Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / ContraMinds Timeless Wisdom - Kumar Vembu - Culture is Engineered, not Announced (Ep02)
Transcript
- 0:05SPEAKER_00: In the second part of the Contramines Timeless Wisdom series, I continue to reflect back on my conversation with Kumar Vembu.
- 0:15SPEAKER_00: In this episode, Kumar Vembu talks about the importance of the team's emotion in doing a good job.
- 0:21SPEAKER_00: He says this begins by being transparent and real in what you do and the ability of the people to accept what they do as they are.
- 0:32SPEAKER_00: He breaks the generally accepted myth that bosses must know everything and are invincible.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: In fact, he goes on to say that Gen Zs of today want to work with leaders who are real and they really appreciate when you say, I don't know.
- 0:47SPEAKER_00: He also talks about an ingenuous method of converting client escalation into an engineering problem, which I thought was phenomenal.
- 0:57SPEAKER_00: Finally, he says he places a greater value on emotion over data, but he says data will be used to validate if the emotion that people express is real or not.
- 1:10SPEAKER_00: He stresses the need for people to be deeply self-aware of what they do at work, and he says that leads to a happiness company.
- 1:21SPEAKER_00: Let's now dive into the conversation.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: So uh as I uh as I was looking at your current venture, which is GoFrogal, and uh I went back and looked at some of the Glassdoor ratings, and I compared it with the Zoho.
- 1:45SPEAKER_00: Okay, GoFrugal is largely an India-based product company, while Zoho is a company which builds products for the global market.
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: And uh when I looked at the overall uh culture and ratings, uh it was very, very close to the Zoho ratings, right?
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, here there is an Indian company, and I've always heard you say building a product in India, delivering a product in India is very difficult.
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: Uh, I saw the work-life balance rating, which was slightly lower than uh Zoho, but uh right from you know the fact that uh you know uh all the ratings, if I if I were to look at it, uh, were pretty much the same as a company that's building a global product.
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: So, what did you do in GoFrugal and what levers did you apply differently in a product company which is actually doing it in India?
- 2:46SPEAKER_00: Because the engineers' expectations are very, very different.
- 2:49SPEAKER_00: Uh, because everybody expects you know the Infosys or the TCS or you know a global culture which is there, while building a product for India is very, very tough.
- 3:01SPEAKER_00: As you rightly said, the return on effort okay is far more lower.
- 3:05SPEAKER_00: So uh so therefore, when I looked at that ratings, it was very, very stark for me, right?
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: And that tells a lot about the way you build that culture.
- 3:14SPEAKER_00: So, what levers have you used uh in building GoFrogle?
- 3:19SPEAKER_01: So I think uh see, I'm I'm glad you are doing this podcast now because maybe if you had done it five years back, the glass door rating dot I've been saying.
- 3:30SPEAKER_01: And uh second thing is uh, you know, I I if you see our uh what I had written in the Glassdoor about company warving, right?
- 3:42SPEAKER_01: Uh I actually don't respect anonymous feedback.
- 3:46SPEAKER_01: Because if somebody is a professional, uh it requires that they have the guts to share feedback openly.
- 3:53SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 3:54SPEAKER_01: So we we actually honestly we don't take Glassdoor very seriously because I found a lot of uh, you know, I can say it's very easy to, for example, you can give a rating for Microsoft or GoFel very easily, and those guys don't even detect it and remove it, right?
- 4:11SPEAKER_00: Kumar, I think I totally agree with you, and uh I also don't believe because anonymous feedback doesn't give you anything, but for me it is an indication of what happens inside the company, right?
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: Because for me, the difference that I'm seeing is the expectation of many of these engineers is I need to have a you know global culture, you know, what happens in companies, but it is not real, the expectation is not real, but the fact that you have been able to do that to me is a very, very clear indication that setting expectations right is something that you have done very well, and therefore I wanted to understand the levers.
- 4:48SPEAKER_01: So, see, there are uh I think three, four things we have been focused on for probably close to ten years now, right?
- 4:57SPEAKER_01: Uh the first and most important thing is we are a happiness first company.
