Hello and welcome back to ChangeWired Podcast, the show for people who lead change, think differently and believe the future of work and leadership should feel more human, even when empowered by all the AI. Today, guys, I cannot be more excited to have Anish Padindraroti joining me on ChangeWired podcast. Anish is a workplace architect with 23 years of global experience over four continents, one of the clearest voices on how to build cultures where people and performance both thrive cultures where people and performance both thrive. With Anish, we'll talk about everything from scaling values across continents to redesigning rituals for trust, how to stop controlling culture and start designing it. Anish has mustered the building of high-performance, people-first cultures that drive real business results. From founding a behavioral science plus AI startup some time ago to seamlessly integrating post-merger teams, anish specializes in creating environments where talent thrives and innovation flourishes. Join us, guys, dear leader in you, please join us. We explore practical strategies for embedding your vision into your culture and creating magnetic employer brands that attract and retain top talent in today's competitive marketplace. Guys, stay tuned also because you're gonna have so much practical value, not just like understanding of things, but also what to do on Monday when you're back to work.
Speaker 1You'll hear and learn about why culture must evolve but never lose its soul. The formula for real culture change and transformation. Daily behaviors multiplied by leadership actions, divided by system friction. Why most HR and performance systems fail and what to build instead. How to measure trust, belonging and lived values beyond pulse service. How to design an environment like a regenerative forest, not a manicured garden that barely survives any storms. Why control is killing your culture and how to and what to replace it with. Why culture is caught, not taught One of my favorite phrases that we discuss with Anisha on this podcast and how to make it contagious like a virus the each model. Anisha's super pumped about treating employees as adult clients and humans. How to spot misaligned rituals and redesign for meaning autonomy and inclusion. What cultural leaders must prioritize in the AI era Hint, it's not tools. All that, along with some practical tools and rituals to apply to your leadership again when you get back to work, whatever day of the week it is in your workplace, to help design culture where people thrive and high performance follows.
So, without further ado. Please stay tuned and let's dig in. Well, anish, welcome to ChangeWired podcast. Thank you for your time and I'm so glad to have you here, absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2Thanks for calling me in, angela.
Speaker 1Yeah. So, anish, where are you connecting from?
Speaker 2You know this crazy world today, people are everywhere and you never know where they might be connecting from. I'm actually in India. Down south there's a place called Bangalore which is the. Silicon City of India. That's where I'm connecting from today. Yeah, how is it over there? How's the weather? Beautiful actually. Today it rained in the morning and it's a very beautiful weather, pleasant, very pleasant weather, I would say.
Speaker 1Okay, well, let's connect on the human side. What's?
Speaker 2your favorite thing about Bangalore? Is that how?
Speaker 1you pronounce yes, bangalore, yes, okay. So what's your favorite thing about Bangalore?
Speaker 2There are a lot of things. I think number one is the weather. The weather is always beautiful in Bangalore, except for that one month, summer. Rest of the year is awesome. I think the people here are really good and this is kind of the IT capital of India. So you have a lot of sophistication, a lot of people from different walks of life you can see. So Bangalore is kind of a cosmopolitan city where you will see it's like a little India. Right, you have people from across India.
Speaker 1That's cool. Yes, you know whether in people, I think if you get those two right, a lot of other things don't matter.
Speaker 2You know if.
Speaker 1I think about my travels in Germany. It's always like what did you like about the place? I don't know weather, nature and people, and that's why I stayed or why I left very soon. Good yeah, anish, today we're going to talk about culture and people a lot, and about AI and everything that's happening in the world of humans and business, but I first want to start with a little bit of a background. Right, where did you start your journey? So these days you work at Fractal right and you can say what you do. And then, where did you start and how did you end up where you are today?
Speaker 2Ah, okay, cool, cool. Let me take two minutes to give a quick background. I don't have any great career graph like a quintessential HR career graph, but I'll try to sum it up. I'm from India, as I said. As you know already, by education, I'm a physicist. I did my physics graduation, but I started in sales. While I was doing graduation I used to sell credit cards. This is like in 99, 98. That period I was selling credit cards in India. Then, when I finished my graduation, I got hooked into computers while I was doing graduation also, or before that too. So my first job was as a software engineer. For two years I was basically coding and doing some research work, and that's what I did. Then I went to UK, did my master's there, you know, worked in UK for about three years after my master's as a retail manager for a company there, came back to India, worked in a BPO, then moved into a sales role again, then moved into an investment banking operations role. That's the firm which gave me an opportunity to work in HR and that's how.
Speaker 2I came to HR, so I ended up being the HR BP head there, then moved on to another company heading HR for them. After doing all this, in 2014, I started on my own. I did my own startup. So in 2014, I used to talk about AI and HR.
Speaker 1So the philosophy- Was it the startup?
Speaker 2Yes, okay. So the philosophy I had was I think that philosophy stays true even today is that happy managers create happy employees, create happy clients, create happy companies. So my aim was to how do I make managers better leaders by use of AI? In 2014, we used to call it chatbots bots. So that's the startup I did. I ran it for three years. Couldn't scale it as much maybe I was a bit early to the market and a lot of rookie mistake I did. Then moved on to this company, fractal, which I'm working now. It's been almost eight years in fractal, up until 23. I was heading hr for fractal globally. In the past two years, I'm leading culture and brand experience for Fractal. So that's me, and in Bangalore now.
Speaker 1Yeah, what's an amazing journey, though you know, you said you don't have this, like I don't know, perfect Korean narrative or path Very non-linear.
Speaker 1I feel like it's actually normal for a lot of people and I feel like we need to get used to this idea. It's not about like the job title and following this job title your entire life, but it's about skill set that you build, that you cultivate, which you then apply to different positions where life leads you and where you can provide value. And I feel like correct me if I'm wrong you can provide value. And I feel like correct me if I'm wrong like, as HR leaders and in general, like any leaders, we need to be a little bit more flexible and open to this idea that just because the person doesn't come from that specific background, it doesn't mean that they can't do a really great job, absolutely absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2I mean there's one phrase which I always use right, we still try to hire from the past, not for the future, right, and that's a big mistake which we do. Not just HR, right? I mean we can't conveniently blame HR for everything, even business leaders. You see any job description out there in the market globally. Right, it will be written okay if I need five years of this domain experience from this particular college or pedigree. So these are the surrogate methods of easy methods of choosing profiles, but I would say that's the best method of, you know, hiring a human being to be better and make your company much better than what it is today. So it's very important. It's very important for us to be open and we need to change.
