Ep61: What It Takes to Lead in the Boardroom Today with Shefaly Yogendra

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What does it really take to lead in today’s boardroom? In this episode of Human Wise, Helen Wada is joined by Shefaly Yogendra, experienced independent board director, governance adviser, and author of Uncharted Spaces: Reset the Agenda. Reimagine the Boardroom. Together they explore the growing complexity leaders face as organisations navigate AI, uncertainty, competing priorities, and long-term stewardship.

This conversation goes beyond governance frameworks and compliance checklists. Shefaly shares why curiosity, patience, courage, and self-awareness are becoming critical leadership capabilities in modern boardrooms. As organisations face increasingly uncharted territory, this episode explores how leaders can strengthen judgement, improve decision-making, and bring more humanity into the conversations shaping the future.

Topics Discussed:

• What it means to lead in today’s boardroom
• Why curiosity and patience are essential leadership skills
• The importance of knowing yourself as a leader
• Governance, stewardship, and long-term value creation
• How leaders navigate competing priorities and agendas
• Why conversational skills shape better decision-making
• The risks of cognitive outsourcing in the age of AI
• Creating more inclusive and future-focused boardrooms
• How observation, reflection, and listening improve leadership

View extended shownotes here

Further links to follow:

Read HUMAN-WISE: How to lead from within and sell with confidence

Helen Wada: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/helen-wada

The Human Advantage: https://www.thehumanadvantage.co.uk/

Transcript

 Ep61: What It Takes to Lead in the Boardroom Today with Shefaly Yogendra

[00:00:00]

[00:00:29] Welcome and Guest Intro

[00:00:29] Helen Wada: Welcome to another episode of Humanwise. I'm absolutely delighted to have Shefali Jagendra with me this morning. Shefali is an experienced independent board director with a focus on stewardship in complexity and governance to enable value creation. She has worked closely with owner-led, as well as professional manager-led organizations in their journey towards enhanced resilience with the lenses technology and innovation, [00:01:00] risk and foresight, and governance. Shefali is experienced in regulated sectors including financial services, energy, higher education, and legal services. She's also an experienced committee chair, having chaired audit and risk nomination, remuneration, and ESG committees. She's a trusted boardroom advisor, a popular speaker, and podcast guest on themes such as AI, investment, and future skills. Now, I met Shefali through our book group. Shefali has just published a latest book, Uncharted Spaces: Reset the Agenda, Reimagine the Boardroom. And Shefali, I'm absolutely delighted to have you join me today to have this conversation about what it means to be human at work, what it means to be human in the boardroom, and sharing your experiences with the listeners. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you as a, a colleague and friend I'd like to say now. But really welcome to Humanwise, [00:02:00] and tell us a little bit more about Shefali the person. We've heard about your career, your wonderful CV, but tell us a little bit more about you.

[00:02:07] Shefaly Yogendra: So first of all, thank you for having me, Helen. And it's a good introduction. Very kind of you to have read my book. You were one of the early readers, and it has been a very good journey to have you as a fellow author on getting to get our books into the world. So that's been a really good thing. 

[00:02:24] Uncharted Spaces and Stewardship

[00:02:24] Shefaly Yogendra: As you briefly said in the bio, I am a portfolio board director, but what I also do ad- in addition to that is I work with CEOs and boards, boards that are forward-thinking and want to expand their aperture rather than narrow down into minutiae of compliance.

[00:02:45] Shefaly Yogendra: The reason behind that kind of thinking is that, as the book's title says, we are in uncharted spaces. We have experienced some version or the other of technological evolution or geopolitical challenges like [00:03:00] wars, as well as cha- challenges related to climate. But all of these acting all at once at breakneck speed is what the boards are faced with.

[00:03:12] Shefaly Yogendra: Now- Compliance gives us a kind of fig leaf, and it is backward-looking. This is what we did in the preceding reporting period, whether it's a quarter or a half year or a full year. But what we really need to do in our jobs of stewardship is to build the businesses for their forward-looking long-term success, and that cannot be done if you are always looking backward.

[00:03:39] Shefaly Yogendra: That's a forward-looking job. And that is why I think you said earlier about what does it mean to be human. The job is essentially human. The responsibility of stewardship of resources with an aim of creating prosperity and leaving something for the forthcoming generations is a job we do for [00:04:00] humans.

[00:04:01] Shefaly Yogendra: It's people for whom organizations eventually do their corporate performance, their financial growth, their profitability growth, and so on. So it is, it is entirely human from top to bottom, whichever way you look at it.

[00:04:14] Helen Wada: I love that Shefali, and I think, you know, that's where our, our passions connected really because when I take a step back and, you know, before setting up the Human Advantage and, and writing my book Humanwise, and people said to me, "Well, why are you good at what you do?" When I was sat in the boardroom, when I was opening doors as a s- a global sales leader at KPMG, and, and what I realized was that the skills that I used in the boardroom were the skills that I'd been using as a coach. And, and you, you, you've got a different lens on it, but ultimately it is about humanity. It's about people, and, and we're looking at shaping futures. Yes, we need to look back at data and what's gone before, but we're in this world that you talked about, that these uncharted [00:05:00] spaces, I love that title, because we don't know what's happening.

[00:05:03] Helen Wada: We don't know what's going around the corner. And one of the things

[00:05:06] Helen Wada: that I loved about your book at, at the outset, you talk about know thyself and the importance of knowing who you are. Tell me a little bit more about

[00:05:16] Helen Wada: that. 

[00:05:18] Know Thyself in Boardrooms

[00:05:18] Shefaly Yogendra: So that's an-- that's the section where I essentially establish my license to have written the book. And when we are in boardrooms as independent non-executive directors, our independence is the cornerstone of our contribution. Of course, we are required to do our jobs to the best of our skills, experience, and ability.