- 5:03SPEAKER_01: That means I uh what I measure happiness every day.
- 5:10SPEAKER_01: So, by in the sense that uh uh we have a daily reporting system, right?
- 5:16SPEAKER_01: So that uh people spend 15-20 minutes reflecting about the day's work, right?
- 5:22SPEAKER_01: And uh the first thing they report about in their daily report uh is uh how happy they are at work, the emotion of the team.
- 5:30SPEAKER_01: Right, how did they feel?
- 5:32SPEAKER_01: So I uh in the induction also the first thing we tell every new joine is you know, uh professionally we want you to start the day happy and end the day happy, meaning nothing that happens in the company should make you all happy.
- 5:47SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 5:47SPEAKER_01: Um so that means uh we you know I believe this is very, very important, you know, uh, because people spend 10 to 12 hours of uh uh their uh you know time every day during working days in the office, and we don't want the friction in their work.
- 6:05SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 6:06SPEAKER_01: So that means uh you know this is uh helping us, you know, but just by measuring happiness, we are able to understand the challenges people are facing, we are able to understand you know where people are less productive or where their effort is going waste.
- 6:26SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 6:26SPEAKER_01: And we are able to learn more on all aspects of all aspects that leads to productivity, right?
- 6:34SPEAKER_01: And uh improve.
- 6:36SPEAKER_01: So every one of our team leads and managers also look at the daily report of every individual.
- 6:43SPEAKER_01: So if there are uh frictions and challenges and things like that, you know, they go and uh uh address that.
- 6:52SPEAKER_01: So that so that happiness being happiness first, and reporting this happiness in every project they engage with in a day has really helped us, you know, uh improve a lot of things.
- 7:04SPEAKER_01: And the second most important thing we care about is uh uh you know whether we are providing a psychologically safe environment for everybody.
- 7:15SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 7:16SPEAKER_01: That means that to offer that psychological safety, you know, we are very transparent and open.
- 7:24SPEAKER_01: So even when uh things don't go well, right?
- 7:29SPEAKER_01: So we uh we we used to have monthly all hands meeting before the pandemic, and now we do fortnightly all hands meeting, so one hour uh every week, right?
- 7:41SPEAKER_01: And the few weeks there are uh questions and answers also in that.
- 7:45SPEAKER_01: But uh you know whether we do well or we don't do well, whether we fade or we are facing some challenge or we fall down or whatever, we are very transparent about what has happened, and we also discuss about how we can pick ourselves up because uh we we we are real, right?
- 8:04SPEAKER_01: It's not like uh you know we only you know uh face success in whatever we do and we don't fail.
- 8:12SPEAKER_01: So, in that sense, I would say, you know, uh I also conduct myself as a human.
- 8:18SPEAKER_01: That's what I will say.
- 8:20SPEAKER_01: So it is not like uh you know uh the because some some places I have seen, you know, the bosses behave like they are invincible and they will never fail, right?
- 8:30SPEAKER_01: And that is where creates stress for everybody.
- 8:34SPEAKER_01: So the moment you are real, you know, I think more and more younger people also want to work with people who are real, right?
- 8:42SPEAKER_01: Who see people, other people also, you know.
- 8:44SPEAKER_01: My boss also has these shortcomings, and he is also openly admitting it.
- 8:49SPEAKER_01: You know, he also, you know, for example, I I I used to tell I don't know to people at least once a day.
- 8:56SPEAKER_01: So that none of my managers think because they are managers, they are supposed to know everything.
- 9:03SPEAKER_01: Because I remember one of my first jobs in the industry, working in HCL, I used to feel some of the managers are afraid of facing people because they don't want to admit that they don't have power to fix something, or they don't have uh authority to fix something, or they don't know something.
- 9:24SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 9:25SPEAKER_01: So one of the first lessons I have you know I learned and I have started practicing is let us be open.
- 9:31SPEAKER_01: I can do this, I can't do this.
- 9:33SPEAKER_01: We can afford this, we can't afford this.
- 9:35SPEAKER_01: I know this, I don't know this.