Speaker 1Yeah, I feel also, you know, like you made such a great point about hiring for the future, not for the past or from the past, and I think like we need to just ask ourselves and if you're in a position of hiring, asking people like where do you want to go, what do you feel like you can like, what value you can create and where do you want to contribute? Right, because human beings I feel like the beauty of human being is we can learn and adapt so much and the only thing that really matters is your drive, like what it is you want to do. Because if you put that on top of whatever, like job or position, you have that drive for this person to create value there, like beautiful things happen.
Absolutely, absolutely. I can't agree more. So actually I've written an article. I'm going to post it tomorrow. It's basically the CVs are dead. I think CV is the most crude way of defining a human being, just talking about what companies you worked, how many years you worked or what you did there, and you can't basically bucket a human being into that linear format. You need to start reimagining how we need to get humans into work.
Speaker 1Yes, reimagining, you know, reinventing, evolving. I feel like that's going to be a theme for the future, more and more so, you know, especially you working in AI, I'm the futurist today, angela the futurist. Yes, it's not very far. It's like the saying the future is already here, just not evenly distributed. Yeah, absolutely yes. So now you work at Fractal a culture and brand experience right, and what do you do in your role Like? What's your responsibility? What are you supposed to make better or improve or evolve?
Speaker 2Absolutely. I think it started as an abstract role, because the CEO, founder and the group CEO, you know, is very close to the company culture and we have a very unique culture, right? So his point of view is, as we scale, as we grow, while the culture will evolve, but can we sustain the core soul of the culture and make sure that it is, you know, assimilated and spread across as we scale? Right, if you thought it, you know? Just a quick data point, right? Any company, if you go and see at any point in time, at least 50 percent of that company members would be about two year tenure. So if that's true, so every three to four years you have a new company. Basically, right, because either adding new people or people leaving and you're hiring another set of people. So, if that is the phrase, then how can we make sure that the culture sustains?
Speaker 2Right, and culture does not live in the walls or in the value systems which is posted in the walls or money from a CEO or a head of HR. That's not where culture lives. Like. Culture is how we do business. Culture is how we take decisions. Culture is, you know, how we work. Culture is how we feel in a company right? These are the basic tenets of culture. So in the past two years I've been experimenting on a lot of those things in a human way. How do we basically cultivate and assimilate and spread this culture right? It's not about changing anyone, that's not the idea. It's about elevating people through the soul of the culture right, because more people will come in and we also don't want to do the mistake of, in the name of culture, just create sameness. Sameness is not culture right, like the term which many people use, is culture fit?
Speaker 2I would say it shouldn't be culture fit, it should be culture stretch. Right. You need to, you know, involve new, diverse people into your company and still evolve the culture and have the soul of the culture intact always. So that's what I've been doing. I've been experimenting a lot and doing the soul of the culture intact always. So that's what. That's what I've been doing.
Speaker 1I've been experimenting a lot and doing a lot of different programs. You know you mentioned here, like the soul, the core of the culture, but then you need to have a stretch and, I suppose, variety, flexibility. How do you make sure, how do you ensure that balance and how do you find this balance in practical terms? Some interest rate? Yeah, tell me, yeah, yeah see to.
Speaker 2To begin with, I don't think we can create some processes or policies to make that happen, right? The only way which at least I have figured out is that if you create an environment where you have, you know, the soil ready, right, right, like in one of your comments I saw in a post saying that if the soil is good, then the plants and the trees will be good, right, so it's all about not doing a manicured garden, it's about how do you build a sustainable, regenerative forest, right? So the first thing is we create environment. And if you want to create environment, you have to start with the leaders first. Right, the leaders have to be the examples, because that's how, you know, people look up and do things. So I try to work in those aspects.
Speaker 2Number one and number two is storytelling. How do you tap your company and culture story to people new people or people who have already been there and how do you basically, you know, make that widen, spread, right? So I've done a couple of programs around storytelling. And how do we live our values, how do we live our people principles from leadership to the newest employee in the company, right, and basically distribute that and that basically created some magic around, you know, keeping the soul intact.
Speaker 1Yes, so that's about soil. But then I guess, well, I have two follow-ups. First one I now more understand, you know about your perspective on how do you ensure the soul, or how do you create a soul, a core of the culture. But then how do you create variety and flexibility and where maybe too much of that is too much, that your whole culture becomes something else?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So that's a fantastic question, you know. And a billion dollar question. So no one basically knows when it's too much, too much, right, because we are talking about humans. A billion dollar question, so no one basically knows when is too much, too much, right, because we are talking about humans and as humans we are. We are not a closed system, right, we are very open system and we are not deterministic in that matter, right, we very probabilistic, right. So it's like asking you know, how can you forecast a weather, right? No, I mean, while we can forecast some patterns of the weather, but you can't say for sure, right, how it's going to turn up.
Culture is something similar, right. It's all about creating that environment and the culture basically comes from the founders themselves. So it's all about creating that environment and seeing if that balances out. Right, and whenever you feel it's all about feeling right and also some metrics, and whenever you feel it's all about feeling right and also some metrics will help feel and some metrics shows you that pattern, then you try to gear the change again, because it's about humans, it's not about computers. You need to be grounded in the values of care and clarity, then control. So many of us do that mistake right. Many of us immediately jump into control if we see a little bit of chaos. Little bit of chaos is always good, right? That's where growth happens.
Speaker 1Yes, you know, it reminds me of like you mentioned one word matrix. Like I feel, like me personally, that in a lot of conversation around culture and human centricity there is often this like almost counter balance or just opposite viewpoints. Like you either create, like metrics, a control for everything or you just create very soft definitions of values and then sort of somehow hope that you end up there. Where do you think is the middle ground that, yes, we allow flexibility, human factor et cetera, but also we have some sort of data that we can adjust more or less based on it to create the desired outcome?
