How a "CAN-DO" ATTITUDE Made Harit Successful

Harit: 00:00:00

Conflict is very common and gaining trust is also another

Harit: 00:00:02

thing which is not so easy.

Harit: 00:00:04

People who are new into leadership They don't know sometimes how to bringing the

Harit: 00:00:08

trust level and to resolve those conflict.

Harit: 00:00:10

The old leadership or the people with the experience also struggle To get into

Harit: 00:00:14

a conflict engagement because they're scared of any kind of a conflict.

Harit: 00:00:17

They say okay If this person is causing trouble, let's stay away keep him away

Harit: 00:00:21

and no conflict live a happy life But that's not the good way of leadership.

Harit: 00:00:25

I have faced conflict starting on my leadership journey.

Harit: 00:00:29

It gave me a tough time.

Harit: 00:00:31

I started wondering like, why this guy is like that?

Harit: 00:00:33

Why is he behaving like that?

Harit: 00:00:34

Why is he always challenging me with my thoughts?

Harit: 00:00:37

Is he not liking me or is he having some personal problem with me?

Harit: 00:00:41

I had a discussion with this guy one on one and I say, Hey, you are a very

Harit: 00:00:45

senior experienced person and you should support me in bringing some good

Harit: 00:00:49

leadership changes in the team which will help you help me as well as the team.

Harit: 00:00:53

And he was like, I don't give a damn.

Harit: 00:00:55

I don't mind about the people.

Harit: 00:00:57

I'm only worried about myself.

Harit: 00:00:59

And then I found out he was not so comfortable with the

Harit: 00:01:02

transformation changes are coming in.

Harit: 00:01:04

Just imagine people are working from last 20, 25 years, at least

Harit: 00:01:07

in Germany, people stay at one place forever for their whole life.

Harit: 00:01:11

Not at least in Asia, where you keep on looking for new challenges

Harit: 00:01:15

or new jump in two or three years.

Harit: 00:01:17

And he was not comfortable how the dynamic world is changing He started working with

Harit: 00:01:21

the old way of working and now the agile, now this thing, It AI blah blah blah.

Harit: 00:01:26

So he was confused So I understand you need to buy in you need to bring him

Harit: 00:01:30

also on the table and make him feel safe That your expertise are still very

Harit: 00:01:35

valuable No, I started loving this guy.

Harit: 00:01:38

Trust me I started loving this guy because this guy made me to think

Harit: 00:01:41

out of the box When I go into a some transformation change and I said, okay

Harit: 00:01:45

this will do but how about this guy?

Harit: 00:01:47

Is he going to ask me this question?

Harit: 00:01:48

Yes.

Harit: 00:01:49

Let me prepare myself for that answer.

Harit: 00:01:51

Also.

Harit: 00:01:51

Let me think from that angle So he made me help to think more strategically.

Harit: 00:01:56

I never told him, frankly speaking, that he's helping me out, but I trust

Harit: 00:02:00

him like one of my hidden wisher who is guiding me to go beyond my expertise

Harit: 00:02:06

and bring the best out of everybody.

Harit: 00:02:08

So I welcome the conflicts.

Harit: 00:02:10

And I always encourage people to welcome the conflict because it gives you

Harit: 00:02:14

more power to become better yourself.

Rob: 00:02:16

We think that people are against us, but they're actually for themselves.

Rob: 00:02:20

And it's just finding their motive and their fear or the

Rob: 00:02:23

thing that they're looking for.

Rob: 00:02:25

So what I like to do in these is we don't know each other much

Rob: 00:02:28

more than beyond our profiles.

Rob: 00:02:30

So can you give me a bit of an insight into what you do and then we'll look

Rob: 00:02:35

at your journey to where you are now.

Harit: 00:02:37

Yeah, absolutely.

Harit: 00:02:39

I have been working in this it world.

Harit: 00:02:40

I'm from IT for the last 17 years and have taken all those with startups.

Harit: 00:02:45

So in startup, you have to do everything by yourself.

Harit: 00:02:48

And when you have to do everything by yourself, you learn a lot by yourself.

Harit: 00:02:51

Also seven and a half years back, I moved to Germany through

Harit: 00:02:55

one of the startups itself.

Harit: 00:02:56

And you don't know what are the pros and cons of startups.

Harit: 00:03:00

You have a high risk and high return, though you're paying you good, but you

Harit: 00:03:04

also have a high risk of getting fired.

Harit: 00:03:06

Same thing happened with me within three months of being in Germany.

Harit: 00:03:09

They asked me to go back because they decided not to go ahead with this project.

Harit: 00:03:13

I was in a lonely land and without any German skills and without knowing how

Harit: 00:03:17

the thing's working over here, I was still settling down myself over here.

Harit: 00:03:21

And Things totally changed.

Harit: 00:03:22

I was always a high achiever, always very ambitious and this thing never

Harit: 00:03:26

happened with me in my life, but this made me realize what I should do next.

Harit: 00:03:31

I was happy.

Harit: 00:03:32

I had support from my family and I'm very happy that I always believe

Harit: 00:03:36

in making a strong relationship.

Harit: 00:03:38

What you are teaching to your leaders and that is what we don't understand

Harit: 00:03:41

the importance of those relationship.

Harit: 00:03:44

I had some network and I started approaching them and

Harit: 00:03:46

I say, Hey, you're in Germany.

Harit: 00:03:47

I'm in Germany.

Harit: 00:03:48

I'm in soup.

Harit: 00:03:49

Help me out.

Harit: 00:03:49

Within seven days, I had a job within seven days.

Harit: 00:03:52

And when I went to this person who hired me, he was also a startup, but he knew

Harit: 00:03:56

more than I expected him to know about me.

Harit: 00:04:00

So he did his research and he knew what I'm bringing it on the table.

Harit: 00:04:02

And he hired me on the same dinner table.

Harit: 00:04:05

And since then I was very passionate about, growing myself and I was

Harit: 00:04:08

very passionate about leadership.

Harit: 00:04:10

So down the line, I have moved to this ERP company, one of the

Harit: 00:04:14

world's biggest ERP company.

Harit: 00:04:16

And I have tremendous growth over here.

Harit: 00:04:18

I have shown a lot of leadership skills here, bringing a team, bringing all

Harit: 00:04:22

the people together, empowering the people, because I strongly believe.

Harit: 00:04:26

One of my leader came to me and he said, Hey, you need to stop

Harit: 00:04:28

working on this and take this.

Harit: 00:04:30

I know you will not be happy living this because this is your child.

Harit: 00:04:33

You have grown up making it this pool and I said, no, I'm more than happy

Harit: 00:04:38

because I strongly believe you grow when you make others grow on this topic.

Harit: 00:04:44

I'm going to make somebody capable of coming on this level.

Harit: 00:04:48

And when I find my substitute, I will go to this level.

Harit: 00:04:51

Never, ever, get scared off that somebody can replace you.

Harit: 00:04:54

You need to make yourself so comfortable and so capable that somebody must

Harit: 00:04:59

replace you so that you can grow to the next challenging position.

Harit: 00:05:03

So these resilience and these hiccups I have received, made me

Harit: 00:05:06

it really polished what I am today.

Harit: 00:05:08

Right now I'm a product leader.

Harit: 00:05:09

I lead a product over here in my organization and I'm

Harit: 00:05:12

passionate about leadership.

Harit: 00:05:14

So within and outside my organization, I try to mentor, I try to coach them so

Harit: 00:05:19

that they can also grow in their career.

Harit: 00:05:20

I strongly believe if you have some strong skills and clear

Harit: 00:05:23

vision, you may not get stuck.

Harit: 00:05:26

Pros and cons, the rollercoaster ride keeps on coming, you may go up, but then

Harit: 00:05:30

you will stagnant probably you go down and then you go up again but you should have

Harit: 00:05:34

some strategies to keep on growing it.

