July 2022

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Prakash opens up about his early childhood filled with struggles, and how he had no choice but to succeed. He shares how he created a life for himself through hard work and never giving up, and how he started his own company to give back to others like him. We talk about leadership and responsibility, and he surprises me by sharing that he feels no pressure as a leader because everyone in his team takes equal responsibility. His leadership style, in his own words, is “people come first, everything else follows”.

You can find Prakash at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/prakash-palani-68067620/
• https://www.basiscloudsolutions.com/

In the interview, Prakash shares

• When I was a kid, my father was a rickshaw man, so that’s how I had my school days and so on. So I quit the schooling and the age of 17, I think, after, right after the 12th grade in India and I started working.
• If you take a look at our company, we’ll see a lot of ESE graduates become graduates, diploma graduates, and not necessarily from the city, the major cities they come from. Various backgrounds, basically rural areas. They don’t speak English. 
• If you go to marriage halls, you’ll see people serving you and making food. So that was my first job.
• I used to go to all the interviews, but I was rejected because I could not speak English.
• I did not have a choice. I had to fight hard
• We have an employee-first policy. So we have a belief that if you take care of your employees, Then they will take care of your customer
• Our first customer is still our customer
• People ask me, what is your leadership style? My leadership style is basically, that people come first, and everything else follows.
• Three things I do carefully is to eat, sleep and do some exercise. These are the three things. Everything else is work.
• We have a partner here, they came to our partnership only because we take care of people. They really value what we are doing for the people because they are also a people-driven company.
• we have people, for example, one was running a pawn shop. Today he is a software engineer who’s really doing a fantastic job for us. 
• It’s not just, that we start a company and you deviate from your purpose. We are very strong in our purpose. We have also ensured that purpose has been transitioned into the people. Because I alone cannot do this. My next level alone cannot do this alone. This purpose goes into the roots of people.
• My responsibility – It’s not totally on my shoulder. So here the culture, like when I say people-first culture, we also don’t go there and do micromanagement.

This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

In the interview, Theo shares how he has been exposed to a very multi-cultural environment ever since he was a child. We talk about the importance of building a great organisation instead of just building a great product, and the difference between urgent and important things. We talk about transparency, courage, and loneliness as a leader; and how perfectionism is not a scalable strategy, and the value of thinking long-term.

You can find Theo at the below links

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/theorozen/
• https://www.d2x.com/

In the interview, Theo shares

• So moving around is not something I decided myself. It was mainly driven by my parents back in the day. But I think I’m quite grateful for all of these experiences because I got to see quite a lot of different environments. So I was always exposed to a very multicultural environment.
• I would say more than particular events, it was more the people that I met. So I’ve been surrounded, I think by entrepreneurs which came in all sorts of well different kinds. Some had this entrepreneurial mindset but we’re effectively building new businesses as part of a larger organization. Some were really starting their own businesses and that was really an, in very different industries. I have three siblings. Two of them are also entrepreneurs. So I think maybe there’s something and then the upbringing as well. 
• I think it always gave me lots of adrenaline in a good way in the sense that was always super excited to wake up in the morning and catch up with everything that was going on
• It’s one thing to build a great exchange or a great product in general, but it’s something completely different to build a great organization around it.
• As an early stage company CEO there’s a lot of urgent things, but it’s important to still find the time to work on the important things.
• We spend a lot of time thinking about how we want to structure the organization, how we want to structure the dynamic between people. 
• I consider myself very lucky and I’m very grateful to be working with people who I also really look up to in terms of their expertise, skillset and in a way we’re also very much like-minded.
• We like to foster an environment where basically it doesn’t matter whether you’re a founder or an intern, but we need the best arguments should win in a debate and that’s how decisions are made. 
• I’ve never learned as much in such a short amount of time because as a founder, as a CEO you basically have to do everything. So I find myself doing things that I never thought I would ever have to even think about. But that’s actually the part that I enjoyed the most coming from a mathematical slash finance background. I never thought I would have to deal with HR matters, which I now found extremely interesting, for example, again, that comes back to concept of building an organization.
• I try to surround myself with people who can and are willing to give me advice. So that can come in the form of advisors to the company. It’s also our investors. So we raised two funding rounds and I have these bi-weekly calls with them that are that take the form of a sort of feedback session, but we’re basically, I’m mostly able to express my challenges and hear their take on it because they also have a different perspective.
• I’m a big believer in transparency and that’s also, again, an environment we try to foster here at D2X.
• A lot of courage is needed and I do have to get out of my comfort zone. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
• While it does get lonely sometimes I still feel that as an organization we’re really in this together. And I try not to be a leader who just dictates what people should do. I really try to empower people as much as possible. I think that’s probably something a lot of CEOs would say, I’m not sure if we all do but at least it’s really one of my guiding principles.
• With giving freedom comes the responsibility of letting people make their mistakes
• I think especially as a, as an organization when you’re growing fast if you basically decide to micromanage. It’s not going to be a good outcome in most situations just because it’s not possible.
• I personally had my fair share of challenges when it comes to delegating tasks. I’m a bit of a perfectionist in certain things and I think I used to be a bit of a control freak in certain ways. but I’ve been working a lot on that. I think it’s not a scalable strategy. So the sooner you realize that the better off you are. What really made the difference was surrounding myself with people that I could trust.
• Instead of basically surrounding myself with lots of people, I would rather surround myself with a smaller number of people. I look up to so that I can fully trust them and that they will actually deliver a good output in terms of quality in terms of time. 
• Being able to take a step back and see that the big picture is really helpful. 
• It’s still something I’m working on. It’s still a big challenge. I think the pressure is constant. I used to see entrepreneurship as as a marathon rather than a sprint. And then I realized it’s actually probably a marathon, but at the pace of a sprint.
• It is really important to be able to release some of the pressure But I’ve found it extremely challenging, especially at the start was disconnecting. But I think it’s necessary. If you’re able to disconnect, then you can basically keep up 
• At some point decided to basically stop looking at my phone during the day, I was also able to achieve a lot more because I was able to focus.
• We all think or at least most of us think we’re super humans when we started these things and we think we sometimes overlook the mental health component. But again, this is a long-term thing. You want to build a lifestyle that is healthy and sustainable.
• To me, success will really happen when we have an organization where people are fulfilled where we are, we’re all great performers and we’re achieving great things together. I see this more and more as as a people’s experience rather than just a personal one. And yeah, so I’m really committed to making that happen. 
• That’s really the difference between urgent and important and you need to do both right. Urgent needs to be done now, but important. It needs to be done. Nonetheless so again, it’s finding this balance.
• Being scared is absolutely normal. I was extremely scared when I did it. I remember the day I resigned from my previous job. I think 15 minutes later, I was almost shaking thinking, oh my God, what have I just done? Am I really doing this? 
• I think fundamentally there’s never a perfect time to start, but if you’re really driven if something really drives you there’s something you really want to do.
• All of these experience basically they make sense in hindsight. But yeah, it’s impossible to have everything figured out in the present.
• The moment you say that this is what I’m feeling, that makes it easier for you to actually move forward from that.

