Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
3. Whole Self, Global Self: Yamini Gupta's Take on Authentic Leadership | Yamini Gupta | Arcesium
39 Plays1 year ago
About Yamini Gupta
Yamini is an expert in designing and delivering inclusive learning and talent solutions. She has a rich background in talent and performance management, working across EMEA and LACC regions. She has led multiple cross-functional teams and facilitated global mentoring programs and excels in aligning people and talent strategies with business visions, fostering a culture of continuous learning.
Watch this episode and learn:
- Enriching work-life balance through personal experiences;
- Breaking cultural stereotypes for global understanding;
- The impact of mentoring in global organizational growth;
- Navigating hybrid work environments with cultural intelligence.
Recommended
Transcript
Realizing Personal Biases at Work
00:00:00
Speaker
And I think there there is a parameter that talks about how you view timelines and how you actually value time. And there I realize that I'm getting perceived as someone who's imposing difficult and sometimes unrealistic timelines just because I want to achieve the project on a set time. And that's how I view time.
00:00:22
Speaker
And in that moment, I realized that's my bias because I value individual achievement way too much.
Introduction to Cultural Intelligence
00:00:34
Speaker
A podcast all about cultural intelligence and inclusion. We're asking loads of people the important questions to find out what makes them tick and how culture has impacted their lives. We're going to look at their cultural hippo and find out what we can learn from the people who've made a career out of leveraging culture and inclusion.
00:01:01
Speaker
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of The Hippo Question.
Yamini Gupta's Life Story and Cultural Insights
00:01:05
Speaker
And it is an absolute delight to have our very special guest, Yamini Gupta, with us today. Very much looking forward to hearing all about Yamini's life story and hearing about what makes her wake up and go to work every morning and understand what is her ultimate Hippo Question. Yamini, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:29
Speaker
Thank you, Nikki. I'm very happy to be here on this podcast. It's great to have you here. And for the people who listen to podcasts, you don't know this, but we're recording it on a Thursday, which means that my first question is going to be a bit weird. But you have to tell us as your blog is called Life on the Weekend.
00:01:49
Speaker
What did you do this weekend? How was your weekend? Thank you, Matthew. Actually, the last weekend was very interesting. I went to a nearby Tiger Reserve, a national park called Ranthambore National Park. It's a widely known Tiger Reserve that attracts a lot of international tourists.
00:02:09
Speaker
because of the frequent tiger sightings that you can actually enjoy in this tiger reserve. And it's that time of the year when tiger sightings are quite frequent because it's really hot at this time of the year in the country and you can actually sight a tiger near a watering hole. So, sighting a tiger in the wild up close at just a few feet away from you is really an unparalleled experience.
00:02:37
Speaker
So yeah, I had a great experience. I'll be honest, it's not necessarily an experience I want.
Connecting Personal and Professional Life
00:02:43
Speaker
I don't want to have my tiger anywhere near me. The value is money because our last guest had hippos in his backyard. Now we've got someone on. There is a connection here, isn't there? We're doing the wrong podcast, Nikki. It should be about animals.
00:03:02
Speaker
I mean, people love travel and nature. So, you know, I think there's a connection there. Definitely. It's amazing that you've had such a fantastic weekend, right? And I bet, you know, obviously you love writing about you, you love blogging about what you've been up to. There must be a connection between, you know, what you do on the weekends and bringing that whole self to work. What's that connection for you?
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, I agree that there is definitely a connection. And I feel that I'm really fortunate to be born in a country that appreciates and celebrates unity and diversity. India has 28 states, seven union territories, and over 200 spoken vernacular languages. At every 400 to 500 kilometers,
00:03:57
Speaker
the culture changes in the country, the language or the dialect changes, the landscape changes and in most of the situations even the weather changes in the country. So you have to continuously adapt yourself to ever evolving ecosystem. I think this has a bearing in your work life also. Even in my professional life I have changed roles every two or three years over the last 13 years that I've been working non-stop and I think this has really helped me.
00:04:26
Speaker
to adjust and adapt to changing the circumstances of either a startup or a fortune, MNC, wherever I have been working. The other thing that I feel travel truly teaches you is that when you're traveling, you are no longer the person that you are back home or at work.
