 So first and foremost, good morning, good evening, and good afternoon to everybody's on here. We have folks coming in from different parts of the world at this second panel that we're conducting at ISB. The first one was done last week with Krish, who is the Group Head of HR from Infosys. Richard Recky was a previous KPMG, CEO of India, and Stephen, who is a current regional leader at Hydrogen Struggles. So today it is absolutely my pleasure. I have a distinguished panel here to talk to you today. I'd like to start with a brief introduction, and each one of them are truly interested in building what I call is the next generation of leaders. So with that, I'd like to just say Manoj and I have worked officially over the last couple of years, and it's been a pleasure working with such a empathetic and humble leader. And if you look up his LinkedIn profile, which I'm sure you have, you know him by name, I think his achievements and what he's done in the broader corporate structure, government sector, as well as at the individual level, it goes far beyond what any of us have ever aspired to achieve. So Manoj, humbly I'd say thank you for joining us today, but would love if you could just do a 30 second introduction of yourself also. Thank you Azthik. I think it's more important to share with them what I'm doing now and what I expect to do in the next 5-10 years. So I'm managing a 15 billion portfolio of SoftBank Group and SoftBank Vision Fund. We have more than 20 companies, all are digital AI led companies like Paytm, Oyo, Ola, LensCart, Delivery, PolicyBazaar, Grofers, Swiggy, Flipkart, etc, etc. and we focus on technology, we focus on large digital transformations and that's our focus and that will continue for the next many years. I support the founders and CEOs to scale up the operations by 10x, 20x or even more and that is where I think promoters, founders and CEOs need my help. So that's what I do. Thank you. Thank you Manoj and I think that's very relevant because if we think about the new crop of leaders coming out, they're coming out with the entrepreneurial mindset and really thinking about how do we drive that 10x. So we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts and Anne and I have to say go back a good almost 20 years now. I am going to embarrass you. Anne was my first boss out at Mercer when I got into the real consulting environment. I switched from one company to the other and you probably don't know this but in the company that I worked for before I joined Mercer, I had about 500 billable hours a year and when I joined Mercer and worked for you that in the first year went up to 2100 billable hours. So regardless of what I would say that was a wonderful start and I've known Anne for many years an avid traveler. She will probably also you can go and look up her LinkedIn profile with Anne. Could you also do a quick introduction after I'm perhaps embarrassed you a little bit more than hopefully not. No thank you Ostec. It's been a great 20 years and it's such a pleasure for me to be here. Nice to meet you all. I was in your shoes studying business but I combined business with psychology and that's how I ended up in the career that I'm in now which is leading people in organizations and no offense to my panel members who are in technology and finance but I find the people part of the business to be one of the most complex pieces to really get right for organizations and so I've dedicated my career to people in leadership development and trying to get the organizational dynamics right for companies to succeed. So in my HR leadership roles I've spanned across a few industries advertising technology and now I'm chief people officer for a mental health care company based in London. So really nice to meet you all. Thanks for having me. Thanks Anne. And Rumi, I met Rumi very recently but as Rumi will tell you his background obviously you know he's been at Barglays, HSBC, now at Quinox. He will tell you some stories about campfires perhaps and I recently met up with him in Florida and in the sunny state of Florida but of course Rumi perhaps you could do a quick introduction of yourself also. Sure. I think it's always dangerous asking me to kind of talk about stuff that I may or may not kind of venture into but I think I kind of I'll briefly touch upon my background. I mean I finished college in India and then joined a small or at that time a pretty big IT company worked with them as a fresher and I moved from India I mean about roughly 35 years ago and my you know quest was nothing to do with anything but find something that was interesting adventurous for me and that led me to finally through the Middle East into US and I ended up joining a bank called HSBC. I'm a technologist at heart that's all I've done but I'm also one of those defective technologists who has a desire to be multi-dimensional in that sense. I mean I have many other interests and my biggest achievement in my in my eyes is not about my career but about the fact that I have always loved martial arts and I always wanted to open a martial arts school so I did about five years ago I opened one in in Florida and the reason I share that is there are so many things that you can bring into your life that can add to your overall brand which is what I know Aztec is trying to kind of get across to the team over here and brand is something that you own you know I mean I love it when I meet somebody and I can have an opinion about them I hate it when I meet somebody and I walk away saying I'm not really sure I kind of understand whether this person has A, B or C in their DNA so if there is one thing I tell my daughters all the time it's build your own brand build your own personality have an attitude and go forth and be brave in whatever it is that you want to do so you know everything else you can find on LinkedIn but this part was just something that I don't think I'll put out there. Well fascinating next time Rumi I meet you I want to make sure I sit on the other side of the table because I don't know about the martial arts part but thank you again to this advisor to my advisors my mentors my friends colleagues and to the ISB group who's here so we're looking forward to an interactive session today like I said we will have some Q&A time in the end but let me start over there if you look at the headline of this topic we're discussing today we spoke about strengthening my brand and the big question that I always get asked when we do these sessions at ISB brand is normally equated to an organization right Nike has a brand hired as a brand right now we started asking the question what is the brand that you individually have and quite often I get this question okay so does that brand mean what I look like on LinkedIn or what does my or when