Harit: 00:05:37

So this is what I do it in my organization also, as well as outside.

Harit: 00:05:41

Also, I try to guide people so that they can empower themselves to keep on growing.

Rob: 00:05:46

So what are the areas or the focus for your growth at the moment?

Harit: 00:05:50

I strongly believe in networking and personal branding, and I think these

Harit: 00:05:54

are the two things which people don't do because they said, Oh, I got promoted.

Harit: 00:05:57

I'm fine.

Harit: 00:05:58

I'm going to do my 9 to 5 job, but they totally forget that apart from 9 to 5.

Harit: 00:06:03

Nobody knows you.

Harit: 00:06:04

If something goes wrong.

Harit: 00:06:05

Nobody knows you, which has happened with me.

Harit: 00:06:08

If I didn't have those relationship and those networking with those

Harit: 00:06:11

people and made my brand, because as I told you, he knew more about me,

Harit: 00:06:16

then I was expecting him to know.

Harit: 00:06:17

So he knows about me because I have promoted myself.

Harit: 00:06:21

I have told to the world, this is what I'm bringing it on the table.

Harit: 00:06:24

So people are not doing it.

Harit: 00:06:25

What I strongly do and keep on doing is networking and personal branding.

Harit: 00:06:29

I meet a lot of senior executors, a lot of board members also in my organization.

Harit: 00:06:33

I don't expect that they're going to promote me or they're going

Harit: 00:06:36

to promote anybody immediately.

Harit: 00:06:37

But this relationship takes time.

Harit: 00:06:39

You need to have patience over there and you need to keep on watering your garden.

Harit: 00:06:43

You need to keep on making this relationship and continuously doing it

Harit: 00:06:47

so that Once either there's opportunity or once you are looking for it, you

Harit: 00:06:52

have somebody to approach for it So these are two things I strongly believe

Harit: 00:06:57

in and continue to do it myself And I always advocate others also to do it.

Rob: 00:07:01

First of all what exactly is the product?

Harit: 00:07:03

I'm in ERP world, which is called SAP.

Harit: 00:07:05

So in SAP, I'm into product development on financial consolidation.

Harit: 00:07:11

So this financial consolidation, what does it do?

Harit: 00:07:14

If you have big companies, group of companies, and you want to consolidate

Harit: 00:07:18

their whole financial records at one place without doubling their income.

Harit: 00:07:22

For example, you have an organization in the UK and you have an organization

Harit: 00:07:25

in the US also, but in the end, the revenue of the US and the revenue of the

Harit: 00:07:30

UK are also interacting with each other.

Harit: 00:07:33

They're doing in house businesses.

Harit: 00:07:34

You can't say, hey, in the US I have grown 10 percent and in the

Harit: 00:07:38

UK also you have grown 10%, but no.

Harit: 00:07:41

On the group level, you have the revenue in between.

Harit: 00:07:43

So you can't consider your own revenues between UK and US.

Harit: 00:07:46

So you need to eliminate those revenues also.

Harit: 00:07:49

So it's a pretty big product on a financial side.

Harit: 00:07:52

So I take care of it.

Harit: 00:07:53

I do not take care of the whole product.

Harit: 00:07:55

It's a huge product.

Harit: 00:07:56

So I take care of one critical component or the four critical

Harit: 00:07:59

functionalities on those products.

Harit: 00:08:01

I'm very strategic person.

Harit: 00:08:02

And I'm also a visionary.

Harit: 00:08:04

So I love working on the strategic and visionary products.

Harit: 00:08:07

So right now, I'm also working on another functionality, which I'm adding

Harit: 00:08:10

into it on sustainability because you can't run only with your money.

Harit: 00:08:16

You need loyal customers who keep on working with you or love your brand.

Harit: 00:08:20

So sustainability is the next important thing.

Harit: 00:08:22

I'm very glad actually, because of this sustainability feature or

Harit: 00:08:25

the criticality we are adding it.

Harit: 00:08:27

Last week, I presented this topic to more than 300 plus people.

Harit: 00:08:31

The internal and external vendors, partners, customers and The employees

Harit: 00:08:36

who are really interested in this finance and the combination of the

Harit: 00:08:40

integration of the sustainability.

Harit: 00:08:42

So this is what I do.

Harit: 00:08:43

I need to talk to marketing people, sales people, because we need to

Harit: 00:08:46

increase the adoption, increase the revenue by these products.

Harit: 00:08:49

So I do a couple of things over here.

Rob: 00:08:51

Okay.

Rob: 00:08:52

Sounds interesting.

Rob: 00:08:53

In terms of building your personal brand, given that you're strategic,

Rob: 00:08:56

is there a longer term plan?

Rob: 00:08:58

Or is it just to lead to the next opportunity?

Harit: 00:09:00

No, absolutely not.

Harit: 00:09:01

As I said, this personal branding opportunity is a long game.

Harit: 00:09:05

You can't have it for your next opportunity.

Harit: 00:09:07

If you are doing it for the next opportunity, then you are opportunistic.

Harit: 00:09:10

Then you're only looking for the opportunity and people will not trust you.

Harit: 00:09:14

You need to make a brand and this is what we have been learning and teaching also.

Harit: 00:09:17

When I'm making my personal brand and when I'm making connections,

Harit: 00:09:20

I'm not making it for my benefit.

Harit: 00:09:23

I always believe in giving it first.

Harit: 00:09:24

I'm all big believer of giving it back to the society in any form.

Harit: 00:09:28

Even my in organization, I do coaching, I do mentorship.

Harit: 00:09:31

It's not about getting any gain out of it.

Harit: 00:09:34

I'm not doing any personal branding over there.

Harit: 00:09:35

I'm giving back to the society, whatever I have learned during my experience

Harit: 00:09:40

through books, through some of my own mentors I'm just giving back to them.

Harit: 00:09:45

So when you're personal branding or networking, I would consider

Harit: 00:09:48

these two things separately.

Harit: 00:09:49

Personal branding, when you are promoting yourself.

Harit: 00:09:51

Networking, when you are making a new, strong, trust based relationship.

Harit: 00:09:55

And this trust based relationship has a two way direction.

Harit: 00:09:58

You support them and sometimes they support you back and you can't

Harit: 00:10:02

really just stay back and say, okay, I'm going to support them only,

Harit: 00:10:06

but you don't expect it in return.

Harit: 00:10:08

If you're thinking in that direction, then you're fooling yourself.

Harit: 00:10:11

But in the end it starts from you giving back to them and then probably someday

Harit: 00:10:15

you expect some returns from them also.

Rob: 00:10:18

Yeah, I like that.

Rob: 00:10:19

It reminds me of.

Rob: 00:10:21

The quote, something like a great society is one where old men plant seeds of trees

Rob: 00:10:27

that they'll never sit in the shade of.

Rob: 00:10:30

Yes.

Rob: 00:10:30

It's the view of being a custodian of knowledge rather than a hoarder of it.

Harit: 00:10:36

Exactly.

Rob: 00:10:36

So I'm interested in young Harit and how did he get into IT?

Harit: 00:10:41

It depends.

Harit: 00:10:42

If you're talking about the young talent, I would take it as a young

Harit: 00:10:44

talent into into a leadership position.

Harit: 00:10:47

Because if you're considering only a young talent, then we can talk about

Harit: 00:10:50

it just getting into a IT but if you're talking about leadership, then

Harit: 00:10:53

it's a totally a separate ballgame.

Rob: 00:10:56

Let's start right from when you were young.

Rob: 00:10:59

What was the path into it?

Rob: 00:11:01

Why IT

Harit: 00:11:01

Very interesting question and I would say.

Harit: 00:11:04

Probably in most of the Asia, how things work, why IT?

Harit: 00:11:08

Because whole world was doing it.