[00:05:40] Shefaly Yogendra: But unless we are aware of how we interact, keeping our eye on the long-term growth and success of the business, but in the boardroom, in any given meeting, and sometimes in between meetings, how we interact with information With change, with [00:06:00] competing demands. With competing demands not just within the company, but if we are on more than one board, competing demands for attention from one business we are on the board of versus another.

[00:06:10] Helen Wada: Hmm.

[00:06:10] Shefaly Yogendra: And then also, while we have some legally codified statutory and fiduciary duties, there is quite a lot of judgment involved. We have to decide on complex issues, what do we think is going to happen on a one-year, three-year time, five-year timeframe. But above all, it requires, even with the best of cultures in the boardrooms, it sometimes requires a lot of personal courage to actually disagree if you disagree, or to raise a point that may be different from the point that everybody else in the room is making.

[00:06:46] Shefaly Yogendra: And to do all of this with integrity, because our independence rests on integrity. So when I say though thy know thyself, I'm essentially saying know what your own personal boundaries are, [00:07:00] know how far your limits can be stretched, know your own non-negotiables, and know your mindset, how you operate.

[00:07:07] Shefaly Yogendra: In my case, I mentioned two things that seem in contravention to each other. One is curiosity and the other is patience, and both of them serve very well in boardrooms. Curiosity, so you can look at the information presented and say, "What else would I like to know? Why does this look like a half-colored picture?"

[00:07:27] Shefaly Yogendra: Because it's a distillation of what is going on in the business. But patience, because sometimes some things fructify over a very long period of time. Indeed, stewardship is a game of patience. We may do things today which don't have good shortcome, short-term outcomes, and we are gonna get the blame for it.

[00:07:45] Shefaly Yogendra: But we may also do things today where the outcome is in 30 years and nobody's gonna give us credit for it, but the patience would have been rewarded while we were doing what we were doing, making judgment calls, making decisions [00:08:00] in the long-term wellbeing of the company.

[00:08:03] Helen Wada: It, it, goodness, there's, there's so much in there, Shefali, that, that I'm, I'm, I'm gonna sort of take a pause and, and unpick it a little, if that's all right. Because I think the, the curiosity and patience I want to come back to. But I want us to stick to sort of that knowing thyself first. In, in HumanWise there's a simple mnemonic of, of the human, but I talk about how you show up and the importance of your values and beliefs, and you talk about the integrity.

[00:08:30] Helen Wada: You talked about the integrity of yourself going into the boardroom, but you also talked, and I know from the working with the, the leaders that I work with, it's not easy. And so this is a conversation that we have a lot of senior leaders listening to, and they say like, "Okay, well, how do I do it?" Right? "What is the process of getting to a place that I know myself well enough that I can hold true to my values and beliefs even when they're being shot [00:09:00] down by multiple people, and potentially in aggressive scenarios?" what... How have you developed that inner core- I love talking about the core, but the inner core within yourself.

[00:09:11] Showing Up Prepared

[00:09:11] Shefaly Yogendra: I think it's, I make a distinction between being and knowing and doing, right? We can only be who we are, and that's where most of the know thyself kind of focus is on. And who I am has been relatively steady through the years. I was a very curious child, as I tell a story about a cousin's visit. And I remained curious, and that what it does is that you're constantly learning.

[00:09:42] Shefaly Yogendra: When you're in a business, and, you know, there's a throwaway line, no conflict, no interest. But when you're in the business, you're in there because you're interested in it at some level. It's going to be very difficult to be the board director of a business that absolutely doesn't do anything for you.

[00:09:59] Shefaly Yogendra: But if you're really [00:10:00] interested and you're curious, when you read a newspaper headline, there are lots of things sparking. This is what this means for that business I'm on the board of. This is what it means for that CEO that I'm coaching on. This is what it means to the young person that he's also, is also in my orbit and who was asking me a question about it.

[00:10:20] Shefaly Yogendra: So when you're engaged with, with curiosity and you're interested in what you're doing, you kind of take all of these ideas and develop them. And therefore, how do we show up? We show up with the preparation that our interest has enabled us to cultivate, and that preparation also can be related to the board pack.

[00:10:42] Shefaly Yogendra: It's one of the laments of people that there are people who show up to board meetings and you can tell they didn't bother to read the pack because somebody else might have read it. In fact, in the book, I referenced the story of a director who under oath in an Australian court had to admit that he hadn't read the pack.

[00:10:59] Helen Wada: Mm.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Shefaly Yogendra: Now, that's a pretty important essential cornerstone of being able to do the board director's job.

[00:11:06] Helen Wada: Mm. 

[00:11:07] Shefaly Yogendra: But in terms of showing up, that preparation itself comes from a lot of places, including being curious and being interested in the well-being of the business that you're on the board of. So showing up essentially is bring your whole self, bring your knowledge, skills, experience.

[00:11:21] Shefaly Yogendra: Remember your values because they-- we are not Groucho Marx. Poor Groucho Marx, he gets referenced a lot by me. He famously one time said that, "These are my values, and if you don't like them, I have others." But everybody isn't him either, hopefully. So we show up with all of this in our arsenal, so to speak.

[00:11:39] Shefaly Yogendra: But we show up with everything we have got, but fundamentally, we have to be interested in what we are doing, and that enables us to be fully present, fully prepared, and fully contributing.

[00:11:50] Helen Wada: Absolutely. 

[00:11:51] Reflection and Feedback Stories

[00:11:51] Helen Wada: And I think to, to maybe build on that, Shefali, in the coaching work that I do, I, I honestly be- believe in the power of reflection. To actually take the time to remind ourselves of who we are and the value that we bring to those that we work with, be they customers, be they clients, be the boards that

[00:12:10] Helen Wada: we're operating on. And-

[00:12:13] Helen Wada: taking time to just write down, who am I? What, what

[00:12:17] Helen Wada: do I believe? What is... What are all those skills and experiences that I have had over the years that equip me to be in this position? Because a lot of the leaders I work with, you know, that we talk about beliefs, but there's also those limiting beliefs. 