do I start coasting when do I start liking and does that influence my brand and listen we're not going to get into the social media part of your as relevant as it is we want to switch this to talk about as Rumi was just saying your brand to build your career to leave a legacy behind to become a collective cohesive leader that can influence the outcomes as you move out of your MBA school sometimes when we do these programs at an MBA school we'll have a conversation about and and I hope some of you remember this the Monte Carlo approach right and technically you guys are absolutely amazing you will spin numbers and tell me about the probability of the Monte Carlo approach of a product being successful and the risk of it not being successful and you blow the numbers away but what we're saying is that is one thing that's table stakes the intellect the technical details that you have is a given now what's going to differentiate you what's going to help you step up what's going to differentiate you and help team your organization drive that 10x model so that's the essence of today's conversation so with that in mind what I would like to do is start with a set of questions Manoj if you don't mind I pull you in here with my first question as we think about successful leaders what are the characteristics which differentiate a highly successful leader today thank you Aztec I think that's very very important thing to know for these MBA students and I feel that they should also know that leadership makes all the difference whether it is a country or a company or a family or a community it's all about leadership and in my view the brand is what you contribute if you have contributed very well you have a great brand if you haven't you don't have a brand so the characteristics I believe which are important are three or four one is and the major one is courage I feel leaders need to have courage courage of conviction what they should do what they should not do when they should do it may be something which is very very different from what others are thinking but leaders should have their own instinct on strategic thought and that's where courage comes from second is which is also very important is that the EQ part of leader and I'm assuming that IQ is already there because he won't be a leader if he doesn't have IQ he or she doesn't have IQ but I think in the years to come EQ is becoming far more important empathy is becoming far more important and the softer aspect is more important for achievement of results and I think if leaders don't have that then for them to outpace competition and achieve superior results will be very difficult very difficult the third thing I want to share is discipline of execution leaders should know what is the discipline of execution because really he or she will make a difference if the business executes relentlessly and that is that that is the hallmark of big leaders and and and if they know how to discipline what is the discipline what is the process what is the way to achieve the best execution I think contribution will be fantastic. Last but not the least which is very important for the coming decade is the technology focus and technology understanding of leaders if they don't know how what technology is coming in in the next three to five years ten years and they don't embrace technology they don't especially digital technology which is there but there's so many others which are coming in if they don't do it proactively if they don't do it personally I think leadership will struggle and I think the business will go behind time behind technology and computational overtake so the point I'm making these are three four very core core characteristics of leaders which others may or followers may not have but leader needs to have as a prerequisite. Absolutely thank you Maharaj and if I can build on that I mean the technology is one part and then to your point on the people side there's execution there's empathy there's EQ there's courage this goes exactly to your point on the people side the leadership side of the behavioral side of the business could you also perhaps give us some insights of what do you see differentiate a successful leader today. Yeah well that's I think Manaj's response was exceptional I was taking notes myself because I think that's a great response but I think he's exactly right on the people side I mean I've seen it from firsthand experience working with CEOs and various organizations where that I've been a part of it's the ones who are really good at spotting great talent and surrounding themselves with a great team of a diverse team with people with different skill sets different perspectives each strong in their fields it makes all the difference and so to have the humility to surround yourself with that kind of talent is part of it requires EQ to like be able to really attract the people to work with you who are really talented in their domains and want to come work with you and keep them motivated that's all about you know having the leadership qualities that we're able to attract and retain that type of talent around you and so I've seen organizations succeed where leaders have been able to do that because you know one day the leader is not there and they're supported by a really strong team that keeps the organization going and then I've seen the opposite too where they haven't had that team behind them and things fall apart from one day to the next when the CEO steps out so I think leaders really need to have an eye for talent and that's that is about having EQ I would also say just connecting what Manaj said to the brand is we all need to have those characteristics and qualities that Manaj said but bringing your own brand and personal style to it is the key too we're all going to be different types of leaders and we can all lead it no matter what level of organization we're at but how you bring your personal style to that is all about your values and how consistent you are in living the values that you stand for as a leader and I'll leave it with that. Alright thank you and I'll Rumi to pull you in could you build on that what Manoj and Anne said and do you have another point of view? So it's always interesting right when you're the last one on the podium you kind of shake your head and say yeah I mean you know those are the things that that that I was going to talk about and and the good news is that neither Anne Manoj or I or Rastik have had a conversation to kind of figure out what we were going to say we are kind of giving our honest point of view but the the interesting thing to me is that we've kind of I touched upon being brave and one of the things Manoj talked about was courage I had on my you know when Manoj was talking about EQ I was thinking about the