Harit: 00:11:10

And I was, nobody was perfect from their childhood.

Harit: 00:11:13

Everybody learns on their journey.

Harit: 00:11:14

And I was like, okay, yeah, everybody is doing IT.

Harit: 00:11:17

Probably this is the one thing which I could also do, because

Harit: 00:11:19

I'm very good in programming.

Harit: 00:11:20

I'm very good in mathematics.

Harit: 00:11:22

I'm very good in statistics.

Harit: 00:11:23

So this is what I want to do.

Harit: 00:11:25

And at that time, you don't think too much about the passion because

Harit: 00:11:28

there's Social pressure also where they say, Hey, this guy got a job.

Harit: 00:11:31

Why didn't you get a job?

Harit: 00:11:33

And you don't know why you didn't get a job.

Harit: 00:11:34

So you get this social pressure where you want to get your job immediately.

Harit: 00:11:39

So when I saw whole world was doing and I said, okay, probably I also wanted to do.

Harit: 00:11:43

I don't regret.

Harit: 00:11:44

Because I feel if I was not doing this, I don't know what

Harit: 00:11:48

I would be doing it till today.

Harit: 00:11:50

I can see my passion into leadership.

Harit: 00:11:52

I can see my passion into technology because this Motivates me.

Harit: 00:11:56

This is what it gives me pleasure when I go back home.

Harit: 00:11:59

I can see yes, I have achieved something so this is how my journey started in it.

Harit: 00:12:03

I don't blame others, but I would say It was culture which

Harit: 00:12:07

brought me to the IT world.

Rob: 00:12:09

And how was your initial journey into IT?

Rob: 00:12:12

Was it quite smooth?

Harit: 00:12:13

No, it was not smooth.

Harit: 00:12:14

Again when you are young when you are a new Person in some domain, whatever

Harit: 00:12:19

domain, it could be whether you have a 10 or 20 years of experience.

Harit: 00:12:21

If you try to get into a new domain people take you as a novice.

Harit: 00:12:25

People don't take you as a senior person, don't take you as an experienced

Harit: 00:12:28

person, so they take you for granted.

Harit: 00:12:30

They will ask you to do this.

Harit: 00:12:31

You have to do this because you are new to this world.

Harit: 00:12:34

You are new to that world and you are there to learn.

Harit: 00:12:36

And this is what happened with me coming into IT world.

Harit: 00:12:39

I got a job.

Harit: 00:12:40

They said, you want to do this, but that was not matching with my passion.

Harit: 00:12:43

They were not matching with my Knowledge my skills and the education I have

Harit: 00:12:47

received and I was struggling over there I was not motivated for sure.

Harit: 00:12:51

Then I had to take my career on my own hands I took a challenge and I said

Harit: 00:12:55

hey I'm going to take a one month of sabbatical and I want to do something new.

Harit: 00:12:59

I wanted to learn something new because in this world you're not making me to do what

Harit: 00:13:04

i'm liking it As I said, I'm more into a technical side on a coding on programming

Harit: 00:13:09

when I was doing my journey 17 years back But they were not giving it to me.

Harit: 00:13:13

They were giving me the things which more on the administration level

Harit: 00:13:18

I'm not saying administration is the wrong thing, but I was more ambitious.

Harit: 00:13:21

Instead of just working on excel sheet I wanted to do real work

Harit: 00:13:25

Which impact the real world.

Harit: 00:13:27

And then I said, okay, fine.

Harit: 00:13:28

I'm going to take charge, because my career is in my hand.

Harit: 00:13:30

I can't leave it to my manager.

Harit: 00:13:31

I can't leave it to my VP.

Harit: 00:13:33

I said, okay, I want a sabbatical.

Harit: 00:13:34

I went out one month, day and night, trust me.

Harit: 00:13:38

I was doing one certification 17 years back, which they said is one of the

Harit: 00:13:42

toughest certification in the it world to get the job in this organization

Harit: 00:13:46

where I'm working right now, that was famous and it was very costly.

Harit: 00:13:50

At that time, I would say it was.

Harit: 00:13:52

Four, five, 6, 000 euros at that time, it was pretty costly being just

Harit: 00:13:57

coming out of the college, you don't have 6, 000 euros in your pocket.

Harit: 00:14:01

I somehow managed it, but I didn't want to take a chance.

Harit: 00:14:04

I said it's do and die.

Harit: 00:14:05

I want to do it right now Whether I need to do hard work whether I need to do smart

Harit: 00:14:09

work Or whether I need to have late night.

Harit: 00:14:12

I have one month Only dedicated to this thing and changed my career.

Harit: 00:14:15

I got certified and since then I was trying to get more and

Harit: 00:14:18

more details of this particular ERP world or this IT world.

Harit: 00:14:22

So my journey was like most of us.

Harit: 00:14:25

It's not a smooth journey.

Harit: 00:14:26

It was a roller coaster, but the only thing which I had with me and

Harit: 00:14:30

still have its can do attitude.

Harit: 00:14:32

I don't give up.

Harit: 00:14:33

I said, you can do it.

Harit: 00:14:35

People in my surrounding, they said, Oh, you are young.

Harit: 00:14:38

You can do it.

Harit: 00:14:38

I said, fine.

Harit: 00:14:39

Then I feel myself young till I have this attitude.

Harit: 00:14:42

Let me do it.

Harit: 00:14:43

Probably after 20 years I will retire but probably after 20 years

Harit: 00:14:47

also I have that this attitude.

Harit: 00:14:48

You don't have it right now but I may have it in the future also.

Harit: 00:14:52

I don't know about the future.

Harit: 00:14:53

Future can change.

Harit: 00:14:54

Uncertainties can happen but for today I know I can do it.

Harit: 00:14:59

So I will do it and I don't know the consequences of it, but until unless

Harit: 00:15:03

I try you will never get to know if you are capable of that or not,

Harit: 00:15:08

I'll give you another story.

Harit: 00:15:09

This last year I was working with a very senior executive over there.

Harit: 00:15:13

I was working in our program, on the strategy program on

Harit: 00:15:16

an organizational level.

Harit: 00:15:17

So you can imagine what you're going to do.

Harit: 00:15:19

It's going to affect more than a hundred thousand people.

Harit: 00:15:22

So I was working on those programs, but I was always hungry.

Harit: 00:15:25

I was always looking for something which can challenge me, bring

Harit: 00:15:29

my capabilities to a peak.

Harit: 00:15:31

Then I can say.

Harit: 00:15:32

Stop.

Harit: 00:15:32

You can't do beyond that.

Harit: 00:15:34

I was handling three programs at that moment.

Harit: 00:15:36

And there was a personal situation at my home also.

Harit: 00:15:39

I went to this guy to the very senior executive and

Harit: 00:15:42

say, I think I'm not done yet.

Harit: 00:15:44

I want something more.

Harit: 00:15:45

You can imagine he was a senior executive and he was seen the world more than me.

Harit: 00:15:50

And he said, Hey, don't do that.

Harit: 00:15:51

You have a personal life at home.

Harit: 00:15:53

Three programs already.

Harit: 00:15:54

You're taking care of it.

Harit: 00:15:55

Fourth one will mess you up, will put you on the top.

Harit: 00:15:58

You will burn out.

Harit: 00:16:00

I said, no, I want to do it.

Harit: 00:16:01

At least I want to feel whether after four programs will I be burned

Harit: 00:16:05

out or I still have the capability or capacity to do beyond that.

Harit: 00:16:09

I took that challenge.

Harit: 00:16:10

He was surprised.

Harit: 00:16:11

I delivered all those four things all together.

Harit: 00:16:14

And that's what I'm saying.

Harit: 00:16:15

You need to have a can do attitude.

Harit: 00:16:16

You need to have your own capability.

Harit: 00:16:18

You will grow only when you challenge yourself.