Speaker 2Absolutely, absolutely. So. I mean, for me, there's no middle path. It's very difficult to balance when humans are involved, right? So, that being it, I think it's very important for us to, as I said, to create that environment At the same time. I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2One of the things which we do is, apart from this, you know, annual surveys and all that that we do, we also talk about our values, right, we? We run surveys and we run, you know, focus group sessions talking about our values and getting feedback around. How is those values lived in your daily life? Right, because culture. I also have a formula for culture, right, culture is equal to daily actions multiplied by leadership actions, daily behaviors, sorry, multiplied leadership actions and divided by the friction in the company, the friction of the system. That's how the culture works. So we basically look out for those surveys and values. We take those surveys also. We also get the feeler from having conversations with the leaders and multiple people and together, you know, we basically come up with I wouldn't say yardstick, but some parameter or metric to know that, okay, this is how it is, and if you want to change or tweak certain things in a certain way, then we definitely do it with that'm currently working on a broader matrix.
Speaker 2I'm calling it Culture Index Core. It's still not out, but I'm just working on it, creating some multiple pillars, right? Basically, feedback from external sources, which is social media and other things, feedback from company hard data and feedback around surveys. I mean, can I marry all this together and create a culture index score? So that's a huge problem which you asked right, that question which you asked is a huge problem for many companies. So I'm trying to solve in this fashion. It is still not out, but once it is out, I'll definitely open source it.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's amazing, you know, and thank you in advance for open sourcing it. I obviously didn't like when people do that. I'm like, yes, this person wants to create progress for all of us, not just a metric to put the name on it, but they just migrated here in advance for it. One question from here Okay, you see culture working and sometimes you see it's not working, right, maybe you do certain assessments and you see, well, these things are off. How would you approach correcting of that culture, right? You see, I don't know, maybe let's say everyone's talking about trust. If you see low trust, how would you approach correcting that?
Speaker 2I'll give you one small ritual which we do in the firm which I'm working today is we have a weekly town hall, not once in a year, not once in a quarter, once every week, right, the senior leaders are there, everyone are invited, people all join. It's a 60 minute town hall. Of that, first 30 minutes is about some presentation or some messaging from the leadership or some of the new things that we do, right, we just talk about. The next 30 minutes is all about question and answers. So so we open it up. We say ask any question and we'll be honest in answering. And if we don't get the answer, we will tell you we don't know the answer, but we'll come back to you with the answer, right?
Speaker 2So, and it's also anonymous, it's anonymous and non-anonymous. If you want to, you know, unmute your talk or if you want to anonymously ask, there is a channel where you can just directly, you know, pose those questions and those questions. What happens is all these questions goes into one area where all the employees can see the questions and people can upvote and download those questions. So whichever questions has the highest upvotes basically gets asked in the town hall first. But we'll make sure that we answer all the questions that are there. So that's, that's one ritual which we do which makes sure that the trust and transparency is, you know, continued always.
Speaker 1And I assume, like, if somebody you know has a question or something that's related to trust and there is something that leadership can act on, do you then publicly, I guess say that, okay, this is what we heard and this is what we did, based on the feedback that we got. Is that what happened?
Speaker 2Yes, yes, absolutely. So that's one of the very underrated mistakes that many people do not. In this format Like Town Hall, I don't think many companies do what we do, but the surveys, right, happen. People, all will you know, push people to attend the survey and, please, we want to hear from you. And when employees attend the survey, what happens? Right, they'll just, you know, many companies just after that just go silent and some companies basically share the results and saying this is this results, but there is a third step to it. The third step is also saying acknowledging a. These are the three, you know, top areas that we need to concentrate on which we we got a lot of feedback around and what are we doing? You know, can we, you know, send a report at least once in a month or once in a quarter? Also right, to tell the people this is what we heard and this is what we are doing, and tell us how do you feel now? So that's important. We do it definitely, but I think that's a very important practice.
Speaker 1Yes, you know practice. You mentioned rituals and, as you mentioned, you believe that culture is what we do. So rituals, you know what is a ritual? A ritual is something that you do consistently for a purpose of creating a feeling or certain energy or result. Right, it's basically a habit, but has more of a yeah. What's your actually difference between habit and a ritual for you? For me, like, ritual is more something that you do for the change of internal state, versus just habit that you do, like brushing your teeth. What's it? What's the difference for you between ritual and a habit? Like I also like to say, you know, for culture, let's build different organizational habits and sometimes I didn't call it rituals yeah, what's your take on it?
Speaker 2I think say habits. Habits have a very deterministic you know, feel around it, right, like you exactly said, I'll wake up, brush my teeth every day morning, I'll bathe every day, I'll wear a good dress and all those kind of things, right, and it's all in some way. It's a self-centered thing for me, it's good for me and it's better if I'm this kind of a person external person for external audience right, but rituals are. It's self-centered, but it's also group specific, right. In an organization, organization is just a collective. Organization is what? Organization is? A collective of people, so these people come together. It's not a habit, right. Then it becomes a ritual, right, that we do basically try to do. And it has to be intentional in design.
Speaker 2And many people think that culture happens organically. That's the most foolish thing anyone can think, right, no, culture does not happen organically, right, you need to intentionally design, right, and you can't design policies and processes for it. So that's where it was coming, right, because culture, as I said, is a lived behavior, right? So how do you make those rituals right? For example, simple rituals like okay, after friday, 4 pm, no more calls, or no more. You know emails, you know, weekends, no emails or no calls, right? I mean at unless until there's some emergency, that's okay. How can we have an agenda-less meeting? So it's all these small, small things, but done at a micro level, at a small team level.
Speaker 2Don't think like an organization, like think from a team level, if each team does these rituals within their teams and, of course, the nuances will change based on the geography you're in, based on the kind of work you do. But that's what is the beauty of culture, right? These are all the microcultures, what I call microcultures, which is very important. But we need to be very diverse and open in cultivating these microcultures. And another mistake which many large organizations, at least I've seen do, is they go into monoculture, right, where they say this is how we work and this is how everyone should follow, right? That's basically not going to sustain for a long time, because then your trust will erode. If your trust erodes, then culture erodes with it.
Speaker 1Yes, you know such an important topic, like again back to this idea that you have your principles, maybe even guardrails, right, and in that you allow for human flexibility and allowing people to figure out what it is that's going to work for them. And, yeah, I guess that's the harder part is figuring out again what's the part that you allow for flexibility and what's the part that you want to ensure happens. It kind of reminds me, you know, about society as a whole, as global society. Like, we have certain guardrails in place for a reason. If you just let humans roam freely doing whatever they want, you know anarchy and all kinds of stuff that's going to happen that nobody wants right.