[00:12:33] Helen Wada: You know, those people that may be listening to this thinking, "I want to be on a board. I want to be a non-executive director one day maybe," but... Or, you know, "Have I got the skills and experience?" And I would challenge them to just take time to reflect on those values, on those experiences so that you can, you can be in the room.

[00:12:52] Helen Wada: And, and again, I loved what you said about knowing and being and doing. Because actually when you go in, you talk about the [00:13:00] preparation, that's absolutely essential. But there's two elements of preparation. There's on the one hand, the preparation of the, the content, the

[00:13:08] Helen Wada: board papers.

[00:13:09] Helen Wada: But the second element for me is, is how you want to be in that room. And whatever that, you know, do you want to be calm? Do you want to be curious? Do you want to be challenging? You know, what are the words that are right for you for that conversation?

[00:13:25] Helen Wada: And actually, you 

[00:13:26] Shefaly Yogendra: preparation of the self,

[00:13:28] Helen Wada: Yes.

[00:13:29] Shefaly Yogendra: and then there's the preparation con- you know, related to the material. So many years ago, a friend of mine gave me an exercise. I think it was nine years ago. And the exercise he gave me was very interesting. He said, "We know what we have done. We write it in our CV.

[00:13:45] Shefaly Yogendra: We can also do reflection." And then he said to me, "Find as many friends and colleagues as you can, and write to them and ask them for one story that they experienced with you [00:14:00] where they believe it showed you in your best light." So I wrote to 37 people.

[00:14:06] Helen Wada: Love it

[00:14:10] Shefaly Yogendra: actually, he's a very old st- good, good sta- old standing friend, and he Called me to kind of say stuff.

[00:14:17] Shefaly Yogendra: But 35 people wrote me. You know, that is like a direct mailer's dream, isn't it? But these were people who were my friends. 35 of them wrote me, and the stories that came back were things I didn't even remember, but they remembered, which actually was a very interesting signal to me because when we are being truthful and authentic and engaging fulsomely with the moment, somebody is noticing, somebody's observing, and they were observing, and they were observing it from the lens of, one, how I was showing up, and two, what was the impact they were feeling.

[00:14:58] Shefaly Yogendra: And that exercise, [00:15:00] even though it was nine years ago, has never left me. I keep all those emails in one folder, essentially as a reminder of how I have been when I wasn't even consciously performing anything.

[00:15:14] Helen Wada: You know, it

[00:15:15] Shefaly Yogendra: It's such a great experience, I cannot tell you.

[00:15:18] Helen Wada: like, I've got my, my cheeks are hurting 'cause I'm grinning. It, it just resonates so much because in, in, in human-wise, I've got this, you know... And it's a funny story about getting the human CV that I talk about in the books. It's, it's less about, you know, your, your, your roles and, and what you've achieved but, but more about who you are as a person, which really relates into

[00:15:39] Helen Wada: that.

[00:15:39] Helen Wada: And when, you know, the first version of the book when they first gave it to me, I had this human CV and literally, I think I've shared this with you, but, you know, my face was two-thirds of the page. I'm like, "No, no, no. There's enough of me. We,

[00:15:51] Helen Wada: we, we only need a little bit." But, but, but what, what's the story though?

[00:15:54] Helen Wada: It's, it's about seeing how other people see you. But not just see you. You [00:16:00] used the word y- feel. What do people feel about you? And I think sometimes we lose that when we think about business. You know, you, you kind of go, "Oh, this is about the numbers and this is very..." You know, it's just structured and, you know, that old adage of, you know, we leave who we are at the door, and we come in, we have a job to do.

[00:16:21] Helen Wada: And, but actually what you were just sharing there, it proves that the way that you make people feel has a, a significant impact on the way in which you can drive agendas forward and the way in which you can communicate. And I think tapping into our senses as board leaders is absolutely essential to be operating at the highest levels.

[00:16:45] Helen Wada: And you must have experienced that 

[00:16:47] Helen Wada: in, in your world. 

[00:16:49] Shefaly Yogendra: Yeah. 

[00:16:49] Embodied Decisions and Patience

[00:16:53] Shefaly Yogendra: as I w- as you were saying about the how do you make others feel I'm reminded of Maya Angelou's words, and I may not be being accurate, but she essentially said, "People may not [00:17:00] remember what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel."

[00:17:04] Helen Wada: Mm

[00:17:05] Shefaly Yogendra: And sometimes it's difficult to practice it.

[00:17:08] Shefaly Yogendra: The essence of it is beautiful. Sometimes it's demanding of us to actually not make somebody feel bad. But that is an important thing, and it's a critical, critical element. And in terms of actually being able to use that to shape the conversation is quite an interesting exercise because you're then working with people's ability to bring themselves to the room.

[00:17:35] Shefaly Yogendra: And one of the other things you said, how we feel, and I think embodied cognition is a real thing. We don't actually pay much heed to it because in the liberal tradition of education, there is a primacy of rational thinking. And one of the things when I teach, I've been teaching decision-making for nearly 11 years now.

[00:17:56] Shefaly Yogendra: One of the things I try and bring to the class [00:18:00] is to talk about the limits of rationality pretty quickly, and then go into what are the other ways in which we, we are making decisions? What are the inputs into our decision-making? And then we come to things like emotional awareness and our emotions, processing and regulating our emotions.

[00:18:19] Shefaly Yogendra: Also embodied cognition, things like when we know that this is not okay, we feel it. This is why we use terms like, "I have butterflies in my stomach," "My stomach is in the knots, is in knots," is because we are saying somewhere my body is signaling this is not okay, this is not okay. And at the same time, on the outside, I'm actually going along with the flow.

[00:18:42] Shefaly Yogendra: So I think there is an element of gut feel that we say, as well as embodied cognition. You know it, and then you justify it. A lot of times you know, some of my friends said, "What do you mean you did a PhD in decision-making? Tell us everything." And I always tell them that human beings make their [00:19:00] decisions very quickly.