- 9:38SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 9:38SPEAKER_01: So those things make a huge difference.
- 9:41SPEAKER_01: I think you know I can really see our people becoming more and more engaged and happier and happier, and that is leading to more and more success, also.
- 9:52SPEAKER_01: You know, mainly I would say because of this happiness first, the psychological safety we've all to offer, and what we call a social connectedness.
- 10:02SPEAKER_01: It's not like you know all the work is done as a transaction.
- 10:06SPEAKER_01: How do we get to know people?
- 10:07SPEAKER_01: How can we accommodate their aspirations and their uh context and the situations?
- 10:13SPEAKER_01: So those are the things I think uh that are helping.
- 10:17SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
- 10:18SPEAKER_00: So uh I have a follow-up question on this, uh Kumar.
- 10:22SPEAKER_00: Uh when you measure happiness first, you yourself in one of the interviews uh I heard you say that it's very difficult to satisfy an Indian customer.
- 10:32SPEAKER_00: Uh and you use the word that sometimes the self-esteem itself is questioned, okay?
- 10:38SPEAKER_00: And uh when that happens, your happiness first takes a beating.
- 10:43SPEAKER_00: And uh how do you address those issues?
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: Because you know, when you work for a global back end, if I were to call it, uh it's very easy because uh the client on the other side is mature and things like that.
- 10:56SPEAKER_00: But here the the rigor and the hard thing that they go through will be very, very tough.
- 11:02SPEAKER_00: So when you measure this every day and when you find something like this, can you give me some instances of where you saw unhappiness?
- 11:10SPEAKER_00: How did you address it, and therefore, how did it help?
- 11:14SPEAKER_00: I think it's uh it's something that I would like to know.
- 11:17SPEAKER_01: See, I will first address this uh you know, uh challenges in servicing customer and uh you know the the self-esteem point you talked about, right?
- 11:29SPEAKER_01: So I I I would say, you know, uh, is that something we have control over and we can fix it?
- 11:36SPEAKER_01: Absolutely yes.
- 11:38SPEAKER_01: So that means uh you know from the beginning we have tried to you know take control of that.
- 11:45SPEAKER_01: How do we uh you know, if these are all the customer expectations, how do we make sure we don't put ourselves in a situation where we have to compromise our dignity, our self-esteem, and we have to be yelled at by customer, right?
- 12:00SPEAKER_01: So I'll give you one example.
- 12:02SPEAKER_01: You know, uh in a retail environment, consumers are uh uh picking up the goods or they are getting serviced and they have to be billed.
- 12:12SPEAKER_01: If for some reason billing stops, the retailer is going to be wild because it is his livelihood and he cannot serve his customer.
- 12:21SPEAKER_01: Now the 99% of the time the billing will stop because there is no disk space, the bill cannot be saved, or there could be a loose contact between the printer in the printer cable connected to the computer, or a mouse would have you know bitten the cable, right?
- 12:44SPEAKER_01: And uh, so many other reasons are there where it is an environmental problem rather than a problem on GoFrugal software, right?
- 12:55SPEAKER_01: So, what we did is how can we identify, you know, like uh okay, this is something which is going to trigger the customer and he is going to be wild, and they don't have control over what they speak when it happens, but after they know that it is a displace problem and we service them, 90% of them even apologize, saying uh, you know, we went out of the way, but they should not have yelled, but you know, the words spoken cannot be taken back, right?
- 13:22SPEAKER_01: So, what we did is how do we identify this one week, you know, one week or even two weeks ahead?
- 13:30SPEAKER_01: How can we send an SMS or notification, you know, and showing the application itself so that the owner will not miss it, the IT head won't miss it, IT SPOC won't miss it, the shop boy won't miss it, right?
- 13:44SPEAKER_01: And similarly, uh we also know how many times we raised this with the customer, right?
- 13:50SPEAKER_01: So if there is a breakdown happening, we made the customer come to us and request.
- 13:57SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 13:58SPEAKER_01: So every single situation we looked at it as an engineering problem.
- 14:03SPEAKER_01: You know, how do we proactively inform the customer?