India's Culture and Global Work Setup
00:04:46
Speaker
There are no titles, no labels. You do not have any positional authority or any extra influence that you actually enjoy in your circles of familiarity.
00:04:56
Speaker
You have to mostly rely on your wits or intellect when you're actually in a difficult situation. And that also has a lesson for you in your work life where you are actually working in a global set up with different individuals or teams that might have different context and perspective.
00:05:16
Speaker
the lessons that you have learned in the past might not be valid and you have to be open to learn to new things and to continuously actually gather information and to adjust and accommodate and I think that's what travel teaches you.
Changing International Perceptions of India
00:05:31
Speaker
I mean it's an amazing perspective and I think, as I mentioned earlier, I've read some of the pages, there's a huge amount of stuff on your blog and it'll take me a lot longer than I've had to read all of it, but I mean you're very
00:05:47
Speaker
direct on your website. You talk about the diversity of India, but you also talk about the fact that obviously Britain and India have an unfortunate history. We've got very clearly about Britain came and robbed India of its resources. Do you think there's that theme that it's very easy for outsiders in particular to underestimate India?
00:06:12
Speaker
It's a very difficult question to answer, to be very honest, because you have to be really fair. And coming from the background that I come from, you can't have biases while answering this question. You have to be really fair to all sides that are involved here in this discussion. But I do believe that India
00:06:36
Speaker
hasn't enjoyed the kind of spotlight that the country actually deserves. If you're purely speaking from a travel perspective and nothing else, if you ask, if you talk about the travel opportunities that India has, not a lot of international tourists or not a lot of international destination, not a lot of international tourists would know what is the kind of opportunities that India has.
00:07:04
Speaker
In a lot of corporate situations, I have still sensed the fact that a lot of people from Europe still view India as a country that's full of snake charmers. While that's no longer true, India has become an IT power. A lot of American companies have Indian CEOs or CEOs who have India as their origin. In fact, Britain's prime minister has an Indian routing. So India
00:07:33
Speaker
I think as a country is changing quite a lot, its perception, its reputation is also changing in the world, but we still have a long way to cover in terms of enjoying the spotlight that the country deserves.
00:07:49
Speaker
I'm not sure if I've answered your question. Do you have a follow-on question with that? Because obviously I'm of Indian origin, I live in the UK, some are British national now, etc. But isn't that a pain point to most countries? And that's where cultural intelligence speaks volumes, right?
Cultural Stereotypes and Intelligence
00:08:10
Speaker
It's the stereotype that the country has to break
00:08:13
Speaker
Because it's, it's, and I'm being very simplistic here, okay, all Germans are on time, or all space are on time, because it's too simplistic a viewpoint. I think organizations, particularly tying this back to business, organizations have that unique realization that there's a lot of talent, there's a lot of, you know, really superb talent in India.
00:08:40
Speaker
in what is available. And yet India still has that stereotypical approach that it is the place you offshore for cheap talent. What do you make of that? I mean, you work with an international organization, you have colleagues in Europe. Do you get a sense of that? Or are you feeling always on par with wherever else the LGBTQ might be?
00:09:06
Speaker
It's a very relevant question and thanks for asking that. I do think that there is a huge need to break that stereotype. Even though there might be a lot of talent opportunities in the country, still we suffer from a lot of stereotypes and actually we ourselves need to be blamed for that.
00:09:27
Speaker
belonging to the Asian economy that we do. We do take pride in overstretching, in going the extra mile, working beyond the stipulated hours and bearing it as a badge of honor. We have actually somehow perpetuated that stereotype.
00:09:49
Speaker
I have to admit that a little bit of that also needs to be acknowledged to the kind of culture that we belong to. We are programmed to respect hierarchies because of our backgrounds and we are programmed to respect elders and not question people who might enjoy a positional authority over us. Because of that, we continue to suffer from that stereotype. And I think this is where culture intelligence will play a greater role in first educating
00:10:19
Speaker
Us, as well as people outside India, what culture differences can lead to? You know, that there is an imbalance in work life and there is an imbalance in the kind of working arts that Asian economies actually put into vis-a-vis their counterparts in Europe. And then actually creating that intelligence, because to be able to reach that level, you first have to start from awareness. And I think that's where culture intelligence can really play a great role.