[00:19:01] Shefaly Yogendra: They are not rational, they are rationalizers. And I think it is really important to remember that when someone is too quick with their opinion, to say how might they have thought about this to arrive at this conclusion. They're airing the conclusion. Do we have the patience to unpack what is underneath the conclusion?

[00:19:21] Shefaly Yogendra: And that's really important when we are making decisions about resource allocation, about people, about strategic risks that lie ahead, things like succession planning, which are difficult conversations to have. But we have to have them, and if we are not aware of how these conversations are landing on the people whom they will affect, we are going to make a hash of the decisions and the debate that precedes the decision.

[00:19:47] Helen Wada: in that, because just, just listening to you there, I'm drawn back to that word of patience and-- that, that you mentioned earlier, and linking it, that to the [00:20:00] emotional cognition As you eloquently put it, you know, that emotional... Because one of the skills of, of being a leader, of being in the boardroom is, as you say, people can make decisions quickly. But actually, if you're looking in with another pair of eyes and bringing the real you to the conversation to add the value that you absolutely can do, we need to practice patience. We need to draw on our emotional cognition to be able to look at the conversation that's in front of us and say, "Are we heading in the right way, or is there a better alternative way?" And I know you talk in the book about, you know, agendas. Yes, it's great to have an agenda. Agendas are there for, for the age of time from a board perspective. But actually, is it the right agenda for the conversation that we're going into, and particularly with the uncha- uncharted spaces?

[00:20:52] Shefaly Yogendra: Yeah.

[00:20:53] Helen Wada: I

[00:20:53] Helen Wada: think that's a real skill. 

[00:20:55] Shefaly Yogendra: Yeah. 

[00:20:55] Agenda Setting and Politics

[00:20:58] Shefaly Yogendra: I think agenda setting, as we know, is both an exercise [00:21:00] in keeping clarity of sight about the future, but it is also, in large, complex organizations, also a political undertaking. What goes on the agenda can be a really you know, fraught conversation. Who sets the agenda? Who shapes the agenda?

[00:21:17] Shefaly Yogendra: Who decides the prioritization on the agenda? In businesses that are regulated or listed, the, some of the agenda items are decided by what part of the annual cycle you're in. But a lot of other conversations are essentially driven by what are the imperatives for the business. And even within that, people might have you know, disagreements about prioritization or the sequencing of decisions, because sequencing means that one decision might open and close doors for other decisions that the organization can make or cannot make or cannot play in, cannot play in certain arenas.

[00:21:53] Shefaly Yogendra: So it's a pretty complicated exercise in complex and regulated organizations. But if you think [00:22:00] about it, at a small transactional, even micro level, you're doing agenda setting pretty much every day. We decide what we are gonna do with our day. We decide how we deal with interruptions. We decide with what I call the to-do list that other people set for you, which is emails, right?

[00:22:18] Shefaly Yogendra: Emails come in. "Can you respond to this by, like, this afternoon?" If you don't see the email, you can't respond to it by this afternoon, 

[00:22:26] Shefaly Yogendra: right? So how do you allow your attention to be d- taken up or interruptions that you handle, their importance in the big picture agenda that you have? So we all run agendas of our own, and those agendas then collide with other people's and the organization's agendas, and that is where the dance is.

[00:22:46] Helen Wada: Yeah. And you talk extensively about the sort of conflicts of interest and knowing... For me, there's two things, is A, knowing your own agenda and being able to stick to it, which comes back to know thyself

[00:22:58] Helen Wada: again and, and keeping that forward. [00:23:00] It, it's also that ability to do the dance,

[00:23:04] Helen Wada: to know that even if you've maybe gone in with a preset agenda, maybe that's your, your work for the week, but something crops up and actually you need to reset that.

[00:23:13] Helen Wada: And actually if we're too rigid with our agendas, we lose the opportunity or we don't deal with the risks ahead of us. And when we're talking board level units, it's about managing the risks as well as creating the opportunities. 

[00:23:25] Helen Wada: but you also touch on there that conflict

[00:23:28] Helen Wada: and h- the people dynamics and, and yet again we come back to people. We're gonna talk about AI and all that kind of good stuff in a moment. But, but fundamentally, it's people dealing with people and different dynamics and politics. You've got some great stories in the book. Just, you know, tell me a little bit more about some of you, you know, your best learning experiences over the last few years with work that you do.

[00:23:55] Governance as Contact Sport

[00:23:55] Shefaly Yogendra: if I might quickly add to the, the, the people dynamic [00:24:00] thing. There is a line in the book which I have said for several years in many interviews and stuff, et cetera, but I put it in the book. Governance is a contact sport. Everything you're doing, it is a contact sport, right? You can't just kind of, you know, just think that this is how it's gonna pan out.

[00:24:17] Shefaly Yogendra: I'm going to prepare all my points, and then I'm going to insert them wherever they are relevant. It doesn't work like that. Sometimes you just don't say anything in a meeting because it got focused on one aspect of it, for instance. So, so there is, there is that. But I would say the earliest learning I had in this time around, in the...

[00:24:38] Shefaly Yogendra: you know, when I first became a board apprentice, was how truly the thinking behind how do we get better challenge in the room led to my to the chairman of my then host board JP Morgan, US smaller companies, to actually get a board apprentice on the board. [00:25:00] Like obviously a board apprentice is not kind of sitting there like a ripe fruit on a tree waiting to be plucked.

[00:25:06] Shefaly Yogendra: Somebody thought about it. Somebody then set the ball in motion, and then somebody found people to interview, and then picked me. And then knowing-- picked me knowing that they would have to coach me into everything that was about their asset class, the regulatory trajectory, the regulatory history, where it was going, what the challenges were, what the challenges of the market were, particular markets that they were addressing, and so on.

