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Creating a Humanity-Centered Corporate Culture with Mohammad Anwar · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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  things that really matter in our lives.
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  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
• 0:36
  Hi, everyone.
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  It's Roxanne Durgesh.
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  I'm a fantastic living with Roxanne, and today I have a special guest, Mohammed Anwar, and,
• 0:43
  Mohammed has been in business for quite a while.
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  He's a young guy, but I think, you know, did you start business in grade school there, mom,
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  if you started so young,
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  Yeah.
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  I started, my business when I was twenty years old still pursuing my computer science degree,
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  at, University of Houston.
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  So I was in my a junior senior year when I started.
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  My goodness.
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  So you started right out the gate.
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  So let me tell you a little bit about Mohammed and, his Baya will be, you know, in the show
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  notes, but, he has a pretty fascinating story, and we both, cross paths at the Forbes
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  Executive Business Council, but what he talks about, which is that I think it's, you know,
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  when I think of the word love, So I must say, you know, my background is a psychotherapist,
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  Mohammed.
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  People cringe in business generally.
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  They go, well, what is what does love have to do with a boardroom.
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  And, you know, so I'm I love, your new book and the title because it's love as a business
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  strategy because I would think you must get poorer opposites, potentially reactions to the
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  title of your book.
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  Like, wow.
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  Oh, woah.
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  Yes.
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  I've been told, both.
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  I've actually went all that, hey, your title's really cheesy, but the content of the book is
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  amazing and very practical.
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  And then some other people are like, wow.
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  That's a very intriguing title.
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  I'd love to learn more about this.
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  So I've got reactions from the title, but I guess that's the intent is create a title that
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  is, provocative, but and I guess stokes different types of feelings.
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  And hopefully that's what gets people to, you know, be curious about the book either way.
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  Absolutely.
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  So Mohammed has a pretty interesting story starting, obviously, as, an entrepreneur, and
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  he was a sea is the CEO of software.
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  And I want him to tell his story because I think I think it's quite fascinating in how now
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  he is into building, corporate cultures with the with the philosophy of love as the
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  foundational element.
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  So, Mohammed, tell us a little bit about how you started your 1st business and kind of what
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  got you on the path, to love as a business strategy.
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  Sure.
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  So as we spoke earlier, I started the business when I was twenty years old, still in college
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  pursuing my computer science degree, and it was a technology business.
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  That we started.
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  And I I started this with my family with my brother, actually.
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  And so This is my first time having a real job, and I worked for myself.
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  I don't have any bosses.
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  I don't have anybody to really look up to you, and I have to figure things out on my own.
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  So I looked to the corporate world that I interacted with and the leaders from the
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  corporate world to model my leadership style, my behaviors.
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  And, and, you know, what I thought was the most apt way to bring about success, for my
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  business.
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  And I did that.
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  And I did that for over 10 years, of running this business.
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  And I had hit the pinnacle of success.
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  I was running a company with more than 300 employees, in less than 10 years, and we were,
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  you know, making revenues that was very formidable.
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  And I was driving my fancy cars, flying my planes, and leading the, entrepreneur life and
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  the perks that come by the way of it.
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  And you could almost say I was living the American dream, especially as an immigrant to
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  this country.
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  And I thought I had figured it all out.
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  And by the age of thirty, I was, like, you know, super I thought to myself, I was super
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  successful.
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  But then 2015 hit, which is about 12 years after we started the business and, we were on
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  the verge of bankruptcy.
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  We were in deep trouble financially and struggling to survive, I had to make a decision
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  to lay off over a 100 employees for the first time.
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  In the history of 12 years of running my business.
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  And I did so.
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  I made the decision to do it, and I did so in a very inhumane manner.
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  And at that moment in time, I became quite introspective to kind of figure out why had
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  this happened.
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  Because up until that point in time, I blamed everything, every part other than myself or any
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  of my decisions as to why we were in this situation.