   

This is the Humble Inquiries series. In this episode, Leslie joins me as my co-host to humbly inquire into the performance and value of teams – which is the second of two episodes we are recording on teams. Nobody is paid for doing more or working hard. People are paid for producing results that matter.

In each episode of Humble Inquiries, we are deliberately going to put ourselves in the uncomfortable space of not knowing the answer and humbly inquiring about these challenges – with the aim to provoke new thoughts, actions, and practices – to help us better serve our coaching clients, and also to help the leader in you navigate the biggest challenges – at life and at work.

Show Notes

• Leslie – “What makes up trust and why is that so special in a team and looking at it from the four components of sincerity, reliability, competence, and care and that, it’s not my language, it’s from the thin book of trust”
• Sumit – “a caveat with any request is that people have the like people should have the permission to say no. Because if people can say no then you cannot trust any yes.”
• Leslie – “in order to have trust, I feel like you have to be vulnerable.”
• Sumit – ” if people do not feel there is enough space for them to be open either with their emotions, with their ideas or , just what is happening in their physical body, it will impact performance “
• Sumit – “most of what we call us trust or psychological, emotional safety is created not by doing something extra, but by stepping back and giving space for silence. Like that uncomfortable silence, which allows the safety and space to emerge. “
• Leslie – “another thing that I’ve become so aware of in that is the value of actually declaring that there’s been a breakdown, whether that’s been a breakdown in communication or process procedure, or even a breakdown in the team.”
• Sumit – “I think we all know what is not working or what is wrong or what will create a breakdown in results in the future. But  we do not have that openness of, we do not feel free to talk about it. And that’s the value of declaring a breakdown.”
• Sumit – “slowing down sometimes can actually allow us to work on these foundational elements, which makes everything else much more easier and much more productive.”
• Leslie – “slow down to either speed up or slow down to be more successful, whichever way you want to look at it. Really. Has some power behind it. “
• Sumit – “The foundational elements are not just meant to be understood as concepts like checking tick boxes. they are meant to be embodied in the team leader, but also then everybody else in the team, which will make any misalignment or any lack of clarity in that embodiment, very visible for people.”
• Sumit – “it’s also the commitment to not just doing more producing more results, but it’s also the commitment to the purpose, to the standards, to the values and to the ways of behavior that the team has set. “
• Sumit – “Every team has a customer and are we really taking care of their concerns and producing value and sometimes doing more or being busy is not directly correlated to that.”
• Leslie – “our work fills the time we have available”
• Sumit – “I have seen people being very relaxed, very calm, not busy, and still producing more than what they were doing earlier”
• Leslie – “You’re not going to have a great day every day. So the other option is sharing that too. Look team. I know today I may be a little off my apologies for that.”
• Sumit – “If people don’t have the context and they cannot suggest a better idea or they cannot suggest if something is totally not aligned with the long-term vision, the long-term purpose of the company team, or of the customer.”
• Leslie – “Your culture is almost like the secret sauce of your organization. Words, actions, behaviors, and you’re clarifying and reinforcing, what’s truly valued in an organization.”
• Sumit – ” the specifics of what is expected from whom to whom by when and for what reasons – is very important in every request.”
• Leslie – ” continuous learning helps the team and individuals in general also helps the organizations retain their people because they know that they’re being invested in their own growth and development.”
• Sumit – “as leaders, it’s very important to be conscious of. What mood am I creating in my team? And is my language, is my tone of voice, is my physical posture, reflecting that accurately or not?”
• Sumit – “if you notice two, two different companies with two different cultures, what you will see is very different conversations happening.  once you identify what are the conversations, which create a particular culture, then the access to you is to shift those conversations. “
• Leslie – “And your culture is never going to be all things to all people. It shouldn’t. Your culture should be unique to your organization and to what you want it to be, what you want to create, and the people that align with that will want to be part of it. “
• Sumit – “You cannot plan or enforce a culture. A culture is like something which is out of providing space for a particular kind of conversation, connecting with people, then listening with them, addressing their concerns.”
• Leslie – “A high-performance team is not a checklist to go down. It’s a fluid, circular process. It’s like dancing. You might step on your partner’s feet every now and then or you might fumble a little bit. You just say I’m sorry. And how do we get back on track and keep rolling ahead? But it’s definitely not a checklist.”
• Sumit – “A high-performing team is not like an objective to reach and the team remains high-performing forever. It’s a journey.”