[00:25:33] Shefaly Yogendra: So clearly somebody thought much further ahead. And now, in theory, at the receiving end of an appointment as a board apprentice, I didn't have to think about it, but I did because I'm curious about how did it come to be, 

[00:25:50] Shefaly Yogendra: right? So that was my first thinking, that there'll be things you will have to do before something crystallizes.

[00:25:58] Shefaly Yogendra: You know, as we say, the [00:26:00] overnight successes of people are many nights in the making. Somebody did quite a lot of work, and that patience thing comes back as a recurring, recurring theme. So that's one thing I, I learned very early. The other thing, I worked with another chairman who has now left the board that he was my chair on.

[00:26:18] Shefaly Yogendra: I have, like, a seven-year-long conversation with him about macroeconomics, about societal dynamics, about demographics, about all kinds of things, and it is... He always dismisses it when I say it, but it is fascinating to me how many things every conversation sparked. I spar with him quite a lot. I mean, I do sometimes reach the boundary of where I should be, but I sparred with him quite a lot and how much I have grown, I don't think, in my thinking, I don't think he takes credit for it ever because he's that kind of a person.[00:27:00]

[00:27:00] Shefaly Yogendra: But it, that has been a very interesting, you know, learning for me because ideas sharpen against other ideas. It is friction that smooths both the surfaces, if you think about it, right? You take two rough stones and rub them, both will be smoother in the end. So that is the other thing that I kind of, you know, really enjoyed.

[00:27:23] Shefaly Yogendra: And the other thing is, the third learning I would say is how, in theory, there is a corporate governance code in a given country. But depending on the ownership structure, and this is why in my bio I do mention owner-led and professional manager-led distinction. Depending on the corporate structure of the organization, the way that code manifests in a meaningful way is so different.

[00:27:52] Shefaly Yogendra: So I'm on the board of a business which is technically a LLP, limited liability partnership. Now, [00:28:00] I am not a statutory director because that will mean making me a partner in the business, which I'm not. I'm an external director, so I work like a non-exec, and the structure is completely different from listed companies, from any other, you know, organization which is large as a trading company as well as a charity or a smaller startup.

[00:28:23] Shefaly Yogendra: All of these different contexts, you take the same beast of corporate governance framework and the way it shows up At the table is so completely different. So that recognizing that governance is a multi-splendored thing was actually another learning through the years.

[00:28:41] Conversation Skills and Fact Base

[00:28:41] Helen Wada: There, there's, there's so much there and, and you know, just what I'm hearing is that everything is different. There is no... In the world that we're living in, in the complex global macroeconomic climate that, that we all operate in, there is, there are no easy answers, that conversation matters. You talk about that, that [00:29:00] fiction, that challenge, the... Yeah, I talk about with my coaching work, you know, work with leaders that are looking to, to sell more, to, to grow their businesses. And in a lot of the professional services world it's all been about knowledge economy. What can I bring to you that, that is helpful to you? You know, in, in the right interests. But for me, we need to go beyond that, and that's where the curiosity comes back because through coaching, again, it's a learning from the coaching world that I brought into the commercial conversations we're having. But curiosity and challenge, you can create insight through conversation and not just through information.

[00:29:39] Helen Wada: And I think therefore it makes these conversational skills absolutely critical, and I think, you know, we, we don't do them justice in, in the sort of the, the developing individuals in the careers coming, coming up through the, these organizations wherever you are. And you overlay the [00:30:00] pandemic, you overlay hybrid working into that, that's at a lower level, but we need to really focus on these skills that are right for people to operate across the board

[00:30:11] Helen Wada: and in the board,

[00:30:12] Helen Wada: right? 

[00:30:13] Shefaly Yogendra: Mm-hmm. Yes. I think it's an interesting, you know, thread that I have been following for several years. Me- I'll say, like, 18 or 19 years ago. I can't remember the exact date, but I have written two, and I will write a third post to complete the trilogy. There was a young blogger at the time, who's now a very well-regarded venture capitalist in California.

[00:30:38] Shefaly Yogendra: He wrote something on his blog where he said "We have all these devices and, you know, we can look things up, and a good memory is not necessary as an asset." And obviously I'm older, so I said to him, "It's-- I'm sorry, I have to disagree on that." And this was a time when people used to have very civilized conversations in the comment spaces on [00:31:00] blogs.

[00:31:00] Shefaly Yogendra: So I first commented on his blog, and I came back to mine and developed the whole thing out quite, quite in detail. Essentially, it is remembering facts that allow us to be able to enter a conversation and keep it meaningful, whether it is storytelling, whether it is analogies, whether it is data we remember from somewhere, cultural artifacts, all of this stuff So to your point about we don't pay attention to how the conversational art shapes the decision-making in the boardroom, the challenge that a lot of people don't have fact bases anymore to operate from is a real one.

[00:31:43] Shefaly Yogendra: And so therefore, when you raise a historical challenge based on something that you know, the first question people ask you, "How do you know?" And it's kind of... It's a very interesting question to be asked, how do you know? Sometimes not knowing what [00:32:00] has gone before and did or did not succeed can lead to the same thing coming back around and mirrored in a different wrapper, right?

[00:32:08] Shefaly Yogendra: And that happens with amusing frequency in the startup space. People are talking about why can't there be you know, a vehicle that has 20 people, you can book it on Uber? Yeah, it's called a bus, you know? It's not... It doesn't have to go via Uber. Municipalities ply it, private buses ply, all of that stuff, right?

[00:32:29] Shefaly Yogendra: So one thing is with the absence of fact base that that kind of repackaging, re-wrapping happens. And the other is that it can actually stall a conversation because you have to, by necessity, get drawn into a side conversation to unpack what you have just said so that it makes sense to the other person.

[00:32:51] Shefaly Yogendra: And I have written about the difficulty of sometimes having to unpack every single brick on the yellow brick road to say, "This is how I have come to this conclusion." [00:33:00] And I have also been asked when I unpack, "Why are you reading all this?" At which point I generally turn around and say, "Why are you not reading all this?"