00:10:48
Speaker
I think, just to pick up on a topic, I'm going to read something to you. I think you might recognise this quote. It says, do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. What if they are a little coarse and you get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail and get fairly rolled up in the dirt once or twice?
00:11:12
Speaker
up again, you shall never be more so afraid of a tumble. I think, I mean, obviously, that's a quote from Emerson, you've told us it's your favourite quote. I mean, when it comes to cultural intelligence, it is about experimentation. I mean, how have you seen that? How have you seen that sort of need to challenge things by trying and allowing yourself to fail?
00:11:36
Speaker
Very interesting. I'll tell you something personal here. So I am aware of the fact that I have been brought up in a way that I shouldn't be questioning elders, or I shouldn't be questioning authority. And I associate myself as a, you know, I relate myself to rebels a lot. There is a book by Adam Grant called Originals. I'm not sure if you've read that book, but then it talks, there is a chapter dedicated to rebels.
00:12:03
Speaker
And I relate so much with that chapter. So sometimes I catch myself overcompensating, you know, actually asking too many questions to kind of prove the point that I am not scared of authority or, you know, I am not, I feel absolutely comfortable challenging status quo or challenging the situations and asking for more information because I will not take your word as is.
00:12:29
Speaker
So somewhere I think this is this is also an extreme behavior and doesn't work really well when you are trying to collaborate with people. So and, you know, the right or the optimum behaviors somewhere fall on the spectrum. Either you are you are too extreme where you are getting scared of asking questions or challenging.
00:12:49
Speaker
or you know stepping out of your comfort zone or you are behaving totally on the extreme side where you are doing too much of it to show that you are not trying to fit in but you are trying to stand out. So somewhere on the spectrum you have to find that sweet spot but how do you find that?
00:13:07
Speaker
That's difficult. That's where you need support. So A, if you are really aware of the fact and you have the space, you have the liberty to experiment because not all organizations and not always in life, you will have the space to experiment or you will have the freedom to bear the consequences of your experiment because not every experiment will also succeed. So I believe organizations will have a great role.
00:13:32
Speaker
in setting up their teams or setting up their people for this kind of cultural intelligence. If they can provide space for people to bring whatever original or whatever authentic cells they can bring to
00:13:49
Speaker
to the organization, this is a
AI-Driven Mentoring Program
00:13:51
Speaker
great start. For example, in my current organization, I work in India, but I have my team members in Southern America and Europe, and not all the time we have time overlap. But because we work in a remote setup, we have to be on meetings almost all the time.
00:14:09
Speaker
Many a time I put my foot down that I will not stretch beyond a certain hour because I start my day really early and I ensure that my team members who are in other parts of the globe actually stretch equally to be able to make time and work on shared projects.
00:14:29
Speaker
So I think voicing up, voicing out and speaking up your mind and also establishing boundaries is equally important. But for that to happen, you first have to know what are those boundaries for you, and you have to define those boundaries. I have to say, I do wish Niki was a little bit more of an Indian stereotype. I'm older than her. She certainly doesn't respect any of my age of her.
00:14:59
Speaker
I think it's an absolutely fascinating perspective because you're talking from a cultural perspective and I was thinking
00:15:09
Speaker
or marginalised populations, whether it's gender or ethnicity or race or sexual preference, et cetera. If you consider all of these groups and how diversity and inclusion and equity and belonging has become so critical in organisations. And as tied back in my head to what you were saying, you need to establish the boundaries by knowing what they are.
00:15:31
Speaker
But you also need champions within the organizations, right? To support, to create that environment where people feel comfortable, call it psychological safety, to challenge that status quo. Only then can stereotypes be broken down, only then can perceptions change.
00:15:49
Speaker
And I know you're a huge champion and you've just recently won an award in your organization for your mentorship program, Amplify. Tell us a little bit about that. Why do something like that? It was a very interesting program when we launched it.