Harit: 00:16:21

If you're sitting on a relaxed chair and then you say that opportunity comes

Harit: 00:16:24

to you, you will grow by yourself.

Harit: 00:16:26

No, you need, this is the moment, the personal branding.

Harit: 00:16:29

I showed my brand to this guy.

Harit: 00:16:31

Hey, I can do those challenges.

Harit: 00:16:33

I have those capabilities.

Harit: 00:16:35

Trust me.

Harit: 00:16:35

And I will deliver it.

Harit: 00:16:37

I made it and this helped me making a strong relationship also I'm pretty sure

Harit: 00:16:40

this guy may not forget me even in the hard times because he Guided me not to do

Harit: 00:16:45

it, but I still challenged him and did it.

Harit: 00:16:47

So I think this really helps when you have to do these things But I

Harit: 00:16:51

also want to add another thing What I did It's not I have done it alone.

Harit: 00:16:56

I was doing a lot of my own self learning.

Harit: 00:16:59

I'm a very continuous learner So i'm doing a lot of self learning and you

Harit: 00:17:03

need a mentor also who can guide you.

Harit: 00:17:05

Also showing the correct path I always recommend people that you can do it

Harit: 00:17:09

yourself, you know the very common term do it yourself and then get a mentor

Harit: 00:17:13

There's a difference between those two.

Harit: 00:17:15

If you do it yourself, probably you'll do it in two weeks.

Harit: 00:17:18

If you take a mentor with an experienced person who knows about

Harit: 00:17:20

it, he can help you out in doing in two days, probably four days also.

Harit: 00:17:24

It always depends about your goal and how fast you want to run.

Harit: 00:17:28

If you say, I want to do it yourself, probably you will take so many months,

Harit: 00:17:32

probably years to reach that level.

Harit: 00:17:34

But if you have a mentor with you, he can guide you and he can tell

Harit: 00:17:37

you where's your gap and what is the direction you should pick it up to

Harit: 00:17:41

reach to that goal as fast as you can.

Harit: 00:17:44

That's important actually, you must have a mentor.

Harit: 00:17:47

Whether you are a fresher in any industry, or you are a CEO of any organization,

Harit: 00:17:51

you must have a mentor with you.

Rob: 00:17:53

Okay.

Rob: 00:17:53

So what I'm picking up from that is there's three keys to your success is

Rob: 00:17:58

first, you had the drive and an ambition.

Rob: 00:18:00

Second, that you had a base of confidence that you believed and

Rob: 00:18:04

third, the continuous learning and the input from a mentor.

Rob: 00:18:09

Yeah.

Rob: 00:18:09

So what was the biggest lesson that you gained from your mentor?

Harit: 00:18:15

The biggest lesson I have learned from my mentor was gain a diverse

Harit: 00:18:20

knowledge don't stick to one Domain experience or expertise because when you

Harit: 00:18:25

have to grow from expert to generalized.

Harit: 00:18:29

So when you are working here right now, if you are an expert in some

Harit: 00:18:32

domain, for example in telecom I'll come to you rob and say hey,

Harit: 00:18:36

Tell me about this telecom problem.

Harit: 00:18:37

Yeah, but once I keep on growing, I should know about the telecom.

Harit: 00:18:41

I should know about the finance.

Harit: 00:18:43

I should know about the IT.

Harit: 00:18:43

I should know about everything so that if person is coming to me,

Harit: 00:18:47

I should have the general answer.

Harit: 00:18:48

If I don't have it, it's okay because I'm not the expert

Harit: 00:18:51

at this leadership position.

Harit: 00:18:52

I can have my own experts where I can delegate to them

Harit: 00:18:55

and I can check with them.

Harit: 00:18:57

Accepting you don't know is a blessing.

Harit: 00:19:00

If you think that you are a leader and know everything, then you're,

Harit: 00:19:04

living in an imaginary world.

Harit: 00:19:05

So you should always be open to seek as a continuous learner.

Harit: 00:19:09

You should be open to seek learning from anywhere.

Harit: 00:19:12

So I'm very open when I'm sitting with any of my junior colleagues,

Harit: 00:19:16

I'm very open to listen to them.

Harit: 00:19:17

What are they going to talk?

Harit: 00:19:18

Probably you get some very beautiful ideas because they are coming freshly

Harit: 00:19:22

from university or they have something different which you can't think of it.

Harit: 00:19:26

So keep yourself always open for new learning and go

Harit: 00:19:29

for your diverse direction.

Harit: 00:19:31

One thing which again I would tell you the mistake one I have done is about feedback.

Harit: 00:19:36

So as a new leader, you should know how to give feedback and how to receive feedback.

Harit: 00:19:42

Those two things are most important.

Harit: 00:19:44

There are so many ways of doing it.

Harit: 00:19:46

But if you are very generic and just giving feedback, you didn't do a good job.

Harit: 00:19:50

You didn't do this.

Harit: 00:19:51

You didn't do that.

Harit: 00:19:52

And you are not good.

Harit: 00:19:53

You need to be very careful.

Harit: 00:19:55

You should have empathy while giving feedback, whether it's critical

Harit: 00:19:58

feedback, constructive feedback, or good feedback, you should have an empathy.

Harit: 00:20:02

It should be very specific.

Harit: 00:20:03

And one thing which I'm missing majority of the people I have met.

Harit: 00:20:06

Whether you are a leader or you're not, how to receive feedback.

Harit: 00:20:10

If somebody gives me critical feedback, I more welcome it than supportive feedback

Harit: 00:20:14

because this critical feedback helps me to learn further, find out my gaps.

Harit: 00:20:19

If somebody is giving me critical feedback and then I say, How

Harit: 00:20:22

can he say like that to me?

Harit: 00:20:23

He doesn't know anything about me.

Harit: 00:20:25

I know what I'm doing it.

Harit: 00:20:26

And then you start challenging that guy.

Harit: 00:20:28

Hey, no, I did it like this.

Harit: 00:20:30

You don't know this.

Harit: 00:20:30

I have done that job.

Harit: 00:20:32

No, I have done like this.

Harit: 00:20:33

You know what?

Harit: 00:20:34

You're missing it.

Harit: 00:20:34

You're not welcoming the feedback.

Harit: 00:20:36

This guy will not come back to you and give you a feedback because you are

Harit: 00:20:40

hesitant to learn about those things.

Harit: 00:20:42

So he will say, Hey, this guy is not very supportive on feedback.

Harit: 00:20:45

So you are missing the chance of learning new things, finding

Harit: 00:20:49

your own gaps, and then you are also spoiling your relationship.

Harit: 00:20:52

He was trusting you to give you feedback, he will not give further.

Harit: 00:20:56

The way of taking feedback is, just grab it, understand it, keep it with you.

Harit: 00:21:00

And consider it's his or her perspective of looking at things.

Harit: 00:21:04

He is not trying to tell you, you are right or wrong.

Harit: 00:21:07

He's trying to tell from his perspective that you didn't do this thing well.

Harit: 00:21:11

But you know it, whether you really did it rightly or not.

Harit: 00:21:14

If you didn't do it rightly, or probably you didn't think in that direction, which

Harit: 00:21:18

this guy is thinking, you need to take his perspective, go back home, think about it.

Harit: 00:21:23

Why did he say like that and find out the different ways.

Harit: 00:21:26

And I'm pretty sure you will find a gap.

Harit: 00:21:29

That's why this guy is giving you this critical feedback, take it and improve it.

Harit: 00:21:33

But don't challenge him right on his face and say, Hey, you don't know about me.

Harit: 00:21:36

I'm doing the best job of it.

Harit: 00:21:38

You're spoiling the whole relationship.

Rob: 00:21:40

Everyone's got a different perspective.

Rob: 00:21:42

It's not necessarily a right perspective, but it gives you a different perspective.

