform?
00:46:11
Neena: LinkedIn is amazing, LinkedIn is great. I'm just not sure if it's becoming the Facebook of professional networking, sometimes I feel like that not all the time. The content is amazing, there are a lot of things to learn. There are good trainings available, a lot of events have started happening on LinkedIn because they provide that platform. I really like stories where people talk about themselves or their journey or something else where you see that human connection. But at the same time, I think people also need to realise that you don't have to wish your wife a happy birthday on LinkedIn, it's not faithful.
00:46:57
Harish: Okay. Then I guess what you're saying is you want LinkedIn to come up with the secret feature of deleting these kinds of birthday wish posts and good morning posts.
00:47:08
Neena: I wouldn't say that they should do it. There is no suggestion in this, but I think it's about people being more mindful about why each platform exists, why it came into existence, how it adds value and not just keep spamming everyone with content which may not be relevant or which could be personal. That’s all.
00:47:28
Harish: Okay and the final one, left of field, what do you think is the future relevance of Bollywood with all the OTTs and regional language cinema becoming more and more popular. What do you think is the future relevance of Bollywood?
00:47:43
Neena: I have no take there because whatever I’m going to say is not going to be right. But all I would say is please keep giving us more cinema, more movies and I'm somebody who, unlike a lot of my friends, I don't judge a movie and say, this was such a waste of time. It really has to be a very badly done movie or a very boring movie for me to say that. I keep my brain at home when I watch a movie. I mean, I don't put sense into it so I'm happy with it, if it's on OTT or if it's in theatres, whatever helps me to forget the day-to-day work and stress, that's good for me when it comes to Bollywood.
00:48:29
Harish: Okay. On that note, I think this is a great conversation Neena, where we moved from empathy, people building trust, HR, how should they find a seat on the table or at least retain it. I think we covered a whole range of topics starting from culture debt, right? That's where we started. How do companies end up incurring a cultural debt and what should they do about it? So I think we covered a whole range of topics and there should be a lot of actionable takeaways for a lot of founders and leaders whom I know will be listening to this podcast. So thanks a lot for this great fun conversation.
00:49:15
Neena: Thank you. Thank you very much, Harish for inviting me. I had a lot of fun, so thank you very much. And I hope whatever I shared is of use to those listening to us.
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