Keep Walking Keep Upgrading 5 Countries, 5 Reflections
Nishant Saxena, a senior pharmaceutical executive, has a strong history of achieving step-change results. With over two decades of experience in MNCs, Indian cos and startups, he has lived and worked in 6 countries and travelled to 75. While driving P&L, Strategy and M&A, he has led diverse international teams.
How many of us want to be successful? Not surprising, young, ambitious talent raring to go.
And how many of us become truly successful? Look around your own alumni, extended family and friends. The sobering reality is: only a small fraction.
What goes wrong? Why would so many smart, hard-working people fail to make the big cut? I am suggesting it is because they fail to upgrade themselves.
We all start our career and life with some strengths, as also some blind spots. The latter are things that, unless corrected, will hold us back. I am suggesting that successful people keep learning from their experiences, especially from their mistakes and failures, to keep becoming even better. And reduce their blind spots. For example, as a manager, we start hiring talent and realize we have made some wrong people bets. And then over time, introspecting after every hiring, we can develop a great eye for talent. Similarly, as a business head, we may start getting too involved in operations and realize later on we are in the thick of thin things. Or we are too strategic – successful in envisioning but failing in execution. But, again with reflection and desire to upgrade, over time, we can develop the elusive balance between strategy and operations required to build great businesses.
So students of the world: Let’s keep Upgrading ourselves. We have nothing to lose but our chains, our flaws. A life of reflection, a life of upgrades. In the next 15 minutes, let me share with you 5 such reflections from my own life. Where some wise, caring mentor gently pointed out the folly of my ways and helped me become better.
I started my career in Japan P&G, where after my very first business meeting, my manager asked me what it was about and I explained it was an induction where a brand manager was trying to explain the local business to me. She remarked, “The objective for you was to learn, but I saw you speaking most of the time”. It was an aha moment for me: as articulate and confident MBAs, we often fall in love with our own voice. Especially when there are disagreements, we appear to listen but are mentally preparing our response. Japanese on the other hand, are masters in the art of empathy and listening.
Think about it, our schools teach students to read, write and speak, but not really to listen!
2. Life is only 50% fair. Control the controllable.
My next role was in Philippines in one of the industry’s first offshore accounting centres. As a card holding member of the MBA community, I considered it very unfair that I was given a ‘back-end’ role in a developing country. But my mentor gave me a sage advice: If you strategically think about being a CFO one day, there is no chance you can do it without a deep knowledge of accounting. Take this time to get all the knowledge available in the whole wide world on core finance. I took it as a challenge and read and read about accounting rules, so much so that I started getting invites to deliver lectures in the continuing education programme for young accountants. You also start relishing the hidden positives – in this case running a large team early on in career. And very soon I did become a CFO.
Life is perhaps only 50% fair. Focus on your circle of influence.
3. Collaboration: The ‘How’ of results.
Deracinated again, I was posted in Singapore where P&G had acquired Gillette. We delivered some breakthrough results but my annual performance assessment – usually always at the top – came out average. Our then CEO took me for a drink and explained that in the desire to push results, I had developed rough edges that was making collaboration difficult. While at that time I felt angry and misunderstood, on deeper introspection, I realized there were incidents when, insecure about my own standing, I had not taken full ownership and passed blame to others. This was probably the best wake-up call I could have had, and since then, generally I am known as an organization builder and a magnet for talent. And what better place than Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore – full of diversity and yet so peaceful, masters in taking everyone along. And it is frustrating to see young talent unable to rise because while they are brilliant as individual contributors, they are just unable to take everyone along.
Collaboration requires a mindset of win-win thinking, where it is you and me against a problem, instead of you against me.
"Listen empathically, accept that life is only 50% fair; Collaborate; Take full accountability; and Aim to be wise, not just smart."
4. Take full accountability… If it is to be, it is up to me.
In one of my roles, our company had made a large acquisition. Many of our initial assumptions at the time of acquisition turned out to be erroneous and business did not deliver its budget commitments in the very first year. As happens in these high visibility failures, everyone was losing their head. Our CEO huddled all of us and guided us into a major decision: we will not complain that we inherited issues. We will not play victim and offer excuses. Instead, we will leverage the best of what we had got and fix things that had gone wrong. Over the next 3 years, we doubled revenues, tripled profits, doubled return-on-capital and generally made it one of the best acquisitions in Indian pharma. The detailed story is actually published as a case study in a peer reviewed journal to teach post-merger integration. I personally won the industry’s Young CFO of the Year award.
