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Fundamentals of Great Hiring: Boundaryless, Culture Fit & Trust with Abhijit Bhaduri

Abhijit Bhaduri, ex Chief Learning Office Wipro chats with Amit Somani, Managing Partner Prime Venture Partners .

About Abhijit: Strategic advisor to business leaders and organisations in transition. Executive coach to leaders on building a culture that attracts talent necessary to drive growth. Rated among the top 10 learning experts globally. Clients range from Fortune 100 companies to startups and large Indian organizations.

Author of two bestselling books: The Digital Tsunami; Don’t Hire the Best - how to hire for culture fit. Latest book “Dreamers & Unicorns: How leadership, talent and culture are the new growth drivers.”

Former Chief Learning Officer for Wipro. Alumnus of Microsoft, PepsiCo, Colgate and Tata Steel.

On the Advisory Board of the program for Chief Learning Officers that is run by the Univ of Pennsylvania. Former Member of the Governing Council of MICA.

Listen to the podcast to learn about:

03:30 - It’s not about talent. It’s about continuous improvement

06:30 - Why intangible factors are the new growth drivers

10:30 - 3 Key Differentiators: Leadership Brand, Talent Brand and Culture Brand

15:00 - How to do boundaryless hiring the right way

19:00 - Reading a resume backwards

22:00 - Evaluating culture fit when hiring

24:00 - Keeping your team engaged and motivated

27:50 - Knowing a person’s birthday is not knowing the person

29:45 - Most people don’t need to be managed

30:00 - Focus on building trust, people will take care of productivity

34:15 - Investing in a coach for the leadership team

You can read the complete transcript below

Amit Somani 01:38

Welcome Prime Venture Partners Podcast.

Today we have with us Abhijit Bhaduri. He is a strategic adviser and a coach, both to leaders and individuals alike. Before I let Abhijit talk a little bit about what he does, and many other things like publishing books and running his own podcast. You know, I did a poll on Twitter, because I was very fascinated by this question of who are some great HR leaders who also think beautifully about business, about talent. And what we’ve gone through in 2020. And Abhijit was one of the universal choices that came up. So thank you for being on the podcast Abhijit.

Abhijit Bhaduri 2:11

Thank you so much Amit for having me. It’s a privilege to be here.

Amit Somani 2:15

Great Abhijit. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about, you know, you run a podcast called dreamers and unicorns. And you’ve also written an eponymous book with that title. Just a little bit about that, and maybe a little bit about your sort of background and what you do with various companies.

Abhijit Bhaduri 2:28

Yeah, sure. So, you know, last year, I started to create this podcast called dreamers and unicorns, and the idea was to invite in the 10, episodes, 10, or 11, people who were, in my mind, these are people who have taken fairly unscripted roads to their career. And, you know, what has happened is they evolved from being just dreamers, they become unicorns, I mean, they’re just sort of really, some of the best people in that field. And when you think about it like that, you know, it was a great conversation, I took people who are, you know, investors that people who are VCs, people who make movies, who are photographers, all kinds of people, music directors.

So in that whole mix, there are a whole lot of common things that happened. So whether it was someone like Harsha Bhogle for sports, or, you know, Shantanu Moitra, for music, I mean, you find that there are patterns. And the interesting part was, not one of them talked about the fact that it’s all about talent. And you know, all of them said, it’s really about continuously upgrading your skills, learning, trying out different things, not being scared of failure, etc. So, then, when I finished that, we did reasonably well, and there was this opportunity for me to do a second season of that. And this season also, you know, got people such as, Viswanathan Anand in one sort of way, and then a whole lot of other people also who come in who are entrepreneurs, you know, TN Hari and various other people.

And again, I have now sort of taking a different mix. And saying that really, no matter which way you slice it, you have to in today’s day and age, really move up the S curve, you know, there is no two ways that you can get past that. So whether you are employed, and you are sort of trying to reinvent yourself, or you are doing something on your own, it’s a myth to say that, you know, entrepreneurs are the ones who are taking risk actually, even today, I think there is a much greater risk to people who are employed, because, you know, businesses may go out of sync with the market.

And then there are times when your business gets acquired and you know, you become redundant, it can be multiple things. So I think the risk that used to be there that you know, you are a great risk taker, so you become an entrepreneur, I think now it is time to say that you are a great risk taker, so you are employed. So it is one of those funny situations,

Amit Somani 05:06

Absolutely couldn’t agree with you more and even more so in this year, when things have changed so much. So maybe just a quick description of what a dreamer, a unicorn, in your parlance, a market shaper and an incumbent is. And obviously our audience here is a lot of early stage entrepreneurs, VCs and, and the like, so I’m assuming we’ll be clicking on that part of the curve. But why don’t you tell us and our listeners about these four categories of organizations?

