Let’s Get Real
ISBN 9789395264167

Highlights

Notes

  

Chapter I: Knowing Yourself

Why Is It So Important to Know Yourself?

“Self-awareness is a foundational skill: when you have it, self-awareness makes the other emotional intelligence skills much easier to use. As self-awareness increases, people’s satisfaction with life — defined as their ability to reach their goals at work and at home — skyrockets.

Self-awareness is so important for job performance that 83% of people high in self-awareness are top performers, and just 2% of bottom performers are high in self-awareness.

Why is this so?

When you’re self-aware, you’re far more likely to pursue the right opportunities, put your strengths to work, and perhaps most importantly, keep your emotions from holding you back. The need for self-awareness has never been greater.”

Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

Know Your Values

One big part of knowing yourself is awareness of your values. The issue of values keeps cropping up in coaching conversations, and I find I need to remind people of some fundamentals.

Let me narrate an interesting conversation that happened with one of my former colleagues, Ms. H. H is a 36-year-old CFA charter holder with 12+ years of work experience who had a job that she wasn’t happy with.

H: “Hey, I need some advice from you. I’ve got through to the senior management profile in XYZ. Should I take it?”

Me: “Why are you thinking about changing?”

H: “It’s a senior position and well paying.” (Tells me the details.)

Me: “Is there any other reason you want to grab this apart from the salary hike?”

H (Thinks hard): “Not that I can immediately think of.”

Me: “Do you need the money that badly?”

H: “Not really. We already have a decent living, I suppose.”

Me: “Look, I know this company, industry, and most importantly, I know you well. You would be new to this role, and it is nowhere related to the career graph you have had so far. Moreover, it is only remotely linked to the CFA body of knowledge and your long experience. It may lead to unnecessary pressure and stress which you might not need at this stage of your life and career. Luckily you have no liabilities and no urgent financial need. Keep looking for the right role. Makes sense?”

H: “Yes.”

Me: “More fundamentally, this is the third opportunity you’ve called to ask me about in the last one year. So, what I am really worried about is that you keep asking me these questions because you are not sure. And, you aren’t sure because you’ve no idea what you want from life and your career. You are like a small boat that easily gets pulled in any direction by the wind and waves. You really need to think hard about your goals and values.”

The chat ended with me giving her a few tools and techniques on how to know herself better.

Another scenario I have seen is choosing higher education as a path to a specific career. Yet another situation where knowing yourself becomes invaluable.

For example, someone in her early thirties working in mergers and acquisitions with a large company in the UAE called me up.

Her: “So, I am going to quit my job soon.”

It was unexpected, and I asked her why.

Her: “The plan is that I make enough money, and in the next year I start my MBA journey with a top college in North America and thereby get into investment banking.”

I was surprised, as I knew it would be a mistake, but I didn’t say so immediately. I wanted her to understand the process.

Me: “So, let’s get to the basics and let me ask you — what are your values?”

Her: “Interesting, because I wrote these down last night. I got impact, mental health, work–life balance and family.”

Me: “That’s what I expected. Look, life on the sell side can get brutal, with 70-hour weeks, few breaks, lack of sleep, ass kissing, poor physical health, getting zero empathy, working with world-class jerks, having to prove yourself every day, constantly faking it, facing subtle (or not so subtle) racism and sexism, and so on. You see the big difference between your values and IB?”

Her: “But, many aspire for and get into IB and there are many pluses.”

Me: “I agree. First, I’d suggest that you don’t follow the standard path followed by the many. They may know what they are getting into, and it may suit them. Or they may be unprepared for the misery that awaits them, and I have heard and seen a lot of this. Secondly, this choice can cost you not just the $ 100K+ for the MBA but more crucially your mental health, which you’ve finally sorted out over the last few years. It’s not for everyone.”

Her: “So, where do you think I fit in?”

Me: “I think you are better off on the buy side, in equity research, in corporate finance, in mutual/pension funds, endowments, and the like. Probably even professionally managed nonprofit organizations. These are workplaces that are far less toxic, and they are long-term-oriented organizations with investment horizons of 5–10 years and even more. But, you don’t fit in IB.”