Leaders must take full accountability. Good excuse plus bad results does not make it a good result.
5. Be Wise, and not just smart.
Early on in my career, I wanted to be the smartest in the room, taking on sticky business conundrums, doing analytics and offering deep insights. But after being elevated as the CEO of our International business in Dubai, a mentor took me aside and said: Now is the time to be wise. With 50 countries and their teams under me, I just cannot solve all problems myself. Choosing the few problems to focus on, which if done well will result in step-change results for my business. Getting the right talent – much smarter and hopefully complementary to me. Even choosing battles where it is okay to lose because the incremental reward of winning is not commensurate with the incremental effort to win.
An HR professor told me that initial success owes a lot to hard work and IQ, and then to EQ or Emotional Quotient, and at highest levels to SQ or Spiritual Quotient: Self-awareness, Purpose inspired, Compassion, Humility…
So those are 5 reflections from my life: Listen empathically, accept that life is only 50% fair; Collaborate; Take full accountability; and Aim to be wise, not just smart.
I hope you also see that we cannot reach the next level by continuing to behave the way we did at the previous level. And hence the dire need to keep Upgrading Ourselves.
A parting thought: Have Fun... Drink life to the lees.
Sometimes when I look at my fellow corporate brethren, especially in Asia, I feel we live a very unidirectional life. Work becomes life in a classic Procrustean inversion. Procrustes, in Greek mythology, had a bed where he invited travellers to rest, and then either cut or stretch their limbs to fit the bed. It shows how we often fix the wrong variable: we work supposedly to get the resources to live a full life. Unfortunately, we often start fitting our life around work. Breath-taking inanity!
I have ferociously tried to guard my personal life: whether adventure sports (anyone handled snakes?) or travelling (to 66 countries) or volunteering (our foundation has given out a million dollars across countries) or reading (blog on 99 Books To Make Us Wise).
We have but one life, evanescent as it is, and we must enjoy all its shades. So work hard but play hard too. Joie de vivre!
I have already held you for long. I apologize if any of this came out as immodest, preachy or hubristic. The intent is to vicariously make your own path smoother, for where you are now, so once was I, and where I am now, so you shall be.
So students of the world: Let’s upgrade ourselves. May the force be with us!
Views expressed here are personal
How many of us want to be successful? Not surprising, young, ambitious talent raring to go.
And how many of us become truly successful? Look around your own alumni, extended family and friends. The sobering reality is: only a small fraction.
What goes wrong? Why would so many smart, hard-working people fail to make the big cut? I am suggesting it is because they fail to upgrade themselves.
We all start our career and life with some strengths, as also some blind spots. The latter are things that, unless corrected, will hold us back. I am suggesting that successful people keep learning from their experiences, especially from their mistakes and failures, to keep becoming even better. And reduce their blind spots. For example, as a manager, we start hiring talent and realize we have made some wrong people bets. And then over time, introspecting after every hiring, we can develop a great eye for talent. Similarly, as a business head, we may start getting too involved in operations and realize later on we are in the thick of thin things. Or we are too strategic – successful in envisioning but failing in execution. But, again with reflection and desire to upgrade, over time, we can develop the elusive balance between strategy and operations required to build great businesses.
So students of the world: Let’s keep Upgrading ourselves. We have nothing to lose but our chains, our flaws. A life of reflection, a life of upgrades. In the next 15 minutes, let me share with you 5 such reflections from my own life. Where some wise, caring mentor gently pointed out the folly of my ways and helped me become better.
1. Empathetic Listening… To understand, not to reply.Choosing the few problems to focus on, which if done well will result in step-change results for my business.
I started my career in Japan P&G, where after my very first business meeting, my manager asked me what it was about and I explained it was an induction where a brand manager was trying to explain the local business to me. She remarked, “The objective for you was to learn, but I saw you speaking most of the time”. It was an aha moment for me: as articulate and confident MBAs, we often fall in love with our own voice. Especially when there are disagreements, we appear to listen but are mentally preparing our response. Japanese on the other hand, are masters in the art of empathy and listening.
Think about it, our schools teach students to read, write and speak, but not really to listen!