Rob: 00:21:45

It's all about your ego not being invested whether you're giving or receiving.

Rob: 00:21:50

Even when you're giving feedback, when it seems to come from your ego,

Rob: 00:21:53

people are less likely to take it.

Rob: 00:21:55

Whereas if it's dispassionate and it's just your perspective on the situation,

Rob: 00:22:01

then it's much easier for someone to take.

Rob: 00:22:02

Just to go back to when your mentor talked to you about diversity of

Rob: 00:22:06

knowledge so what they were talking about is being an expert, but be able

Rob: 00:22:09

to put it in the context of finance, be able to put it in the context of

Rob: 00:22:13

someone else, so that you're able to be at a table with other people in

Rob: 00:22:17

other disciplines, and you're able to relate your knowledge in their context.

Rob: 00:22:21

Is that right?

Harit: 00:22:22

So what he meant by saying that diverse knowledge, he said, okay.

Harit: 00:22:26

There is a certain time where you want to behave like an expert.

Harit: 00:22:29

Okay.

Harit: 00:22:30

Probably as a fresher till decade of experience or one and a half decade of

Harit: 00:22:34

your experience, you would work as expert and where people can approach you with

Harit: 00:22:38

your expertise, with your experience.

Harit: 00:22:41

Then they ask you to solve this problem.

Harit: 00:22:43

But as you keep on growing in your career, you can't be an expert whole of your life.

Harit: 00:22:48

If you want to become a leader, then you want to Go beyond expert.

Harit: 00:22:51

People can trust you on your people skills, on your leadership

Harit: 00:22:54

skills, not only on your expertise on one particular domain.

Harit: 00:22:57

There you start need to get onto a different domain experience.

Harit: 00:23:01

So as I said, once you are having finance, then you should also know

Harit: 00:23:04

how the sales are also working.

Harit: 00:23:06

You don't need to be a sales guy who is going out in the market and

Harit: 00:23:10

selling the product, but you should know how the sales team is behaving.

Harit: 00:23:13

What are their pain points and how you can resolve it?

Harit: 00:23:16

How the sales and finance can work together.

Harit: 00:23:19

If you're only finance guy, sales guy will tell you anything

Harit: 00:23:22

and you will just say yes.

Harit: 00:23:24

But if you have a knowledge of sales as well as finance, not an

Harit: 00:23:27

expert, but as a good experience, you can challenge things also.

Harit: 00:23:31

You can say, Hey sales, you're telling me like this, but it

Harit: 00:23:33

should be done also like this.

Harit: 00:23:35

I'm not a hundred percent sure, or I'm not fully agreed.

Harit: 00:23:38

If you can go back and cross check, I will also cross check with my team and

Harit: 00:23:42

tell you how we can do it together.

Harit: 00:23:43

So that's the diverse knowledge I was talking about.

Harit: 00:23:46

That's the best knowledge Guide or tip he gave to me that you need to think

Harit: 00:23:49

beyond your comfort level Whether it's sales, finance or probably when

Harit: 00:23:54

you go into internal IT also You don't know how things are working.

Harit: 00:23:58

Another example, I can give you if i'm making a product right now, I

Harit: 00:24:02

know only about this product So when I go to my team or some internal IT

Harit: 00:24:06

and they said, okay, they want to use this product, but they, you don't

Harit: 00:24:10

know the downstream and upstreams.

Harit: 00:24:12

Can you really justify if you don't know your downstream and upstreams?

Harit: 00:24:15

You cannot.

Harit: 00:24:16

So you must know about your downstream as well as upon your upstream also.

Harit: 00:24:20

That's the diverse knowledge you need to have.

Harit: 00:24:22

You can't be like this.

Harit: 00:24:23

You can't be like this.

Harit: 00:24:24

You need to broaden your perspective also.

Rob: 00:24:27

The journey from being a doer to being a leader is you need to

Rob: 00:24:30

know how to integrate and how to become a node in the wider network.

Rob: 00:24:35

Something that I'm curious of, we talked about your learning, but there's this deep

Rob: 00:24:39

drive, this ambition that drives you, and I'm wondering what the source of that is.

Rob: 00:24:45

What is the thing that's motivating because you're very

Rob: 00:24:47

driven, you're very ambitious.

Rob: 00:24:49

What powers that?

Harit: 00:24:50

That's a very interesting question and I don't ever

Harit: 00:24:52

think about what Motivates me.

Harit: 00:24:54

A couple of things which Really motivates me when i'm supporting

Harit: 00:24:57

somebody when I can think that I Have helped somebody to achieve something.

Harit: 00:25:02

You know when I have empowered somebody to achieve something So that

Harit: 00:25:05

is one big thing which I always feel.

Harit: 00:25:07

Whether it's on my leadership side.

Harit: 00:25:09

Whether it's on my technical side.

Harit: 00:25:11

Whether it's on my product side.

Harit: 00:25:13

So that's one thing which motivates me another thing which motivates me I

Harit: 00:25:17

learned it, back in my college days itself from one of my friend and I'm very

Harit: 00:25:20

happy that he just gave it in jest, in fun that I want to know everything so that if

Harit: 00:25:27

somebody asked me some question, at least I have a one single line answer for that.

Harit: 00:25:32

So if Rob is asking me something which I really I don't want to just say clueless,

Harit: 00:25:37

I should have some things so that we can continue the discussion about it.

Harit: 00:25:40

That's the one of the motivation I have it for the continuous learning.

Harit: 00:25:44

I do it every day without fail, 30 minutes to one hour of continuous learning.

Harit: 00:25:49

Am I reading new skills?

Harit: 00:25:51

I'm reading it.

Harit: 00:25:52

How to coach people.

Harit: 00:25:54

I'm reading it about my product.

Harit: 00:25:56

I'm reading it about anything, but I'm learning without fail every day.

Harit: 00:26:00

So that is one thing which helps me.

Harit: 00:26:02

This gives me a motivation that I have learned something.

Harit: 00:26:05

I have delivered something.

Harit: 00:26:06

I have supported something.

Harit: 00:26:07

So that's one thing.

Harit: 00:26:08

Second thing about ambition is As I said, I wanted to check my capabilities.

Harit: 00:26:13

So one of my friends said, Hey, you want to be a CEO?

Harit: 00:26:17

I said, yeah, why not?

Harit: 00:26:18

I want to be a CEO.

Harit: 00:26:19

Do you know the pain points over there?

Harit: 00:26:21

You will live no life.

Harit: 00:26:23

There's a lot of burnout, no family.

Harit: 00:26:25

You're traveling here, traveling there.

Harit: 00:26:26

Customer is shouting at you fine, but let me try it.

Harit: 00:26:30

If I don't try it, I will never understand if I deserve this position or not.

Harit: 00:26:34

So testing the waters.

Harit: 00:26:36

Putting my legs inside the lake is the thing I wanted to do it.

Harit: 00:26:39

I wanted to try it out.

Harit: 00:26:40

So those two things are going hand in hand.

Harit: 00:26:43

If somebody coming to me, I should have the some point of discussion.

Harit: 00:26:46

I should not be a blind on the other side.

Harit: 00:26:48

I should try it out before I compare and I can tell somebody over there.

Rob: 00:26:53

That's interesting because when you say that I want to have something to

Rob: 00:26:56

say, it reminds me a little of Einstein, basically he was asked why he did

Rob: 00:27:01

physics and he says, I don't do physics.

Rob: 00:27:03

I'm trying to understand God's thoughts.

Rob: 00:27:05

And I think that outlook of curiosity is the basis that leads

Rob: 00:27:10

you to that continuous learning.

Rob: 00:27:12

See

Harit: 00:27:12

again, all of these things, you are not born with that.

Harit: 00:27:16

As we always say, leadership is not born.

Harit: 00:27:18

You are not born with leadership.

Harit: 00:27:19

You learned it.