Speaker 1So you want certain guardrails, you want principles which cannot be changed and adjusted, and then you have flexibility in other different areas, which then, yeah, allow for culture to be flexible, but still exist, yes, you know, and you already mentioned mistakes, and I want to ask you actually, with your experience now you probably also network with a lot of other leaders in culture, in HR, in leadership in general what maybe mistakes you learned from others, you saw, maybe even you know in your own self, you, you thought it was like that, but then, like you know, didn't work. Now, what are some common mistakes, misconceptions that you feel exist till this day? And you also know that there are better practices in terms of creating culture that works for organization.
Speaker 2I think I've done the mistake also in my career, so it's not like this is only external. I've also learned from those mistakes. So the number one mistake, I think, is taking humans for granted. What do you mean? So I'll tell you what I mean. Right, you know, as I said, organization. What is organization is a collective of people.
Speaker 2So if all these people are coming and working with you most of the companies today work in the premises of okay, I cannot trust all of them, so I need to put all the guardrails possible right. That's that comes in the name of a lot of policies, checks and processes and all these kinds of things. So the intention behind it is okay, I can't trust this group. Otherwise, if I don't put, like you said, right, if I don't put a boundary, then an RK will come right. So that's the biggest mistake. If you think about it, in any organization, yes, there will be few percentage of you know people who will always take you for granted or take the other side, which is like two or three. Maximum is three percent, at least as far as I've seen, right, even at a society level. But what do you want to build a company for? That three percent is the question you know we need to build for that 97 to 98 percent right.
Speaker 2So, so, so, hence, that's that's one of the biggest missing. Even I have done it in my career where I said, okay, no, I'll have to put all these policies, I'll have to put these things to for my team to work and everything while it is operationally efficient, but it is not, you know, optimal way of working with humans, right? So I changed. You know, the way I changed is okay, trust that 98 percent right and work for that 98 percent right. The two person will anyway, you know, leave you after. You know, maybe you know with you that's, that's a cost of running the business, but always for that 98 percent. So it's very important to look at people as people and don't standardize things in the. That's the second mistake which many companies, and even including me, I, have done. It is standardizing things in the name of fairness.
Speaker 2Oh, I need to be fair with all the employees. So let me put a standardized policy. Okay, I'll just give you an example. Okay, there is this policy in any, any organization, right, something, organization, something which they say, okay, you guys all have like 20 leaves or 30 leaves a year because it is standard. They'll just slap it with everyone and suddenly new age companies will come and say, oh, we are also including bereavement leave, oh, we are also including period leave.
Speaker 2What does that all mean? Leave? You know? What does that all mean, right, you know? Uh, so so my point of view there is you know, don't do the kind of standard leaves, just keep it open for people. It's not like people will take you for a ride and you know, take six months. Just tell them. You know, based on your life stage, if you need leave, take leave. You know, make sure outcomes and everything's are set and you know, treat them as adults, right, like there's a model called each model, which is treating employees as adults, clients and human beings. So you have to work and that would be the biggest competitive advantage any company can have.
Speaker 1Can you repeat that? I think I lost you for maybe a couple of seconds. Oh, is it so? How do you treat every human as a? There's this model called EACH.
Speaker 2There's this model called EACH model, which basically means treating employees as adults, clients and humans right E-A-C-H. So if you look at that model, create an environment where everyone allows to come and humans right E-A-C-H. So if you look at that model, then create an environment where everyone allows to come to work right, not because of their need but because of their will. Okay, they want to come and work. That's the difference between need. So if you create that kind of an environment, I think those companies would massively, you know, outshine any other companies in the marketplace and that would be your biggest competitive advantage.
Speaker 1Yes, you mentioned here, you know again, like creating environment. Can you give a little bit more detail, like in your line of work where you work right now, what are the most, I think, important steps for creating any environment really? Or maybe certain aspects that you take care of, like workflows, regulations, I don't know incentives, like how do you create environment? Right, you mentioned again leadership, but even you know leadership and communication. Do you have a set of guidelines for behaviors? You know, when it comes to leadership, or certain communication guidance, certain incentive guidelines that you use because your company also in many locations. Right, how do you create environment?
yeah, I mean two things, right, I'll tell you. It's a broad question you asked and I can talk all day, yeah, around this, but two things I will mention is number one is the values. Right, most of the companies basically make values as nouns, like, for example, integrity or, you know, cooperation. Okay, these are nouns, right, so it means and it doesn't mean anything also at the same time. So you need to verbalize your values, right, make it action-oriented values so that people can understand, and make make sure that you articulate it in a way that and don't have like 10 or 20 values, have less than you know, five, but articulate in a way that what is important as for this company and as a group that we are working together, number one, right, and number two, like you said, right, have principles.
Speaker 2Principles of how am I going to take decisions, how am I going to run this company right, leadership principles. So these are the principles which are very important, like Google did one project called Project Oxygen many years ago, right, and they came up with, I think, seven or eight principles based on managers and everything Many companies do differently. I mean Fractal, within Fractal, we have leadership code, what we call leadership code, which is not just created out of thin air, right, it was a collaborative effort where all the leaders came together not just the leaders, right, even the team members and everyone came together and we collectively created that leadership code. And so if you have the verbalized action-oriented values and you have principles or leadership codes in place and basically live that right, that's where leaders basically come in. You have a better place to work.
Speaker 1Yes, you know values and principles. Can you give an example? Because you said we didn't use them as nouns, like integrity, but we verbalize it, so it's more about you do things in a certain way. Can you give an example, maybe, of a value or a principle expressed in this way?
Speaker 2Absolutely so. We have four values at Fractal right. One of my favorite values is extending extreme trust and being accountable right. Extending extreme is the operating word there. Right, extending extreme trust and being accountable right, be accountable, that's a value. So how do we, how do we tip this value? For example, one thing I've told you, right, we don't have a leave policy. Just, you know, say people. I mean, there is some guideline, there's a guideline of, let's say, 27 or 30 leaves, but if you need more leaves, as per your situation, please go ahead and take it. No pay cut.
Speaker 2I've seen people, you know, even in my own team, right, there's a person who fell ill and had to go into an operation and multiple things. He and he couldn't work for almost four months. We paid for all four. We did not cut his salary or do anything, right, we paid for the whole form because that's that extreme trust and being accountable. And when this person came back after the surgery and everything, we did not hold that four months gap as a gap for his performance, right, is that her performance right? We basically made sure that that person was included in the firm as that person has been here for a longer time, right, and that progression and that person got promoted the next year, also right, because of the performance and everything else considered. So that's one example.