Poor job fitment is probably the #1 reason why millions are stressed, disengaged, and miserable at work despite fancy titles and big paychecks.

And, it’s not just about poor mental health. The body and mind are closely linked and there is some evidence that continual stress can be a serious issue later on in life, triggering a raft of major stress-related illnesses.

Know yourself. And choose wisely. Because not everything has to be learnt through painful and expensive experiences.

Coaching Tips to Assess/Weigh Your Values

    1. Know your values. This is so important. Values drive behaviors, and behaviors result in outcomes. So, it all starts with values.

    2. Why are values so crucial? They are like your reliable GPS, your omnipresent compass.

    Knowing my values has helped me a lot, and so let me give you a few significant professional situations where knowing your values can help hugely:

    If you are studying career options, whether this is the right career for you because of what you will be required to do or accept in that career and how much that is aligned with your values. For example, investment banking can screw up your personal relationships, your physical fitness, and your mental health so it’s not for anyone who cares deeply about these matters.

    If you are job hunting, whether to join a company knowing what you know about its culture. This will help you narrow down to a shortlist. For example, you may have ethical issues working for big companies in defense, tobacco, or alcohol in which case these are out.

    If you are already employed, whether to accept an internal offer that requires working with a new team. Teams also have their values. For example, you may want to join a team whose boss you’ve worked with before and whose values are aligned with yours.

    If you are a mentor, whether to accept or reject mentees based on what you know about their values.

    If you are an advisor or board member to startups, you can decide whether to work with a startup by the values that the co-founders demonstrate through their words and actions. For example, I have opted out of advising several startups in the past few years because the co-founders were opaque, greedy, or insecure, all of which are inconsistent with my values.

    If you are an entrepreneur. Such a person is typically a jack of all trades required to make a variety of decisions regarding (for example) marketing, selling, quality, scheduling, logistics, hiring, firing, buying, and expanding. You also need to grow the company. Hence, having a set of values can be a blessing. For example, when I was running a training company, I was obsessed with purpose and impact, which for me meant a consistently superior student experience and exam outcome. Hence, every decision I took was through that lens. Cost, time, and inconvenience were secondary. This was most likely the reason why the company quickly gained and then retained market leadership for a long time.

    This is an indispensable life hack because it makes decision-making regarding an opportunity (professional or personal) simpler, easier, and faster as you won’t be agonized, distracted, or deluded by nonessentials. For example, these days decision-making is much easier and faster for me because I know who I am, and I also know from experience what the opportunity entails.

    3. What exactly are values? Values are not your traits, skills, or knowledge but things that you acquired unconsciously since childhood. Examples of values are authenticity, power, challenge, independence, mastery, conformity, fun, kindness, tolerance, freedom, family, achievement, loyalty, security, and creativity.

    4. You may think that you can change yourself enough to cope with the demands of a career. Be careful because it’s much easier to acquire skills than to change values. Hence the importance of matching your values with the organizational culture.

    5. But, then comes the extremely important question: “How do I know my values?” Now that’s not as basic as it sounds. Here are some practical tips on knowing your values.

Who do you admire?

Usually when we admire someone, it’s because we admire certain aspects of their personality. Write down the names of six people you admire and list the reasons why. Embedded in that list will be some of your values.

For example, below is a list of people I admire and the related values. You will probably see a pattern.

Name Occupation Value/s
Rahul Dravid Cricketer and mentor Determination, Reliability, Calmness, Courage, Reputation, Wellness
Jordan Peterson Psychologist, lecturer, speaker, author Authenticity, Calmness, Courage, Freedom, Reputation, Meaningful Work
Naval Ravikant Investor, author Authenticity, Freedom, Meaningful Work, Reputation, Wellness
Reinhold Messner Mountaineer, adventurer, author Authenticity, Freedom, Reputation, Calmness, Courage, Wellness

Think of highs and lows

Think back to the best and most painful moments in your life and those will tell you a lot about your values. Let me give some examples based on some of the best and worst experiences of my life:

Best or worst Experience description Related values
Best Delivering a live CFA prep class in my trademark style, having fun interacting with students and getting hugely positive feedback from them. Authenticity, Freedom, Meaningful Work, Reputation
Best Getting a long and heartfelt message thanking me for the honest mentorship from a former student (or LinkedIn connection) who passed a level of the CFA program or got the charter. Authenticity, Meaningful Work, Reputation
Best Climbing Kilimanjaro (5,890m), my first big mountain after a near failure close to the summit. Authenticity, Freedom, Wellness
Worst Working with (and having to obey) an incompetent, over critical, and political boss in a job with little operating freedom or learning, hence adversely affecting my physical and mental health. Authenticity, Freedom, Meaningful Work, Wellness

Shortlist your values

Try and narrow it down to four to five values.

It is best to start with a shortlist of maximum 12 values. If you end up with more than 12, ask yourself what values are essential to your life and cut it down to 12.

Now here comes the fascinating part. Because once you get it down to 12 there are some highly effective and easy ways of finding out which matter more than the others and you will end up with … drum rolls please … your four to five values. I do this quite often with my executive coaching clients. The results are often stunning (to them).

Observe yourself

For several days, put labels on the values underlying your key decisions at work and at home.

Pay close attention to the values that you are living and identify whether these are similar to the ones you chose above. If not, think about what values you are living by as you go through your day. Is there a pattern? What have you picked up about what you want, what you like, what you dislike, and what are non-negotiable in your life?

There is an extremely important point here. If you aren’t happy with your decisions, it’s quite likely that you aren’t living your values. This is an indication that you should reevaluate your career and life choices.

As an example, at no other point in my life did I feel this misalignment more than in my last few corporate positions. What I was doing was so obviously out of whack with my values that I realized this was unsustainable and I quit each position after just a few months on the job.

How to Ensure You Fit in

Now that we’ve covered self-awareness and values, it’s the perfect time to talk about working at a place that aligns with your values.

This was brought home to me a few years ago (well after my corporate and entrepreneurship success).

I knew someone (Ms. ABB) who is a bright and highly experienced HR professional having worked as a CHRO with some of the top companies. I was curious about where she saw me fitting in.

Me: “So, coming straight to the point, let me ask you something. Would you hire me as the head of finance of your former company?”

Her previous organization was a Multi-National Company (MNC).

ABB: “No, I wouldn’t. Because you don’t like to be told what to do, and most MNCs have established rules and they like people who comply and conform. However, I’d hire you if the role was ambiguous and fluid, like in a startup. You’d be a great fit there. It’s not about good or bad; just about good fit.”

She was right of course. It made me think.

A big reason why employees (and employers) are fulfilled or are frustrated is this fit or lack of fit.

If you like process, order, and predictability, an MNC or a big bank may be the right choice for you. These entities are built to deliver uniform quality and profitability at scale, hence they are full of processes and systems and have a low tolerance for deviations from these.

But, if you’re like me you’ll be miserable in that culture as you will chafe under the many restrictions. As a result, you will become disengaged, and your performance may be average or poor. You will either eventually quit or be told to leave.

Coaching Tips to Assess Your Corporate Fitment

Know thyself

Know yourself, well especially what environments you thrive in and where you will be a misfit. By the time you are 35, you’d have worked for at least ten years, and you should know this.

This is fundamental, and I’ve covered that earlier.

Know the company culture

Most potential employees are aware of the key stats of their potential employer — number of staff, number of offices (and in how many continents), annual revenue, market cap, latest net income, vision, mission, core values, and so on.

Yet most of them will have no idea about the culture of the place where they will be spending the vast bulk of their waking hours. I know I never bothered about the culture thingy when jumping jobs.

And the mission, vision, and core values you see on the website are usually strictly for public consumption. The reality can be very different.

So, how will you know if you are a misfit or a proper fit if you don’t know what your employer is like? It is hence imperative to know what you are getting yourself into.