kind of individuals that one would like to work with so I will kind of reset for a second and rather than repeat what's already been said I'll make a little bit of a controversial point of view that I have seen I mean I worked with various companies in about you know eight to nine different countries in my last 20-25 years and I worked in very different cultures and in very different markets and and environments all of them with a baseline of technology and business that we were supporting right but the businesses were quite different the cultures were quite different and the leaders that were there I've seen those I've seen leaders who are highly successful in a very specific context as an example and M&A you're going in there to do a what I call an aggressive takeover of a company you need a very different leader leadership style that needs to percolate within the team for that specific mission but then I've also gone and had to kind of resurrect a company that had many problems for whatever reasons and the morale was completely in the in the dumps and you needed a very different leadership style to kind of reinvoke the emotions the confidence in the team now if I had just transferred one leadership style to another I think it would have gone and as they would say like a fart in a church because it wouldn't have worked it would have been horrible so I think you as a leader one of the in my opinion one of the most amazing things that you need to bring is to be able to read the room you need to be able to know what is going on that requires certain style that would work best so adaptability we all know that you know you need a certain amount of attitude you need a certain character charisma and at times as I say humor you know you can't always be thinking that everything can happen through intensity I used to do that I mean I was told at times by my own daughters that you're too intense and I kind of realize when you look at the way I'm delivering or engaging in a conversation and if my energy is going to intimidate someone then that's not really going to help the solve a problem so you need to understand what style to bring build your charisma along with your intensity and you know hold yourself to the highest standards I have seen leadership styles where they talk about you know the corporate values and they break every one of them I mean it really hurts me when people have an opportunity to make a significant difference to people to other people to organizations and to customers and you yourself don't know how to walk the talk so if you're going to say something follow through if you're going to ask people to kind of work hard then be the first one at the office and the last one leaving you cannot make you cannot go out there as someone who has the the responsibility to make change talk about change and not be part of the change so to me you know everything that Manoj and Ann talked about I absolutely buy in heaps I think the world that we are going to inherit going forward is going to be very different from a talent acquisition perspective and retention perspective you cannot manage people the same way people have been managed by some leadership styles and some geographies have a very specific management style I would suggest that you know you open up to look and I always talk about being a global citizen a global citizen is not someone that has been around the world 55 times a global citizen is someone who understands what are some of the best practices and how do you kind of bring them into your DNA so look at what make what should make you successful and then figure out where the gaps are and work actively on them a sick told me no more than three to four minutes so here I am I think three and a half minutes that was that was well timed for me I'm going to build on that and if you don't mind all you went on this we execution we're talking about a lot of what Rumi and Manoj spoke about was execution right now when you build this down into what should an MBA graduate do right they're coming into the workplace with a lot of technical knowledge a lot of many of them will be in a some sense a consulting role and when I work with them I say whether you work for a consulting firm and I'm not going to name which ones or you go in as a product manager a big part of your role is consulting and I know your and my heart and DNA is almost formed in that consulting world this part of discipline of execution how do you think MBA graduates would look at this what would make them contribute the most when they go into the workplace when it comes to execution yeah that's a great question so I think that the biggest things that you can contribute and we covered this before which is everybody knows you're smart and you're coming in with a new tool set that maybe the organization you're joining has never seen before and it's very valuable to them I think you're what you've learned in your education through just the rigor of of breaking down a problem and getting through to a solution is something that I learned from my consulting days Ostec and I did it twenty hundred times over and that discipline is something I still bring to my work as an internal person and it's something that served me very well and that will serve you well whether you're consulting consulting to an organization or whether you're in a role inside an organization just that thoroughness of breaking down a problem and finding a process to a solution so use that in space people will find that very useful but I would also say you know in part of the EQ2 is is having a bit of humility so just because you've you've seen this process in your case work or in your studies there are a lot of people around you in the organization who have much more experience in you know what the particular context of your company is or they've tried things before they know haven't worked in your particular industry listen to them keep an open ear and that's part of the consulting skill set too is just keeping an open ear asking great questions listening taking all of those viewpoints in along with all of your education and there you have a magic formula of if you can do both of those things you you're going to bring a lot of value to the organization um so I would you know try to avoid being a little overly overly stuck on process be adaptable to the environment that you're joining and really listen and adapt to the environment around you I guess I would say is my advice that's brilliant I mean and a lot of the work that we do on the consulting side when we when I used to teach consulting skills it was this 80 20 rule right 80 percent of the time or do you have your customers your counterparts your clients your stakeholders probably need them so they speak 80 percent of the time