Speaker 2Second example Fractal itself. I'll again talk about Fractal, where we don't have an approval mechanism for reimbursements. We have some policy and guidelines around reimbursements, but there's no approval. So the only thing we say is if you think you have spent it for client or company purposes, go ahead and reimburse company purposes, go ahead and reimburse. That's it right. And people are, you know, sensible and they know they are adults and they'll not. I mean, take us for granted right, maybe one person may, but 99 would not, and we have not seen that also happening at fractal.
Speaker 2So that's one example of how do you live a value and this is something which employees see every day in, day out, and that's how they start believing in that value. Right, because values are also something which you will only believe if you see it, if you feel it.
Speaker 1Yeah I'll lead by example, that's so what I'm hearing is at some point your leadership got together and define the values, define the principles, and then also define what it looks like in terms of behaviors, policies like I don't know incentives, et cetera. I think the question that I have here okay, you translated that into leadership behaviors, but what about, like, maybe, day-to-day work for people you know all the way to front lines, whatever it is in Fractal, like daily decisions? Do you think it's detailed enough to have those to then guide people's everyday decisions about work, about their interactions with customers? Do you feel like you need to specify certain aspects of workflow more in your role?
Speaker 2I don't think so. I don't think so Because humans of workflow, more in your role, yeah, please speak to that. I don't think so. I don't think so because humans we hate, you know, while we say, people coming and telling us 101 things okay, these are the values, these are the principles. Please be like this, right? So I don't think that works.
Speaker 2So here our values and principles are set and it's an open organization right at the end of the day, right? Each leader, each leader or each human, you know, consumes and interprets that value in their own. You know, way, right, while we have defined it, we have made sure that the definition, the positive behavior, the positive behavior, the negative behavior, everything is there. But it's not like go and drive it into their head every day and day out, right? Or we will talk about it from the CEO whenever we have all these large meetings. We start with values, right?
Speaker 2Why did we take this decision? So any decision that is taken is always going back to the value and the principles. This is why we have taken this decision and this is based on this value and principles, and that's how we encourage. The word is encouragement, it's not enforcement. So you have to encourage people to basically come and do it. Yeah, a few times you may fail, a few times there are mistakes happening and some leaders you know for the lack of better word may not suit this kind of culture right. So we may have to take some hard calls here and there.
Speaker 1But majority, if you encourage, if you set the environment and create, I think things usually place yeah, and speaking of, you know, encouragement, what are some ways that you feel work in terms of encouraging certain cultural values so they spread, scale and live more consistently?
Speaker 2Absolutely. I think I've learned this in a way that you know. Let me give you an example Viruses right. You know viruses are bad. Right, but there are. Right, you know viruses are bad, right, but there are some good things which you can learn from viruses, right, Because they spread quickly and they're contagious and they adapt also to the host. Right, it's the same thing with culture, right. You cannot cascade culture. Culture can only be caught, right? So, from that angle, we basically make sure, once we lay down the environment, lay down these principles and values, it's all about the leaders talking to their direct team members and vice versa, Right? How do we basically bring that up?
Speaker 2So the most important pillar of the culture caught up is those leaders right Leaders and managers and their own smaller teams. That's why, in fact, I basically designed a new way of HR delivery itself. So basically, I've also written an article around it saying that HRBP is dead. It's a new way of working. So we have a new way of HR delivery system within Fractal and one of those HR delivery system, what we call people advisors. So these people advisors are there only to work with the managers. So their only mandate is make our managers better leaders. So they work directly with the managers and, you know, help them to become better leaders day in, day out.
Speaker 1Okay, so it is, as I'm hearing, cascading system, like you train, train, work, you know, with a set of leaders and then those leaders cascade those behaviors, communication, values, et cetera. So the rest of the company can catch it, so to speak. Yes, yes, yes. So I think company can catch it so just big, so I think you can cascade it. It just depends from which level you look in up and down.
Speaker 2That's what I'm saying. Right, it's not about cascading. Again, the basic assumption on cascading is it can two ways of cascading. One, it can be as flexible as a waterfall, it can be as rigid as a waterfall, or it can be as rigid as a supply chain machine. It's up to what you want to choose. Do you want to choose a process-oriented, you know, binary supply chain? Let's say, if you go to Amazon warehouse, you will see those packages going in as direct orders. That's also cascading right One level to another level and it's efficient. It basically makes things up.
Speaker 2But think about a waterfall it's very fluid but still it makes the point right. It fall flows and it gets into the river. The river basically, you know, goes into the betterment of humanity and multiple other things. So so that's what I'm talking about. That's the difference that I mean. It's a very difference, but many people don't get it. And the subtleness in that is the control right. Many of the leaders are not ready to let go, so that's also very important. These are really subtle things. Again, as I said, I can talk all day around this, but yeah, that's where it is.
Speaker 1You know, to this point, I feel like this is your system for scaling certain values and certain leadership right as you take people advisory, that's your system on how you can scale your culture, because a lot of your companies growing, developing, evolving, like how do I change culture, how do I, how do I well, do anything with that right, and that's, I feel like people advisory is your solution for that.
Speaker 2That's one way of socializing it, one way of but I can do. I mean, it's all depend on what is your priority, right. Today, for example, many companies have this HRBP roles and that HRBP basically God only knows what all that person does. Right? Each hrbp is connected to some 300, 500 or thousand people and they're proud oh, I have hrbp. But it's humanly not possible for one human to be influencing that many people, right? So so, and basically they turn into paper pushers, they turn into process executioners, right, rather than actually making value at a human level.
Speaker 2So that's where we said your role as a people advisor is just to turn or create our managers into better leaders, right? And how do we do it? And that's the only thing that they do. They work with the leader. They know, because it's again at the ground level that they do. They work with the leader. They know, because it's again at the ground level, right from a 30 000 feet at the organization level, while you have your values, principles. How do you operationalize that? How do you see that it is working on the ground, right, while surveys and all is one way of getting those feelers. But this is also one very important aspect for, like you said, said right to scale and to make sure it sustains, and not only sustains to also regenerate. That kind of virus example right, contagious to be contagious.