Culture assessment

One question I get asked when I talk of company culture is:

“Binod, yes, I know organizational culture is important but it’s so fuzzy and difficult to ascertain! How the hell do I get to know it before I join?”

Great point. Here are some tips that will help you get a grip on company culture:

    a. The best opportunity to observe culture is before, during, and after the interviews. This is what you should look for:

    If the interview is face to face, get to the interview 30–60 minutes earlier. This will allow you to observe the office environment. Try to get a feel of the energy in the office and watch how people interact. Is it quiet or buzzing with energy? Do staff look like they are happy to work there? Does it look like a place where you would want to work? Are the employees friendly with you?

    Learn how to read between the lines at the interview. As an example, if they tell you that you can get promoted based on “a vacancy arising” it means that you’ll probably have to wait for someone to move up or out, probably because of slow growth. That means that however brilliant or hard working you are, your career growth is likely to be slow and unpredictable.

    How you are treated during the interview process is an important sign of how the company is run. Often it is also a sneak preview of what is to come. As an example, if you are dealing most of the time with HR staff who are slow, rude, and/or keep making mistakes you know that the culture probably doesn’t include proper hiring, staff training, or adequate supervision. It also tells you how highly (!) the management views humans as a resource.

    Walking through the offices of the company to and from the interview gives you an excellent chance to understand the culture. Observe the visual and auditory cues around the office that can show the organization’s personality. Is it bubbling with activity or is it a hushed quiet? Are employees working together in small groups in conference rooms, or are they sitting in cubicles working independently? Are their cubicles personalized with pictures, mugs, and so on or are they bland and dull?

    b. Check out the company’s online presence:

    Look at Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. If you see only bland product announcements, product launches, industry trends, client testimonials, and so on with few or no pictures or posts about employees then it’s probably a formal, serious culture where employees don’t have much of a voice and simply do as they are told.

    The corporate blog should reflect a culture where employees are valued. If a blogging culture isn’t present where multiple staff members contribute, it might indicate that workers don’t feel their voice matters.

    Check out the company website, including career pages, mission statement, and the “About Us” section. Pay attention to the language they use, pictures they include, and the titles they use to describe themselves. If it all looks and reads strictly business and formal with zero attempt at levity or attempt to give depth to personalities, then it’s likely that’s how the office environment will be.

    c. Reach out to a few former employees, possibly via LinkedIn. The ones with extreme opinions about the company (good and bad) may be more willing to share their detailed thoughts with you.

Don’t be blinded

Try not to get star struck by the compensation, title, and role which may all be substantial if you are looking for a mid-level or senior role.

When you are younger it’s easy to be seduced by this trifecta, but I have seen this mistake even with folk in their mid-thirties and forties. True, many companies have a great brand, have a blue-chip client list, pay relatively well, and have a good working environment. But, many others may have the first three and not the last.

Classic examples are multinational companies. While all of them like to portray themselves as global firms with one culture irrespective of the location or the office, that’s not always the case. The reality is that each office is influenced not just by the culture of the country it is situated in and the size and sophistication of the market but also by the personalities of the senior managers.

For example, you can expect a multinational company’s office in the United States to be culturally very different from the same firm’s office in Asia. Asians tend to be well educated, articulate, bright, and have a strong work ethic, but the flip side (from my own experience and the experience of many others) is that Asians working in large groups can also be disdainful of work life balance, conservative, rigidly hierarchical, and have inordinate respect for and rarely question authority. These differences are nothing but a reflection of the differences in the respective societies.

Take an informed decision, to join or not to join

Compile all the information you’ve picked up throughout the hiring process into a cohesive picture.

Think deeply about the aspects of the culture that make you absolutely want (or not want) to work at that company. One useful approach is to think of your deal breakers — the values you swore would be non-negotiable in your next role — and make sure the prospective job passes the test.

Yes, it can be quite agonizing to walk away from what looks like a great offer. But, what you must grasp is that if you proceed you could end up working in a culture that is totally out of whack with your values and that can wreck you mentally and physically. No offer is worth that price.