Abhijit Bhaduri 5:36

Yeah, sure. And so when I had written out this book, which was supposed to be actually hitting the market sometime in March or April. And then, you know, the pandemic happened. And we sort of thought that, let’s wait because, you know, everyone told me this is going to go away in like, three, four weeks, just hold on, don’t do anything yet. And then when I looked at the month of April, like I thought that this, that doesn’t seem to be a time where this could go way too soon.

And I revisited my entire thing, and I thought, maybe it’s time to really re establish what is going to drive growth. And by this time, of course, you know, from the time I’ve done the last manuscript, I read up a little more. One of the first fundamental shifts that I had noticed was that I in the book of course, I talked about five shifts that define these four kinds of companies. But one of the big things is that the value creation process, you know, has moved predominantly to intangible factors and you know if you look at Colin Mayer’s Book Prosperity. I mean, he talks about the fact that you know, Peloton’s brand, you know, all of that really constitutes 85% of the market value of the firm. So not to say that the tangible things have become less important, but I think leadership, talent and culture are, in my mind, the new growth drivers because the world of work has changed.

So dreamers are, of course, you know, people who are getting started with a new idea, they are trying to figure out how to raise capital, they’re trying to find a product market fit, they’re trying to find employees who are willing to work for something, which is like, extremely risky. So that is the first place, unicorns are people not necessarily because of the valuation. But unicorns are people who have a national presence and who are sort of trying to venture out beyond the national boundary, maybe in a couple of other countries.

Market shapers are people where the consumer or the customer lines up to, you know, get the product or service and you know so these are the people that willingly go there. And even if they didn’t have a marketing machine, we would still line up and buy those products or services. And these are people who have had disproportionate growth, you know, so then those are the market shapers, they change the way that we live and work. But when you think about incumbents, these are also you know, it’s not a bad word, it’s just that their product, they need to once again, find the product market fit, they once again need to find the right set of employees, they once again need to reinvent themselves. So these are the four categories of companies that one is looking at.

Amit Somani 8:26

Absolutely. And you know, we often talk about intangibles, both in you know, private market investing, as well as public markets. So if you look at how companies are valued, there is just so much more now as a percentage of the S&P 500 or any companies, you know, because they’re no longer, you know, buildings and factories and assets and so on for everybody. I mean, there are for many people, but for many others, it’s the number of engineers you have, or the percentage of R&D spend, I was just looking at the zoom earnings yesterday, zoom earnings call. He is actually apologizing for R&D as a percentage of revenue going down saying, No, we didn’t fire anybody, just the revenue grew too much. Right? So we’d like to hire more engineers. So can you talk a little bit more about intangibles? And particularly with respect to talent, and culture? And is there a way? How do we measure it both qualitatively and quantitatively if you have any thoughts on that?

Abhijit Bhaduri 9:19

So I think, you know, this is one of the pieces that I want to sort of put up front that, you know, we’ve historically been told that if you can’t measure it, that means, it’s not worth looking at. So we’ve always had that thing, but when you look at really the things that are creating value cannot be compared and counted. So, anything which cannot be compared and counter is really the intangible factor, and which means you will have to figure out a new way of doing this.

So it is not that unusual. I mean, if you think about it you know the advertising industry, they do, you know, they have their own measures. So, they will say that, has it made an impact on the clients, sales revenue, has the campaign been awarded by the peer group? You know, do they consider it something phenomenal? Has it won awards? Has it resulted in a scenario where everybody now wants to work with that agency, which has created the last campaign.

So those are the kind of measures, and I’ve worked in advertising and therefore, you know, I can sort of speak about it firsthand. So I thought that these are some of the things that we need to be looking at. But really, the biggest shift that happens is businesses need to focus on building three kinds of brands, leadership brand, talent brand and culture brand. So the leadership brand is when you meet the leadership team, not just one individual, but when you meet the leadership team, you feel inspired that wow, I mean, if it is, let’s say somebody who’s running the supply chain, I mean, this is that guy who’s running the supply chain you kind of say, my God, can I potentially one day work with this person? When you look at the talent brand, the talent brand is built by the fact that these are the people who are defining the next big thing these are people at the cutting edge you are not sort of looking at they are well past that scenario where they are solving this whole problem that how do we get people to go and attend training programs they have passed that problem.