Harit: 00:27:21

Even the curiosity some people have curiosity when they keep on asking

Harit: 00:27:24

questions and they keep on asking to learn something But sometimes you

Harit: 00:27:27

embed it in what you try to do by yourself And once you get this habit

Harit: 00:27:31

of learning, this curiosity come by you automatically So this is one thing

Harit: 00:27:35

which I can give a solid advice Make some good habits of continuous learning.

Harit: 00:27:41

You can't do it every day.

Harit: 00:27:42

Fine.

Harit: 00:27:42

But at least keep small goals, keep small actions where you can say,

Harit: 00:27:46

okay, this is what I'm going to learn.

Harit: 00:27:48

I'm going to try to experiment and see the benefit of it.

Harit: 00:27:52

And then I will, restart the cycle and learn something new.

Harit: 00:27:55

So when you get this habit of continuous learning, curiosity comes automatically.

Harit: 00:27:59

When you are using skills you have learned and you start using skills, you will see

Harit: 00:28:03

progression and growth in your career.

Harit: 00:28:05

As soon as you see progression and growth in your career, you

Harit: 00:28:08

automatically become a high achiever.

Harit: 00:28:10

Because you start getting the taste of success very frequently.

Harit: 00:28:13

So when you start getting the taste of success, you always feel

Harit: 00:28:15

like, okay, I want to taste again.

Harit: 00:28:17

I want to go again.

Harit: 00:28:17

I want to try again.

Harit: 00:28:19

You may fail.

Harit: 00:28:20

You come down, you may fail.

Harit: 00:28:21

It's okay.

Harit: 00:28:22

But this is also learning from failure.

Harit: 00:28:25

You learn something again.

Harit: 00:28:26

As a continuous learner, you learn something out of your failure and

Harit: 00:28:29

you're trying to improve it further.

Harit: 00:28:31

So curiosity and short goals with success really helps a lot.

Rob: 00:28:35

It's like the flow state, isn't it?

Rob: 00:28:36

There's a ramp up to get up to the flow state.

Rob: 00:28:39

And then once you're up into it, it flows where people often expect it

Rob: 00:28:43

to flow before they've done the ramp.

Harit: 00:28:45

Yeah, absolutely.

Rob: 00:28:46

So there's something I noticed it when you first said

Rob: 00:28:49

it and then you reiterated it.

Rob: 00:28:51

But you have there's a discipline of planning that every day you're

Rob: 00:28:54

going to spend 30 minutes so how how much is discipline and how

Rob: 00:28:59

structured do you make your week?

Harit: 00:29:02

I would say again.

Harit: 00:29:02

This is a habit which you can learn.

Harit: 00:29:04

I'm very well structured.

Harit: 00:29:06

I'm very well planned I can't do things.

Harit: 00:29:09

I mean you ask me let's go for a run.

Harit: 00:29:11

No.

Harit: 00:29:12

Because I have some plan which I have already scheduled, planned,

Harit: 00:29:15

I can't put anything immediately.

Harit: 00:29:17

If I really need to do, I need to find out the priorities of all of them, what I have

Harit: 00:29:20

to do, so that I can, shuffle over there and juggle and put your stuff over there.

Harit: 00:29:25

When you were asking me before that only I wanted to raise it that,

Harit: 00:29:28

consistency is most important thing.

Harit: 00:29:30

You need to do these things consistently and you need to plan things.

Harit: 00:29:34

For me, planning and consistency and doing these things are most important.

Harit: 00:29:37

How do I do one of my junior asked me and he said, how can you do that?

Harit: 00:29:42

How much time do you have?

Harit: 00:29:43

It's all about priorities.

Harit: 00:29:44

What do you want in your life?

Harit: 00:29:45

Do you want to go for some streaming website and watch hundreds of episodes?

Harit: 00:29:49

Or you want to improve yourself?

Harit: 00:29:51

I'm not saying you improve yourself to become a huge leader or so.

Harit: 00:29:55

Improve yourself to have a better life.

Harit: 00:29:58

You learn something for your better understanding so that you can see the

Harit: 00:30:01

world from a different perspective.

Harit: 00:30:03

You do something more relaxing, which helps you to reduce your

Harit: 00:30:06

burnout, to relax your mind.

Harit: 00:30:08

You do something which gives you a better idea for your next product.

Harit: 00:30:11

So this is the consistency you wanted to have.

Harit: 00:30:13

How do I do it?

Harit: 00:30:14

I plan my things.

Harit: 00:30:16

I prioritize.

Harit: 00:30:16

What are the two or three most important things in my life?

Harit: 00:30:19

One, my health.

Harit: 00:30:20

I get up early morning.

Harit: 00:30:21

I do some kind of exercise because that is the time I can

Harit: 00:30:24

do when my family is sleeping.

Harit: 00:30:26

Next, my family, when they get up, I spend time with them.

Harit: 00:30:29

I do my office work.

Harit: 00:30:30

I spend time with them.

Harit: 00:30:31

So I'm giving time to my family.

Harit: 00:30:32

So that is the second thing.

Harit: 00:30:34

Third is my continuous learning.

Harit: 00:30:35

Once my family I don't go and switch on my TV.

Harit: 00:30:38

I don't go and switch on any website.

Harit: 00:30:39

I don't go and switch on any social media.

Harit: 00:30:42

I spend time for my learning 30 minutes.

Harit: 00:30:45

You just need to make a habit.

Harit: 00:30:46

30 minutes.

Harit: 00:30:47

I do more than that, frankly.

Harit: 00:30:48

But if somebody is watching this and he wants to learn,

Harit: 00:30:51

30 minutes is what you can do.

Harit: 00:30:53

Make a habit.

Harit: 00:30:53

I think I learned it somewhere.

Harit: 00:30:56

Personally, I believe if you do it for 21 days, It became a full time

Harit: 00:30:59

habit, but somebody also said, as you long do it for 70 days or 90

Harit: 00:31:04

days, then it's more beneficial.

Harit: 00:31:05

I can guarantee you, you will see the difference in yourself.

Harit: 00:31:08

We are thought processing.

Harit: 00:31:09

Also, when you start learning something out of any book, you will see this, what

Harit: 00:31:14

this person is talking about and how you start changing your mindset to the

Harit: 00:31:18

growth mindset or the productive mindset, and you start doing things differently.

Harit: 00:31:23

So you just need to prioritize your things.

Rob: 00:31:25

Okay.

Rob: 00:31:25

One more question on this.

Rob: 00:31:27

So the third element that I see is the confidence.

Rob: 00:31:30

And where did that confidence come from?

Rob: 00:31:32

Like you're looking to test your capabilities.

Rob: 00:31:35

You're looking to push your boundaries.

Rob: 00:31:37

So where does that belief in yourself come from?

Harit: 00:31:39

Absolutely.

Harit: 00:31:40

You already said it.

Harit: 00:31:41

I believe in myself.

Harit: 00:31:42

I wanted to challenge myself.

Harit: 00:31:44

So that's how you do it.

Harit: 00:31:45

When you have knowledge, when you have your own surety that you can do it, that

Harit: 00:31:49

attitude, if you have it, that you can do it, you will keep on challenging yourself

Harit: 00:31:53

and you can keep on testing the waters.

Harit: 00:31:56

So the only thing I would say, don't fear failures, because if you always think

Harit: 00:32:00

about the fear of failures, then you will never try that you will get failed.

Harit: 00:32:05

Another thing which I've improved in myself.

Harit: 00:32:06

At least I have improved is Perfectionism.

Harit: 00:32:09

I always believe in perfectionist.

Harit: 00:32:11

I always say if I want to do, it should be perfect.

Harit: 00:32:14

I don't want any mistake in that.

Harit: 00:32:15

I don't want any wrong thing in that.