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  But in a moment of deep introspection, I recognize that actually this was my fault, my
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  selfish attitude, my behaviors had led to almost the demise of her company.
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  It wasn't anything other than how I was leading the company and the culture I had set, which, I
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  had created a very toxic environment because of my selfish behaviors, and I had set the tone
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  for other leaders to follow me And that almost led us to destroying the very business that I
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  had worked so hard to build.
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  With my team.
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  So in that realization, I had, I recognized that I was a bad boss and, a terrible CEO and
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  that I needed to change.
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  And so I began on this journey of trying to figure out how do I fix my business.
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  And, interesting story.
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  I ended up going to a football game for my alma mater 2 weeks after the layoffs.
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  And I was watching this football game, and we were losing by 20 points.
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  This is American Football, by the way, a college football, and in the fourth quarter, we
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  were losing by over 20 points, which is like losing 4 and no in soccer or the real football.
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  And with 15 minutes left in the second half, that's how bad the situation is.
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  But somehow miraculously, the team ended end up winning that night by a point.
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  And, that was very unlikely, and that come back rejuvenated me, made me super excited.
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  And I started to see soft weight through the eyes of that, football team, and I envisioned
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  our own 4th quarter financial comeback.
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  In 2015.
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  And so I went back to the house that evening.
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  And on Monday morning, I was ready to go fight.
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  I wasn't gonna give up.
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  I was gonna fight for our team, fight for our company to stay alive, but I was so inspired by
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  that win that I wanted to hear what the coach had had to say about that victory that night
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  And in that press conference, when the reporters asked him what had led to their
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  success and resilience and come back He said he attributed it all to the culture of love that
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  that football team had.
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  The love and port that each of that football players had for one another.
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  And he said this wasn't your artificial love you broke kind of love.
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  This was the genuine love where you have the other person's heart in your hand type of love.
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  Because when you have that kind of a culture, people go out on the field not to fight for
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  themselves, but fight for the others who are around them.
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  They put their needs of others before their own.
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  And that's what makes championship level teams.
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  It's not about championship teams are not made up of all star players.
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  It is players who care and love another to make an all star team.
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  And so culture of love was what attributed to that team's success.
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  So hearing this, I was like, holy crap.
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  I I need to figure out that how can I love my team?
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  Because I obviously was very selfish and I was greedy.
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  Greed was my business strategy back then.
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  And so I needed to find a way to lower team and create that culture because I really wanted to
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  save software.
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  And that's how I kind of encountered culture of love, but no one talks about culture of love at
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  the workplace.
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  Everyone talks about sports analogies.
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  They'll be like, hey.
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  You play defense.
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  I'll play offense or I'll play quarterback, but no one talks about the culture of sports teams
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  inside of the work.
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  So I decided that I want to try that out for our own company.
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  And it began on this journey of creating a culture of love, but I recognized that for us
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  to create the culture of love, I needed to first change my behaviors as the leader of the
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  organization.
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  And so I began on a journey of becoming a reliable leader.
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  And only when I was able to walk the, you know, walk the talk, when I talk the walk, was my
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  mindset.
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  So I worked on myself.
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  I did anything and everything to serve our team and be selfless.
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  And as a result, our people saw the genuine love and care I was trying to put into the
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  business and with them, that they eventually began to follow and go through their own
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  transformation of serving others.
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  And as a result, our company not only survived, but we thrived.
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  And in 3 years, we had tripled our revenues, increased our EBITDA or profit by 48%
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  differential, reduce our attrition from 30% to 12%.
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  And soon, our customers were knocking on our door saying, hey.
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  We want that for ourselves.
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  And soon, a technology digital transformation company is now here offering culture
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  transformation services for our customers.
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  And that's when we found our new calling and our new purpose, which was, bring back humanity
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  to the workplace.
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  So today, we are a tech company focused on transforming workplace cultures, and we do that
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  through technology and facilitated experiences.
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  So that's kind of a story in a nutshell, how I encountered this whole culture of love,
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  philosophy, and concept.