These are people who are self directed learners, who are exploring new things in the process, creating different things so that’s your talent brand that you want to be a part of that. And third, of course, is the other piece which is the Cultural brand which sustains that growth because otherwise, you know, the best people, they learn from you, and then they leave you. And so therefore, the only way that you can actually retain the people, is when you begin to have this kind of perspective, that leadership brand, talent brand and culture brand. These are the three drivers. So that’s what really, I found over the last four years, as I’ve worked with a range of companies, this is really what seemed to be the difference between companies that grow and those that don’t.

Amit Somani 12:13

Great. So let’s let’s sort of double click a little bit on the talent side of the house. So obviously, there are many, many facets, so we probably won’t be able to cover it in a short podcast, but there is the hiring, there is the kind of on-boarding and nurturing and then there is the retaining, letting them jump to the multiple S-curves, like you talk about in your book. And, and just like the org has to you know, leapfrog so do these people. So can you talk a little bit, just in general, and then let’s dig into this sort of now work-from-anywhere culture that is becoming more prevalent, and perhaps will sustain even post COVID about the hiring, on-boarding and kind of nurturing part of this talent equation?

Abhijit Bhaduri 12:55

You know, when you look at, so I just want to sort of say that there are five shifts, which are, you go to sort of look at it, the very first one, and I’ll talk about the first one right now, which is that whatever you do, it needs to be boundaryless digital and fully remote, you know, that’s your first shift. So which means that you should be able to hire your talent from anywhere, it needs to be done digitally, and it should be fully remote, it doesn’t matter.

The person could be you know it’s not just work-from-home, because home, you should really assume that the person is close enough, because for most people home has been your pre COVID assumption that home is within driving distance. What if the person is in a different country? I mean, would you be able to still work with this person and that is, to me the work from anywhere kind of a model, which we need to be looking at. The other is, you know, managing polarities. So it seems like contradictions, but let’s say you need to be able to work equally effectively in an online and offline model.

So, your consumer or customer should be able to sort of walk in into a store and buy it online and then return it at a store in the same way your employee should be you should be able to meet the person if necessary, you should be able to hire the person and what if you never met the person ever at all in an office, you would still be able to sort of get along.

Amit Somani 14:26

So let us talk about boundaryless. And this, basically, you can get talent from anywhere. And they could be in a different city, they could be in a different country, etc. No longer sort of being close to home or even physically the office space. Any do’s and don’ts as dreamers and unicorns think about hiring people. And everybody’s hiring. I mean, the digital economy is growing, digital transformations are growing. So how should one think about that in terms of any kind of do’s and don’ts with respect to boundaryless hiring? So mindset wise, yes, I’m ready, want to do it, you know, any pitfalls, any things that would be exciting to look at, to not get false positives.

Abhijit Bhaduri 15:08

So I think when we look at hiring, I mean, most hiring tends to really focus on just tangible things, like can the person do the job, but I think some of the most important pieces to really look at is, would people enjoy working with this person around, even if the person is a individual contributor, you know, that’s a incredibly underrated aspect of hiring that you can have a person who’s a genius, but then you’d be sort of nobody wants to work with the person, not just the team, but the peers hate him.

And, you know, even the other departments are sort of really shying away from working with this person, then this is the kind of person who makes the entire place toxic, more so in the, in real life, and certainly, even in a virtual setup, you know, the person could go ruin a meeting. And that can come from multiple things, it can come from the fact that the way the person responds to questions, if it’s somebody challenges their assumptions, so they find it hard to have an engaging conversation without getting aggressive about the whole thing. And the third element of talent is this whole thing of individual motivation that are you really sort of really driven to excel even when everybody thinks you’ve really done as best as something could be imagined.

And you know is there a way to go beyond perfection. This is a very individual drive and in, in a world that we are living in where you know, your manager is not necessarily sort of breathing down your neck to check every half an hour, have you done the work or not, I mean, this is going to be a time when this is going to become far more important. So to be able to work unsupervised, because you enjoy the work is probably a far bigger element to explore, rather than to see how articulate the person is. So I would sort of shift the focus of the interview. Besides, of course, what the people can do through tests, etc, all of that. But I would really look at doing a far more amount of effort being put together in doing the reference check, you know, talk to people who this guy has managed, or you know this girl has managed, talk to the managers. And more importantly, I would say, talk to the peers, because the peers actually have the most honest, scathing unvarnished feedback about you. If you can’t get along with your peers, that’s probably a warning bell,, so I would worry about that.