Speaker 1Speaking you know to like regenerating and also evolving, changing. You know culture is a living, breathing entity and also evolving, changing. You know culture is living, breathing entity and right now we are, as global society, we are going through so many changes and I feel like it's either going to accelerate or definitely not slow down. Do you have certain processes, principles, how you evolve culture? Like, let's say, you feel like we might, I don't know need to bump up learning index in our culture? Or, yeah, I don't know, ai adoption if that would be a cultural norm, but I feel like it's just one of aspects of learning culture. Do you have a process which allows you to shift culture more effectively?
It's a very difficult question to answer. See, as I basically view, culture evolves right, and it's on the evolvement and based on the reality where we live in. We may need to change the operational layer of the business, but the core values and principles I don't think that ever changes right. For example, one of the values which we have is learn and grow. While it's a verbalized value, it basically changes by the realities that we live in.
Speaker 2Earlier, let's say, for example, five years earlier, half cycle of technology was two to three years. Right Today, half cycle of technology is six months, six months to 12 months. The technology keeps on changing, right. So the learn and grow value is the same, but the way that it's accelerated a little bit more. Earlier there was time because it's two to three years. Now it's about six to 12 months. Right, so the time has basically, you know, come down right. So the acceleration of that value is basically going up. Right For that.
Speaker 2You cannot write another policy or another statement or another value saying that, okay, now we will accelerate, learn and grow. Right, just adding a word. But if you have the core sense, the idea is to learn and grow, and why the idea to learn is you have to be at the edge of the industry, number one to make yourself, be make yourself relevant and number two to make sure your clients are relevant and winning in the marketplace. So if you, if you have the why very clearly defined, when you clearly define these values, whatever the reality is, you will start evolving right People will start evolving in those values.
Speaker 1Yeah, I hear what you're saying and I do have a slightly different angle. Maybe it's not different, maybe it's just communication, a slightly like different angle, maybe it's not different, you know, maybe just communication. When, like you mentioned, let's say, technology is accelerating and we need to maybe update our knowledge or how we do things more frequently, like what I would do from perspective of behavior design, I would make sure that somewhere in a person's schedule there is time, there are resources for that to happen more frequently. So what we want to do like people again, update how they do what they do, what they learn faster, it corresponds with the environment. For me that's also part of the environment that the company or culture created. What's your take on it? Would you try to adjust and reconsider, like people's schedule, the workflow, like their decision-making process? Absolutely.
Speaker 2See the way, the modus operandi of the work, the flow of work, the concept of a team, everything changes based on the reality that you live in, right? So that those are what I said, the operational things that we keep on doing. But that does not, that does not mean that you need to change your values or principles. So, the operational elements, certain things that we think for example, you know, today ai is there where we are also seeing some productivity gains, right. So if there are productivity gains, we basically you know, there is two arguments to it Okay, if AI is, you know, getting 20% productivity, that means you're getting 20% free time. What can you do more in that 20%? Right? Can you learn more? So that's one way of argument. Another way of argument is hey, since AI is increasing my productivity, my expectation with the clients have gone up. Now I have to double down, and what I used to deliver in a month, now I am delivering in 20 days. Hit the point. So I am delivering more throughput for a month, which I used to do, but better now, right? So that ends up that argument.
Speaker 2Of course, we will change some operational realities, how things like, for example, the example which you used, if learning has to be accelerated, you need to start learning. So you need to find space. So this group because we have the culture, this group, whichever it is, they basically auto-tune, so it's not necessary that you have to put while you talk about it in a town hall. Let's say, one question will come in a town hall this is what I'm doing and I'm not getting time to learn. What should I do? So these are the reinforcement systems, right? Then someone from the HR or the CEO themselves will come and answer. Then that becomes a smaller project to figure out hey, what's actually happening in the company, where are the roadblocks? And if there are any roadblocks, then we'll try to basically think again. Design-first thinking. We need to think.
Speaker 1So I'm a huge fan of design-first thinking and I feel like that's where we can actually prevent a lot of waste in advance. Like this upstream thinking. Solve problems before they happen, right? Okay, this accelerating, what does it mean? So let's design for it in advance and obviously experiment and see what happens. But I'm a huge fan of that. Okay, we want to create more of certain behavior. Let's design for that, so it's easier in the environment. The second thing, though here I want to get back to this important aspect yes, fractal, you have the culture that suits you, that you are satisfied with culture. But a lot of companies these days will find themselves in a position their culture no longer works, like some of it. Like we take Microsoft, right, they were the culture of know-it-all. They had to shift to learn-it-all, to fit in into this new environment and to succeed in it. So do you have any advice on that? How do you fundamentally shift certain values in your culture when you need to? Culture when you need to.
Speaker 2I think at least we have not. We have not experienced, you know where we need to change. But when I joined Fractal, we used to have like seven different values, right, not different values, same values, but like nouns. From there we changed into this, you know, verbalized, action oriented values right, which are very close to the business. So that was also a big exercise, again led by the group ceo and the leaders and all other peoples, right. So that one change we did, because that is what's required for the reality of the business and we also believed that values has to be action-oriented, not just a noun sitting somewhere in the corner right, so that it can be easily translated and it can be easily caught by people. So that one exercise we have definitely done, but overall, I think it's a very important thing for companies and managers. I always do this, right.
I always ask my leaders and managers to ask this one question whenever they have their one-on-ones and everything right. We basically encourage people to have a agenda-less meeting with their direct reports, right. So it basically means no agenda. Just go talk to them human to human and figure it out. And one of the questions I always recommend people to ask is you know, what is that? What is that one task or one thing that drains you and what is that one thing that delights you? That one question will give you so much you know clarity, so much about what's happening at your workplace than any other service can do so so it's important to do that and again, it's very abstract.
Speaker 2I mean, you may feel it it's a bit abstract, but that's that's the goal. Also, right, human beings are probabilistic. They're not deterministic.
Speaker 1At the end of the day, yes, you did mention, though you know, that you yourself had to shift from this like noun values to more verbalized and act on it approach. What did the shift involve? Can you give a few more details, because so many letters I speak to like, well, we need to change and shift and we know, like our new side of value, so the way we want to do things, but we're not sure how to approach the cascading and scaling. So everyone gets the message like how do we communicate, what do we I don't know incentivize and how do we do that? What was your playbook, I guess there? What initiatives did you do?