There will be times in any company culture you’ll face challenges and experience some doubt. But, you will be happier and healthier working for a company whose values align with yours.

At least a third of your life is spent at work. So do your due diligence before you accept the job offer to ensure it’s the right fit. You’ll be glad you did.

Twelve Signs that Indicate You Need to Boost Self-Awareness

Once I saw a post on LinkedIn by a senior manager who was preaching about some leadership traits that he claimed he possessed. I saw this on my feed, because a friend of mine had made a brief but cryptic comment on this post. This senior manager was an ex-boss of his. Some 14 years ago when they had been working together in a sales team, I recall that my friend had talked about him to me in not exactly favorable terms. This senior manager thought a lot about himself, never inspired, was hypercritical, never defended his team, never changed his behavior/style, was sensitive to negative feedback, and so on. And here was this self-congratulatory LinkedIn post.

This act struck me as odd, hypocritical, and almost unethical. Over the years, I’ve seen many managers who exhibit the same signs of lack of self-awareness.

There are 12 signs that will help you get better at knowing yourself.

1) You keep repeating mistakes

Now, no one deliberately sets out to screw up. Also, I am assuming that people want to correct their mistakes.

So, if you keep doing that it is most likely that you don’t know you are creating an embarrassing record of errors. Which means you haven’t bothered to introspect.

I have repeated so many mistakes that I don’t even know where to begin, and it is quite frankly an embarrassingly high number. Most of these weren’t technical but interpersonal.

2) You never change since you think nothing is ever your fault

Ahh yes! The sweet favorite of many managers.

I used to work in a multinational company as a supervisor. My motto was simple. I was there to find fault (the more the lovelier) and make sure all that was on record, so that I covered my back and looked good to the audit partner. In my eyes, I was the hardworking manager, and my juniors were irresponsible, careless, and unreliable and I had to keep saving the day.

The reality? I was technically barely average, couldn’t manage audits well, not infrequently blew the audit budgets, focused on trivialities so that my list of review points would look significant, and also (unsurprisingly) managed to piss off most of my juniors.

Of course, with that mindset I didn’t change. I didn’t have to. In my mind, I wasn’t “the one at fault.”

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

C.G. Jung

3) You think you’re God’s gift to Management

You believe that you are flawless or even if you have any flaws, they are minor.

While trying to analyze why you are stuck while your colleague breezes past you on the corporate ladder, you often live in the utopia of “I am good. There’s nothing wrong in me.”

You find organizational and management flaws.

“Why did he get promoted? I deserved that promotion. I am senior to him. I am more capable, have more qualifications under my belt, and joined the organization much before him/her. Then why not me?”

Many in this position believe that they are superior managers and above average in possessing the traits considered critical for corporate success such as (please note this is only an illustrative list):

    Ethics

    Diligence

    Humor

    People skills

    Self-awareness

    Innovation

Anyone who is self-aware also knows that he is flawed.

“There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself ... Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

4) You live in denial

Unless they are all a bunch of 3-year-old kids and you are a kindergarten teacher, if people keep pointing fingers at you all the time, then it’s highly likely that it’s you and not them. You are the problem. You probably truly believe that you are right, and they are wrong, which is another symptom of this malady.

Case in point: A training company once hired a freelance trainer to deliver classes. Post his first session many students complained to the CEO of the company about how terrible the class was. When the concerned CEO called the trainer with the specific feedback his nonchalant reply was “it’s them not me,” and refused to admit to a single mistake. The CEO immediately and politely relieved him of his teaching duties. Sure, some groups of students can be tough to handle (God knows I’ve had my share of crappy classes), but as a trainer at least have the self-awareness to admit that you were wrong as well.

5) Your “promise to change” is superficial

This is when you tell people that you understand and accept the feedback and the need to change and that you will undergo a change (not like Bruce Jenner but nevertheless a change).

But, then you do nothing about it.

It simply means that you don’t feel the need to change, and it was all lip service. It’s mainly to keep your critics off your back now that they’ve vented about it.