Amit Somani 17:43

Great. You know, obviously, when we invest in entrepreneurs, we also talk about autotelic personalities. So people who love doing the work for the sake of the work, and the it’s not for the outcome or the reward, or, or some other kind of title or whatever. And so I think that’ll be interesting to look for in entrepreneurs. But let me push you back a little bit on that, in terms of hiring, you know, when you’re hiring in mass, like, how do you figure this out? And worse yet, when you’re remote, you don’t have that luxury of the six sense, hanging out, having a cup of coffee together. So how do you figure out this notion of implicit drive without anybody breathing down your neck and so forth? Of course, reference checks that you said, that’s a great one, but during the process, any kind of thoughts on that?

Abhijit Bhaduri 18:24

So, you know, I think one of the pieces, which I think I would explore a lot, is the kind of things that the person has done, but there has been no return on investment. For example, when you look at someone’s hobbies, I mean, why do we have hobbies, you can do nothing with it, I mean, there is no competition that you’re winning, there’s nothing that you are sort of getting out, you’re just sort of really doing it, because you enjoy doing it, and you’re trying to get better at something. So to me, you know, it’s really like, at one point of time, people used to say, I would read the resume backwards, that you know, you also write at the end hobbies, reading music and travel you know, so then I would double click on that a lot and spend a lot more time looking at what is this person done to get really terrific at whatever they are doing? So I think those are some of the pieces that I would look at.

As far as the ability to do the work. You know the other piece I would look at is, does the person enjoy teaching, teaching others? I mean, so you know, look at their engagement on a community, and social media is a great place for that. I mean, you sort of really see, does a person enjoy sharing their work? Are they very, very possessive about their work? And do they get into fights quite often, when somebody sort of questions their work and says, you know, points out and says, this is missing, this is missing, how did they respond to that? Because, you know, a lot of the responses on social media are unvarnished.

I mean, most of the time people are really responding to spontaneous, you put a like, on it and all. And there are studies, which actually talk about the fact that, you know, through going through about a 100 ikes or the equivalent depending on the platform, I mean, your engagement, you are able to predict the personality of the person far more than what, even people who have and you get a far more nuanced view of the person than any interview process can ever do, or even people who worked so you get a very very close view of that, because, for example, if you say that, you know, I’m very comfortable working with diverse people, so you’ve gotta ask yourself, how many, what percentage of your network is from people you don’t know.

I mean, who you’ve never met from different countries, different backgrounds? Do they really seek you out? If the answer to that is no, chances are that you are not as much of an open thinker as you claim to be. So there can be many ways to sort of look at that. To your question, can you do it on mass? No, I don’t really have a great view of that. Because wherever I’ve looked at it, I’ve used this kind of a method. First of all, when you grow the business, you know when you are a dreamer, that’s a time when you can do it for pretty much every single position. As the organisation grows, hopefully, these people know the kind of people they enjoy working with and all of that, I mean, then you have to keep building the ability to hire as one of the I think you know ignored skills, because everyone is going to do that, and the more you are able to build that, it would be really a fantastic investment.

Number two, when you are, when you are in a position, when the organization’s a little bigger, I would start, then move up one notch and say, I would put this kind of effort in hiring people, when they are in the people, manager roles, if they are going to manage others, then I would put a lot of effort in that. And then of course, as the organisation becomes, reasonably large within that growth spurt of the unicorn phase, that is a time when you kind of have to see that pretty much, the people at the top, and by that I mean, every business unit or every geography and each one of them, you should be able to have a really, you know, you put a lot of effort to make sure you’re hiring the right person not necessarily the best person. So it’s, that’s just a recipe for disaster. So that, you know, you think about hiring the best person.

And we’ve seen that somebody who gets terminated in one organisation for poor performance goes on to become the superstar in another one,, so we’ve all looked at that is. That’s the culture, if your culture does not encourage that kind of a person to thrive, it is going to be hard for that person to succeed. So it’s a two way street, it’s not as if that person is wrong, it’s just that this culture that this, you know, you can’t put the cycle tires on a motorcycle, you know, even though both have cycle in common, it’s very hard to sort of replace that it’s not going to work so it’s one of those kinds of things.