[00:33:10] Shefaly Yogendra: Right? So there is a challenge in the, in the erosion of the fact ways that contributes directly to how people converse or don't converse. The flip side of it, since we said we'll come at some point to talking about AI, the flip side of this is those who retain solid fact bases and the ability to take multiple narratives about the same situation or same historic incident or same technological evolution and understand it from many different points, retain it, and then retrieve it and bring it out in the conversation at an appropriate time, will have an advantage over those who don't have it, who are looking at everything from a smaller and smaller context window, right?

[00:33:51] Shefaly Yogendra: So there is an essential element of retaining our humanity in that respect as well.

[00:33:59] Helen Wada: [00:34:00] Absolutely. 

[00:34:00] AI and Cognitive Outsourcing

[00:34:04] Helen Wada: I was talking to my husband j-just the other night 'cause I was diving deeper into, to AI. I'm all about the human advantage. I get technology is coming in and, you know, I use it in my work. I see others see the benefit. But I was talking to him and I said, "You know, there is a risk here."

[00:34:14] Helen Wada: Someone said, "Oh, you could use all these templates, all these prompts." okay, fair enough. There's all these prompts that you could take, but where does that leave our human brain for thinking? Where does that leave our human brain for building those muscles, for connecting the dots

[00:34:30] Helen Wada: in the conversation?

[00:34:32] Helen Wada: Because those are gonna be the skills that we need to address these uncharted spaces that we're facing, right?

[00:34:40] Shefaly Yogendra: I think it is a, you know, I'm a major technology enthusiast. I,

[00:34:45] Shefaly Yogendra: I have been early adopter of all sorts of things, including various social platforms, and I probably shouldn't admit this, but I've been on LinkedIn, for example, for 22 years. I've-- Yeah, you know. And then [00:35:00] Facebook, when it came around, I was on the first social network.

[00:35:02] Shefaly Yogendra: So they were a major invention when the web became more ubiquitous. Social platforms were one place where they started to appropriate networks and create value within those networks, right? But at the same time, I have always also thought about there were two schools of thought. One was that we are in the shallows, and I think the author of that book has written a-another book recently.

[00:35:30] Shefaly Yogendra: And then there was a school of thought which said human beings have spare cognitive capacity, and that's what will make them into creators of the materials and contents and new writing, and people will be able to do stuff and democratize it and access and make it accessible to a lot of people. That was the original function of the web.

[00:35:48] Shefaly Yogendra: That was the original utopian vision of the web. So when we look at both these schools of thought, I was very much in the cognitive [00:36:00] s-spare capacity kind of tent, not so much in the shallows, because temperamentally I'm not a person who dwells in the shallows. But over time, I have had cause to question that, you know, absolute commitment to one camp, because it has happened.

[00:36:16] Shefaly Yogendra: And I, as a person who teaches, I had... One of my students actually was at my book launch, and he wrote a post on LinkedIn after. But as a person who teaches, it does bother me that there is a wholesale cognitive outsourcing that can happen, especially if students are not coping with their workload. So it puts pressure on you as a teacher to decide how you are going to actually structure the exercise in the class or the reading in the class.

[00:36:45] Shefaly Yogendra: How do you make the material come alive? But more importantly, how do you ensure that they have actually understood? I do tell my students that, "Look, I can put the food in front of you, but it's you who's gonna have to chew it and process it. [00:37:00] I can't do that for you." But at the same time, how do I make sure that if they put the food in their mouth, they're actually chewing?

[00:37:07] Shefaly Yogendra: You know, I was one of those intransigent children that if there was something on my plate which I was supposed to eat, because you don't throw food, I put it in my mouth and then wait. There may be students like that, right? Since we are talking about eating analogies. So there is a lot of cognitive outsourcing and dumping that is happening.

[00:37:27] Shefaly Yogendra: And what is also, when we combine it with the fact-waste issue, is that whatever the, the tool returns to you for asking it a question, how are you gonna fact check it? They do make up a lot of shit. I mean, there 

[00:37:42] Shefaly Yogendra: is 

[00:37:42] Helen Wada: there's so much,

[00:37:44] Helen Wada: ah, excuse my 

[00:37:44] Shefaly Yogendra: It "Really? 

[00:37:45] Shefaly Yogendra: is. 

[00:37:46] Helen Wada: like, "Really? What is this?" 

[00:37:48] Shefaly Yogendra: How did you come to this?" And I was looking at something to write a piece this week, and I looked at a few European businesses that I was looking deep diving into [00:38:00] for particular aspects of their resilience.

[00:38:03] Shefaly Yogendra: And I said, "Okay, maybe I will for a change use one of the LLM tools." So I did. And then of course, as my wont is, I'm a trained researcher, so I started to cross-check the sources. And the sources they were quoting said nothing like what they had deduced and presented to me. 

[00:38:24] Future Generations and Purpose

[00:38:24] Shefaly Yogendra: So I have my reservations about what it is doing to the next generation, but my more proximate worry is that we have a large number of young people, and I believe that over a billion young people will come to the job market in the next 10-ish years,

[00:38:42] Shefaly Yogendra: and the number of job, jobs that will be created is way, way, way short of it. So I would say with my stewardship hat back on, I'm concerned about what futures are we building for the young people. I am... [00:39:00] Don't get me wrong, I opened by saying I'm a technology enthusiast. I love the fact that the models are competing. I love the fact that the models are becoming more and more energy conserving rather than wasting.

[00:39:11] Shefaly Yogendra: People are learning how to outsource unpleasant parts of their work and so on and so forth to these things. There are people who have built entire businesses because they built a workflow on one of the, you know, models, and they're like, "Yeah, I can do this, do this, do this." We have in the author group regular conversations about how do I outsource my social media stuff.