Speaker 2You're asking all difficult and long questions today.
Speaker 1Well, those are the ones to struggle with.
Speaker 2I don't want to simplify things because I mean, these things are very hard, very, very hard and I cannot explain it in a few minutes. I cannot explain it in a few minutes. But one thing which I'll leave which people can think about is let go control. I think if one principle they have to follow is basically let go control and replace it with care and clarity, if you let go control, replace that with care and clarity, I think many of the things which any leaders want to do, it's easily doable. It's just that you're not putting enough time to think clearly what you want and you know care enough for the people who are working with you. So if you think clearly of what you want and care enough, you know of the people who are working with you. So if you think clearly of what you want and care enough, you know of the people that you're working with you. If these two things are done, most of the things will play out. But of course there is science and design behind it.
Speaker 2It's very hard for me to explain it in this one call, but I'll be more than happy if any of the leaders want to. You know, talk to me and you know get. I be more than happy if any of the leaders want to. You know, talk to me and you know get. I mean again, that's a long, long discussion. We can also have that long discussion some some other time.
Speaker 1Yeah, so did you know. It is, though, like an important question. Like I'm proud of you, you actually go about implementing that change in communication and all of that, and it's a lot of design going into it, but you're right, you know I want to get back to your idea of like, be intentional about that and putting energy and time and resources into that, and I feel like that leads me to the next question that I don't want to skip is that, I think, what's your message to leaders to make sure that they understand that culture is important? What I'm pointing towards is AI and all these changes and upgrades.
Speaker 1Very often, leaders feel like we don't have time, we don't have resources. We need to focus on performance, on operational efficiency, all of that. I don't have time for culture. I literally saw the not assessments, but data around that. Leaders focus right now on operational efficiency, and culture is the last thing on their mind. I guess my question is how would you communicate to leadership, or what's your message to help them see the importance of culture, not just for the culture's sake and for the people's sake, but also for business?
Speaker 2I think, see, as I told you earlier, right, culture in today's world, your people are the best competitive advantage you have. Right, because anything else can be easily copied and in the AI age which we are here today, the knowledge infrastructure is getting commoditized. Right, everyone is in there. So the one core difference that you can bring in is through your people. Right, and if that is what you need to do, then, as leaders, culture is the operating system to make sure that you have a great workplace, a good environment where humans can come and thrive, right, right, because we are humans, like I mean we are.
Speaker 2We are in a, in a zone where we need to start now thinking what are the things which humans should do and are much better than any ai system? Now we are pushed to that angle. Now everyone has to ask that. Right, many of us are not asking that question, but many of us have to start asking that question what is, what are those things that only humans can do? Right, if you answer those questions and if you want humans to do it in a very discreet and a in a very fulfilling way, the only way is to create a great work environment. Yeah, sorry, sorry. And and the only operating system for the work environment today is culture.
Speaker 1Yes, you know, culture. It's such a I don't know, not metaphor but comparison. For me it's like when you're trying to ferment something like I don't know, make sauerkraut or whatever, you're creating the culture in which that process can happen. I feel like humans are a lot like that. You create this environment to let certain aspects of that behavior of humans thrive and flourish and then you multiply and you get the end product. But to your point, I also feel leaders somehow miss the point that leaders or the people are the ones who make the work happen.
Speaker 1It's not like company by itself does something. Without people there is no company. And if we know anything, you can't force a human being to do their best. It can only come out when the human being wants to do that, when we are motivated, when we are engaged, when we are thriving right, that's how we will over deliver. Like you can't force it and you can't also pay people enough for that. There is plenty of research that people are only motivated by money to a certain degree, right, and I feel like that sometimes leaders miss People will do the work and if your people don't thrive and don't want to do their best, like your business will not do its best.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1So that's amazing. You know discussion so far and, of course, you're working in AI and we are going. Ai is the subject of the era. I want to ask you more you a little bit more about AI and culture. I think the first question I want to start with is did anything, in your opinion, change dramatically in terms of creating culture, building, evolving culture, maintaining it when AI came along, so to speak? Is your work different right now and, if so, in what way?
Speaker 2I don't think much has changed from a technology perspective. Right, a few years ago, people were still working and ai was there, and in the few I mean three, four years. It was about three, four years ago, right, this whole chat gpt came in and that's when people started feeling the visceral day of ai. Right, it's not that before that ai was not existent. We were still working at ai at that time, but it it was not very you know how do I say it it was not very mass that everyone can understand when ChatGPD came in, and that's when the shift happened. Right Till before ChatGPD came in, whenever you talk about AI or you see some articles in LinkedIn or wherever, you would always see some Terminator robo as a picture. Right, that's how people related to it. But after ChatGPT came, they said, hey, these are the possibilities that they are there right Now at workplace.
Speaker 2When ChatGPT came and people are talking about, you know, productivity increase. People are talking about, you know, job replacements, people are talking about dependencies. You know there's some level of fear that is set in the system for people. Hey, what's what's going to be my relevance very soon, right? So, so so culture helps if you have a culture of trust, transparency, if you have a culture of learning and you will be open with the people, right?
Speaker 2We've been seeing some emails from some ceos across the globe saying that, hey, we have done everything with ai, now you know we don't need too many people. But the same companies now are calling people back or it has backfired and everything. Right At the end of the day, you know, we live in a world where you know everything is for the human thriving. Only right At the end of the day, how much of our AI comes in. It's all about human thriving and everything. So in that angle, there are some fears, some unknown unknowns which are there, which I don't think. Culture we can't put everything square into culture right, okay, culture will solve this, culture will solve that. But this is a very emergent space that we are in. So, including Fractal and many other companies we are trying to figure out. You know, how do we think about future of work, how do we think about future of organization? So those conversations are going now I think there's no right or answers, but that change I'm seeing happening not just in Fractal across the globe.