Amit Somani 23:29

Yes, evaluating culture fit is very, very critical for hiring anybody. So switching gears, and now talking about this workforce, not necessarily, quote unquote, the best, but the best culture fit for your organisation is on board. They are working in a boundary less fashion from anywhere, you know, whether it’s home office, wherever they’re native town, what have you. Now, how do you keep them engaged? And high performing and effective in especially in this sort of hybrid atmosphere now?

Abhijit Bhaduri 24:06

Yeah. So I think, I would divide the whole process of engagement in two different big buckets, you know, one of the things to look at is, what do you do when it comes to the work front, you know, so the way the person gets managed, actually determines the level of engagement. So, first of all, I’m going to assume that you’ve spent enough time, you know, onboarding the person, and this is, again, in my exposure with some of the startups I’ve seen that this is the ignored part, you kind of say, Oh, we are like way behind our projects, let’s get started. You know so you kind of do that. You let the person lose.

So then that’s a recipe for disaster because, if you let the it’s really like saying that when you start to exercise you know, you don’t just go into the gym and immediately lift up 50 kgs of weight, you’re gonna hurt yourself, you don’t start sprinting right away, when you hit the track, you warm up. So the onboarding process is the warm up for the individual, to sort of introduce the person into the culture, it’s, you know, still a foreign, foreign body, and then, you know, you want to make sure that there isn’t that whole massive resistance to this person’s coming in and sort of taking on roles. So that onboarding part is a very important part of the success.

If the person turns out to be a completely wrong fit, more often than not, we tend to blame the individual and sort of say that, you know, then that person must be the wrong person. It is worth looking at who are the people who made that call, you know, what did they look at? What made them think so if instead of, you know, immediately deciding to get rid of that person, these people are also made responsible for the eventual success that means you take ownership of the fact that you don’t just pick up the first person whose resume you liked or the person who let you talk the most during the interview, which is the other challenge that sometimes some interviewers kind of decide that okay, this person really heard me out. You know so he’s a very good listener, I would hire this person, may or may not be right.

So I think really deciding those kinds of things makes a difference. So the work part of it. People are engaged when they feel that they are going to be better every single day at what they do because they are working with you. So that is engagement, that I’m really engaged in the task, I can think about it like this, when you see the master craftsman, the people who work with them, you know, in our in, in classical music we also you have this Guru Shishya Parampara, the master is like really worshiped because that guy can sort of, just observing this guy is enough to improve your craft.

Talking to this person gives you an idea of the history of this entire thing and you sort of become knowledgeable every single moment as you engage with this person. Yeah, so that is, to me the model of the coach, manager, kind of a thing. So it’s not just somebody who assigns the task that you can do electronically much better. So, the other part, I think there is a large, again, under sort of utilized opportunity, which is, how do you engage the person on the non task engagement.

Do you really care to know about the person? And when we say care to know about the person, it is what is not on the resume, what is not in public domain. That is known to everyone. So therefore some people say that, Oh, I know everyone’s birthday. Yeah, but that’s not necessarily knowing the person. What are the intangible aspects the person really cares about? What would really mean something special to the person? To give you an example. I mean, everybody, I believe, has their favourite compliment. I mean, people may compliment you about many things. And sometimes there’s this obscure thing that, you know, somebody says that, wow, I just like the way that you’ve done x, or I just love the way that nobody can do this as well as you. I have never seen somebody doing this. It’s an obscure element, and you didn’t even think somebody would notice. And then when the person says it, it really means a lot to you, that’s your favourite compliment. To be able to understand, what do you really care about being recognised beyond the work.

So then those are all the elements which makes a person go really deep and engaged,

Amit Somani 27:09

Understood, now to the third leg of what you said, which is the run-from-anywhere, you also need these folks to be effective and productive, and so forth. And, so again, imagining not the business, but more of this distributed wide varying workforce, different skills. So even the Shishya, watching the guru may be a little bit more difficult, right? Because how many zoom calls? Or video calls are you going to do? So any thoughts on how to run an organisation effectively, from a performance and a productivity point of view, do the right thing, hire the right people, the right culture, you know, get them on board. But now how do you run it on an ongoing basis, any any thoughts?

Abhijit Bhaduri 27:54

So when you think about people in this hybrid environment, especially remote environments, I think there are two things that really make a lot of difference. One is when people know that they are trusted, and they enjoy the work that they do, I mean, most people really don’t need to be managed. And this is something that I’ve sort of really believed in, and I’ve seen that work. If people aren’t, you know, when you trust people, they will always try and do more than what you expect them to do. If you kind of really, you know, go back and keep checking, then you know, you’re peering down their shoulder, believe me, they’ll do the bare minimum that they can do to keep the job going.