- 14:06SPEAKER_01: How do we even proactively remind the customer?
- 14:09SPEAKER_01: And sometimes three days before we will even call the customer and tell.
- 14:13SPEAKER_01: Where we tell them, okay, if you come after disk is full, you know, and you want us to service, you have to pay.
- 14:20SPEAKER_01: Not be free service.
- 14:21SPEAKER_01: You go and clean it up.
- 14:22SPEAKER_01: This is the one-minute video that is there on how to create a free disk space, right?
- 14:27SPEAKER_01: So, like that, we have solved a lot of the issues so that such breakdowns don't happen.
- 14:34SPEAKER_01: Right, wherever breakdown possibilities are there.
- 14:37SPEAKER_01: Can we proactively identify it?
- 14:39SPEAKER_01: Can we proactively communicate that?
- 14:41SPEAKER_01: Can we proactively communicate the impact of that?
- 14:45SPEAKER_01: Can we proactively communicate the service cost if they come after the breakdown for that, so that there is more uh you know awareness to address it before the breakdown situation arises.
- 14:57SPEAKER_01: So that is the way we have you know we have reduced our work, we have you know significantly lowered the incidence where we put ourselves in stressful situations and put customer also in a very stressful and frustrating situation so that we are able to proactively manage that.
- 15:14SPEAKER_01: Okay, and uh coming to your question on uh you know this uh unhappiness and uh how do we manage it, right?
- 15:23SPEAKER_01: Uh so for example, uh uh you know we are closed on the weekends, right?
- 15:29SPEAKER_01: So but uh our customers peak businesses in the weekends, right?
- 15:34SPEAKER_01: While we provide a 24 by 7 service, our support uh team alone, you know, some part of the support team which have a holiday roster is actually working during the weekend, right?
- 15:47SPEAKER_01: So now uh uh there may be support instances where uh the support guys need the help of some other experts or somebody in development or somebody in implementation who does not have the duty on the weekend, right?
- 16:06SPEAKER_01: Our engineering, sales, implementation.
- 16:10SPEAKER_01: For everybody it is a holiday on Saturday and Sunday, except the fourth Saturday, right?
- 16:15SPEAKER_01: But uh the support people who are on duty during those times, sometimes they need the height.
- 16:22SPEAKER_01: So I noticed that many times, you know, in few occasions, people have people would have scheduled family engagement, you know, an outing or a movie or something like that, and uh, because of a customer escalation, they have to cancel that, and uh you know they also miss that family outing, but they also sort of uh they have to face the music from the family members also, right?
- 16:46SPEAKER_01: So we started a project called the Project Peaceful Holidays.
- 16:50SPEAKER_01: So that means uh why would some you know somebody who has to work on that day, he has to work.
- 16:56SPEAKER_01: But whoever is on a holiday on the weekend, you know, they should never be disturbed.
- 17:01SPEAKER_01: So what are the reasons for which uh they will uh you know they have to be called?
- 17:07SPEAKER_01: Is it a knowledge issue of the agent?
- 17:09SPEAKER_01: Is it a skin issue of the agent?
- 17:11SPEAKER_01: Is it uh you know, a problem that can only be looked at by you know troubleshooter by a more skilled person or only by a developer?
- 17:21SPEAKER_01: And how can we eliminate that?
- 17:23SPEAKER_01: So we did this for a few months, you know, and uh analyzed.
- 17:28SPEAKER_01: So when we started, if uh you know, in the weekend, if there are uh six or eight times in which somebody had to be disturbed, we brought it down to one or two times and we we put in motion a plan where you know maybe it will be eliminated.
- 17:44SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 17:44SPEAKER_01: Because so when somebody first is we have to uh make people comfortable expressing their emotion, even if that emotion is a frustration due to how their team lead is running the project, right?
- 17:58SPEAKER_01: Because many times uh you know uh I have the power to create most stress to my team, right?
- 18:06SPEAKER_01: So whether I exercise my power that way or not is the question.
- 18:10SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it is true of every level of managers, right?
- 18:15SPEAKER_01: Because uh so this is one example, you know, how can we take control?