right so how do you manage that shift from me speaking 80 to the client getting 80 percent of the time right and it may not be exactly that but that's a brilliant point you've also captured something on humility so much what I'd like to do is if you don't mind ask you this question and maybe double click and and put you in a little bit of a challenging situation here and the question is yes of course where can MBA graduates contribute the most but also can you give us an example of where do you think the MBA part may derail them right and sorry to put you on the spot on this but I think it's and I started that conversation so I'm going to read it with them. Thank you Azthik you know thousands of MBAs have worked with me and the bad news I want to share with you is that majority of them more than half didn't succeed too much and maybe half succeeded a lot did well so I felt that they are good at new business creation in the startup side support now I see many many MBAs doing very well because it's a new business it's a new culture a new it's very open youthful I think they have done very well I think that is the area where MBAs do very well and that is why now I see the new startups are attracting many many engineers and MBAs both and a lot of young youth talent is going there what they don't do well or why they do not succeed is very important I find two reasons one is that they look at business in a very structured way they look at business in parts they look at business function wise they don't look at business as a whole because MBA really segments the business very precisely which is okay to understand the parts but you need to understand the whole also so because of that they do over analysis and their focus on being hands-on and be action oriented is lower than expected by their bosses so I've heard many times my senior colleagues have come to me that you know he's MBA but he's not he or she is not focusing on the real life he's not taking actions he's not but he's doing excellent analysis which is good I think analysis is good but more than analysis is how you transform that into real life action and I think that is something which MBA need to MBAs after MBA need to have that bias of action the second thing as I feel which I said earlier is that because they're very very smart as do excellent analysis and they're good with numbers and intellectually strong their respect for other colleagues for the team for guys who may not be MBAs guys who may be middle level or junior level is low now whether it is a level of arrogance or ego or what I don't know what but clearly that pulls them down because in companies especially which are executing relentlessly it is about team it's about team performance not individual performance so you may be the smartest guy in the team but if the team doesn't support you you won't do it you won't be able to do it you won't execute well because the team will let you down because you are letting down the team either through not being respectful or not being empathetic not being humble which is most important for the team today teams work with humidity work with people who work hand in hand shoulder to shoulder so these are a few things which MBAs as they come out I feel they should they should try to be more close to the team and try to be more hands on thank you well said I mean I'm taking notes again here now we're along with you and so grooming to put you in here on that question around in your opinion where do you think MBA graduates can contribute the most and perhaps can you give us an example from your work partly is HSBC across the world where have you come across a particular person that got derailed because of that personally I mean I'm not going to say MBA or otherwise because it almost seems like a title given by the queen I think I am one of those individuals that are always respected people for what they do not what they were supposed to do so I think you know first don't take this title too seriously I mean you you became an MBA because you were able to get go through a a course you were able to keep up the pace you were able to learn and you were therefore rewarded for learning whatever it was that you were asked to do now that does not change when you go into the workplace you don't go into any job showing a piece of paper and saying look what I was able to do in the rear view mirror nobody cares you know it's a zero-sum game boys and girls each and every day you wake up in the morning you start you reboot the day nothing nothing follows through from yesterday what you did I mean I don't wake up this morning talking about what I did yesterday I mean today is a new day we are having a conversation here about what tomorrow should look like well in that case you need to prepare today for tomorrow but tomorrow you're not going to be able to look back and say but that's what I did yesterday so get into the game understand that you know being real is really really important forget about preaching quantificating etc you know nothing is more off-putting than academic arrogance to anyone around us so fortunately for me I never had the academia to boast about I had to kind of roll up the sleeves and work hard with those IIT guys side by side and figure out how I was going to make a difference so if you believe in yourself go out there and grab whatever it is you want to grab but that will require a lot of hard work and nothing happens without sacrifice so if somebody believes that because they have a piece of paper telling the world that they have done something that's great that will get you in the room but to now sit in the room there are 20 other hungry people around you you need to outpace them and that only happens through hard work that only happens through focused and disciplined output and like I think Manoj or Ann or someone mentioned this academic arrogance if that is at display will completely destroy you so I have seen it myself people who have had those kind of attitudes and they don't really carry very well in any organization I would also say that learn to interpret ambiguity the world today changes at one of the fastest pace possible and in order to deal with ambiguity you need something else you need an attention to detail meaning if you really know your underlying foundational business dealing with ambiguity becomes very easy but if you are this fluff at the top and you only talk but don't really know what the processes do that is the reason one of the biggest failure points for leadership or for grad MBA graduates or any other what I call highly qualified academic person is that they are talking from a theoretical point of view life doesn't work on theory life works on shit that happens every day life works on changes that happen every day and you