Latest / Unstuck Pod / Stop Chasing Empty Growth (Praveen Kamsetti and Jamie Schneiderman)
Transcript
- Jamie: Praveen, thanks for joining. I appreciate it. For the folks that are listening, watching, can you tell them about, introduce yourself, tell them about you, and let's start there. Praveen Kamsetti: Sure. Thank you, Jamie. Thanks for having me here. I'm excited to have this conversation today. I'm Praveen Kamsari. I'm based in Austin, Texas. I've been in the industry for two plus decades in various leadership roles in a very diverse industry. I work for financial industry, pharmaceutical technology side of it, and manufacturing. And today, I'm a vice president for one of the company called Jupiter Capital Management. I'm also board of advisors for a couple of ⁓ companies. And I wrote a book. It's called 4L Framework for Leadership. I just released a of weeks ago. We had a book launch event happened in Austin, Texas on February 7th with the industry leaders and family and some of my friends, almost 200 plus people came there. So it's pretty, was super excited and it's exciting time for me and I heard a very good positive feedback from all over the place. So I truly appreciate that support everybody's giving it. Jamie: amazing. ⁓ fantastic. So congratulations. tell more about the book. What's the focus? What do you want to accomplish with it? Praveen Kamsetti: Yeah, I've been, like I said, it's a two plus decades of my career. A lot of times I very lucky that I work for some of the finest leaders ⁓ during very early stages of career, which helped to understand and kind of a curiosity and growth mindset. How does leadership work, right? And then I learned much from them to get inspiration from them. Last decade or so, I started practicing, it's called 4L framework, which is with empathy, lead for business results, lead by example, and lead with emotional intelligence. That's the framework I've been practicing. So in 2024 December, I thought, why don't I ⁓ these to ⁓ the ⁓ to the world, ⁓ some insights on it. And that's when I started writing a book. It took one year for me. And the book is all about how do we make leadership more human? How do we make leadership more human while still delivering the business results? How do we make leadership more human while still incredibly effective in the business? Jamie: Interesting. Praveen Kamsetti: How do we make leadership more human while driving the innovation for growth, driving the operational efficiency for the cost, and managing the business risk? That's about my book. It's more about how do we balance people and profits? How do we balance and business performance? And how do we balance relations and results? It's more of that. So that's the... Jamie: ⁓ huh. Praveen Kamsetti: whole idea and how do we leverage those four L framework which I mentioned earlier to get some of the complex business problems solved. Jamie: no. thank you. This is, it sounds great. Sounds, sounds really interesting. ⁓ I, so let me, let me, let me dive right into something and sort of, I challenge you, you're the expert. so, so, ⁓ you know, a lot of, there are a lot of sort of, say leadership models, approaches to leadership, a lot of folks that are working at a different levels. Okay. And I, and I get that. ⁓ And I what you're describing sounds valuable in all cases. I want to talk about specifically how that would apply in a, I say startup environment, because I really want to focus there as much as possible. And in particular, how do you find the balance between the, must grow, we must survive, we must grow, there is pressure everywhere, it's chaos as we're trying to figure this out with And the founder initially is just the founder, right? They have ideas and they start something with now, how do they take that and lean into it and lean into the model, the 4L model and kind of, you know, that in that context. Praveen Kamsetti: Yeah, it's a great question, right? So if you look at in today's era, The disruption what we see today, the disruption is it's maybe due to ⁓ innovations like artificial intelligence. have seen that, right? These dealt with in quantum computing. or it can be geopolitical situations, or it can be environmental, or it can be combination of those three or those two. we have, the world has realized that we are going through a disruption, and we realize that it's going to be constant. It's not a one-time shot. We're going to be in this constant choppy waters going forward. So what I think is leadership at this moment ⁓ more about not just Jamie: Yeah. Praveen Kamsetti: command and control, it's more about influencing. The leader has to be influencer. The leader has to be a networker. The leader has to a navigator to navigate from these choppy waters. In an AI environment today, leader has to create or develop a psychological safety environment, which is more important today in an AI environment than ⁓ before. And the reason is your teams or your organization to feel empowered so that they can challenge the assumptions and can come with unconventional ideas for that to get the innovation. When there is a lot of anxiety, you see with the ⁓ or with the mergers and acquisitions, people up to the leader to help navigate. That's when the leader's ⁓ integrity and come into the picture. And that's what one of the LCs, lead by example. Jamie: How, but I follow you. ⁓ agree. So ⁓ do this. I agree completely. Now, how does a leader that's dealing with their own ⁓ of chaos, right? Like they're trying to, talked about psychological, feeling psychologically safe. ⁓ guess the challenge is how can a leader who doesn't feel... safe or psychologically safe themselves because of everything else that's around them. How did they then act? they just blocking it? And then what they send down to their team is a little bit different or ⁓ you suggest that they be transparent about what's going on? so that the team is engaged in it's like, you know, what's the approach you would take