As quoted by Edgar Schein in his book Humble Inquiry, an humble inquiry is recognizing that insights most often come from conversations and relationships in which we have learned to listen to each other and have learned to respond appropriately, to make joint sense out of our shared context, rather than arguing with each other into submission.

This is the Humble Inquiries series. In this episode, Leslie joins me as my co-host to humbly inquire into the foundations of teams – which is the first of 2 episodes we are recording on teams. All work gets done in teams, so it is very important that we spend enough time ensuring we have a “team” before talking about performance.

In each episode of Humble Inquiries, we are deliberately going to put ourselves in the uncomfortable space of not knowing the answer and humbly inquiring about these challenges – with the aim to provoke new thoughts, actions, and practices – to help us better serve our coaching clients, and also to help the leader in you navigate the biggest challenges – at life and at work.

Show Notes

• Leslie – “we need a team so that we can have all those different components working together towards that common goal or purpose.”
• Sumit – “we need teams because we cannot do everything alone.”
• Sumit – ” if everybody in a company in an organization is moving in one direction as a team, Then that company will leave everybody behind irrespective of the market, irrespective of the product, irrespective of the economic situation.”
• Sumit – “what makes a team is a set of conversations, not just a hierarchical relationship, are not just something on paper”
• Leslie – “Sometimes it’s qualified as like the fluffy extra stuff. Instead of seeing it as the essential foundation to lead to success.”
• Sumit – “Almost everybody I talked to has this reflection that they know that what they do is not all productive, that there is wastage there, that they are working on things which don’t matter.”
• Sumit – ” if you can get the conversations, right. what I have seen is that you can produce more value. You can get more done, like not done as in time spent or tasks completed, but more done for the actual stakeholders for the team in less amount of time.”
• Leslie – “When you’re in any team, you need to know who you’re serving, what does that look like?”
• Sumit – “a team exists, not in a vacuum. But to serve somebody either it could be an external customer of our company, but it could also be internal stakeholders”
• Leslie – “conflict or any sort of bump in the road, is inevitable. We’re not all perfect. What keeps a team is that if something does happen where someone is not aligned, or they have done something to hurt the team or an individual that it’s addressed and held accountable so that you can return to that state of alignment “
• Sumit – “when these foundational alignments are not in place, what happens is it results in gossip? It results in disengagement. People get disconnected.  People know what is wrong, but they don’t speak about it. And people know where the team is faltering, but they don’t bring it up.”
• Leslie – “it reminded me of a quote and it’s from Julio Olalla. And any problem in an organization or relationship is directly related to a conversation not being held or one being held poorly.”
• Sumit – “Everybody should be committed. And somebody, if somebody is not committed, then the team leader needs to have those conversations to get that commitment.”
• Leslie – “if you’re resisting communication for fear or blame, or that you’re going to ruffle some feathers, it’s likely that not having that conversation is going to cause more harm than actually having the conversation.”
• Sumit – “The commitment and the choice part is very important because you cannot force people to be a part of a team. “
• Sumit – “what happens when you create a team with all superstars, it creates entitlement. It creates competition because now everybody wants to one-up the other person.”
• Sumit – “this is a huge blind spot. that we see responsibility as a burden, taking responsibility as taking the blame for what goes wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. responsibility is it’s like a privilege. It’s like a choice,”
• Leslie – “If you, as a team member are seeing something not going right with someone else in the team, it’s not blame it is responsibility, but it’s out of care of wanting the team. To succeed and do better. So sharing that is important and it is a caring act as opposed to one of blame”
• Sumit – “this foundation level is where everything else becomes easier. without the foundation, everything else becomes harder. “

As quoted by Edgar Schein in his book Humble Inquiry, an humble inquiry is recognizing that insights most often come from conversations and relationships in which we have learned to listen to each other and have learned to respond appropriately, to make joint sense out of our shared context, rather than arguing with each other into submission.