So this is one of the pieces which when when you look at having people managers this to me, lesson number one that you know, you focus on building the trust, people will take care of the productivity, the individual will take care of the productivity. Think about it, I mean, things that you really care about, you know, when in college, you know I can think about so many examples, where you had an examination, you’re writing all your competitive exams and all that stuff. And then there is this college festival and you know, this means nothing to you, nobody really cares about this, but then you are so involved in it, you will give your darndest best, you are staying up 24*7 you’re working, you’re running around, leveraging your network, you’re trying to get in the sponsorship, you’re making this happen you’re working with people pleading, getting rid of your ego, making sure that those guys are doing it. Why do people work like that? It’s because you know, everybody trusts them to you know because all that people are saying is look you know, I hope our festival, this batch does the best ever, college fest, that’s it.

Now one could always turn back and said I don’t care about it. And then that’s the end of it. It’ll make the entire thing collapse, but the moment you start caring about it, so you know things like purpose, etc sound like really very fancy words and all but this is it, that when people really believe that what they’re doing is something which they care about, you know, you don’t have to convince them to do it, and, and just tell them that I trust you to do the best, you just make sure that they have the right skills and the equipment to do it. That’s all is the role of the manager. And I think that’s where the magic happens. A lot of it also happens when you know you have the ability to also experiment, do your own thing, you’re not really necessarily going to be held, somebody’s not going to punish you for trying out something and failing. That’s a very important element of the culture.

So in the book, I talk about the fact that whether it’s a market shaper or a unicorn or an incumbent if you don’t keep that dream alive, you know, it’s only a question of time before you become irrelevant.

Amit Somani 32:30

Absolutely. I think trust is a big takeaway, and a fairly important one, I think autonomy, figuring out motivation, for each of these people, and what drives them, and makes them keep dreaming. I think these are all very interesting ones. So as we wrap up here, Abhijit any closing thoughts for I saw this also this quote from your book, that most founders are very passionate about building a product or a company, but not necessarily an org. So if you want to share more about that, or anything else, that you would want all the dreamers on the podcast here to perhaps practice or learn, that would be great.

Abhijit Bhaduri 33:11

So I think one of the easy things to sort of really look at is if most of the people would focus on the talent aspect of it by that I don’t just necessarily mean only hiring, but you know, how do you create career paths for people? How do you make sure that they, one of the yardsticks I would use is to have career coaches, and and this can be, you don’t need to have somebody, depending on the size of the organisation, of course, but you know, progressively, if you teach each one of the managers, eventually, they need to be wonderful career coaches. And the best yardstick would be what if this role were to be removed from the organisation today? Can I find three other places where this guy would be really useful to me, if that kind of a perspective is taken, I think you’re building in a tremendous amount of you know, you will keep the talent without really necessarily having to look at all the other usual things that people have used, whether there’s stock options, there’s that and the other.

But I’m not undermining that. That’s not important. But I’m just saying that then there is a much sharper reason to stay it is, and it is not transactional. Which means that, you know, if, let’s say, ideally, my IPO by another four months, you know I’m not going to sort of say the person’s Oh my god, now, I gotta suffer this for another four months before I quit. So investing in a coach for the leadership team, makes a big deal of a difference, because then you have somebody who comes in from the outside gives you a perspective, sometimes just to be able to have that conversation and air out your doubts, I think it’s a great investment to make, to really figuring it out. How do you sort of build the ability in the people managers, somebody who’s a phenomenal engineer is not necessarily a great people manager, because you know two different elements. Engineering or a lot of the sciences are all about, you know, convergent responses. Two and two 15 is 30, anywhere on the planet. But a human being gets motivated by something in the morning and something in the evening you look at your own motivation as it fluctuates during the day, our energy changes. So having people who really can understand the nuanced aspect of it. And instead of looking at that, as high maintenance people, you’re really looking at building people who think of this as a new subject that they are trying to learn each time they decide to work with somebody. I think that mindset really did just these two things would make a quantum difference to the way that the organization could grow.

Amit Somani 35:57

Wonderful. Thanks a lot Abhijit for being on the Prime Venture Partners Podcast. Really appreciate you being here.

Abhijit Bhaduri 36:04

Thank you so much Amit for having me and it’s such a privilege to be here and I hope what I said is going to be useful.

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