Life Lessons From An Iconic Leader
It’s heartening when well-recognized national icons like Ravi Venkatesan reflect on their own life journeys and painstakingly mine nuggets of wisdom. After all, the kind of insights that Venkatesan offers can only be arrived at by those who traverse life stages with two selves: one being zealous and participatory, the other contemplative and watchful. Fortunately for readers, Ravi’s authorly self reports on his triumphs and trials with a candor that make his insights invaluable. As not just the artifacts of an intelligent and pensive mind, but also of a generous heart.
Venkatesan does not require an introduction among the corporate cognoscenti. For those in other fields, I’m just going to rehash his trailblazer career. He is a founder of GAME (Global Alliance For Mass Entrepreneurship); has been a Board Member at Hitachi and at the Rockefeller Foundation; a Venture Partner at Unitus Ventures and a Board Member at the Ashoka Trust and Volvo. He has been a Chairman of the Board at Infosys and at the Bank of Baroda. He led Microsoft’s transformational journey in India, as he had earlier with Cummins.
His book, What the Heck Do I Do with My Life was motivated by what many authors might hanker for but rarely achieve: intense readerly interest. In 2011, after successfully helming Microsoft as Chairman, turning it into one of the most sought-after employers in India, Ravi was at a personal crossroads. Turning to writing as a means to introspect on his own next steps, he started penning a series of articles for The Economic Times titled “Crossing the Mid-Career Chasm,” while also posting his thoughts on LinkedIn. One particular post, which declared, “India’s IT Party is Over. Reinvent Yourself or Suffer” garnered two million views. Sieving through the plethora of comments, he discovered that many Indians were anxious and confused about navigating a constantly shifting workscape.
As a leader who had ridden three fulfilling “S” curves in his own career, but each after missteps and the occasional backtracking that mark any worthwhile endeavor, he had gleaned personal lessons. He empathized too with the particular dilemma of Indians, in their 30s and 40s, who were stuck in jobs they didn’t love; or were unemployed. Or were seeking more fulfilling pathways, but didn’t know where to start. Or the older bunch, the 50 and 60-year-olds, who sought meaning and purpose or even incomes. Who still wanted to contribute, but were unsure of where their skills could be leveraged. All this while the surrounding environs seem to champion youthful mindsets and new-age skills.
The following are some personal takeaways from the book:
Build a Portfolio of Projects Rather than A Linear Series of Jobs
In a fluid world, where skills need to get constantly refurbished, most people can no longer plan for traditional career trajectories – that comprise a series of jobs while scaling ladders in an upward direction. Citing the manner in which a few early mammals survived seismic planetary shifts, Ravi emphasizes that “adaptability” is a key survival trait. Given the ephemerality of organizations and even of seemingly frothy sectors like Big Tech, one can no longer bank on stability.
Besides, one’s learnings in college may not be relevant to the new environment. In such a context, one has to maintain one’s “agility” with learning – rather than relying on degrees that might have long lost their relevance. To begin with, ferret out your strengths. And then, with a readiness to seize opportunities that come your way, build pointy expertise by signing up for projects that hone your cognitive and creative muscles. After all, in an intensely competitive landscape, being singular can help you standout among the hackneyed.
Adopt a Growth Mindset and Positive Outlook
Like Martin Seligman, the founder and Director of the Positive Psychology Center at UPenn, Venkatesan also acknowledges that he was not a natural optimist. But realizing that one can hack one’s own brain and all of its generative trappings – beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and feelings – is perhaps a necessary first step.
In his own case, Ravi narrates two mindset shifts that he consciously engineered. When he was 25, and a team manager for the first time, he unknowingly imitated the ways of his mother, who used to closely supervise her household staff by following them around, then pulling them up for shoddy work. This managerial style assumes that most workers are shirkers, and require intense supervision and external prodding – both censure and rewards – to perform.
Understandably, the managerial method wasn’t delivering results for Ravi or for his team. He then encountered a book, The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor, which suggested that people should be accorded a great deal of autonomy and trust in order to manifest their best selves at work. After now agreeing on their deliverables, Venkatesan deliberately tried to desist from over-supervision. He also encouraged his team to acquire new skills like CNC programming. Soon, the results were startlingly better. One of the union leaders even wrote Ravi’s business school recommendation.
Another mindset change occurred at 40. Until then, Ravi was usually a pessimist. He expected the worst outcomes and also personalized situations more than he needed to. But after reflecting on this mindset, he decided to consciously shift himself into the optimist box. This resulted in substantive change, including assuming more personal responsibility for various situations. In general, as Venkatesan puts it, optimists are more fun to hang out with.