need to be cognizant of what is making those wheels turn if you don't know the the nitty gritty of your business if you don't understand the world of technology and I said the world of technology just as Manoj did because today the world is going to live off that you know the world of AI that is kind of knocking at our doors is not just a theory it's a reality and what that's going to do is going to segregate the the mundane tasks that that happen the numbered crunching etc that's going to get automated and it's already automated I think what is now required is how are you going to deal with those humans that are going to augment that reality that intelligence and that requires a very different kind of behavior so one other thing that kind of pops in my head is again the art of communication the ability to communicate effectively is so underrated and I really think that people when they graduate with a lot of these honors about a domain or about a technology or whatever it is that they graduated if they're not able to kind of get around the table and effectively communicate their point of view what good is it I mean you know you are you're not going to be able to kind of make what I call missionaries out of mercenaries you know if I have always believed that in life you need to take one of two paths you're either a missionary or you're a mercenary and in my you know I grew up with the missionaries for 11 years in school from from Spain and those guys drilled into me one thing basics ethics hard work discipline go out there and conquer the world but you require those other things that I said before in order to conquer the world beautiful thanks Rumi I mean listen guys some tough words of wisdom right but we wanted to make this panel real and give you a sense of what you're looking forward to what will make what will differentiate you right so let me build a little bit on what Rumi said and Monaj if you don't mind I'll pull you in we spoke about don't take the titles too seriously and these tough words of wisdom when we think about with your MBA graduation or if you're the star or the sales star right does that get you into the room does that get you promoted does that get you selected to the executive level how should you look at is a sales star of yesterday necessarily going to become the executive of tomorrow any insights on what we spoke about no MBA I even I feel very differently MBA is just a degree it doesn't get any badge on the chest the badge on the chest comes from your actual execution contribution which may take you six months may take you one year sometimes some guys are slow it may take three years five years so once you get a badge on the chest let's say in first six months of working in a company and you make one achievement only one achievement which is significant and people notice you they start noticing you then people start trusting you they start coming to you they start building confidence in you and they don't know whether you are MBA or XYZ it doesn't matter actually it is the badge on the chest of your contribution once that badge is there then you start building trust and then you do the second good thing and the third good then then it becomes your habit and people also know that it is a good habit this guy has he achieves many many things so it's very simple and I think MBA is just an education that's all I mean it could be education like any other degree but it's been bloated up too much I'm also MBA so I feel that it doesn't deserve much of recognition I think you have to do what you have learned that is more important. So I'll build on that and then I'll pull you in in a second I do think I personally think from my point of view that an MBA does give you a certain way of thinking and a certain linear strategic streamlined way of thinking right and if anybody tells you that was your MBA worth it I would tell them to very simply was all right so it is absolutely 100% worth every penny and midnight sweat that you have put into it now what the team is trying to tell you here is you have to go beyond that MBA right you need to go from there into how do you take the rest of the team along with you how do you build on this this holy grail word of trust and that's where I want to pull you in and this is not perfect again so going with this if I take an example of the trust that you and I have built over 20 years I can call you tonight and hand on heart I know that you may be on the next plane to come and help me out right a lot of that was built of trust now that's a personal relationship how do you go about building trust in the workplace what do you do is it is it something an activity that you do something you build over time what has worked for you across with with me with others with a lot of other networks that you have yeah it's a great question well there's a few there's a few things and it of course it is critical to do this because you're going to be coming many of you will be coming in alongside people perhaps in the same job who don't have the MBA background but they they have five years of experience background and you're all equals on this team and so you know you may be perceived as a threat that you may be welcomed with open arms who knows but you have to build trust with those other team members and kind of create a level playing field so how do you do that well I think one one thing is to be reliable that's like sort of the great table stakes you know do be there take on some tasks take on your piece of even the grunt work that needs to be done and deliver when you say you're going to and with quality and be the person on the team that everyone can trust to get things done and pull your weight don't nothing's but below you you're you're a member of the team and then I think you can be a help to your colleagues so you know if you're the one who's leaning in to help others who may have a lot of work on their plate and you can help take that off their plate or help them somehow maybe teach them some of your skills and while you learn some of theirs and do it all with humility I think that's where you build the relationships and start to build the trust with your colleagues and I think that's how we built our exotic when didn't we when we were all working on the same team with our clients we also built a bit of trust by maybe having a few drinks after work and building like personal relationships too which are very important but all of that came together I think to build these these trustful relationships so it's that that reliability leaning into doing whatever is required for the team helping your colleagues and then spending the time to build the personal relationships. Absolutely and to make this personal for the Rumi you and I have spoken about a very key part of what