00:16:07
Speaker
Right now, the whole world is about generative AI. Everyone is talking about chat activity and its applications and how the face of learning, talent and capabilities changing with it. But two years back, when we introduced this program,
00:16:22
Speaker
This concept was still picking up pace. And at most, a lot of organizations had rolled out learning experience platforms where an algorithm at the back end actually reads your preferences and recommends the right kind of learning solutions for you, depending upon your taste and preferences. At that time, when we launched the mentoring program called Amplify, we actually leveraged an AI algorithm
00:16:49
Speaker
that takes into account your interests, your skills and your career goals and match you to the right kind of mentor who can help you further your mentoring goals. So if I want to sign up for a mentoring program, I might want to grow my skill set or I might want to learn a behavioral skill like how to be more assertive or how to network across geographies or simply I just want to talk to someone from a different function.
00:17:19
Speaker
and actually exchange best practices and the mentoring and the mentoring program was designed to take that into account and then actually help you facilitate a match so that the engagement actually is meaningful for you and then at the end of one year we realized that we had great feedback we had few
00:17:39
Speaker
but very meaningful mentoring engagements going on on the platform. Our feedback score was 4.7, if I'm correct, out of five, while the industry benchmark that year was 4.5. It was really interesting, and I think it was interesting because we could personalize the experience instead of just giving them a template that these are the mentors reach out and then just begin your engagement. Personalization, I think, was the key there.
00:18:09
Speaker
I think a lot of organisations have mentoring programmes and I think from my experience not all organisations know why they have mentoring programmes. Why did you decide to launch it and how are you measuring the success of that?
00:18:31
Speaker
Again, an interesting question why we decided to have a mentoring program was because of how the organization was constructed. We are a global organization and we are present in so many countries and there is a very diverse and unique workforce.
00:18:49
Speaker
working across time zones. So we realized that to be able to foster connections across geographies and we realized that most of us wanted to actually expand our networking beyond our spheres of work. In an organization like this, it's very easy to work in silos. Even if you are in a global setup, you tend to interact with the same set of people.
00:19:12
Speaker
you tend to work with the same set of stakeholders. So to be able to break that and actually give the experience to employees to be able to expand their horizons, we thought that mentoring would be the right approach, where you need not necessarily reach out to your seniors or your leaders, but also connect with your peers across functions and across job reviews, which will give you a better experience. So that's why we introduced mentoring.
00:19:41
Speaker
When we introduced it in the first year, we decided not to have too many matrices and not to chase numbers, rather focus on meaningful connections. It's very easy for learning and development professionals to confuse success
00:19:56
Speaker
with numbers, you know, number of people who onboarded the program without actually taking anything away from it. So we decided that we will not chase the metric of how many people are there on the platform. Rather, we will focus on enabling people to actually have meaningful conversations and then take it to the end. So that was the only metric that we were following up in the first year.
00:20:21
Speaker
I mean, that's absolutely great. I very much believe that cultural intelligence is grown through connecting with people, through building those relationships. And it sounds like your mentoring programme is enabling exactly that. Yes.
00:20:37
Speaker
Fantastic. Thank you for asking that. Yomni, I mean, you know, I think as a leader, as a woman leader, particularly, you sort of, you know, are you a mentor or a mentor yourself?
00:20:56
Speaker
I think I've been in a position, been in both positions. I have been a mentee in multiple situations where I'm trying to solve a problem or I'm picking up a new project or stretch assignment or even if I'm in familiar situations but trying to overcome a challenge. Maybe too much work, too many difficult commitments or to grapple with or sometimes working with tough stakeholders.
00:21:24
Speaker
and trying to achieve a fine balance. In such situations, most of the times I have challenged myself that I might not have the right answer to all the problems and I might have to learn how to ask for help. This has always been a development area because I come from a background where we place a lot of value on individual achievement. So I try to solve everything on my own.
00:21:52
Speaker
It's been a learning for me to ask for help and that's where mentoring has really helped me. I do not think twice before reaching out to my peers or people who I have developed a connection with while working with external partners or simply seniors or leaders at work.
00:22:09
Speaker
And I think because of this behavior, because I somehow give the comfort to other people that it's okay to ask for help, okay to ask for advice, people reach out to me all the time asking for help, you know, asking for small little things like how do you do that? How did you manage that? You work with this stakeholder? How do you manage to create that kind of rapport? And I think it's really a great
00:22:36
Speaker
and a satisfying stint in an organization or otherwise also in life when you can actually cultivate these kind of relationships where you can actually help other people and also receive help, then you can reflect on your experiences and see that there has been meaning and there has been value in that.