Harit: 00:32:17

And that was causing me a lot of burnout Because I was doing so much into one

Harit: 00:32:22

thing, which was like If something goes wrong, so I change my attitude.

Harit: 00:32:26

I mean it's all about how you want to think.

Harit: 00:32:28

As I said If you want to have a can do attitude, you can do it by

Harit: 00:32:31

taking a small actions small goals and once you start achieving that,

Harit: 00:32:35

then your goal will become this big.

Harit: 00:32:36

Your action will become this big.

Harit: 00:32:38

So that's the can do attitude.

Harit: 00:32:39

You need to have it.

Harit: 00:32:41

And another attitude which I have changed it from perfectionist To a normal person.

Harit: 00:32:45

So here, even if I'm making a mistake, let me just do it and make a mistake.

Harit: 00:32:49

There's no harm in making a mistake and there's no harm to deliver it first time.

Harit: 00:32:53

You try your best.

Harit: 00:32:54

That's all I could say.

Rob: 00:32:56

Very true.

Rob: 00:32:57

So you talked about when you were in IT and people didn't believe in you.

Rob: 00:33:01

What I would say is perhaps your time of struggle.

Rob: 00:33:04

What comes to mind is if you were the leader what did you see?

Rob: 00:33:08

Do you think that your managers and leaders around you, could

Rob: 00:33:11

they have been more empathic?

Rob: 00:33:13

Could they have been more supportive?

Rob: 00:33:14

What would you do differently if you were them?

Harit: 00:33:17

Yeah, absolutely.

Harit: 00:33:18

You need to check out the strengths of everybody, the

Harit: 00:33:21

native genius, which I call it.

Harit: 00:33:23

What I have learned about native genius that you need to find out

Harit: 00:33:26

the native genius of somebody.

Harit: 00:33:27

There were people who are very good in Excel, but there were

Harit: 00:33:30

people who are not good in Excel.

Harit: 00:33:32

You need to find out what are they good at.

Harit: 00:33:34

And give them opportunity where they are good at it.

Harit: 00:33:37

So finding a native genius is the most important thing I would say to leaders.

Harit: 00:33:41

And obviously empathy and active listening, you need

Harit: 00:33:44

to really listen to people.

Harit: 00:33:46

If they're talking, if they're telling something, what are

Harit: 00:33:48

they really wanted to do?

Harit: 00:33:50

Everybody doesn't want to do what you're asking them to do, but they

Harit: 00:33:53

have a different career aspiration.

Harit: 00:33:54

They have different career growth or mindset.

Harit: 00:33:56

So you need to think and help them as a leader.

Harit: 00:33:59

You need to make sure how you are empowering them or how you

Harit: 00:34:02

are creating future leaders.

Harit: 00:34:04

If you are not supporting them, what they want to be, they will be

Harit: 00:34:07

behaving like that in the future.

Harit: 00:34:09

Also because they have seen leaders like you who are not supportive,

Harit: 00:34:13

and in turn, they will also become non-supportive in the future.

Harit: 00:34:16

So you need to put yourself in other shoes, show them empathy,

Harit: 00:34:20

and be a great leader and empower them to be their best future.

Rob: 00:34:25

Okay.

Rob: 00:34:26

So of all the leaders that you've seen, what do you see is the biggest mistakes?

Rob: 00:34:31

You seem to have a clear purpose of leaving a legacy

Rob: 00:34:34

of creating better leadership.

Rob: 00:34:36

What do you see is the biggest problem or top three problems in your experience

Rob: 00:34:43

and observation of other leaders.

Harit: 00:34:44

Yeah, let me give you a top three, one by one.

Harit: 00:34:47

First of all, when you become a new leader, as I have shared

Harit: 00:34:50

earlier in my example, you become leader from an expert to a leader.

Harit: 00:34:54

You have to prove yourself as an expert and show some skills to become a leader.

Harit: 00:34:59

That's the one thing you need to give back or give up.

Harit: 00:35:01

You can't be expert whole life.

Harit: 00:35:03

If your team is doing something and you say, hey, I'm the expert because I

Harit: 00:35:07

have done this thing from decades and everything has to be routed through me.

Harit: 00:35:12

You're doing the biggest mistake of your career or your leadership.

Harit: 00:35:16

You're not trusting your team to deliver their best and what will happen.

Harit: 00:35:19

They will not trust you back either.

Harit: 00:35:21

So trust again.

Harit: 00:35:22

It's a combined efforts from both direction.

Harit: 00:35:24

So you need to trust your team so that they can trust you back.

Harit: 00:35:28

Give them authority, trust them, give them ownership to take decisions

Harit: 00:35:32

delegated to prove that you trust them and they can do their job.

Harit: 00:35:36

You don't need to come in between.

Harit: 00:35:38

So that's the point.

Harit: 00:35:38

Number one, I would say forget or give up your expertise.

Harit: 00:35:42

Second is from IC, from individual contributor to a leader, when

Harit: 00:35:46

you are in IC, you look in one direction, I need to deliver this.

Harit: 00:35:49

But when you become a leader, you need to think from all the direction, all

Harit: 00:35:53

the stakeholders, all the people who can influence you, your team vision, your team

Harit: 00:35:59

goal, and who can influence your decision.

Harit: 00:36:01

So you need to understand each and every stakeholders who are connected over here.

Harit: 00:36:05

So you need to think broader, not as a IC person who has a one record of delivering

Harit: 00:36:11

this Technical object, for example.

Harit: 00:36:13

But you need to think if my team delivers this technical object, if somebody

Harit: 00:36:18

from outside can influence it and say no, don't deliver it, deliver this.

Harit: 00:36:22

So you need to understand your stakeholders very nicely and thoroughly.

Harit: 00:36:25

Another third point, which I would tell you is, which I have seen very closely.

Harit: 00:36:29

And recently I'm mentoring one of the person and who had the same problem.

Harit: 00:36:34

As a leader, you always expect your team to go beyond the

Harit: 00:36:38

expectation, exceed expectations.

Harit: 00:36:40

But what are you doing it in return?

Harit: 00:36:41

Are you exceed expected as a leader?

Harit: 00:36:45

You need to lead by example.

Harit: 00:36:47

What you are expecting from your team, they expect back.

Harit: 00:36:50

So you need to go beyond the terms as a leader and support them and empower them.

Harit: 00:36:54

You need to make sure your work is not only to take care of their team, to

Harit: 00:36:58

take care of their sick, their leaves, or their money, or their things.

Harit: 00:37:01

You need to empower them.

Harit: 00:37:02

You need to make sure about their growth.

Harit: 00:37:04

In most of the cases, team members are not fully aware of their own development

Harit: 00:37:09

goals, about their own career growth.

Harit: 00:37:11

You need to be a coach over there.

Harit: 00:37:13

You need to be a mentor over there.

Harit: 00:37:15

You need to find the native genius of those people.

Harit: 00:37:17

What do they want to do it?

Harit: 00:37:19

How they want to do it?

Harit: 00:37:20

If you just sit, relax and say, they will come to me and they will talk to me.

Harit: 00:37:24

You're making a mistake.

Harit: 00:37:25

Then you are just meeting expectation.

Harit: 00:37:27

If you go to them and support them and what they want to achieve,

Harit: 00:37:32

you're exceeding expectation.

Harit: 00:37:34

So this is what you also need to take care of.

Harit: 00:37:36

Just don't sit, relax and do your nine to five job or whatever is required,

Harit: 00:37:40

you need to go beyond expectations.

Harit: 00:37:42

So that is third advice.

Harit: 00:37:43

I would give it to them.

Harit: 00:37:44

Fourth advice, if I can give, which I have been raising it again and again,

Harit: 00:37:48

which I have been doing it myself.

Harit: 00:37:50

Once you become a manager or once you become a leader, you say, okay, my

Harit: 00:37:54

life is set now I'm leading a team.

