Latest / You've Been Heard / 324- (Release Delayed Due to Sensitive Content) From India to Silicon Valley: Butchi Pinnamaraju’s Journey in Global IT Leadership

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324- (Release Delayed Due to Sensitive Content) From India to Silicon Valley: Butchi Pinnamaraju’s Journey in Global IT Leadership · You've Been Heard

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Welcome back everyone, to dissecting popular IT Nerds. I'm your host, Doug Kameen, and today I'm talking with Buchi PunimBaraju, director of IT supply chain at Bridge Bio. Welcome to the show, Buchi.
• 0:13
  Speaker B: Thank you for having me here.
• 0:15
  Speaker A: So it's great to have you and get you to be on the show and talk with us about your leadership journey. You have a long history of working in a variety of different fields and, and you, you, you're, you're foreign. So like, you're you, you've come to us, you come here, you're here in the United States today, but you have a great history overseas as well. Can you kind of walk us through, walk our listeners through a little bit of where you came from and how you, how you got to today?
• 0:44
  Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I, I was born and brought up in India. I came from a small southern town right on the coast on the eastern part of India, a place called Vishakhapatnam. It's a very, it's a small town. It's not very small, not in metro like Mumbai or Bangalore that many people hear about. So my father used to work in, in a public sector company there. They have their own school, so they, my father used to work in a school office there. So I lived there all my life in a small township, pretty much, pretty much exposed to just that city. Never used to travel beyond because both my grandparents on my father's side, on my mother's side live, used to live very close by, probably like 30 kilometers, 30 miles away. And that's my world until I am like 14 years old or probably like 16 years old when I went off to a college which is probably 100 miles away, but still very close. And then I think my first point when I went outside my home, like really far away was to a city called Bangalore. It was a huge cultural shock, completely out of place. And even within India, like seeing big restaurants, seeing nightclubs and all those places was like completely different, completely cosmopolitan. In India, the languages are also quite diverse. Like every few, not 100 miles, I'd say every few thousand miles, you probably will see a different language. And in Bangalore, so it's cosmopolitan. So many people spoke English or the national language, which is Hindi. For me, it's a lot of upskilling to kind of improve my communication skills, improve. I used to use English just for my learning perspective or my education perspective, but I never used so much of English to communicate in an office setting and things like that. So I've learned a lot of those things, like pretty much exposed to different cultures, understood different communication styles, even picked up a lot of conversational skills in English which I didn't have before. Pretty much. I used to write well, read well, understand well, but was never able to conversate as much as I was able to when I was in Bangalore. So all that was a great upskilling. And I think from there I went on to work. I was working in Bangalore for a small bank. I did my mechanical engineering. But in India at that point of time, it was right in 2002, right after Magnum and the whole world's economy was not so big.
• 3:25
  Speaker A: So I, I remember that early 2000s, I was looking for a job then too and it was not fun.
• 3:32
  Speaker B: I picked up a job right out of college in a bank which is completely different from what I studied and where I wanted to be. And frankly I was very thankful for the opportunity. But I hated my life for doing that job because the whole day it was for a bank, I will take the names, but it was for a bank where there were no systems. We used to have huge ledgers of books and I used to take care of fixed deposits back in India. And it was just having a calculator in one hand, turning page after page summing up things and making sure whatever balance is on the book palace with the book balance on a computer. So I used to do that almost every day. Then I was like, no, it's not me. I can't enjoy this job. It's just because I thought I would do some different things, use my engineering skills and do all of that. But there were no jobs. So I kind of very similar to what people have here. There's a exam in India called GATE which is basically a common entrance exam for all of, all of Indian students who want to enter graduate college. So I gave that and I joined an institute called National Institute of Industrial Engineering which is now, which is now, which is now called as Indian Institute of Management Mumbai. So I did my industrial engineering. I was exposed to supply chain management there. It's a good college, gave me a lot of exposure to how the market is, how the industry is. It's in a, in a big commercial city called Mumbai. So a lot of exposure to industry, a lot of networking opportunities, met with many industry folks, learned a lot from the college and I think it gave me an all around personality about how to be in an atmosphere where you can leverage your skills and leverage opportunities and build up networking contacts so as to be an all around person and be ready for the market, I wasn't ready to kind of touch. And I was never sure if I'm ready when I finished my undergraduate course. But after I did Ms. Master's course, I felt I'm pretty much ready because I did a couple of internships. I used to work alongside industry veterans and I took up some volunteering opportunities in the college, for example, helping with placements and stuff like that. And we had a huge batch size. I think there are two batches, one of 90, another one of 150. And I think we placed close to 200 folks back then in jobs. Almost all of them got placed. When the graduate course is finished, obviously I can't for all of that. We had a bunch of people working to get everybody placed, but we did place everyone. So it's a huge organizational effort in a way. Right when you're in college, right, you're not working for yourself, you're working for a group of your students or colleagues. Can you get all of them placed? So you have to build up your contacts in the industry, make sure you covered a variety of industries that interest your batch, align your college, conduct the placement and make sure that you're placing everybody by the end of graduation. So that was probably a very challenging task. That gave me a lot of exposure and that gave me a lot of ideas about team dynamics. How do you work alongside your colleagues in the volunteering group to get everybody placed? And how are you perceived by the people you're placing them? Because some of the people perceive you like you have undue advantage. Maybe you are selfish and you're trying to place your friends before them others. So those are the kind of dynamics you're exposed to and you understand how people are being perceived to. How do you want yourself to be perceived on? How do you proactively communicate so that proactively communicate so that people perceive you in the way you like them to be. And overall the whole group as the batch as a whole is successful. So that was my first exposure to like, I wouldn't say leadership, but certain aspects of leadership. Right. Organizing and looking for opportunities, nurturing your colleagues who are students so that they're prepared for the placements. And once they're placed, making sure that they join the companies, take the feedback and hand off that responsibility to your juniors. So who will be placing their colleagues in the next year? Probably so. So. So those are the kind of things that I did there. So from the campus, I got placed with Deloitte, I was doing.