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  Gonna say, you know, because, you know, I talk about authentic heart leadership, and hence,
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  why we had this their synergies when we, met on Forbes.
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  You know, I I come from the space that I honestly truly believe that that is the basis.
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  Like, if we're able as leaders to really connect within ourselves and I I come from in
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  my new book that's gonna be released in a couple months.
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  I talk about I look at it because, you know, my background is I'm a psychotherapist.
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  I looked at it as having the leader understand his leadership story or his legacy or her
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  legacy.
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  And but going back even further because, you know, if you can understand and I'm sure you've
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  probably come across but attachment styles.
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  If a leader is inherently able to understand his attachment style, like you said previously,
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  you kinda went and you went you know, you went for the goal.
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  You didn't think of other people, which made it one pointed.
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  But from a a securely attachment style of leadership, which is where it sounds like you
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  made the shift.
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  What you did in fact, you you thought, okay.
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  What is it that I need to be secure within myself?
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  And then in turn, from an attachment perspective, the the concentric circles circles
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  around you kinda start to adapt to the space that you were how you were shifting your
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  behavior.
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  Is that what you did?
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  It sounds like it.
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  So I you know, like I said, like, I was just in a position to try and do whatever I can to
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  change the situation and those layoffs had really affected me.
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  And, I I just wanted a better environment and do the right thing, and do so consistently.
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  And that's where I started my goal And I guess that resulted in the transformation.
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  To be honest, I didn't do it with this intent of becoming a culture services company or not.
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  I just did it because the situation warranted me to do something.
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  And I guess looking at it retrospectively, what you're saying makes complete sense that maybe
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  that's what transpired.
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  It's looking at it from the same angle because if I'm a disconnected leader and like you said,
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  I'm looking at my profits having to report to my boards, look at my at my shareholders, and
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  I'm I'm realizing that I'm really off track, like you said, that you are in 2015.
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  And then in 1 quarter, right?
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  You're able to to, you know, triple your profits.
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  You know, your attrition rate goes up from 30 to 12%.
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  That's significant.
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  Right?
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  So tell us about love as a strategy.
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  So internally, you did certain things as a leader, and I often talk about that leaders
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  have to understand their internal world.
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  They have to understand their stress signature.
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  They have to understand what are the core fundamental values that made them want to get
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  into leadership.
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  And if they haven't gone there to explore those things, so that opens up the vein for them to
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  be able to lead others.
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  So tell me about, the core concepts in the book and what you learned about yourself that
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  allowed you to create that shift around you.
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  Sure.
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  So first of all, love is a business strategy.
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  A simple definition is basically where you make all business decisions by keeping people at the
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  center of those your team.
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  You know, many organizations will prioritize shareholders or customers first in their
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  paradigm.
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  Of a priority in the pyramid, but, love is a business strategy is where people are at the
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  top of your priority list.
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  So you build all your strategy around people, then you prioritize customers, then you
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  prioritize shareholders.
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  Because if you take care of your employees and do everything that's right, for them, they are
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  your best assets.
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  They take care of your customers.
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  And when you take care of customers, they make sure they do business with you.
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  And in that in turn, make sure share shareholders are be.
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  So love as a business strategy is basically putting humans at the center of all your
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  business strategic decisions and strategic plans.
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  That's simple definition.
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  So in terms of, you know, how we went about, you know, incorporating this in our business
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  was to be able to always think from the people's lens whether it was HR, whether it was
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  our, you know, budgets for food, budgets for travel, you know, anything and everything that
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  you would generally 1st cut corners on when it comes to tough financial times.
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  We decided to prioritize our people.
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  So, you know, an example I'll give you, like, a story Right?
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  So I traveled to India quite a bit because I have a branch office in India in Bangalore,
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  technology company.
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  We have our Houston office in our Bangalore office.
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  And I traveled four to five times a year, and those trips are quite long.
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  So I would travel business class.