in that case? Praveen Kamsetti: It's both, right? None of them is not a perfect example, but both. If you look at the mergers and acquisition example I gave you, you can be as much transparent as you can, but there are certain areas you cannot disclose everything. So that's where I think ⁓ the fourth L I mentioned is lead with emotional intelligence. Jamie: Right. Praveen Kamsetti: So that where leaders must practice emotional intelligence so that they can manage their emotions, others emotions, at the same time, continuously build the relations. The relations with your teams, your peers, with your stakeholders, and more importantly, with your business customers. So that's why I say emotional intelligence. If you look at my 4L framework. Jamie: Mm-hmm. Praveen Kamsetti: we have empathy and the end we have emotional intelligence. So that's a perfect classic example what you asked me about it. How do we manage? So that's the key. And one of the questions people ask me about, ⁓ empathy will become a soft leader. How do you get the business results in today's world? So today's world, is important to sustain your business growth, to reach your mission and vision of your company. That's where my second L I mentioned is Jamie: Mwah! Praveen Kamsetti: lead for business results. How do we do that? That is, know, when you lead with empathy, make sure you have accountability associated with it. So, lead with empathy, make sure accountability so that people are accountable for their outcomes and their business outcomes. That's where you lead for the business results. So, empathy for me is not a soft skill, it's more critical skill. And that's the accountability plus empathy will give a fantastic results, especially for bigger goals, to achieve bigger goals and long-term results. Jamie: ⁓ talk a little bit about that because we talk about business results, right? Leading for business results. And then, ⁓ know, Sometimes don't want to say the two are in conflict, but the two can feel like they're in conflict at times, right? So the two ⁓ are doing when ⁓ there's incredible of pressure that's heaped on you. Are there things that leaders can do or should do ⁓ will... I guess the question is, yeah, sure, they want to empower their teams. And yes, they want to push them forward in terms of giving them as much accountability, ⁓ accountability, but also letting them do their thing. How you find the balance between the... stick and carry it or push and pull. Like I'm trying to, I'm really trying to understand that because I there myself. I was a founder multiple times. There's an incredible amount of pressure to grow. Stuff is moving unbelievably fast. And while you want to always get the team, help the team get there, sometimes there's some real pushing that is required whether you want it to do it that way or not, or at least that was my experience. Praveen Kamsetti: No, I agree. Like I said, empathy is not about being soft. Empathy is not about being soft. Empathy is not about not letting people go. not letting off people. It's not about that. It's about understanding others, understanding your teams, understanding your customer, understanding your stakeholders. Jamie: Mm-hmm. Praveen Kamsetti: And at the same time, making sure that you help them support their growth. If you talk about teams, for example, not just understanding their needs, that's not empathy. Understanding and help them grow for their success. becoming more a multiplier, leader as a multiplier, rather than the diminisher. So that's what it means. Like, you know, If you add the accountability, Jamie: Right. Praveen Kamsetti: with empathy, that's where the whole mechanism It's not becoming soft anymore, it's more of understanding and influencing and getting the results out of them. Jamie: So. Praveen Kamsetti: Now one example I'll give you, think this is a perfect example because I have a good mergers and acquisition experience. So when you're in a mergers and acquisition, when company announces they're acquiring or merging with another company, as you know, the C-suite leaders more focused on more focused on financial, legal point of view, business model. But 90 % or even more of the organization going through Jamie: Yeah. ⁓ Praveen Kamsetti: am I going to have my job? Am I going to lose my job? Who do I need to report? What is going to be my corporate culture? Am I going to lose my flexibility and whatnot? So when you have that situation as a leader, you need to understand. That's where empathy comes in. if you don't address that, then you lose the institutional knowledge. The people who are ⁓ know, high performers, people who have your institutional knowledge, they are the first one to leave if you don't address that psychological safety issue. And that's where I'm talking about empathy. Understanding them, making sure that you can help them to grow and get success. Not Necessarily know, empathy does not mean you're not going to let them go. At the end of the day, it's the business results. Jamie: So, okay. So as you were, let's talk a little bit about as you were about the book, you've applied your years of experience, obviously, in a variety of different businesses to ⁓ way that ⁓ thinking. What I'd love for you to do is I'd love for you, there some specific... stories without sharing. You don't have to share the details of everything. where you found yourself or you've seen others in particularly challenging places around the need to deliver significant business results. either they had their limitations, was leadership, whatever that is, and either what they did to overcome it or they didn't make it because they couldn't get there. Praveen Kamsetti: I think it's always right. A success and failure may not be an end for anybody in one organization. So one organization you may be failure, but if you continue to stick to the leadership principles, you will get tremendous results in other organizations. the leader's depends on sometimes on business