• 8:06
  Speaker A: So could I. I actually, I have a question. And I definitely, I want to hear the, the, like, the career arc too. But just for the purpose, the benefit of our podcast listeners here, we talk a lot about leadership. And one of the things that we usually explore is what you felt about your, your history or your, you know, I guess I'll call it your origin story. You know, you mentioned you were from a small town in India. You came even, even within India, there was a lot of different cultural norms. Cultural, you know, just culture in, in a general sense, you know, you, you came to Bangalore and you're like, whoa, this is, this is big. And, and things are very different. And, you know, since then, you've moved on to other places. But in your leadership journey today, what things did you take from, from growing up in a small town in India, like, what lessons were infused in you that you carry even to this day that you think are really unique from that time and your, your background there?
• 9:07
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the core aspects is, especially for me is leadership is hard work. Right. And leadership is not management. Right. I personally feel leadership is not management. It's a bit of management to achieve the outcomes that you want. But leadership is basically like hard work. Leadership is being compassionate. Leadership is being kind. Leadership is almost being like subservient to the goals of the organization and to the goals of the individuals of your team. So that's very key. Right. For some reason, in many places, leadership is characterized as being like position, power, authority, and manage politics, manage things. But you should not be managing anything. Right? You should be honest to yourself. It should be honest to your subordinates. You should be transparent, you should be compassionate, you should be kind. And you should be hardworking too. Right? Like, you're not just. Delegation is very important, but at the same time, you should be hardworking. You should know the subject matter. It should be able to be. You should be able to become an individual contributor and show to the team that you are equally capable when the situation demands. So I believe in more traditional kind of a leadership style that was there, like many decades ago. For example, you rise from the bottom. You've gone through, you rolled up your sleeves, worked through the shop floor lines, and then grew up through the respect that you've gained through your team to kind of become the leader of that team.
• 10:53
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• 11:45
  Speaker A: I think part of the reason I ask this of you in particular is that the lessons that people have from especially their, their, like their home, if you will, whether it's your, you know, your small town or your family unit or whatever the case may be, in a lot of ways, no matter where you start from, you pick up the same lessons, you know, you about, about how leadership is hard work and how leading, if you want to be a leader, you have to invest as you, you know, in your, your time and your effort to make it successful and working from the ground up to understand something has a high amount of value. Like, I just, I just, I. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure to point that out because like I sometimes that could be hard for people that, you know, this is a podcast that most of our folks are, you know, in the United States of America. But it could be hard sometimes even for listeners to think about, like everywhere else they, that experience often means the same thing and it looks a lot of the same ways, right?