Speaker 1Yeah, I feel like you know. Again, I was flying here and had a conversation with a gentleman. He's retired, you know, he works in electronics and he's undergoing. He decided to retire in one company and start a completely new career well, at least new sector and when I asked him, like what do you think about AI? He's like it's just a tool, you know, I'll learn how to use it and to do my work better, and I feel like that is such a healthy perspective. You know, at some point the internet was changing our world or I don't know. More, automation in manufacturing changed our world right and we learned how to incorporate it and adapt. And then the world changed and we're still alive. I think the only difference is maybe the speed that we all feel Like it's changing so fast that we need to. I feel like we need better tools to just being more change able, versus kind of doing the change, then expecting him to become normal, having some time and then another change. It's like no, the change is just going to be continuing.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I feel like that's the, and AI is a tool, a technology that we need to incorporate into who we are, what we do, how we deliver value.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. I think the only difference between the changes before and AI is that all the changes which happened earlier from internet, cloud or whatever right yeah, Is all based on consumption layer for humans. Right, we consumed it.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, ai is the only thing which is both consumption and creation Zooming it, but it can create on its own also. Yeah, it can do a lot of things which, as humans, we can do. Right, if you think about it, 70 percent of the global workforce are knowledge workers, and the base of knowledge work is cognitive load. So if ai can take that cognitive load, create all that, you know. What will humans do more? That's? That's's the question that I said. We are pushed to ask that question. What is that thing only humans can do?
Speaker 1Yes, exactly. And then again back to this idea of how manufacturers replace a lot of tasks that humans do. I do believe, although I do agree that AI can create, that it can create to a certain degree, Like, for example, when I work with AI, I never really find something that is very unique, meaning it's kind of like takes all this information and creates some blend or mix that feels very unique. But I feel like really unique things maybe it's my bias you know human bias that humans are better at it like creating novel solution which are not logical and not from all of the like data that you consume and assimilate, but something completely different, and also intentionality and motivation, right, that drive. I feel like AI doesn't have that, and so in that sense, I feel like we humans feel are still at the center of creativity and ai is just a sort of assistant. Now we have more of a right, not a tool, but assistant one of the posts which I wrote right.
Speaker 2We should, most of us, think of ai as a truth-spitting machine, which it is not. It's just spitting some words that it had learned. Treat AI as your sparring partner. Right, so you get better. You get better working with it. Challenge it, you know. Put those. So, basically, how humans learn, we learn by iterations and making mistakes. With AI, you can do that much faster, 10x faster iteration, 10x faster so you get 10x better. That's the whole point. So don't just believe in AI as a truth-telling machine. Just treat it as a sparring bar.
Yeah, and back to that again, to this idea that you mentioned, what it is uniquely human that we do, and I think each of us need to learn to ask this question on a regular basis, like why am I here? What is the value that I'm here to create? Right, and then using AI and, I'm sure, other tools coming to fulfill on that purpose?
Speaker 1And I feel like, as long as we do that, we can avoid a lot of this like I don't know, fear and anxiety, like is it going to replace me? Well, not, you can use it and do your job better, whatever the job is.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 1Thank you, anish, for this insightful conversation. I so enjoyed it. I know culture people. I could be also talking about that for hours, but obviously time is limited and we need to go and do other things. To conclude this conversation, I want to ask you one question what is one, and maybe it's going to sum up some of your thinking and what you said? What is one mindset shift that you want to leave listeners and leaders with finalizing our conversation? So mindset like the way to think about things culture, hr, people and then one practice shift like what people you'd wish think differently and do differently, specifically people at the position of leadership, who although I'd argue everyone is a position of leadership, people who want to shape cultures, other people, environment around them. So one mindset shift how to think. One practice activity shift how to do think.
Speaker 2Ah, okay, cool. So my mind shift from for the AI age. You mean that's what. Hopefully that may be helpful.
Speaker 1Mostly to culture, HR, but also if it's something about AI, yeah, you can speak to that.
Speaker 2I think one mindset shift in that angle is culture is everyone's job. Culture should not be siloed under HR, right? So don't think that culture is something, hr is doing something or some organization, right, culture is everyone's job. So it's very important that you create your reality, and human beings create realities by the stories that they tell in their mind, right? So best mindset changes, start telling better stories. That's the mindset change I'll say.
Speaker 2And the second question is leaders, right, I mean, I also believe leaders, everyone are leaders. There are only two kind of people, right, you are either a leader or a follower, right? Not in a very visceral sense, but everyone needs to become leaders. So I think one thing which I see a lot of leaders do to become leaders. So I think one thing which I see a lot of leaders do which is very immature and also it shows, you know, some leaders have not, you know, thought through these things is number one is leading by fear. So, basically, leaders think okay, if I'm the leader, I'll tell and you will listen to me. Otherwise, you know, your job is at stake, or your task or your growth is at stake and multiple other things.
Speaker 2So many of our managers and leaders sometimes go into that zone where I have to feed by, you know, with fear, right, so that there is a fear of me doing something. Hence people will start, you know, operating in a way that it should. Maybe it worked in the 19th century, maybe even 20th century, but in 21st century, and I had. You know, please do not weaponize fear, do not weaponize feedback. You know, think about people, right, care. I think care is one of the best thing that you can do from a leadership skill perspective. If you care for people, people will care for your business. So I think that's what I would say, right Don't lead with fear, lead with care.
Speaker 1Yeah, beautiful, yeah, such a beautiful note to finish our podcast episode, our conversation, hopefully very soulful, culture and human centric. Uh, thank you, anish, for your time and your work and your leadership. Just so many things. I feel like you're constantly creating and about to create in the future. So thank you for your work. Thank you for your time. And last question where should people go to connect with you? Follow, follow your work, learn from you?
Speaker 2Yeah, I think LinkedIn is the best place. You can just connect with me in LinkedIn and I'm usually a good responder in LinkedIn, right? I'm very active in that place, so feel free to connect. I keep on writing a lot in LinkedIn on what I'm thinking, so if you're interested in that, just follow me in LinkedIn.
Speaker 1Yeah, and we're gonna go ahead.
Speaker 2Thanks for your time, Angela, and a lot of difficult questions. I hope I was able to answer some of them, which you and your audience can take something out of.
Speaker 1Yeah, you know, I feel like Anish. To be honest, difficult questions and conversations. Is that what we need to lean into more often? Because, well, the simple ones we already kind of solved and the complex ones are the ones that are going to make the difference right, and I feel like our aspiration should be not to have the right answers but to just try to get a little bit better, try to improve a little bit through those questions, and that's all we can ask.
Speaker 1Absolutely so yeah, thank you so much. We're going to connect listeners to your profile and I highly recommend checking Anish's profile and work and follow you to get inspired and become the culture leader you want to see in the world. And until next time, keep growing.
Speaker 2Thank you. Thank you, Angela.