also, right? So what business model is required, what kind of ⁓ business is going through. But in my book, I mentioned about several different scenarios. Like you asked about how does this work, right? principles, I mentioned about 18 different topics. It be mergers and acquisition in cybersecurity. How do we see this through the ⁓ 4L How do we protect? How do we ⁓ strategize AI for the enterprises using this 4L framework? Even in healthcare industry, for example, know, digital twins, AI are, you know, big shift in enterprise, the healthcare industry. How do we see the 4L? 4L will work for, how do we, the 4L framework will help to, you know, amplify that experience, right? The personalized experience for the customer. ⁓ know, 18 different business insights in different industries I mentioned about it. But for your question, you know, what are the failures? What are the successes? I have seen both. seen people are successing. But what I can tell you is leaders who more of influencers, like I said, are networkers. Those have got a long-term success compared to people who are command and control, which is the short-term success. ⁓ Jamie: Right, right. makes sense. Can we talk about the difference between, you think about the model and you think about ⁓ and how they drive things, how much of where they're coming from? ⁓ again, I think there's a difference when you're a very, very large organization, you're leading from above. I get that. When you're actually there and you're in the middle of it and you're hands on, how much of the importance with the leader is the... ⁓ Praveen Kamsetti: Thank you. Jamie: having the strategy and the approach and the communication aligned versus the execution, digging in. You talked about leading by example. So even in that context, like where do you see one end and the next one begin? Praveen Kamsetti: In a bigger organization, if you are talking about 40,000, 30,000 employees, which I work for, and you are a leader, if you want to lead that big of organization, you need to have an influence rather than just commanding. Like that, we talked about it. But if you're talking about startup, for example, Jamie: Of course, Praveen Kamsetti: when you are a startup, right? one of the questions you asked, you know, how do we scale startups, for example? What are the reasons for the failure of the startups, right? So if you are a founder of a startup and in a very early stages of it, you will be managing the work. Like you said, hands on, right? lead by example, you do that. right? You're more of a building the product, right? But when you are in a stage when you're scaling, Jamie: Yeah. Praveen Kamsetti: you have to transition that from developing a product to managing the system, managing the whole product line. In a simple analogy, when you are developing a product or when you're in the early stages of your startup, it's more of a family culture. You just manage them as a family. But when you are going into the scaling, growing mode, then you need to transition to the leadership mode in such a way that how you manage your sports teams. for example. When you were talking about sports teams, everybody has a ⁓ roles are defined. There is a measurement of performance for each role you have to measure. And need to bring players to different, different stages. ⁓ Jamie: Mm-hmm. Praveen Kamsetti: For example leadership. You need to bring a leader who has an experience for growing your business. that is a transition. That's perfect what you said about it. When are in a startup mode, you are more of a hands-on work, hands-on leader. But when you are growing, when you are scaling, you become more of a leadership which is delegating more, and influencing That's how you scale. Jamie: Right. And in terms of sharing the information, sharing the knowledge that you have and letting go, is that something that you've seen that is hard for leaders or something that they're better at doing, especially in startups? Praveen Kamsetti: Which stages of startup you are in, right? If you are in a very early stages of startups, you you don't want to share every single thing because that's more of a proprietary knowledge, ⁓ But you are at a stage where you are ⁓ growth, are in a scaling ⁓ phase you are growing in two to three times of your workforce. Jamie: Right. Praveen Kamsetti: then you need to be more of onboarding the culture rather than just managing all by yourself. Because the culture gets diluted when the agility, the speed, and the accountability when you are in a very early stages of startup will be very different when you're growing very different. So yes, you need to delegate it. You may have to share certain things, business insights with your leaders, your team to get success. That's why I call it as a multiplier. you don't share those, if you don't delegate those, then you will become a diminisher. Your team will not be of any use. So you've got to multiply. Everybody has to perform to their potential. Otherwise, we will lose. ⁓ Jamie: No, that's great. Great. I actually think that's a, that's an excellent point for us to like and kind of like end on it. Let me, let me do this. What, what would you, can you me a favor and where, so you have your book, you have you like how, where can people find you? How can they to you? I'll put some links in the description after, but ⁓ why don't you share for folks? Yeah. Praveen Kamsetti: Yeah. Yeah, so the book is, we released the book in early January, it's available all over the world in the United States and in Canada, Amazon, we have it in a Barnes and Noble as well. Jamie: so that's on Amazon. Is there anywhere else, anybody ⁓ out to you or where can they find you? ⁓ Praveen Kamsetti: Yeah, absolutely. The people can reach out to me within my LinkedIn. I'm available in the LinkedIn. So if anybody wants, then definitely reach out to me. Jamie: All right, well thank you for, Praveen, I appreciate the time. Thank you guys for watching and we'll see you in the next