• 12:49
  Speaker B: I think most of my role models, whether it's my parents, whether it's my brothers, or whether, whether it's my leaders, they've given up more than they've actually gained by being in that position. Right? What a leader means for me as a role model, whether you take up my teachers or my parents or my brother or the leaders that thankfully I had in my professional journey who were great mentors and everyone, I don't know, but they came across as very giving. Like at least they give up more. Right. For example, if I'm doing a presentation and there is an opportunity to present in front of like a director or a vice president, I'm fresh in the. A leader would give an opportunity to a person in the team and let him showcase the work if he or she has done that work and be the face of it. So, and show it. And sometimes I would wonder, hey, why is this person? I, I never questioned that a lot when I was there and I felt so happy that I got the opportunity to do that when my manager or my senior manager gave me that opportunity to do so. Yeah, but I see like, I think as a, as a society, that giving thing. That giving thing is going away. Right? That nurturing thing or that way of like kindness, a compassionate way of pushing a team member ahead of yourself. Right. That thing is going away. So majority of the leaders that I see today want to be the leaders. There are very few who are just there because the ecosystem around them. Place them there, right? Yeah, place them there. I'm not talking about entrepreneurs or people who started a company. They're different kind of leaders altogether. But I'm just talking about leaders who grew up in an organization. So if you want to be a leader very badly, it's very tough for you to give up on things, whether it's doing a presentation in a conference or doing a presentation instead of your manager. Because you're always trying to build up your promotion book or your. So that you're ready to go to the next level when the cycle comes. Right. You're always competing. Right. But if somebody is naturally placed there, I think I see them as better leaders and I take them as role models even for my own situation. So if I try to compete and the competition never ends. Right. When you start competing, it's not a bad thing. You should compete in terms of how much knowledge you have. You should compete in terms of how you're contributing for your organization. You should compete with your competitors. Right. Who are outside of your organization. Just be better. But you should not be competing with your own peers or you should not be competing with your own subordinates just for the sake of promotion or just being. For being a leader. I think if an organization can develop a culture where people naturally progress into leadership just because their whole team wants to be. Wants them to be a leader. I think we would have better organizations. Unfortunately, our performance cycles, it's not just in us. Right. All across the world. Performance cycle process and all of those process. Do not encourage such kind of leaders to move forward.
• 16:06
  Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of. And I'm glad you brought that up and shared it. I too shared the philosophy that the best leaders out there are the ones that share the spotlight and encourage and build up other people on their teams with the belief that, that their time will either come in the future or just merely doing that work is what will lead them to their next step. You know, like. Like being a leader is not. I did the thing. Being the leader is. I helped the team do the thing.
• 16:41
  Speaker B: Correct. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. That's. I hope. I think, I think the last statement you made, like, I helped the team, did the thing, I made this thing possible for my team. I think those are the kind of statements that a leader should be evaluated on. I think it works both ways. Right. Like also from the team perspective, if I'm a subordinate, I shouldn't be evaluating my manager on how many promotions I've got by working with him. Right. Or whether my manager gave me the opportunity to move from level X to level Y. I should just be evaluating my manager based on what opportunities he or she gave me to grow up as an individual or as an employee of the organization. It could be in terms of the skills, it could be in terms of meeting other people, it could be in terms of presenting myself in the industry. So those are such kind of things that a subordinate of a manager should evaluate themselves on rather than just plainly evaluating based on, hey, how much my compensation increased or how many promotions I've got by working under him. Right. It becomes purely transactional. And unfortunately performance cycle like that an organization sets up encourages such transactional relationships between manager and subordinates. Like you start evaluating the relationship based on very numerical kind of metrics rather than the qualitative metrics as how you generally feel working under him or her.
• 18:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. So that. It was a great, that was a great tangent for us to go on. I did interrupt you talking about your career. We were at the point where you had, you done a lot of work in college and you shared some great insights and tidbits about the things you learned when you were in college and what, how that like infused in your leadership and did you take even today? Then you went on and I'm doing a little cheating here and that. I've looked at your LinkedIn profile and I know a little bit about your background, but the, you know, then you, it looks like you got into like your career path and you really have an SAP focus and you had a lot of roles in a lot of big places. With that, you tell us just a little bit about that and we can dive into some details there.
• 18:44
  Speaker B: So I joined Deloitte. I was there for eight months. I was frankly there for eight months and it was Deloitte back in India. So we were working on, like I said, Enterprise Technologies. I joined as an intern right out of college with a promise for final placement and we were doing a lot of validation on systems. But I was missing a kind of like foundational learning which I would wanted, which I wanted in SAP because truly if you want your journey to be in consulting to be great, you should know ins and outs of whatever technology product or subject matter you're working on. So that's what I was missing at Deloitte because it was quite a huge organization. India was an offshore center. I wasn't getting as many opportunities to learn from a foundation up way in a formal way. So I started exploring other opportunities. So then I had an opportunity from SAP and I didn't ask for money, I didn't ask for promotion. I asked, hey, how am I going to be a good consultant in SAP? And the manager that told me, hey, we, we wrote the software so we want, we don't want our clients reach out to us when they, when anybody other consulting company failed to solve their SAP problem and they come to us to pay a premium to solve their problem. So we want you to be a subject matter expert and we'll train you such that you are a better expert than anybody else. Other consulting companies. So that sold me. So I joined SAP and true to their word, they trained me in most of the technologies. And I'm still indebted to them for what they taught me in terms of the ERP technology knowledge. I was with them for four and a half years. So I got multiple opportunities to go to Europe, to go to us. Exposed to different cultures, exposed to different organizations. Really, really opened up my space. I was like in a completely different world. The first time you go to Europe, especially for a guy who came from where very small city.