Real change means changing your actions. Promises mean nothing unless followed by performance.

6) People keep telling you that you haven’t changed

Since you have always known everything (and you were always right) why the hell would you change your view?

The world these days is changing at a dizzying pace. I am not talking of just technology, medicine, laws, markets, climate, environment, and institutions. I am also talking of what was acceptable then and now. The conventional wisdom in many areas ranging from nutrition, personality, parenting, and teaching to leadership has been drastically overhauled.

If you haven’t modified any significant view of yours in the last decade it shows an astounding sense of arrogance and/or insularity due to an overdose of self-ignorance.

7) You take criticism personally

This is because you believe you are right and because you have an ego the size of North America, and this is interfering with your intellect, and you aren’t even aware of all this nonsense going on.

I used to be embarrassingly defensive whenever criticized, whether on my actions as an auditor, manager, or a trainer. Then I became aware of this flaw and I wised up.

A certain CFA prep trainer I once employed had the occasional lousy class. Whenever I talked to him about specific negative remarks made by students, he would get defensive and retaliate by telling me how many times I’d got negative feedback in the past regarding my classes.

All this is triggered by insecurity and inability to self-evaluate with honesty.

“Without self-awareness we are as babies in the cradles.”

— Virginia Woolf

8) You ascribe failures to others and circumstances

The thing about self-ignorance is that your ego is always on the hunt for ways to shield you from responsibility for project/team failure, even if you had a significant part to play in the failure.

Plus, it’s quite easy. If you are the top dog no one will even whimper if you casually throw others under the bus — they’re usually shit scared to point and blame.

Blaming circumstances is too easy. You can pass the buck onto the dysfunctional society, corrupt government, weak monetary and fiscal policy, poor infrastructure, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and so on.

9) You’ve one rule for yourself and another for others

In one word — hypocrisy.

A classic example was my boss in one of my corporate roles. He always insisted that he was one of the boys, that we should all help the company cut costs, and that he didn’t want special treatment. The company was going through a tough time then.

One day, the boss, a colleague, and I were supposed to hop on a 1-hour flight for a business meeting. We all turned up at the airport. The boss had booked Business Class while both of us sat in Cattle Class. Post flight, he told us over lunch with a straight face that it would be a shame not to use the facilities offered by our employer. My colleague and I just smiled and said nothing.

Many self-ignorant folks are also hypocrites because they often don’t see the glaring inconsistency between what they do and what they say or stand for.

10) You don’t know why you’re stuck in your career

You don’t. But, everyone else knows why.

Since you haven’t assessed yourself, you are simply unaware of the big gap between how a manager/leader should act and your actions. If you are a manager, your bosses know that while you may be technically competent, you are an average-to-terrible manager and hence should not be promoted. If you are an entrepreneur, you will lose talent and hence scaling the business, already a tough task, will be that much tougher.

Of course, the tragedy here is that most likely you won’t be told that you suck. Many managers aren’t good at having difficult conversations and communicating this to their juniors.

I should know — once upon a time when I was slaving away as a supervisor. I was under the impression that I was in line to be promoted to assistant manager. For nearly 14 months, no one said or even indicated otherwise. So, you can imagine my shock when a boatload of my colleagues got promoted, but I didn’t. It was a complete surprise.

Of course, in hindsight, I realize I was a mediocre people manager and merely average technically compared to my peers, but I lacked any self-awareness, and I was never told this.

Oh yes, and since you don’t know why, that’s another reason for you to blame the system.

11) You’re unaware of your many cognitive and emotional biases

Biases are embedded in thoughts and actions, and unless you pause occasionally to reflect, you will continue to be biased.

All of us are biased. The problem is that some of us are more biased than others.

Typical biases of people (and hence bosses) who are self-ignorant are hindsight, overconfidence, unreliable memory, sunk cost fallacy, confirmation, self-serving, and in-group bias.

There is a weird circular effect here. You lack self-awareness because of your biases, but your biases also perpetuate because you lack self-awareness to know that you suffer from these biases.

“As you become clearer about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you — the first time around.”