[00:39:32] Shefaly Yogendra: I do all my social media stuff, just for the record. But

[00:39:36] Shefaly Yogendra: that can be set up in a workflow, and it can free people up. And I have always asked people, "The time you free up, what are you doing with that time?" If you're watching, like, something on a streaming platform, I don't know how much that is doing for you to have saved that time.

[00:39:52] Shefaly Yogendra: Maybe you should have spent that time developing your cognitive capacity instead. So I have very, very mixed feelings, and mainly [00:40:00] because I do deeply care about younger persons coming after us, which is why I teach. I have a lot of young kids in my orbit. I'm constantly needling them, talking to them, getting ideas from them.

[00:40:13] Shefaly Yogendra: One of my you know, friend's daughters actually did all the socials for my launch event She put together the launch video, which is on LinkedIn and all 

[00:40:22] Helen Wada: Amazing. 

[00:40:24] Shefaly Yogendra: But her day job is she's a law student.

[00:40:27] Helen Wada: Yeah.

[00:40:28] Shefaly Yogendra: I just put her to task, and she and I have a good relationship, so she did it. I do care deeply about the younger generations, and everything is in that context.

[00:40:38] Helen Wada: it comes back to, you know, the, the last phase in... That I was writing about in Human Why's. It's how do we build a world with sustainable success for all? You know, that, that human piece, you know? These are big questions, Shefali, that, you know, need to be, you know, worked on, explored by boards, coming back to, to where we're both working.

[00:40:59] Helen Wada: [00:41:00] But what is, what is the work that we're doing and why, and who is it for?

[00:41:05] Helen Wada: And are we... I was talking to a podcast last week, and it was like, you know, are we race to robots? We, none of us want that. You know, this is, what is the purpose of our organizations? What is this doing? Where do we want to be going in the future? And these are not small questions. These are big questions. But fundamentally, you need the human skills of curiosity, you need connection, you need challenge. You need to be able to hold a room and hold true to your values to, to help shape the future of business, whether you're in the UK, whether you're global, it could be anywhere.

[00:41:42] Helen Wada: But this is about Being sustainable, making business sustainable. And I think, you know, there's a lot of people that are looking to, to step up to a board position, a non-exec position. We talked about that earlier. And, you know, I'm conscious of time. 

[00:41:58] Pathways Into Board Roles

[00:41:58] Helen Wada: We could go on all day, but for those people listening that, that want to get into becoming a, a board, you're a board apprentice you talked about, what are the sorts of things you would encourage them to think about?

[00:42:11] Shefaly Yogendra: So there are several boards that are now putting together next generation or shadow boards in their organizations, and I think younger people might want to find out about them. In fact, earlier this week, an article I wrote came out about how a Gen Z HR person could boss their first hundred days in the, you know, in the on a board.

[00:42:34] Shefaly Yogendra: And I opened with saying that if you are a, an HR professional and a Generation Z person and you are on your board, your board has hit the lottery whether they know it or not, because here is everything you could bring, right? So for them to recognize what they could bring, but also to find the opportunities that may exist in their organization or in a non-conflicting company.

[00:42:57] Shefaly Yogendra: You know, if they work in a bank, obviously they shouldn't be on the [00:43:00] shadow board of another bank, for example, or a young generation person on the board of another bank. So being able to examine that conflict and get, you know, whatever approvals they need to, in order to go on a, an external board. Another way could be to actually look at- Smaller you know, initiatives.

[00:43:17] Shefaly Yogendra: Nothing, the board doesn't have to be grand. But where I live you know, there is a, an organization that looks after our commons, that looks into the history of the town, finds out all kinds of old pictures, new pictures. Go and volunteer with them if you're a young person to figure out how this navigation of conflicting priorities, agendas, who brings what, people, some people seek limelight, some people seek position, some people just want to do stuff which is fun.

[00:43:47] Shefaly Yogendra: Figuring out different people of different motivations and how do they make it work in the service of something bigger. So getting to experience that early would be a good place to actually [00:44:00] start to see what you're capable of and what you absolutely don't like. So both of those would be helpful.

[00:44:07] Reimagining Inclusion in Boardrooms

[00:44:07] Helen Wada: And I think that's why, and I've, I've got your book here that I, you know, I... Well, like by, by my side, and I, I'm drawn to that reset the agenda, reimagine the boardroom. And I think what you talk about there is, again, there's a traditional view of what a board is or who is on the board. But in the world that we're operating in right now, actually It may be, you know, we've got some brilliant people at those levels, but actually we're needing different thinking.

[00:44:35] Helen Wada: We're needing new people to bring in what are they seeing on the ground, what are they experiencing. And we can only reimagine the boardroom when we have a different makeup of who is on 

[00:44:47] Helen Wada: that board and

[00:44:49] Helen Wada: bringing different ideas and different perspectives. And it's no longer about this hierarchy and number of years service, but actually the skills and perspectives.

[00:44:59] Helen Wada: Comes back to [00:45:00] know thyself, right? What are the skills and perspectives that you have that are of value to the organization or the charity or whoever you're talking to?

[00:45:07] Shefaly Yogendra: And being able to communicate that. It also relates back to our ability to engage in a conversation where you can articulate what value you bring. And that is unfair a little bit because, you know, I was pointed by somebody in my family to a book called Quiet by Susan Cain, which is about introverts navigating a world designed for extroverts.

[00:45:31] Shefaly Yogendra: And I 

[00:45:33] Shefaly Yogendra: had once, yeah, once I was made aware of that book by an introvert in my family, I became very conscious of how I take up oxygen in a room, because it's very easy for me to get into an, into a room and take up all the oxygen because, you know, it's easy, it's natural for me. But that is really also important that there will be someone who will not be able to articulate how they can add value.

[00:45:58] Shefaly Yogendra: So being able to [00:46:00] bring everyone along. The reimagined boardroom is not just collecting diversity, it is enabling that diversity to add value by practicing inclusion. By actually eliciting from the persons around the room you know, boardroom table, everyone's value, and then pulling it together in a way that benefits the organization that's in the service of the bigger purpose that we are there to serve.