• 20:37
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:37
  Speaker B: Seeing like for example Frankfurt or seeing like a Frankfurt airport or like, like going into Chicago downtown. Like you, you're like, hey, you're in totally different world. Like you're watching a sci fi movie or something, right?
• 20:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, like the John Hancock Tower. You're like, oh my God, this looks like seven, you know, 75 stories. Or the. Well, what used to be the Sears Tower. I can't remember what it got. It's the. Oh my gosh, I can't remember the name of it now, but whatever. It was the tallest building in the world at one point.
• 21:01
  Speaker B: I remember I used to work in that small town called Warsaw in Indiana, in Midwest. And then every weekend I used to take to trick a dip to every other weekend. Every weekend is like a little exaggeration. But I used to take a trip to Chicago downtown and all my colleagues who are like Americans used to wonder why do you go there? For some reason it was so fascinating to be in the downtown and to watch those huge buildings and really wonder like it's a different environment. So I got fascinated by the place. I got fascinated by the kind of work that happens in US and Europe. A lot more cutting edge, a lot more new technologies and a great space to learn from others and also a great space to implement the knowledge that we learn from our tools and technologies at the company. So it basically is a progression, not from a level or anything perspective, but purely from a qualitative leadership perspective. It gives you more subject matter knowledge. You're very close to your customers because being in India at that point of time, there were SAP implementations happening, but not as much as advanced implementations that were happening in US and Europe. And you are very close to your customers. You're working face to face with them, you're nurturing the relationships, you're learning from them. So you learn something more than what you would normally learn if you're just sitting right back in India and working offshore. They are equally capable. But I'd always say if you're as close to customers or as close to clients as possible, you have better outlook and better details and better relationships and you would have better opportunities compared to sitting back home in an offshore facility. So for those reasons, I have explored opportunities to go outside of India and see where I could, where I could make my mark.
• 22:47
  Speaker A: So I'm going to pause you again just for a second. I love having the opportunity to talk to somebody who just different cultural perspectives, you know. So you, you've spent a lot of time in Europe, you spent a lot of time in the United States coming from neither place. So what, what is what, what hits you culturally impactful from a business perspective and a leadership perspective between Europe and the United States? Like what, what's different? What makes you attract, attracts you to one versus the other? Or do you find like this is positive over here, but this is positive in the other place? Just, I'm really curious.
• 23:28
  Speaker B: I can't comment much about, I can't generalize it, but I'll focus more on my observations from an erp.
• 23:34
  Speaker A: Yeah, your experience.
• 23:35
  Speaker B: We will not generalize consulting or ERP implementation or ERP projects kind of place. Right. Europe is extremely structured. They would do nth level of planning before we get into anything. Right. Like if I'm, if, if I am just an individual contributor on an European project, I would have my defined set of roles and responsibilities. The people around me have their defined set of roles, responsibilities, systems and process. The plan is to the nth level of detail. I can close my eyes and blindly, blindly is again an exaggeration. But I can close my eyes and focus on the work I have to do, assuming that everything else will fall in place and work as per the plan because they do nth level of planning and organizing and as an individual contributor, like if you're not a manager yourself, you just focus on getting your work done. So I'd say they're very risk averse. They're very risk averse. So the counterbalancing thing of that is to plan to the nth level of detail, make sure you have people who have the knowledge, who know their roles and responsibilities and who are experts in their very specific area and then can get the job done. So that's how Europe was.
• 24:49
  Speaker A: So, and everybody's, they're cowboys in the United States. That's what you're really saying, right?
• 24:57
  Speaker B: The downsides of that, right? I, if I, if I am like a, if I'm working on a procurement solution space, right?
• 25:04
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:04
  Speaker B: I don't understand what's happening in sales and distribution. I don't understand what's happening in finance and nobody even informs me of that. Right. Like if being on a European project unless I'm impacted, right. As a part of that plan or as a part of that organization.
• 25:16
  Speaker A: So it's just sort of assume that everyone else knows everything that they're doing and if it doesn't impact you, you don't need to know.