- 18:21SPEAKER_01: So, whatever we can control, we want to give priority and control that.
- 18:25SPEAKER_01: And the second thing is we we emphasized on uh you know a lot of unhappiness is because people have to do a lot of unplanned work.
- 18:35SPEAKER_01: So when they do more and more unplanned work, their planned work is taking a beating, their planned work gets delayed, and uh they have to give an excuse for delayed planned work, and that is affecting the self-esteem of people.
- 18:50SPEAKER_01: So, how can we come up with a better and better plan?
- 18:53SPEAKER_01: So that these are all one week, two-week plans.
- 18:55SPEAKER_01: In a one-week period, if we can't do 90% of the time only planned work, we cannot anticipate what unplanned work will come in a one-week window, two-week window, then you know it's not a healthy thing.
- 19:08SPEAKER_01: We are only reacting and uh you know jumping up and down, right?
- 19:13SPEAKER_01: So we put a lot of emphasis on planning so that you know uh 60-70 percent of the people can work and complete their work as per the plan.
- 19:24SPEAKER_01: Well, they have a say in the plan from the beginning.
- 19:28SPEAKER_01: So these things improve engagement, increases ownership, increases uh the commitment, right, and uh by and large make people happier.
- 19:38SPEAKER_00: I have seen that work in uh you know GDC, which is a global development center.
- 19:44SPEAKER_00: But uh typically uh you know the client on the other side in India, your retail customer, you know, retail client or whatever has to be as planned like you, because uh you know the unplannedness of somebody else affects my planning, right?
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: Which is where this unhappiness or peaceful holidays project typically has an issue.
- 20:05SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, how do you uh you know how do you address that?
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: Because this is real in India.
- 20:10SPEAKER_00: What you are talking is real in India.
- 20:12SPEAKER_00: It's great.
- 20:13SPEAKER_00: Uh if you're running a global process, it's great, but when you do it every day in India, uh, you know, the fact that it is amazing that you have done something like this, uh, how do you plan that?
- 20:24SPEAKER_00: Because the client is unplanned, the your retail uh you know client is unplanned.
- 20:28SPEAKER_00: So, how do you really uh build that bridge to ensure that it happens?
- 20:33SPEAKER_01: No, actually, see, uh there are two things, right?
- 20:36SPEAKER_01: One is people who are in the role of uh uh responding to customers.
- 20:41SPEAKER_01: So, for example, if I have a support team member, you know, uh their job is to respond to customers.
- 20:48SPEAKER_01: They don't know what sub who is going to come for support, what they are going to come for today.
- 20:53SPEAKER_01: But we know that our uh based on historic uh averages and how the support lead is support uh incidents or trending, right?
- 21:03SPEAKER_01: What is uh whether it is in an increasing trend or download spiral, what kind of uh uh things are coming.
- 21:09SPEAKER_01: So, for example, today I know for this product, you know, uh time-wise, hour-wise, if I plot this is how the graph will look like.
- 21:18SPEAKER_01: You know, today is a Friday, right?
- 21:20SPEAKER_01: And we have done the shift roaster to handle the cloud, right?
- 21:26SPEAKER_01: So we know the typical average service times to we know how many customers will come and things like that.
- 21:32SPEAKER_01: So we have uh, you know, uh we know, for example, if today current shift is having eight people, we know six people are enough to handle the support volume, and we will have two people to uh do some uh you know uh you can say some uh identifying or making us more proactive for certain other incidents or eliminating certain support incidents or doing making something as a self.
- 22:00SPEAKER_01: Service.
- 22:00SPEAKER_01: Those kinds of work, these two people will be working.
- 22:03SPEAKER_01: And if there is a critical issue that shows up, or if there is a uh you know, uh there is a long something that takes a very long time comes up, and one guy is engaged, these guys can be asked to drop what they are doing and go and attend to support.
- 22:19SPEAKER_01: So that is one plan for uh how do we manage development and marketing kind of work.
- 22:25SPEAKER_01: There is another plan for how the sales guy and support person and customer success person work.