2. Life is only 50% fair. Control the controllable.
My next role was in Philippines in one of the industry’s first offshore accounting centres. As a card holding member of the MBA community, I considered it very unfair that I was given a ‘back-end’ role in a developing country. But my mentor gave me a sage advice: If you strategically think about being a CFO one day, there is no chance you can do it without a deep knowledge of accounting. Take this time to get all the knowledge available in the whole wide world on core finance. I took it as a challenge and read and read about accounting rules, so much so that I started getting invites to deliver lectures in the continuing education programme for young accountants. You also start relishing the hidden positives – in this case running a large team early on in career. And very soon I did become a CFO.
Life is perhaps only 50% fair. Focus on your circle of influence.
3. Collaboration: The ‘How’ of results.
Deracinated again, I was posted in Singapore where P&G had acquired Gillette. We delivered some breakthrough results but my annual performance assessment – usually always at the top – came out average. Our then CEO took me for a drink and explained that in the desire to push results, I had developed rough edges that was making collaboration difficult. While at that time I felt angry and misunderstood, on deeper introspection, I realized there were incidents when, insecure about my own standing, I had not taken full ownership and passed blame to others. This was probably the best wake-up call I could have had, and since then, generally I am known as an organization builder and a magnet for talent. And what better place than Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore – full of diversity and yet so peaceful, masters in taking everyone along. And it is frustrating to see young talent unable to rise because while they are brilliant as individual contributors, they are just unable to take everyone along.
Collaboration requires a mindset of win-win thinking, where it is you and me against a problem, instead of you against me.
"Listen empathically, accept that life is only 50% fair; Collaborate; Take full accountability; and Aim to be wise, not just smart."
4. Take full accountability… If it is to be, it is up to me.
In one of my roles, our company had made a large acquisition. Many of our initial assumptions at the time of acquisition turned out to be erroneous and business did not deliver its budget commitments in the very first year. As happens in these high visibility failures, everyone was losing their head. Our CEO huddled all of us and guided us into a major decision: we will not complain that we inherited issues. We will not play victim and offer excuses. Instead, we will leverage the best of what we had got and fix things that had gone wrong. Over the next 3 years, we doubled revenues, tripled profits, doubled return-on-capital and generally made it one of the best acquisitions in Indian pharma. The detailed story is actually published as a case study in a peer reviewed journal to teach post-merger integration. I personally won the industry’s Young CFO of the Year award.
Leaders must take full accountability. Good excuse plus bad results does not make it a good result.
5. Be Wise, and not just smart.
Early on in my career, I wanted to be the smartest in the room, taking on sticky business conundrums, doing analytics and offering deep insights. But after being elevated as the CEO of our International business in Dubai, a mentor took me aside and said: Now is the time to be wise. With 50 countries and their teams under me, I just cannot solve all problems myself. Choosing the few problems to focus on, which if done well will result in step-change results for my business. Getting the right talent – much smarter and hopefully complementary to me. Even choosing battles where it is okay to lose because the incremental reward of winning is not commensurate with the incremental effort to win.
An HR professor told me that initial success owes a lot to hard work and IQ, and then to EQ or Emotional Quotient, and at highest levels to SQ or Spiritual Quotient: Self-awareness, Purpose inspired, Compassion, Humility…
So those are 5 reflections from my life: Listen empathically, accept that life is only 50% fair; Collaborate; Take full accountability; and Aim to be wise, not just smart.
I hope you also see that we cannot reach the next level by continuing to behave the way we did at the previous level. And hence the dire need to keep Upgrading Ourselves.
A parting thought: Have Fun... Drink life to the lees.
Sometimes when I look at my fellow corporate brethren, especially in Asia, I feel we live a very unidirectional life. Work becomes life in a classic Procrustean inversion. Procrustes, in Greek mythology, had a bed where he invited travellers to rest, and then either cut or stretch their limbs to fit the bed. It shows how we often fix the wrong variable: we work supposedly to get the resources to live a full life. Unfortunately, we often start fitting our life around work. Breath-taking inanity!
I have ferociously tried to guard my personal life: whether adventure sports (anyone handled snakes?) or travelling (to 66 countries) or volunteering (our foundation has given out a million dollars across countries) or reading (blog on 99 Books To Make Us Wise).
We have but one life, evanescent as it is, and we must enjoy all its shades. So work hard but play hard too. Joie de vivre!
I have already held you for long. I apologize if any of this came out as immodest, preachy or hubristic. The intent is to vicariously make your own path smoother, for where you are now, so once was I, and where I am now, so you shall be.
So students of the world: Let’s upgrade ourselves. May the force be with us!
Views expressed here are personal