• 25:21
  Speaker B: And therefore it's like, yeah, that's it. You just focus and get your work done. And let's say, and let's say for some reason, for some reason, if you, if the same situation has to be applied to the U.S. uX is like more, I'd say more vision focused. You guys know where you want to be on X date and the plan is there at a very high level. We'll make it happen. Puka crook. Right? Like we'll make it happen then and it happens. Right. Both European projects were successful. US projects were successful. You trust more in people, like the US systems trust more in people and they're needing to step onto the plate and deliver the work. Whereas European projects trust more on processes, systems and organization that is there to deliver the project. So generally most of the projects have done in the US they have an end state vision. Let's say we have to go like we have to launch this product by X date of month. Right? That's where the vision starts. And then you do backwards planning at a very high level and then go right in US In Europe they'd still have a vision, but they would break down into N Level of detail. What will happen if this happens? What will happen if this happens? What will happen if this happens? What happens? Let's say, for example, hey, did we consider this? Did we consider that they would ask all those questions ahead of time? Majority of those questions come during execution. And as an individual contributor, for example, none of the individual contributors can answer that question by themselves. The UX systems work so fast that people talk between themselves, people reach out faster across levels and they try to step on the plate and try to find a solution collaboratively and quickly at that instead of time and move forwards. So I think both systems are good. It depends on the type of personality you are to see where you can really flourish and be a better leader. Right?
• 27:21
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's super diplomatic, but I mean I get what you're saying, but it is an excellent diplomatic answer. It's okay to say that we're cowboys in America. Like it's fine.
• 27:34
  Speaker B: I like to. Personality wise, I like to work in the US more. Not just not because I've gained a lot from Europe. There were great men does in Europe and the great leaders I still look up to and talk to today from Europe. The only reason, it just suits my personality. Right. Like I'm not shackled by I. Bureaucracy is a little, little harder word. But I'm not shackled by anything. Right. I can go beyond my scope and roles and responsibilities of work, learn new things, pick up new things, do certain aspects and make a positive impact to the project or team I'm working on. I think my role is more fluid in US and I like that aspect of it compared to how things are defined in Europe because it's a much peaceful environment when you're working in defined roles and responsibilities. But there's no fun in that if you're working there for like two, three years. There's no twist or a turn or a climax in that project or program. And then if you're working on the US side, every couple of weeks is a twist and a turn. I personally like it. That's because you learn from 10:10, right? And then you are exposed to areas and situations that you're not normally exposed to in US for example, you're exposed to a situation where for example, a consulting team is going, your partner is going away in a week and you only knew about it like in three days or four days before then how you work quickly with your procurement finance, quickly step onto the plate, write a new statement of work or do a new RFP and get a new partner on board. And then Implement the software, right, for example, or you're in a no go, go, no go meeting and you forgot like you had to make a, you forgot an item on the go no go meeting which is not there on the plan. But it came up in the go no go, no meeting because some business counterpart mentioned it. And then you take responsibility saying, hey, you missed that and you still fix it. Whereas in Europe, there is very little chance of that happening because everything would be planned to the nth level of detail. In us, there is a chance of that happening. But as a person, I've learned two things. First thing is I've learned the humility of accepting my mistake that I haven't considered that before as an individual, if not the team didn't consider it. Second thing is I had an opportunity to correct it at the nth minute by considering all impacts at the same time. I got a chance or I or my team had a chance to, to kind of make the customer satisfied. And they still have that dependability with our team. So, so sometimes majority of great of the great relationships that I had came out of crisis, right? They didn't come out of a normal situation, right? How, how some person can say, hey, they could depend on you in life and death, right? Only if they face the situation of death, right?
• 30:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. People. Yeah. You measure, you measured by if the building is burning in front of you. You measured by, are you, did you run into the building or did you watch it burn? You know, so did you, what help did you render? How were you under pressure? How did you, you know, did you handle it? Did you handle it effectively? Did you do great? Were you, were you, you know, grace under fire, if you will.
• 30:53
  Speaker B: I think your system trains you for crisis management a lot better than any other system.
• 30:58
  Speaker A: Hmm, that's, that's a really great insight.
• 31:01
  Speaker B: And then it tests you, it tests you really well. Like how you behave in cris, tackle the crisis and how you are as a person during the crisis, whether you blame on others or whether you take it upon yourself and be a leader, work with your team and deliver it.
• 31:16
  Speaker A: All right, so getting to now your director of IT supply chain at a place called Bridge Bio. And so in your specific role, so you're leading it, you're leading a team that works on supply chain issues for.