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  And in doing so, at times, I would take my coworkers with me, directors or project
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  managers on some of these trips.
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  The only difference is that I would have them fly back in economy class.
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  While I flew up in business class.
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  And I felt guilty in the moment, but I also justified to myself, hey.
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  I'm the leader.
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  I'm the president.
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  I get to fly business class.
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  Because I deserve it.
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  And as far as the rest of the team, they're just lucky to be going to India.
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  That's pretty ruthless.
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  And they would in fact walk the walk of shame through business class while I sat in my seat,
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  and they went in the back.
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  And so I had a lot of guilt, but I still did it because that's what I thought leaders of
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  corporate worlds do.
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  But then I recognized that that wasn't right.
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  So when our company was in financial predicament, I decided I'm gonna fly economy
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  class in the back of the plane with my team.
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  And those are probably uncomfortable journeys, but they were the best journeys I've ever had
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  because I had so much fun.
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  Got to know our team and we just had a lot of fun traveling to India together.
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  And then when our financial situation started to pick up, we decided I had to change the
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  policy.
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  So now our policy is everyone flies business class, whether you go from Houston to India or
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  India to Houston.
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  And and from that, do you see?
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  So so now our business strategy and decision on expenses and travel budgets is now prioritizing
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  on your people.
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  And people respect that.
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  They appreciate it.
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  They'll they know how much it costs.
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  And when they see the company is investing in them, I mean, they're going to go above and
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  beyond to make sure those trips that we have to India are going to be the most productive, the
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  most effective because they know the company is taking care of them.
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  And so little things like that, they make a difference.
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  I mean, in the budget wise, you might be like, oh my gosh, that's like a big expense, but in
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  the grand scheme of things with the ROI you can get when you prioritize your your teams is it's
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  a drop in the bucket.
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  So those are some examples that we did.
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  And we also made, you know, a lot of other changes in a recruitment approach, onboarding
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  approach, how we prioritize food budgets, how we approached, performance appraisals and
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  performance reviews, down to how we worked in meetings with each other, how we made space,
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  for the people at the table who weren't usually given a space, how do we create psychological
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  safe environments, how do we respect each other, how do we make sure we're able to have
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  crucial conversations, difficult conversations without, you know, fear of being not liked, but
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  instead we call it tough love.
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  And we're able to get through difficult conversations without fear of, you know,
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  hurting someone because we know when we love each other, we're doing it in the interest of
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  each other and our our business.
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  So people don't take it offensively when we give feedback and when we have this crucial
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  conversation.
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  So, like, all of a sudden, our behavior started to change.
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  And, We believe behaviors is the foundation of building the right processes and procedures.
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  So if you have the wrong behaviors or wrong mindsets, you will see that reflected in your
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  processes, procedures, and systems.
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  So that's kind of the the journey, and we we we say behaviors at the bottom line.
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  If culture eats strategy for breakfast like Peter Drucker says, then behaviors eat culture
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  for lunch.
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  That's our philosophy.
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  I like that.
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  Now let's talk about some of the practical things.
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  Right?
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  So you were like you said, you had to make the shift, but trust had to have been impaired.
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  At the time you are making that shift.
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  So I'm gonna be I can play devil's advocate in this for a second.
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  I'm saying her miss his mister CEO, I don't know if I like you.
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  And now we have the CEO that's coming from a place of love.
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  I think people are gonna go, well, that's a nice thing there, Mohammed, but I don't know if
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  I'm gonna get on board.
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  What kind of dissension did you deal with and how how did you approach that?
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  And I'm obviously this is what you do now with culture, but I'm curious because I know I've
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  been in those situations over and over again where everybody's like, oh, yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Sure.
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  Sure.
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  You want me to tell you what I really think?
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  And then where is that information gonna go?
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  And this is gonna show up in my performance evaluation, or am I not gonna get that major
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  project?
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  So what kind of things did you deal with?
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  Sure.
