The Exchanges

Q Any, any CEO that you admire the most?

A There are lots of people in my career that I've admired. I've said this before. One of my, one of the early people I admired a lot is a chap called Robert McNamara. Now, McNamara was the CEO of the Ford Motor Company. Okay, till President called, President Kennedy called him and said, now come and be my Secretary of Defense. And he was involved in the Vietnam War, a great guy. Then he went on to be the Chairman of the World Bank. So he's one of the few guys in the world who has worked in private sector, government, and public sector. That's rare, ok, non-profit when I say public, non-profit, ok. So, McNamara was outstanding that he was, when I used to read about him, when I was in college, starting my career, etc, almost everybody would say he would easily be the best prepared person in the room. He would read every single document said to him. That's a habit I ingrained from McNamara. Now, the other good habit of McNamara is, after he finished his stint, the Vietnam War, everybody got pasted. Everybody got egg on their face. He wrote a lovely book called In Retrospect, where he said, what went wrong? Why did we go wrong with the Vietnam War? That requires a lot of reflection, and a lot of humility to say, I was wrong. Yes. And McNamara says, the reason why we went into the Vietnam War was, we assumed that Vietnam will go the communist route. He said nobody sitting in President…

AI assessment note: “One of the early people I admired a lot is a chap called Robert McNamara.”

Q So how was your experience with Nokia was different from PepsiCo and Unilever? PepsiCo and Unilever were similar?

A Similar yet dissimilar, because the categories are very different, food and this thing. Nokia was easily the best company I've worked in. I have no shame in saying that. A wonderful bunch of people, great culture, ok. In Nokia, what mattered was, you did what's right for the company. Earlier you were talking about, you know, how do you ensure that people work for the institution, who can speak out. You know, in 2010, when Nokia had its reorganization, Ok, one engineer. We used to have 860 blogs in Nokia those days. Ok, not today. 15 years ago. One of the engineers of R&D wrote in a public blog, ok, saying, this reorganization is like reordering the chairs on the Titanic. Imagine. His boss, Nicholas Savender, who was the Chief Operating Officer, came to, you know, visit us in Delhi. I was running India then. So, in the car journey, I said, hey, Nicholas, this guy David has written this. You know what Nicholas said? Yes, Shiv, I need to tell him that, you know, it's good to have this thing, but, you know, just think about what you're posting.

AI assessment note: “Similar yet dissimilar, because the categories are very different... Nokia was easily the best”

Q Like, um, lot of emphasis on value system. Like, what, what kind of value system the person has? It has a lot to do with background. You don't agree with that.

A Difficult to judge, you know, difficult to judge in this world. Like, for example, you see the number of fraud cases which are happening. Ok, CUS are doing it, CXOs are doing it. Ok, look at the number of people. Today I was talking to somebody in the verification business. They verify candidates for first job to IT companies, banks, etc, etc. I asked him, ah, you know, hey Ravi, if you interviewed hundred people, the company asked you to interview hundred people, do their background check, ref check, everything except for university degree, and you send the papers up, how many go wrong? He said five to seven percent. That's a hell of a lot for a start, for a startup thing. So now, how do I judge the value of that guy or the values that he professes? If seven percent of those degrees are fake or seven percent of what he said on his CV is wrong. So I think we live in a world where puffery is the norm. Leaders claim puffery. You know, everybody is exaggerates what they do. Facebook, Instagram.

AI assessment note: “Difficult to judge, you know, difficult to judge in this world.”

Q Do you think it has started happening more frequently now? Like people are more impatient, quick results they want.

A It's not impatience. I would say what I see is that young people believe, believe they have a lot more opportunities today than ever before. So if I have a lot more opportunities, I don't need to suck up to Nancy, Nancy the boss. I can tell Nancy fly a kite. I'm off. I know my value. I know my worth, and I'll get something else there. So I always tell young managers have great commitment. If you have that commitment and the company is not repaying it in whichever manner and right you believe you deserve, you watch them. If it doesn't, you move on. So today the number of industries, the number of opportunities are so wide that young people have that inherent confidence of taking risks with their careers, which wasn't true 20 years.

AI assessment note: “It's not impatience. I would say what I see is that young people believe”

Q Politics, pettiness, procrastination, and personal ego. Which one of the four P's has been the hardest to vanish?

A You know, the hardest always I have found is, ah, You prepare very well. I tend to prepare very well and go for all meetings. You do all the work, etc. And people just procrastinate again. Ok, the ability to influence that when you know that it's the right thing to do, ok, is a very frustrating experience. So, you can call it a combination of others procrastinating and your ego not accepting that, hey, you know, I am well prepared, trust me, ok, that I am looking ahead and telling you. When I look back at my decisions over the last, ah, 20 years as a CEO, I could say that nine times out of 10 I was right. And that's a pretty good strike rate. Ok, so that gives me the confidence all the time. Yesterday I was in a board meeting. We're talking about the structure. Now, the structure, the head of the nominations committee was clear that this is the structure. I was pretty clear. But the other seven people of the board had a different point of view. So we had to go through a full process for an hour to convince them, to give them lots of logic, etc. Why it is? Now what happens when you are prepared, when you have experience, and by and large you want to do the right thing for the institution is, the answer comes to you intuitively.

AI assessment note: “combination of others procrastinating and your ego not accepting that”

Q And, and how would you prepare in those days?

A Ah, I would just look at the data. I would just look at the thing saying, is there anything Which I have a bias towards. Because one of the things about developing a hypothesis, Nancy, is you can get very caught up in your hypothesis and be blind to it, and not see the blind spots in it. So I would constantly look at the data, constantly scan to say, hey, what I'm saying is in the best interest of the company. It is not about me. So when you suspend anything which is accruing as a benefit to you, and you say, hey, I'm working in the company's best interest, and this is the right thing to do, then you'll work very differently. So, every day of the challenge, I remember we had a horrible, ah, meeting, ah, with the CEO and, ah, the board. Really horrible meeting. Short of, those guys told us, you have no clue what you are talking about. In hindsight, I will tell all of them, they had no clue. That's why they were talking like that, ok. And, ah, that evening, I went out for dinner with my, it was a terrible meeting. Ok, really bad. So I took my team out and said, hey guys, are you confident that what you're saying is right? They said yes. I said, don't worry. The day will come when they'll come back and tell us that what we're saying is right. You don't need to worry. As long as you're very sure In your heart of hearts that you are doing the right thing. Okay. So, you know, it's ea…

AI assessment note: “I would just look at the data. I would just look at the thing”