• 31:28
  Speaker B: This, this place, I'm leading a project and a program which, which works on implementing supply chain systems that deliver the drug when the drug gets approved. That's where the customers and patients when the drug gets approved. So imagine, right, like when if you have to produce a product, you have to buy the product, you have to manufacture a product, you have to ship it out to hospitals and distributors and then from there it gets dispensed out to the patients and others. So you need systems and tools and technologies within the organization that can do that aspect really well and safely so that the patient gets the right product of right quality that they can take it, right? Because that product goes into their body and it gets ingested. You don't want to deliver an expired product, you don't want to deliver a bad quality product. So you have to have your supply chain, process and systems that can ensure all of that. I think as an individual, like working in Life Sciences is like, I think I used to work at, briefly worked at gsk. And I had to tell you this because I briefly worked at GSK and doing systems and technology at Life Sciences is completely different from everywhere else. There are lots of documentation procedures, signatures, papers and emails and things flying down here and there. Even if it's a small mistake, you have to strike it off and sign it and things like that. I always used to wonder and some I asked my director of quality then, hey, why you are kind of rejecting for small things. Imagine. So put yourself in the same foot and imagine like GSK is delivering a drug to your kid and imagine this system is doing that. So always like put yourself in the, in the foot of a patient or a customer and think of yourself like why you are doing it, right? And if you have an answer saying yes, you have to do it right. Like so, so that's, that's what I tell to my team anywhere when working on life senses or not, put yourself in the foot of the customer, put yourself in the foot of your colleague or somebody else and then think what would happen if it was your own family member or yourself. Like, how would you behave? How would you want the other person to behave? So behave in the same way, whether it's in the office or outside or anywhere else, right? Like if you don't want somebody else to shout at you, don't shout at them. If you don't want somebody to like talk down to you in a meeting, don't do that, right? Like don't do that to others. So things like that. But if you think like something definitely going wrong and something can affect the safety of an individual or team of people because of the work you do in an organization, you have to be compassionate, you have to be kind, but you have to be direct, right? And the more direct you are the effective you will be as a leader. So. But direct doesn't mean like talking down on someone. Direct doesn't mean making personal comments. Direct means talking about the issue and telling what the issue is so that it doesn't get swept under the carpet.
• 34:18
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm. So where I work, you know, I'm at Cito myself in a. In a mental and behavioral health nonprofit. We follow went through the process of Brene Brown's Dare to Lead a couple years ago. And there's a phrase that Renee Brown has there called clear is kind. And you know, so if you're expanded out, being clear is being kind, you know, so if we're direct, we're honest, were straightforward even when it's difficult, that is. That is better than. Than trying to mask it, trying to be mean, trying to, you know, any of these other things. So that, that clarity is the nicest path. Even when it isn't the. The one that the other party wants to hear.
• 35:06
  Speaker B: It's. It's a big thing for me. Like when I'm. When you're leading a team or when you're working with things, it's a big thing for me. And I'm not sitting on ivory tower. On an ivory tower, especially in that space. I learn every day I introspect how I have behaved in a particular situation. And when I introspect, the two aspects that comes to my mind. One is there's certain way you're brought up as a person. Like your family contributes to it, your relationships contribute to it. So you have to make a conscious choice to mould your personality. And you can't model your personality just at work, right. You have to model your personality at home, everywhere outside. Then only it's much easier to be the person who you really can be, right. If you just model your personality at work, it stays on. The mask stays on for a month, a year, and then it comes off on a particular day. So that's what I realized, right? Like I kind of experimented and I kind of understood that. So you have to change as a person as a whole. And secondly, communication is a huge part. My first language wasn't English, right. And many a times, right. When you chose choose words or when you choose to express an emotion, I've found a lot of times people have misunderstood. I thought I'm being direct, but emotionally and based on how the sentence is expressed and based on my facial expressions and all of those, there. There are many situations when I got the feedback personally asked for it, whether how did they take it and things like that, things haven't gone the way I wanted them to be. So I still try and introspect. Obviously as humans we make mistakes, but I still introspect. And the only way I figured out is you have to change yourself as a person, not for a specific situation or an environment. You have to change yourself radically as a person to, in every environment that you are in, to be a better person at work, you have to be a better person at home.
• 37:01
  Speaker A: Thanks. So, and I know your new role here. You're in a startup and you've been in there a short period of time. Prior to that you were, you were at Google. So like you had a pretty good run there at Google too. And at both places you're leading teams and leading groups of people for different things. Like in your current environment you mentioned, the stakes are very high and as a consequence the detail is incredibly high. Not to say that Google doesn't have a lot of detail in what they do, but the stakes are different for different reasons. When you're leading teams in both of those places. I'll just, I'll start with both of those places. But what qualities do you try to exhibit to your teams to build, to build the, the followership from them that you're an effective leader who they want to be around and they want to be working with and for.
• 37:51
  Speaker B: Right. So at Google I have, my level is still an individual contributor level perspective, but I, I didn't have a team that I was leading, both made up of contractors and full time employees. I'm not managing their performance and other things like that, but I do manage the work and I do manage the deliverables and all of those things.
• 38:11
  Speaker A: Oh, so it's matrixed, the matrix organization. Yeah. Okay.