you tell people to do when the first time they go out and they may travel from India to Seattle or to Tokyo or to Singapore or to Sydney and in this group especially in your career you will be global citizens you probably will travel. Rumi what should they do that first evening there when they go out and I know I'm bringing out a personal advice you've given me also. No I think I was just kind of relating that you know I used to by the way you know I love I want to first go back to what Asik said I think academia is important I don't want anyone to walk away over here thinking that you know getting a degree is not a good thing of course it is because it shows you it forces you to kind of acknowledge knowledge you know understand how knowledge is acquired gets you into the habit and the discipline of studying these are not things that happen easily for everyone and as and you will find out as you grow older or as you have already found out when you're older that ability to kind of learn at a focused pace is not easy so I think it kind of gives you all of those blueprints that you can use and I think what we are here to do today is tell you we've already traveled that path but what we are now doing is traveling the path that you are going to travel upon and are kind of telling you what are some of the pitfalls that you may face and how you could avoid some of them provided you are true to yourself provided you kind of open up look in the mirror and say yeah these are areas that I must kind of do something about and we all have those areas there is not one person sitting on this panel over here that has not kind of bettered herself or themselves over the years you know I talk about my own demons each and every day to myself and I need to know how to control those demons because they'll never go away they'll be there in my DNA and they will stay with me but I know how to control them and I think each one of us need to be real about ourselves so that would be my first I mean same advice that I give my grown daughters who have been through the same MBA course that I'm talking to over here so but I'll go back to a stick question or rather prompt to me and at that prompt was that I had an amazing cadre of youngsters brilliant working for me in China in India in Brazil and you know in Eastern Europe in Czechoslovakia in Poland Krakow etc and I used to kind of send them on these consulting gigs you know to UK to Hong Kong to US and other places because that's where they kind of got the real business sense because while they were sitting in these factories where we were manufacturing and I'm using the word manufacturing of software and content unless and until you're facing the business pressure each and every day you don't really know what goes on in the coal mines what problems the sales guys are facing what problems the operations guys are facing or what problems customer service guys are facing talking to customers each and every day but one of the things I found was that they'd go to these business areas and they'd still be staying within their own little clique you know three of them go there the three Brazilians go to the Brazilian restaurant the four Indians go to the Indian restaurant or they go back home and cook some stuff up but the same thing and I said guys you have to stop this you when when you are sent that you are sent for the whole experience the whole experience means you're going to you're going to try out foods that you never were trying out when you were in your own country when you're with a team of Americans or Brits or whoever or Aussies you're going to go out with them for a drink and by the way you don't need to drink if that's not what you want but you're going to buy a freaking round after they have bought you five Coca-Cola's it doesn't matter that you are not drinking but you need to put up your hand and say okay the next round's mine this is how you build empathy between people but if you constantly strive to be different guess what you're going to be differentiated by others so don't be surprised when nobody then invites you to that party that they are having in their backyard because you never showed any reason for them to engage with you so you know I think and I want to kind of add to solve the things that Ann and Manu talked about because I think that what gets you into the room which is your background your credentials of what you have done doesn't keep you in the room because in the room you need to deliver every day as I said it's a zero sum game wake up in the morning start again and I think if you get yourself in that mentality that I need to be delivering you're going to figure out how to help somebody else and I think there is a very big missing component in our selfish lives where we talk about you know what I am going to do but just ask the question what did I do for somebody else you know did I help somebody else because that's what Ann was talking about the trust component that happens when you go and volunteer to help someone you know you know that one of your colleagues is having a problem yeah let me build on what you said especially on the learning piece over there right and this is the kind of as we get towards the end of today and we will break for a Q&A over there we hear about this buzzword of agility right and even in the role that I play at Hydric and Struggles agility is a key form of what we look for in leaders of tomorrow which is their ability to adapt or foresight the learning and resilience and I'd like to ask you Manoj when you look at agility today and given the context from what Rumi said around the learning piece or even the foresight and how do you adapt what's your point of view of the importance of agility for this next generation of leaders let me first take you through my experience in Airtel we started that company with Ground Zero and took that company to 400 million customers and our key ammunition at both our speed we surprised the market we surprised customers we surprised competition we surprised government we surprised sometimes ourselves how could we do so much and and I think that experience of such a huge scale up proved to me that agility will be the number one ability of a company to win in the next phase of a business across the world now agility will come from two areas one it will come from technology because you need to digitize internally and digitize externally internally all the functions externally all vendors dealers distributors every stakeholder so that it's all online nothing is offline everything is online that brings speed of decision making speed of execution speed of responsiveness to the market changes and speed of hitting back at competition that's very very important the second very important way of achieving higher