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  So first of all, when I watched that football game that weekend, the following Friday had a
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  whole company stand up 200 plus employees.
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  And I made an open declaration that I where I said, hey.
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  We need to love another and support one another because I, you know, I was so inspired that I
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  wanted to make that declaration.
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  And when I did that, people were like, this is what they told me afterwards when they were
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  comfortable to tell me this.
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  They were apparently, initially, they were like, okay.
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  That sounds interesting, but this looks like it's the flavor of the month.
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  And, you know, we'll see what we see.
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  We'll see if you got you will really act on it.
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  And that was their skeptical approach because I had obviously not had a good track record up
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  until that point in time.
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  So they didn't wanna believe that this this change or this commitment to change was gonna
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  be real.
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  But after that, like, I I continued to stay steadfast on my commitment and took actionable
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  steps try to do whatever little things I could do to show my genuine effort in building a
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  culture of love by first working on myself I didn't hold anybody else accountable, but
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  myself, and through that journey, I think people started to see that, okay.
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  This is not the flavor of the month and that there is some real effort happening.
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  Like, little examples just to give you.
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  I vacated my executive office that was the largest office in her office space, and it
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  moved out into the bullpen area with the rest of the team.
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  Mhmm.
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  And initially, they thought I was there to monitor them.
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  And micromanage them, but, ultimately, they realized I was there to serve them because I
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  believe that I need to put their needs for mine.
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  And this open door policy isn't really a real thing because if you're a leader, you should be
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  going where the team is not asking them to come make the walk to your office.
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  So I decide to be with them in the bullpen area.
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  I started to come to the office first before anybody else showed up.
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  And I would be the last person to leave the office.
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  I wouldn't go till the last person I had left.
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  And many a times when people would stay late, for work, I'd make sure to go pick up dinner
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  for them so they didn't have to go home and have to prepare a meal.
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  I started to write thank you notes to our teams.
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  I had never done so in 12 to 13 years of running my business.
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  And when I did that, I also included gift cards to the movies or dinner.
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  To show my token of appreciation, not just to the employees, but the family members and the
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  spouses and the loved ones because they too were sacrificing their time away from their
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  loved one for them to be at soft way.
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  So I wanted to show my token of appreciation there.
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  Then I started to, make sure I do there there was no task beneath me.
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  I started to do anything and everything.
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  I would generally delegate whether that meant, picking up trash or serving food to the team
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  when we had potlucks.
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  Down to even making sure that I would not ask anybody to do something I was unwilling to do
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  myself.
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  So I tried to play the roles of a project manager, salesperson, anything and everything I
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  could do to be beside my team in the trenches.
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  So I began to do a lot of those type of little things.
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  I also did some, things that I didn't disclose at the time.
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  I sold my house that was fully paid out to put money back into the company to make payroll.
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  I sold a a fancy car that I should have never had to begin with and put the money back into
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  the company, and I didn't take a paycheck.
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  For 8 months in all of 2016 because I wanted to make sure our team would receive paychecks
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  before mine.
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  But all of these things were done without disclosure because I didn't believe that I
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  needed to show it off at the time, but it was the that things had least impact.
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  On on our team.
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  Yes.
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  They did notice all of a sudden I was not driving a Porsche, and I was driving a minivan.
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  But at the same time, I, I don't think those things mattered as much.
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  What mattered was the little things that I did.
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  The little things I took to write a thank you note, the things that I did to be there with
• 24:58
  the team or help them on a project, those acts of servitude is what I think made the
• 25:06
  difference.
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  And and I think from there, like, everybody who had doubted or had skeptical response to my
• 25:16
  initial declaration saw that there was a genuine effort
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  We've had such a great conversation that we decided to do two parts.
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  We're gonna do part 1, which after finishing up, we recognized there was so much more that
• 25:31
  we needed to talk about.
• 25:38
  For positive, healthy change.
• 25:40
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit rock
• 25:46
  anddurhaj.com/blueprint.
• 25:50
  We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.