• 38:14
  Speaker B: But I'm not managing the performance and things like that. So that was a key difference. So whether it is at Google or whether it is at, whether it is at Bridge. Bio, you rightly said. Right. My origins have been I've always looked up to the leaders who, just because they've announced themselves to be the leaders. I've always looked up to the leaders because I felt like they are the leaders. And how do I feel like they are the leaders? Because I went up to them for advice. I went up to them for what I should be doing next. I went up to them for, for like, hey, I need this help or that help and things like that. So why did I go up to them? I did go up to them because they're experts in their area and they could solve My problems. And they could, they could allow me to reach the, reach my objectives, whether it could be like delivering a project, delivering a task or whatever it is. And they could be my mentors, right? They could give me guidance, they could course correct me and all of those things. So that was my philosophy. And even at Google, my philosophy is if you start going into an organization saying I am a leader, many people would, at least as an, if you're a mid tier leader or a mid tier manager, many people, you would get a lot of resistance, right? If you're a VPN coming in and saying I'm a leader, it's fine. But if you are like a mid tier manager, I feel like you should gain that, right. You should not announce yourself as a leader or you should not announce yourself as a lead. You should gain that by showing the expertise that you have, by showing the strengths and by showing by, by contributing the team and, or helping the team in whatever way you can. At least at Google, when I joined, the ways I've helped was in, in our team, there is not too many, too much of SAP skills. They were struggling to come up with a roadmap or a plan for doing an SAP program and a project. And so, and they were trying to get their changes onboarded into the product build template of systems and technologies for their business systems. So without going into some proprietary information.
• 40:13
  Speaker A: That'S sure, yeah, we're not violated here at this podcast.
• 40:19
  Speaker B: So I didn't go in to say, hey, I'm the leader, I want to lead this project. I went in to say, hey, how I can help you folks? So I carved out some time to train them SAP. So that's how I gave a piece of me so that they could be as good as me or they could help me out in the previous program in the future. That's one way. The second way is I quickly understood the things and I broke it into a kind of understandable work breakdown structure so everybody can make sense of it and move their pieces forward. And third thing is I showed all of them the vision what would happen with SAP and wrote a couple of documents and flowcharts to explain them how things could be. So that way all my team members, I still call them the team members, know what my expertise is, how can I help them and how can I move that project or program forward? So they do understand me as a key hub or a spoke as a part of the program or project that could help the entire team be successful. Then naturally they take the instructions, they take the advice or they take the roadmap that you laid down for the entire team. So you naturally progress to be a natural leader. And naturally the leaders above you recognize that, hey, this person has the ability to organize and lead forward. So nobody places, nobody questions you to be a leader. And you don't have to announce yourself as a leader. It just naturally happens. And you have to sustain that momentum that you build and continuously deliver that value to the team and that help to the team. Like I said, you have to give a piece of yourself to the team to be able to, to be able to gain their respect and trust. And for them to consider you as an expert or a manager or a leader in a way that is very important at Google because I did have the designation that I'm a manager of that team. It's very informal. So that's how I kind of led that team. And everybody understood that I'm leading that team and everybody understood that I am probably the lead of that project that was delivered successfully.
• 42:24
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's. To me, this is, I think this is a great thing to talk with. So on the podcast, most of the guests that we have are usually somebody who fits a role similar to mine. Like they're an IT director. They're, they're, you know, like, like leading an infrastructure IT group. And you're leading. So in, in Google in particular here and, and probably in some of these other organizations in the past, you, you're leading in a matrix organization. So one of the big differences in a matrix organization is that you might have technical leadership, but not authoritative leadership, if you will, of the staff. You know, so like you're, you're not giving them, as you said, you're not giving their performance reviews, but you still have to encourage them to work on, to be they. They in con. In a conceptual way, they should be taking direction from you, but because you don't, because you only have one half of the leadership, you. The, the tools that you have to deploy to get them to work, want to be with you, want to trust you do. Other things are often different. I think is, is one of your key, like takeaways that I've hear from you.
• 43:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I've had my previous places at UN I had like a title. Before Google I was at UN I had a title, gave me the leadership authoritative, where I was doing performance for my subordinates and stuff similarly.
• 43:45
  Speaker A: And so you've seen both sides like.
• 43:48
  Speaker B: But for me, the key, the key thing is even though you have authoritative or executive powers to exercise Your leadership, you never practically use it. And I have seen many good leaders never practically want to use it or never come to use it. Because using authoritative leadership style can work in specific situations, but it won't be sustainable in the long run. Right. The leadership, if it's built on mutual respect, mutual trust will makes it easier for everyone. Right. Because as a leader. Because authoritative leadership leads to micromanagement in a way it can. Sure, yeah. In a way that you don't want to be in that space at all. Right. Like whether you're a VP or whether you're a director, you want to build a relationship between a manager and a subordinate that is built on respect and trust. And I believe the only way to do that is being an expert in an area that you can offer value to your subordinates. Because some people might be looking for technical guidance, some people might be looking for mentorship, some people can. Might be looking for. For just a relationship with you because they just feel happy that the leadership is hearing with you. So you have to figure out what each person's motivator is. Motivation is so that you can offer a piece of yourself to them so that they. Then your leadership is just based on trust and respect. Right. Then you don't have to give them commands. Your single word will be. Your single request would be a command for them. Right. Like they would want to work for you. So I know it's tough to lead by example in an office setup as you can do in a field setup. Right. Like you're working on a factory floor. Are you working in military? It's very easy to show your leadership traits. Right. Because you're working on the field and you're exactly working in the office setup. It's very tough to show those skills like lead by example, but I would have said that. But the key way is being an expert in one area where you can offer or add value to the individual team members and is how you can gain their respect and trust.