agility is culture it's about people enthusiasm people's passion people's ownership of the brand like in Airtel just to go back we had two popular sayings one is that I am Airtel so employees should say I am Airtel I do this as if I don't own the company I don't I'm not a shareholder but I own it I own the brand when people look at me they meet me they feel this guy is Airtel so that is one second is you know their their enthusiasm from that I want to win every day so the slogan was win every day and that win every day and it's not about a week or a month a year it's about every day I come and I win it and the day I don't win it in the marketplace I'm very upset with myself and my team why did it happen let me come back and do it again tomorrow morning so the agility will come from a combo very powerful combo of technology and enthusiastic culture if these two a leader can blend I'm telling you that company is worth investing because that company will do the team proud the the investors proud and really move far ahead of competition thank you and to pull you in on this one as you said in your introduction a lot of this is really coming down to the individual to the person to the people side even the culture of the business right your point of view on culture and not necessarily the organization culture but when it comes to agility culture how does an individual contribute to that right we often see clients doing these large culture transformations but how do you make it real with an individual what can these leaders do when they go into an organization to drive that whatever the cultural shift that they're part of yeah well before I get into that I just wanted to use a great example of agility in terms of just this last year and a half and what companies have had to do in the face of covid I mean we don't know what the next thing is around the corner but that was a tremendous opportunity for if you looked at it that way or disadvantaged depending on how you how you managed it as a business but it was a lesson in agility and what we learned I think from that is you there no one had the right answer we still don't know what the right answer is it's all about experimentation being willing to fail and try something else being willing to innovate being willing to do things the way we've never done them before and for everyone to be open minded to that and this time it was out of necessity but in that that is kind of what culture is right it's about preparing people to look around the corner be open for what's next I think every company is in the face of probably to speak to what Manoj just talked about every organization every industry is undergoing tremendous digital transformation of some sort and there's a competitive threat on the horizon and so if you don't create a culture where people are agile they're ready to embrace the future you're it's likely that you're sitting in a company in an industry that is going to be dead pretty soon so being able to get every single individual on board with that mindset is hard but it's necessary I think for the leader of the future to be able to build an organization like that because like I said no matter where what you're doing or what kind of business your company is in you've got to be ready for what's next how do you do that I mean I think Rumi talked about it before it's leading by example so the messages come from the top it comes if you're going I see a question here about going into mid-level or senior management roles you're in a role where everyone's watching you they're watching how you role model this innovative this risk-taking behavior if you're doing it they're going to follow if you're not doing it then it's all just words on the wall so that's not good well said and Rumi building and working on answer coming to about the last five or so minutes I'd like to open it up there's some very good questions in there that I'd like to pop open but just one thing from what Anne said Rumi as you look forward right we've spoken about successful leaders today if you were to fast forward 2025 2030 how do you think leaders will be different right whether it's technology orientation to your political managing a multiple multi-generation workforce how do you think leaders will be different in 25 and sorry 2025 or 2030 interesting interesting question something that I think most people in leadership roles have been thinking for a while and I think to me the biggest change that I see I mean leaving the technological stack which is going to evolve tremendously I think I want to touch upon that in a second but to answer your question directly I think talent is almost going to become you know this concept of an employee I personally believe it's going to get very disruptive meaning I have a skill I can be available for multiple companies to go and provide my services it's almost like and that is why I I found this session very interesting about building your brand yes you're not a company as a brand but guess what I was feeling you are going to be the company selling your brand to millions and billions of others to also surrounded by billions of other brands that are similar so what are you going to do to differentiate yourself whether it is how agile you are or how disruptive you are or how flexible you are that I think is going to be the difference I almost feel like there is going to be an auction that I can get up in the that I can get up in the morning and say you know what I want to get an app developed I'm willing to pay $5,000 I want it at the end of the day bid I want to you know or somebody's or I'm going to go on to a marketplace where people are already offering their services and I'm going to say I need an analysis done from this model that I've developed and I want some data to be aggregated so that my model can work on and give me a result a lot of these things by the way are happening but they're not happening at massive scale so what I'm proposing over here is building your brand now becomes even more critical even more important because the the pace for people who are going to be required is going to be high but it's not going to be for everyone not everyone is going to get that bid not everyone is going to get selected but I mean it may sound futuristic but that's how I see really good technical or domain folks being used you know consulting is an ever-going thing but my what I'm proposing here is that it's going to hit a very different high and a very different way of how we are going to get results from the workplace so if you were to indulge me with my thinking then you would kind of start looking at yourself much more seriously as a brand that you want to offer in the marketplace Manoj can I just pull you on on that last question around if you fast