Oprah Winfrey

12) You don’t understand (and aren’t curious about) why most people have issues with you

You are either wonderfully blind to the way people react to you or you actually believe that they are the problem.

The above, by the way, also describes the worst bosses who are often unaware of the damage they inflict on others.

And no, you can’t do a self-check — you’re brilliant at lying to yourself especially the higher up you go. You need someone to hold up a mirror.

Self-awareness is the foundation of meaningful change. Know thyself.

“My friend ... care for your psyche ... know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.”

Socrates

Coaching Tips to Know Yourself Better and Faster

1. Get a coach

Coaches do many things, but one that they are good at is giving timely, independent, honest feedback.

This was enormously helpful when I was going through my transformation journey.

I didn’t hire a coach as such but G, the new HR Manager at my company, informally acted as one. She was an experienced HR professional who worked in several large multinational companies where she used to handle senior executives with difficult personalities. Somehow, she sensed that I needed help and acted as a de facto unpaid coach.

You may not be so lucky. Get a coach.

2. Ask for feedback

It was the first time in my life that I had asked sincerely for feedback from staff.

At the company that I ran, we started this practice much after we founded the company. The entire exercise was run by G and HR who decided what questions to ask staff and how to present it to the management. Anonymously of course.

I dug out some old files and came across a PowerPoint presentation titled “Employee Satisfaction Survey and Attrition Analysis” that had some very interesting comments from employees (all of whom were my juniors as I was the MD) on the company culture and the company management.

The feedback I got was mixed.

The main positives were that I empowered people, gave instant praise, had contagious energy and passion, and delegated well by explaining tasks properly. The key negatives were that I could be too blunt in criticizing, sometimes got frustrated and emotional under pressure, spent too much time with students (and not enough on strategic initiatives), and didn’t respond well to feedback.

This was an eye-opener and the starting point of my transformation journey.

3. Be open to feedback

The “developmental” bit hurt in the above, especially the parts about how I reacted to feedback.

I should warn you that this is nasty. This is something you will likely go through as a manager if you seek honest feedback.

Most of us have a much higher opinion about ourselves than warranted, a tall sandcastle by the beach of sorts and it is crushing to see the castle suddenly being swept away by the wave of blunt feedback. In fact, that’s exactly how you feel initially — destroyed.

It’s like the iodine or Dettol that you apply to a fresh wound. It stings like hell, but (a) it’s good for you and (b) the sting will fade with time.

Keep your mind open.

4. Don’t shoot the messenger

When G used to criticize my actions, my reaction was always to listen to her because I had the basic self-awareness to know that she was right. And, I never retaliated against G in any shape or form. I may have been crestfallen internally, but I knew she was right.

This was unusual because many senior managers are highly sensitive to criticism and can either sulk or worse, get vindictive.

Why did I listen to her, especially when I had been getting (and ignoring) similar feedback from others for the past few years? And, in the past few years not only was I defensive but I also did next to nothing about it.

This was because G was clever and quite tactful about it, telling me politely, privately, calmly, and logically what I did wrong and why. Also because of her experience, which conveyed a lot of credibility, and more so because she was new to the job and had no axe to grind with me.

Much later G confided in me that back in the day she used to tell her husband after a long day at work that she had criticized the CEO of her company (me). This was highly unusual in the Indian corporate culture and her aghast husband’s instant reaction was “You will be fired soon. There is no way a guy as successful and high profile as him will tolerate you.”

We still laugh about that.

But, it’s not a trivial matter. The gigantic egos of bosses sometimes get hurt when they receive feedback, however well-meaning and constructive it is. Then they react by taking it out on the hapless junior.

G also told me that she was encouraged to continue because of the way I reacted to her feedback.

I was able to control my ego and not let that get in the way of getting what was probably some of the best advice of my life.

5. Reflect on interactions

Think of your recent interactions at work.

How did your staff react to your email or talk?

What was the mood at the meeting?

Were they genuinely keen or were they faking it to please the boss?

Or did you get no reaction whatsoever? (A very bad sign)