Harit: 00:37:56

My career is fine.

Harit: 00:37:57

I will grow now.

Harit: 00:37:58

But you will not grow.

Harit: 00:37:59

It's not easy to grow once you have reached some level, you need to create

Harit: 00:38:03

your personal branding and networking.

Harit: 00:38:06

If people don't know you outside your team.

Harit: 00:38:09

Outside your board area.

Harit: 00:38:10

Outside your line of business, they will not hire you.

Harit: 00:38:14

They will not give you opportunity.

Harit: 00:38:15

So don't forget to keep on making your personal branding and networking

Harit: 00:38:20

within and outside the organization.

Rob: 00:38:22

That's four great pieces of advice.

Rob: 00:38:25

I think the first one to go from expert to leader, that's not

Rob: 00:38:29

something that you can just step into a job and have that perspective.

Rob: 00:38:32

This perspective comes through the challenges of the job.

Rob: 00:38:35

You have to drop your identity of where your sense of pride, where your sense of

Rob: 00:38:40

confidence, your base of what's got you to where you are to let go and you're

Rob: 00:38:45

starting a new rung of a new ladder.

Rob: 00:38:47

That's tough for a lot of people to take.

Rob: 00:38:49

Again, the focus on what you're doing to understanding where you fit in the

Rob: 00:38:54

bigger network of the organization.

Rob: 00:38:57

I love the exceed expectations.

Rob: 00:39:00

One it's about initiative, isn't it?

Rob: 00:39:02

Both that, and the personal branded are about when we're

Rob: 00:39:05

part of the team, we rely on.

Rob: 00:39:07

We are held accountable and we expect the leader to take responsibility.

Rob: 00:39:11

When we're the leader, we need to be the one who starts the fire.

Rob: 00:39:14

We need to be the one that makes sure everything Is done.

Rob: 00:39:17

Yeah.

Rob: 00:39:18

Okay.

Rob: 00:39:18

Mentioned your work in mentoring and coaching.

Rob: 00:39:21

Is that people within your organization or is that something that you

Rob: 00:39:24

offer separately and externally?

Harit: 00:39:27

Yes I do for both within my organization and outside my organization,

Harit: 00:39:31

both within the organization.

Harit: 00:39:32

I do it because I want to give back to the society.

Harit: 00:39:35

So one of the reason because I work for this organization and as a leader in

Harit: 00:39:39

this organization, my responsibility to make more leaders in this organization.

Harit: 00:39:44

So I do mentoring for a couple of people over here and I also support

Harit: 00:39:48

people outside the organization also.

Rob: 00:39:51

So what kind of person?

Rob: 00:39:52

Is it someone in IT or is it generally someone in leadership.

Rob: 00:39:56

What kind of person would you help?

Rob: 00:39:57

What problems might they be facing?

Harit: 00:39:59

My niche is in IT but outside the organization, I have supported

Harit: 00:40:02

people, who are not from IT also.

Harit: 00:40:04

I keep talking about leadership and when they saw me and they approached me and

Harit: 00:40:08

they asked me, okay, can you mentor me?

Harit: 00:40:11

Can you coach me?

Harit: 00:40:12

I was like, yeah, fine.

Harit: 00:40:12

I can do that.

Harit: 00:40:13

And let's work together on this leadership journey and see how things are working.

Harit: 00:40:18

And I'm more than happy that it worked with that person.

Harit: 00:40:21

So as I said, my niche is in IT, but.

Harit: 00:40:23

I have got a request from people outside the IT industries also.

Rob: 00:40:28

Okay.

Rob: 00:40:28

One last question.

Rob: 00:40:30

So you talked about your, you have an ambition to be a CEO.

Rob: 00:40:34

And if this was your interview.

Rob: 00:40:37

Your pitch to be a CEO.

Rob: 00:40:39

What would you bring?

Rob: 00:40:41

Because I have an insight and I'm sure people watching and listening

Rob: 00:40:44

have an insight of what makes you.

Rob: 00:40:47

And so it would be interesting to understand what would

Rob: 00:40:51

you bring to that role?

Rob: 00:40:52

And what would be your mandate?

Harit: 00:40:53

When you become a CEO of a company, it's not an easy role.

Harit: 00:40:57

You need to take care of mainly three pillars, your

Harit: 00:41:00

customers, your stakeholders.

Harit: 00:41:02

And I would say most importantly, your employees also.

Harit: 00:41:05

So these are the three pillars you really need to take care of it.

Harit: 00:41:07

If one of them are not going well, it means you're not doing your great job.

Harit: 00:41:11

And I learned it starting on my career.

Harit: 00:41:13

And everything starts from the employees.

Harit: 00:41:15

If your employees are not happy, they are not productive.

Harit: 00:41:17

They are not giving their best.

Harit: 00:41:18

If they're not giving their best, your customers are not

Harit: 00:41:21

happy for various reasons.

Harit: 00:41:22

The product, the service, the after service, the pre service,

Harit: 00:41:25

the customers are not happy.

Harit: 00:41:26

If customers are not happy, your stakeholders will not be happy for sure.

Harit: 00:41:30

So these are the three things which I would say we need to keep

Harit: 00:41:32

that in mind and make sure that these three people are happy.

Harit: 00:41:35

The fourth thing, which I brought it up, Which I'm very close and passionate

Harit: 00:41:39

about it and I'm working on it right now is about giving back to the society.

Harit: 00:41:44

So when you're working on something, you need to make sure that it's not

Harit: 00:41:47

affecting the environment outside.

Harit: 00:41:48

It's not affecting the people outside.

Harit: 00:41:50

If I'm going to creation of my product, I need to make sure that AI

Harit: 00:41:54

is coming and people are talking about with AI, a lot of CO2 is being out.

Harit: 00:41:59

So we need to make sure how we can compensate over there.

Harit: 00:42:02

How we can be carbon neutral.

Harit: 00:42:03

That is a fourth pillar, which is very close to my heart is how I am

Harit: 00:42:07

giving back to the society to have a stable, healthy and positive society.

Rob: 00:42:11

That's a great pitch.

Rob: 00:42:12

I'd hire you.

Rob: 00:42:13

Thank you very much.

Rob: 00:42:14

I've just got one more question which is is there anything I've missed that

Rob: 00:42:17

I should have asked you, or would you have a message for anyone listening?

Harit: 00:42:22

I have done this and I have seen it several times.

Harit: 00:42:25

And the only message which I wanted to give to everybody who is listening and

Harit: 00:42:29

watching this is you can do it yourself.

Harit: 00:42:32

However you want leadership.

Harit: 00:42:33

If you want to get into leadership, don't worry if you don't know anything.

Harit: 00:42:37

Most leaders right now in the world didn't bring it from their birth.

Harit: 00:42:40

They learned it.

Harit: 00:42:41

Be a continuous learner.

Harit: 00:42:43

Learning new things you can learn about leadership But if you do it

Harit: 00:42:46

by yourself, you will take ages.

Harit: 00:42:48

If you have a mentor with You can do it fast.

Harit: 00:42:50

So it's all about how you want to grow in your career So have a mentor with you.

Harit: 00:42:55

You will be much faster than if you do it yourself

Rob: 00:42:58

Perfect perfect advice to wrap up.

Rob: 00:43:01

Thank you so much for sharing.

Rob: 00:43:02

It's been a pleasure to listen to you.

Rob: 00:43:04

Pleasure

Harit: 00:43:04

talking to you, Rob.

Harit: 00:43:06

As I said, we have been knowing each other for long, but this is the first

Harit: 00:43:09

time we are talking and I had a great time talking to you and answering your

Harit: 00:43:14

questions and sharing my feedback.

Harit: 00:43:15

And I think this is what we have to do.

Harit: 00:43:17

Just share our experiences and our learnings so that everybody

Harit: 00:43:20

can get benefit off of it.