[00:46:25] Shefaly Yogendra: So that is a practitioner thing as well, a contact sport, if you will.

[00:46:30] Helen Wada: It really is, and it, and it beautifully links back to, again, if you come back to the coaching skills. I'm, you know, I'm an energetic person. I

[00:46:39] Helen Wada: love to talk. I love to have conversations. I love speaking on stage, all that kind of stuff. But why did I love coaching so much? was because what did coaching as a professional skill teach me was the art of listening, was the art of staying silent, the art of being quiet and [00:47:00] observing, and being able to bring people and draw perspectives on that.

[00:47:03] Helen Wada: And that is p- for me, one of the biggest skills that is undervalued in the world of work today is, you know, you talk about competing priorities, different people speaking their stories. But, but actually those are the most effective often sit back and watch the dynamics,

[00:47:22] Shefaly Yogendra: Yeah.

[00:47:22] Helen Wada: draw things together 

[00:47:25] Shefaly Yogendra: I have a Robert Fulghum poster on my wall, and I mentioned it in a podcast I did, a very early Insta Live I did on the launch of the book on the day of the launch of the book. And the book that is in the form of a poster is called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

[00:47:44] Shefaly Yogendra: And there is a mention of the Dick and Jane books that people in the West might be familiar with. We didn't have those. I grew up in India. But there's a very interesting exhortation there that there was in the Dick and Jane books, the most important word of them all, [00:48:00] "Look."

[00:48:01] Shefaly Yogendra: And if you observe, you're looking at people, you're looking at things, you're looking at dynamics, you're observing how the sun falls on the leaves you know, on the tree outside your window. You're observing. Your brain is making connections, and suddenly a lot more things might make sense because you were observing very clearly what happened.

[00:48:25] Shefaly Yogendra: There is indeed a book which is, I think it's called Thinking Without Thinking, and there's an anecdote in there about two cops in a car. You know how they operate in pairs.

[00:48:36] Helen Wada: yeah, yeah.

[00:48:37] Shefaly Yogendra: They are at a traffic light. There's a car ahead of them, very fancy, brand-new, high-end marque car, and one guy says to the partner who's driving, "I think that car is stolen."

[00:48:53] Shefaly Yogendra: And they're just kind of idly sitting behind that car,

[00:48:56] Shefaly Yogendra: and the other guy doesn't even question him, turns on the siren- [00:49:00] And the car in front of them breaks the light and goes, and they kind of catch him. So in-- There is a discussion around how did you know? And he said, "I don't know. I was looking, and this was a brand-new car, and the driver flicked cigarette ash on the passenger seat.

[00:49:17] Shefaly Yogendra: Nobody would do that to their own car. Nobody would do that to a car they were delivering to a customer. That can only mean one thing, that the car is stolen and they don't care." And all of that came because he was just idly watching the car in front of

[00:49:34] Helen Wada: it's that looking... Ours, ours was Peter and Jane,

[00:49:37] Helen Wada: so I had Jane and Peter, Peter and Jane. And, you know, the kindergarten piece, it, it c- comes right back to where we started with the one word that, it, I'm passionate about from a coaching perspective, you mentioned, we talk about children, is curiosity.

[00:49:53] Helen Wada: The, you know, go to the children and, and they're always asking why, what, what more, how can I? You know, [00:50:00] that, I think that, for me, is, is absolutely essential. 

[00:50:04] Look Curiosity and Closing Advice

[00:50:11] Helen Wada: And, and drawing to a close, I am conscious of time, and it's been such a rich and wonderful conversation. But it's just bringing us back to who we are as human beings

[00:50:15] Helen Wada: How can we elevate on the board?

[00:50:17] Helen Wada: How can we draw through ch- uncharted spaces? How can we navigate uncharted spaces in a way that draws on our skills and experience as human beings? And it's been, it's been really wonderful to have you join us on, on the show. I'm not gonna let you go that easily.

[00:50:37] Helen Wada: I always like to

[00:50:38] Shefaly Yogendra: Hold 

[00:50:38] Helen Wada: leave the listeners with a, a top tip, something for listeners to think about, and then a good coach loves a good question, a question for them to reflect on having listened to our conversation.

[00:50:49] Helen Wada: So where would you start? What would be your top tip?

[00:50:53] Top Tip Question and Where to Find the Book

[00:50:53] Shefaly Yogendra: My top tip is that word, look. A lot of times people aren't looking. They're looking in their [00:51:00] phones, they're looking through the LLM window, they're looking in the search box. They're not looking. So look, that's the tip.

[00:51:08] Shefaly Yogendra: The question is very simple. I-- You know, I was that child you were describing, and I was laughing.

[00:51:13] Shefaly Yogendra: Why? But why? But why?

[00:51:15] Shefaly Yogendra: But the question to ask sometimes is, why not?

[00:51:19] Shefaly Yogendra: Because that opens doors to possibility, and it does turn over all the risks as well, but it also opens door to opportunity

[00:51:33] Helen Wada: I love that, Shefali. Thank you so much for, for joining us. If people have enjoyed this conversation, they like the sound of what you're talking about, where can they find you, and how can they get ahold of your book?

[00:51:45] Shefaly Yogendra: My book is available on the major corporate store online that we all use, Amazon. In the UK, it is also available in Waterstones. And in Waterstones, you can check which stores have it, so you can go there and, you know, [00:52:00] ask for, for your copy. And if you are gonna buy lots of copies, come to the website of the book, which is unchartedspaces.info, and drop me a line there.

[00:52:11] Shefaly Yogendra: And that's also the website where you can sign up. I don't send a lot of stuff, but there will be more conversations as I'm beginning to write more, and I will invite more people to actually help us explore uncharted spaces. So thank you for having me, Hannah.

[00:52:28] Helen Wada: Well, now it's been an absolute pleasure, Shefali. I'll see you

[00:52:31]

[00:53:15] ​