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, you've talked so much about experiences and where you come from and your background. And I'm curious, this is a complete curiosity. What was the life changing moment for you in your life?
Career Shift: Banking to HR
00:23:09
Speaker
What led you to doing what you do right now, right? Leading a global organization like, oh, Alexa is out of India, but also, you know, your travel blog. What has driven all of this?
00:23:22
Speaker
Very interesting question. I haven't thought about it much, but there have been two instances actually, Nikki. If I have to be really honest, the first one was right out of the college. When I passed out of management college, I was placed in a bank.
00:23:39
Speaker
And I was the banking sales manager in that bank. It was one of the leading banks of India. I would not take the name. And then when I was doing that role, I realized that
00:23:54
Speaker
I was not able to convince the customers to actually invest in banking products when I was being true, true to the description of banking products. When I was actually speaking the truth that, you know, this is the investment avenue. This is the rate of deposit. This is how your money will grow. I was not able to convince them because I was not using flowery language. And that's when I realized this is not the career that I want to be.
00:24:18
Speaker
I need to be in a role where I can actually use or leverage my skills to teach or to give back or to coach or mentor and that's how learning and development happened or HR happened because I am a marketing graduate and I ended up being in HR. That was the first moment I realized not banking. Banking is not my cup of tea especially from a sales perspective.
00:24:43
Speaker
And then the second time it happened when I was part of trainings and communications team, but in business, it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to convince business to actually stop business operations for a while and dedicate that time to training, process training, product training or behavior trainings. And, you know, after a point in time, you reach a plateau in business and you need to step out of that zone.
00:25:11
Speaker
and think from a different or a larger angle, from a talent perspective and to think about how you can influence talent decisions and not just talk in the training parlance. And then that was the second moment I decided that now I would like to build my career in human resources and that's how the shift happened. So I think these have been two defining moments in my career over the last 13 years.
00:25:38
Speaker
It's fantastic that you've been able to be true to yourself, true to your own values. And I think it sort of almost touches on a really complicated sort of fashion at the moment about bringing your whole self to work. Have you got any view on that fashion, on that particular phrase?
00:25:58
Speaker
It might not be a popular view that I am going to share with you. In my perspective, I do not think that you can bring your whole self to work. Bringing your whole self to work
00:26:14
Speaker
has many repercussions and you as a person you know as a whole self you can you could be a person with different preferences different working style or your personality might be really different and if you try and bring the whole personality to work it might or might not gel well with your stakeholders or with the team members that you have to work in working
00:26:37
Speaker
work with day in day out. I'll just take an example. A lot of us associate ourselves with being a night owl or an early bird. But if you are in a global setup, you cannot impose that kind of preference on the other person. If you have overlap only during the day or only during the evening, you may do with it.
00:26:59
Speaker
And the other example is some of us like to think out loud, get on a meeting every time we have an idea, and brainstorm with each other. These are very fundamental examples, but actually go and speak a lot about how we work with each other. And there are some of us who like to think through a problem, take some time, absorb the information, and then come back and present to the other person. I think these are some of the
00:27:29
Speaker
These are some of the nuances to your whole self, which is why I think it is not practical to bring your whole self to work. That being said, I do believe that what you can actually ensure while you are working in an organization or while you are living your life on a day to day basis is what is your value system. And you must choose roles or you must choose organizations that allow you to
00:27:56
Speaker
to be in congruence with your value system. For example, for somebody, respect or dignity might be a value that they are not willing to compromise with. And if they are in a role or an organization that allows them to be respectful, to protect their dignity, this is a great place to be.
00:28:16
Speaker
Similarly, somebody might have adventure as a value. And if they value adventure or experimentation a lot, a role that has a very structured template or a very routine defined might not be the best fit for them. So I think from that perspective, I would say value system is a better metric to define whether you are able to find harmony with your organization and with your role.
00:28:45
Speaker
Actually, certainly don't want to bring your tigers from your weekend trip to work. That would be a wrong. I love it. It sounds amazing, right? Go and find a role that meets your value systems and allows you to develop and grow as an individual. Majority of the people listening out there will say, damn, you're lucky. We're not that lucky.