• 46:05
  Speaker A: Nice. So we're coming to the end of the podcast here of our episode. We've had such great conversation about all these different pieces in your career and stuff like that. I won't get a chance to ask you a couple of, I call it the fun questions, but I do have one last, really, I think, encompassing question for you. With all this history, you've been all over the world, a lot of us, I think it put a finger on the time when you went from the time you were being the one being led to being the leader at some point. And for you? When, when was that? When did you kind of recognize the transition that like, hey, I'm not. People are looking to me to be led. Now, what was it for you?
• 46:47
  Speaker B: I guess I'd say when I started it in the US At United nations, right. That's when I started to look at. I started to notice that people are looking at me like a leader because that was the first organization where they had. There are not too many experts in the domain that where I work at. So they did have a team and they were trying to do something to be delivered quickly. So as soon as I joined, everybody was looking at me to provide a solution or a roadmap to be able to take them to where I want to be. I'd say that's a lucky position to be in because subsequent to that, in many organizations I had to, I think in the next two organizations I had to carve out where I want to work at and what is my role and responsibilities. But at the un, the day I joined, they were like, so excited. This is your project. We need your help. We want you to get us to this point by. In six months or seven months. And they were eagerly looking for my direction. So that's what. That's where. That's what I like noticed. It's very easy to be like a leader in those spaces when the organization and the people in the team are looking for your expertise to deliver them a vision that they are eagerly waiting for.
• 48:04
  Speaker A: Nice. So I'm going to ask you one fun question. So fun question for you is can you share something about us that people wouldn't expect? And I'll give you an example for me so that you kind of have a, a little frame to work from. I once delivered a baby in a car.
• 48:22
  Speaker B: Oh.
• 48:25
  Speaker A: Something just what. What comes about, what people would. Wouldn't know about you, that, that you'd be like, this thing happened, you know, 30 years ago last week, whatever the case may be, you know.
• 48:37
  Speaker B: Oh, I. So. So you, you really like, set me a big target. Like, I couldn't obviously beat that. And are you like.
• 48:46
  Speaker A: That was. That was kind of a big one. I apologize. That was that. I might, I might have set the bar too high with, with in terms of being able to compare. But like, maybe I can come up with it for. I once DJed a wedding.
• 48:57
  Speaker B: Right. Okay. So when I'm like 14, not even 14, when I'm probably around 10 or 11 years old.
• 49:05
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker B: I used to, I used to go to like a Scouts thing. It's not exactly Scouts back home. But I used to go to thing and I, like, my parents gave. Used to give me, like, pocket money to get on the bus, go there, come back, and I used all the pocket money, and it's probably around 11 miles or 10 miles. And I was hardly like 10. So I came. I came walking. Walking home. Walking home. And I realized I could do that. I kind of did that for, like, probably like next six, seven, eight weeks. And then. And then, like, my parents even didn't even know. So I was surprised at myself that I could walk like 10, 11 miles, like, back and forth, like, when I was, like, very small, like 10 and 11 years old.
• 49:58
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 49:59
  Speaker B: About me till today, probably not as big as us. And then I probably have visited close to 35, 36 countries now for both. For work.
• 50:14
  Speaker A: Wow, that's a lot.
• 50:15
  Speaker B: Right, for work. Right. For pleasure. It might go up to, like, 41, 42. But for work, like, I visited close to 35, 36 countries now because I've been consultant in between. And then I traveled a lot of countries, and it's not so big because being in Europe, you probably can easily tick off, like, 10 countries, and very easily. But yeah, I have had the opportunity, like, to visit, like, 10, 11 countries. Yeah. So far. Yeah. That's. Sorry. My life is probably very boring, but.
• 50:46
  Speaker A: That'S not boring at all. 40 countries. 40 plus countries. That is. That is amazing. That's. And to think to get to just for anybody to get that opportunity is really a great experience for somebody. So. All right. But you. I thank you so much for investing your time with us on the podcast today.
• 51:03
  Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you.
• 51:06
  Speaker A: So that's a wrap on today's episode of Dissecting Popularity Nerds. I'm Doug Kameen, and we. We look forward to coming to you on our next episode.