forward to 2025-2030 what do you see successful leaders doing differently in terms of technology or in addition geopolitical or the ability to manage a multi-generation workforce thank you Aztec so you are absolutely right I think technology and geopolitical impact on business will be most important for any leader and these two if you can manage and write these two you're on top of technology and top of geopolitics by understanding etc then you are a king but beyond these two there are two more which which I believe are a very powerful combo for a leader to to guide and shape the organization number one is innovative business models I believe that leaders have to shape business models which are very different from the past which are new business models which are led by technology which are led by how to reach to consumers faster with better product with affordable price etc I think across the world I'm seeing innovative business models are critical for long-term success and leaders have to lead it and have teams focus on this and and really do it faster than anyone else in the market so that you win your first time right the second area which is not a new area but but will continue to be bigger than past is to build a star team I feel leaders who can build star teams high performance culture and and where teams can really work very closely with each other supporting each other blending bonding with each other I think will win this was a slogan 10 years 20 years for 40 years back this will continue to be a bigger issue because I feel that the teams now are very smart they're all very well educated they're all very young the millennial generation where where they're very aware they're very conscious of the profits and the purpose and many things which we were not aware when we started our career I think building a star team out of that generation is a challenge and if leaders can do it then their performance of business will also be far superior so these are the two major aspects where leaders will have to focus thank you before we close I'd like to ask the panel here right one last question if from all of what we have said right if there was one nugget of wisdom in 30 seconds that you can share with this next generation of leaders what would that one nugget be Rumi can I start with you for us this is one of those books right I mean 10 rules to make a billion dollars okay I think it in my opinion it's got to be your attitude meaning I define attitude as being able to face whatever is thrown at you work life situations you know how you adapt to it so if I'm given 30 seconds to kind of print my billion dollars as the as the answer it would be adaptability coupled with attitude and that that should kind of that that's something that has would be my one one pointer for the team thank you Rumi and your point of view your insights I don't know there's so many good insights here and I'm glad you didn't put me on the spot first but I'm still I think I would have to say think about what you want to be known for because since the topic of the conversation today is building your brand think of something that comes naturally to you that doesn't come naturally to other people think about what you want to be known for and use that as your your trump card as your secret superpower that you can pull out in any situation that will differentiate you from other people so think about for you what that is and I remember when I was back in Singapore walking on the street from the office and seeing this photo that said if you think about your legacy is it a signature or your autograph so what's the legacy you're leaving behind for your what the legacy was what's your legacy is it a signature or an autograph right are you putting your mind into it I think it was a brilliant it was on a board literally on the side of her all right that legacy is important but how do you turn it from a signature to a autograph over to you one nugget of wisdom sorry to put you all in the spot with the one piece but yes not no I'm not in the spot I'm very clear that the autograph has to be your attitude as Rumi said there's nothing else which is more important attitude is your altitude it is attitude which will make you win every time a positive attitude a glass half full a positive spirit is always going to win and I am noticing many youngsters having it but some youngsters are a bit cynic so I will request all the MBAs students who are listening just to tell you that cynics don't win so don't be a cynic be positive be optimistic be hopeful that's the way to win in life I say can I can I just you know there was a I was penning down something and I written it for this team for the MBA colleagues and it was about you know we don't need to wake up every day wanting to do one great thing we can wake up every day to do many small things great every day and I think that's a mantra that I think can can be used in our life can be used in our relationships and can be used at work you don't need to do that you know because all of us are under so much pressure to kind of hit that ball out of the park every day that life doesn't work like that wife is about those little ones you know the runs the home bases only come once in a while so whatever analogy you want to hit of cricket or baseball you know either you're hitting fours and sixes or you're hitting the ball out of the park that doesn't happen every day but what does happen every day is you're given a chance to win runs you're given a chance to steal bases and if you can keep doing that those fours and sixes and out of the park balls will keep happening thank you listen there's one thing that comes to mind as we close this session right and I you've heard some great wisdom from the from the from the advisors I always think when I when I work with MBA students and I it goes back to this statement that I saw Roger Federer who's a tennis player made a couple years ago and he spoke about over the last decade of tennis how Djokovic and Nadal playing with Federer equally competition right I mean really the most competitive environment in the world but he compliments them for collectively bringing the game of tennis up 10 times and he said without that our game would not have been where it is so we have individual ideas but I also think it's our responsibility as the next generation of leaders how do we pick up the entire ecosystem around us and that's where I personally think you will differentiate yourself as you move forward listen we have literally we're at eight o'clock I want to personally thank everybody for joining this personally and you've been a great friend all along Rumi fantastic meeting you Manoj I cannot thank you enough for the mentorship for the last year and thank you to all three of you for joining us