00:29:09
Speaker
we have because we've got to put bread on the table, right? Or where it is that you need luck for, et cetera, et cetera. Very few people, even after post pandemic, are in a position where they can choose to do what they would be passionate about, what they would love. Which is where I think, you know, I like what you're saying about having to adapt. You can't bring your horse up to work. And you're always becoming
00:29:34
Speaker
who you are, by staying true to who you are. And perhaps that is a way of bringing your whole self to work. In knowing that that adaptation to a circumstance or a situation is also part of your whole self, perhaps. I find it really difficult when people say, bring your whole self. And I'm like, I mean, I'm working from home. So yes, I bring my dog to work and I bring my dog hands up on calls for cards, etc. But there is a limit to the whole self that I want to bring.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yes, we work. I agree. I agree. Absolutely. There is a limit to the whole self that you can bring to work. Absolutely. For the lack of a better definition. Absolutely. And that's sort of amplified, hasn't it, with all this hybrid
Balancing Remote Flexibility and In-Person Connections
00:30:21
Speaker
working. So I'm going to ask you the question that everyone's been asking. Has hybrid worked? Is it here to stay? Is it happening at all? How are you coping with this?
00:30:35
Speaker
I would like to answer this question differently. I think hybrid must stay for a long term. If you take the long term perspective and if you think about the talent race and the great resignation, the great layoff, if you put everything in perspective, organizations that will win the larger game would be the organizations that would allow their talent to work remotely.
00:31:00
Speaker
However, that being said, it is also true that in the last three years, we have seen a lot of focus on mental health and well being, because somewhere it's taking a toll on all of us. Human beings as a species are meant to be social, we enjoy cultivating connections, we want to build relationships and the deeper the relationship is,
00:31:23
Speaker
the better it is for us in the long term. So definitely allow for talent to join remotely and give them the space to be in a hybrid work environment. But every once in a while, or at least once in a quarter, if not more frequently, we must bring the teams together in an in-person setting so that we can get to know each other, we can bond, we can talk about things which are not necessarily related to work, but to get to know each other better.
00:31:54
Speaker
I'll give you an example, the other day I went to office and I couldn't identify most of the people I was seeing on the floor. I was feeling so uncomfortable because I used to be the person who would know everyone on the floor.
00:32:09
Speaker
It's not in the entire building, everyone on the floor because around the water cooler or in the cafeteria, I would usually connect with people over a cup of tea and how tea is the best beverage in the world and where they have travelled over the weekend, what they are doing over the next weekend, what's the latest movie that they have watched. It doesn't have to be work related connections.
00:32:33
Speaker
And that's what I think we are missing as part of being the corporate global workforce. And I do think that it's important for everyone to be together in the same place and just enjoy some good in-person connection and develop real meaningful bonds with each other. So allow for hybrid, but then also create opportunities for people to come together.
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah, I completely couldn't agree more. You know, connection is all about creation and collaboration. And if you want creation and collaboration, you've got to allow people to connect. So, yeah. True. Matthew, I think it's that time. I think you're right. I think we're going to have to move to the hippo question. We talked about tigers.
00:33:20
Speaker
Just to put this in context, we use as a model of culture a hippopotamus. A lot of people use icebergs, and icebergs are fine, but we like the hippopotamus. The point of using a hippo is that a hippo spends most of its time with
00:33:39
Speaker
just sort of 10-15 percent of its nose above the water and the rest is below the surface. And with culture we know it's the bit that you can't see that trips you up, it's the difficult bit. And so the hippo question is this, do you have any sort of examples or stories or situations where you've been
00:34:06
Speaker
become very aware of that cultural bit below the surface. Just an example you can give or something you can tell us from your experience or watching other people. Be really curious to hear whether you've got anything you can add to the Hippo collection. Yes, yes. I think I would have to give some credit to the country navigator culture profiling also here.
00:34:32
Speaker
many a time over the last six to seven years from the time I became a people manager and I started leading teams and then I started leaving cross-functional teams in the last four or five organizations that I have worked with. I've realized that many a time my team members, sometimes my bosses and a lot many times my peers have complained that I try to impose unrealistic timelines.