- 22:32SPEAKER_01: Because in customer success and sales, you know, while they may do some inbound will be there, their work 60% will be outbound engagement that is already planned, and 30-40% will be the inbound call that customers may be calling, which they have no control over.
- 22:50SPEAKER_01: Similarly, in support, maybe 100% of the time they react or respond to what is coming.
- 22:56SPEAKER_01: But we know the load in both the cases, so we manage that.
- 23:00SPEAKER_00: So uh one thing that I'm picking up is uh the way you therefore manage the company uh literally is data driven, right?
- 23:09SPEAKER_00: Because it looks like uh you look at the number of support incidents that come in, then uh you know you look at agile product development, so a lot of things is data driven.
- 23:20SPEAKER_00: So, do you bring different sets of data together and then look at it on a regular basis?
- 23:26SPEAKER_00: And how often do you look at it?
- 23:28SPEAKER_00: And how do you ensure that people are aware of these issues?
- 23:32SPEAKER_01: Actually, I would say we are number one emotion-driven, number two, data driven.
- 23:39SPEAKER_01: So, what uh and we use we we validate one with other, right?
- 23:46SPEAKER_01: Because, for example, uh, like I have had this conversation with people who are in pre-sales, right?
- 23:52SPEAKER_01: And I they say I have made, you know, every day I have to talk to 60 different customers, but each call is about 15 minutes.
- 24:02SPEAKER_01: But when the data says they have actually made 30 calls and each call is only two minutes, right?
- 24:09SPEAKER_01: So there is a gap between this perception and reality, especially when uh you know, so we make every individual actually face the truth like this, you know, because if you if you do 30 calls at two minutes average and you think you have done 60 at 15 minutes average, then your job is a burden for you.
- 24:29SPEAKER_01: So the burden is not on the call you are making, but the burden is in your mind, right?
- 24:34SPEAKER_01: So you either you have to correct your mind so that you can actually acknowledge the real truth and real experience, or you basically, you know, if it is too much of a burden, then find something else.
- 24:51SPEAKER_01: Because in the interview, people say they love talking to people, but after one or two weeks in the job, their love is shown in uh uh the perception or the feeling they get about uh how many people they talk to and how long they talk to with each phone, right?
- 25:06SPEAKER_01: And what the data says.
- 25:08SPEAKER_01: So the most important thing for me always been how do people feel rather than what the data says.
- 25:17SPEAKER_01: Right, because a lot of insights you get when you ask people how do they feel, right?
- 25:23SPEAKER_01: The data can be used to validate that.
- 25:26SPEAKER_01: See, finally, I would say uh one of the most important things we do, in fact, uh to even our glass door rating or all the other things is making everybody more self-aware.
- 25:40SPEAKER_01: Right.
- 25:41SPEAKER_01: So, for example, when uh some uh something happens, the first thing we ask is whether that individual understands where the mistake happened without me telling.
- 25:52SPEAKER_01: So, am I able to do a root cause analysis myself?
- 25:55SPEAKER_01: Am I able to come up with what I should have done differently?
- 25:59SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 25:59SPEAKER_01: So, if that self-awareness is there and the commitment to improve that is there, we don't have to manage them at all.
- 26:06SPEAKER_01: We just have to give them the time and space and the coaching that is required.
- 26:13SPEAKER_01: Right?
- 26:13SPEAKER_01: So we focus on building the self-awareness uh in uh all aspects of the work we do.
- 26:20SPEAKER_01: So that means uh the management is number one, you know, how do they feel?
- 26:25SPEAKER_01: Right, and uh uh what does the data say?
- 26:28SPEAKER_01: You know, we then talk about the one truth.
- 26:31SPEAKER_00: In the final part of the Timeless Wisdom series, Kumar Vimbu discusses the digital transformation and how it helped him reshape his company's structure and culture.
- 26:44SPEAKER_00: More about this in the next part of this episode.
- 26:47SPEAKER_00: If you like this episode, do comment, like, and share it within your network.
- 26:51SPEAKER_00: It helps spread the message and get us more people into the Contramines community.
- 26:57SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.