Foster An Entrepreneurial Orientation
Regardless of whether you choose to remain a salaried employee or a solitary contributor in the gig economy, adopting an entrepreneurial outlook is essential to thrive in the 21st Century. A founder’s mindset, as Venkatesan reiterates, is not just for founders.
Some of the entrepreneurial traits he identifies include grit or tenacity, problem solving abilities, dreaming big, staying resourceful and spotting opportunities even in tough situations. According to Professor Saras Sarasvathy of the Darden School of Business (University of Virginia), entrepreneurs learn from their multiple successes and failures to “[cross] the river while feeling their way across the stones.” Ravi himself is trying to infuse an entrepreneurial mindset in many young folks through GAME – Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship.
Some activities that participants are put through include:
a) Crafting a paper plane with a non-dominant hand
b) Reading a newspaper article to sift facts from opinions and to then take turns defending each of two sides.
c) Building a tall tower with objects lying around them, including their own bodies.
In general, studies have found that soft skills trump hard skills more than organizations or educational institutions might care to acknowledge. Google, in studying the traits that made for the best managers, found that working with others, emotional intelligence, coaching abilities and listening well were more critical than sheer technical knowhow. This, in an organization, which famously devises impossible-to-crack technical filters for most new hires.
Moreover, as Venkatesan observes, machines are getting better and better at “technical” skills – like programming, accounting, routine medical diagnostics, data crunching and so on. Rather than trying to outrace machines, humans should excel at those skills that make them endearingly human. These are called “adaptive” skills, which are used to tackle big-picture problems like climate change. Comprising negotiation, communication, storytelling and creativity among others, they involve judgment, nuance and empathy.
Such traits can rarely be transmitted by institutions, they must be acquired experientially. Besides running startups or tackling complex projects inside organizations, one can also adopt challenges during sabbaticals or gap years. Nipun Mehta of ServiceSpace spent a year walking across the nation, living on $1 a day, sleeping on varied surfaces. Of his experience, Nipun said: “As we walked, we learnt much about India, a lot about humanity and most about the stranger we call ‘I’”. Other appealing suggestions include befriending three people who are unlike you – either in age, ideology, gender or some other dimension that might currently define you.
Be a New-Age Leader
The new era requires leaders at all levels and of various kinds. As inspiring models, he cites Padmashree Balaram, who changed wet-waste management in Koramangala, creating a benchmark for other areas and the city at large. Or 12-year-old Rehan Shaikh, a seventh-grader who inhabited a slum, but set up Pencilbricks – small learning centers where other kids in the community could also be taught. He also helped distribute food packets during the pandemic. Or the young Shweta Mukesh, who founded KidsWhoKode, to impart computer and programming skills to kids from the lowest strata.
In his own journey, Venkateshan cites certain “crucible experiences” that helped shape him. Like studying at IIT Bombay, competing and collaborating with the nation’s most brilliant minds. Or working at a factory in the U.S., where he tided over racism and other factors. Or turning around the performance of Tata Cummins in India. Or moving from an industrial experience to the software sector.
As the leader of Microsoft in India, he realized that he needed to craft a new narrative to galvanize the workforce. Merely selling more software licenses wasn’t going to animate the team. So he forged a missionary zeal to help Indians and Indian businesses succeed. The organization also built a large digital literacy program and created a strong research wing. Microsoft became one of the best organizations to work with in the country, overtaking Infosys.
But as he also puts it, no one is a “leader” at all times. Nor should they be. “A highly effective leader in one context can be a liability in another.”
Since the planet currently suffers from a leadership vacuum, Ravi suggests that we can no longer rely on a few “Big People” to deliver solutions. We need each person doing their bit, either by personal example or by effecting changes in small or big ways. He reiterates Gandhi’s message: “You must be the change that you wish you see in the world.” He also stresses that anyone can be a leader – you don’t need a title, or power, or influence to spark off change. One of the ways to acquire leadership experience is by volunteering at an NGO – at organizations that wrestle with tricky problems that bely easy solutions.
Venkatesan personally draws inspiration from leaders like Gandhi. From the manner in which he continually experimented with his own life to draw life lessons. Ravi realizes that as humans, we need to live for a larger purpose. He quotes the late Hungarian-American psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who conceptualized the now popular “flow”: “Only when the self loses itself in a transcendent purpose – whether to write great poetry, craft beautiful furniture, understand the motion of galaxies, or help children be happier – does the self become largely invulnerable to the fears and setbacks of ordinary existence.”
References
Ravi Venkatesan, What the Heck Do I Do With My Life, Rupa Publications, 2022