00:34:58
Speaker
Or sometimes I get too tough on the schedule, on the time schedule, because I tend to manage long-term projects. And I used to feel that they are just slacking, or they are just saying because they want to get out of the work responsibilities. I never realized that I might have a bias here.
00:35:19
Speaker
Because I value so much on individual, I value individual achievements so much, and the kind of background that I have come from, I think that there has to be no two ways about work achievements. If you have committed to something, then you have to deliver it, no matter what. Without paying much attention to that, sometimes timeline might not be the best metric to evaluate the success of a project.
00:35:46
Speaker
And even though people used to complain all the time, I used to think that it's normal. It's part of the normal workplace conflict. I never paid too much attention to it. But when I looked at my cultural profile on Country Navigator, I realized that there is a comparison between on a set of different parameters, Nikki and Matthew, maybe you can explain better. And I think there there is a parameter that talks about how you view timelines and how you actually
00:36:16
Speaker
you know, value time. And there I realized that I'm getting perceived as someone who's imposing difficult and sometimes unrealistic timelines just because I want to achieve the project on a set time. And that's how I view time. And in that moment, I realized, okay, that's my bias. Because I value individual achievement way too much, I have
00:36:42
Speaker
All these years I have totally discounted the fact that many of my colleagues who were working with me and who were equal partners on the project were feeling uncomfortable with that. And there might be an alternate view to solve that problem or there might have been alternate philosophies to actually address that project.
00:37:04
Speaker
And I have still not been able to solve that. I'm still getting complaints on my project, but at least I am aware of that bias and I might just solve it in the next podcast. When we speak, I feel I might have a different hippo question then. I mean, it does sound exactly like a cultural hippo. A hippo is
00:37:30
Speaker
is lumbersome, they're difficult to get moving and that's the challenge with our cultural biases. A lot of work to get moving them. God forbid anybody who's in the way of a hippo, right, we also know. Absolutely. We can get that traction. We're onto something here and I think the key thing right about preaching to the converted here
00:37:53
Speaker
The key thing about cultural intelligence is greater self-awareness. The only way you can do anything about your own behavior is to first know that you do things a certain way or you like to do things a certain way. And that's what the cultural world prison profiling tool is about. It's about understanding that you like to do things a certain way and then having the ability to kind of look at your colleagues or your team and say,
00:38:17
Speaker
Ah, I like to do things slightly differently today. Yeah, agreed.
Using Tools for Cultural Awareness
00:38:24
Speaker
And I think, I think country platforms like or solutions like Country Navigator can actually play a great deal of influence there, and can actually at least create awareness. After that, whatever you do is might be a function of your own willingness and your own openness to change or transform.
00:38:45
Speaker
But at least creating that baseline of awareness is very important and a must start point. I think the country navigator does a great job there. Thank you. I think we can see the marketing graduate come through.
00:39:04
Speaker
And before we get to, before we, before we appoint Yamini as our new head of marketing, I think we probably better thank you very much for your contribution. I really enjoyed the conversation. I think it's been brilliant. And it's surely not the end of it here, Yamini, because we'd love to talk to you some more. I know our listeners will want to hear you some more. So thank you very much for being here today. I know you're based in India, so it's late afternoon for you.
00:39:28
Speaker
It has been an absolute pleasure and delight to have you on the podcast. So thank you very much. Likewise again. It was lovely meeting you Matthew. I think the more number of people I meet from Country Navigator, the more impressed I get.
00:39:44
Speaker
And I have told Nikki, but in my previous organization, in data communications, we work with Country Navigator. And I carry the impact or the perception that I have for the organization. I carry it from that previous organization.
00:39:59
Speaker
and hence it's that strong. And for the readers who want to see lots of pictures of tigers and who want to read more about the amazing opportunities in India for travel and I see nature please do visit lifeonweekends.com and you'll be able to read much more of Yamini's
00:40:21
Speaker
trips, what she gets up to at the weekend. Yeah, let's get us all jealous, right, that she has this wonderful vibe, you know. Definitely worth reading. Thank you. Thank you so much. The Hippo Question with Country Navigator, the number one platform for cultural intelligence and inclusion training. Tune in for more interviews with global business leaders and find us at countrynavigator.com.