Leading with Emotional Intelligence: Growth Mindset & Psychological Safety in Tech Leadership

Happy New Year's. By the time you see this podcast, it will be 2026. We will have traveled forward in time. Um, and Pashant has graciously accepted our invitation to be here on the show and talk about all things leadership related especially in the technology world. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Bill. Thanks for having me here and happy new year to everybody listening.

Great. Excellent. Excellent. Um, so the first question as always is how did you start in leadership? Like what was the beginning part of that journey for you?

So I started the company when I was 27 years old. So I really did not know what leadership was. But in high school and all I have played cricket which is like a team sport and stuff like that. So you I was kind of exposed to leadership on some level but I never really looked at leadership as something that you have to learn like whatever you have you have and stuff like that but once the company was started I started as a single guy company and then as people came on like you, you can't just be a leader without really learning lot of skills like some of it is inherent and some of some people are lucky enough to you know born with all the skills required but there is a huge journey so as and how the number of people increased in the company and you know I understood there were a lot of gaps which I have to understand to be a better leader so thankfully to Innostax it actually helped me with the sandbox which was required for me to go through my leadership journey. I'm still traveling and there's a lot you know still a lot more to go.

Very cool. That's kind of amazing that you know like number one you were had the courage to start a company right in your 20s. That's awesome. Um but also the self-awareness to go oh I need to learn some skills like that's huge that so congratulations. Um I I don't always hear that, you know. Um people, people think they're just born, you know, they think that there's just whatever you're born with. And um I, I totally agree with you. It's all about learning skills and continuously going, "Oh, wait a minute. What's the new skill I need for whatever?" Um about how big are you guys right now?

We are 85 engineers right now in Delhi.

Nice. Yeah, that's takes some time. And do you have you built layers like into the company? I they can't all report directly to you.

Oh, there is like a full organization structure like I am the CEO and I have like a four people exec team and then there are engineering managers that report to the exec team and then there are team leads in the structure and then there are the individual contributors who kind of report to the team leads.

Nice. Yeah, that's a nice like pyramid structure. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. um like as you were jumping into your to your journey, what were some of the things that you recognized were skills that you needed to to get better at?

The first skill I think is emotional regulation. Like as a leader like as a person like early on we are taught by the society that everything what you hear you know it's something about you even if it is not about you and and everybody's going through their own journey and so there's lot of noise in communication and stuff like that and so emotional regulation comes from being able to separate that signal from noise. And as a leader that is even bigger because you are supposed to be the guy who is actually understanding the source rather than the noise that is coming from people when it comes to you otherwise you are just two people conversing and then there you're not a leader. So early early on in the journey when and we are in a services industry right we are people business at the end of the day. So we are dealing with people problems is what how people would put it. But the problem is like we were dealing with understanding problem like where somebody is saying like oh this is not good like you you tend to hear that I am not good like what I did is not good enough and stuff like that. So to able to separate that from what the actual guy is feeling and like being able to separate yourself your ego from the problem I think is the first important piece which I had to learn which I'm still learning and that brought me into Advaita the eastern philosophy of you know being the witness to your emotions and being able to observe them how it is doing. So that actually was a very big skill that has helped me.

I like that. What didn't you what did you say it's called?

Advaita. Advaita philosophy.

Advaita. Oh, I have not heard that before. Is it um what is it grounded in?

So it is grounded in stillness. So all these philosophy all roads lead to inner stillness. If you look at it like if you have heard of eckhart tolle like the stillness and like it is more around like you have acquired the conditioning the ego as you are living through your life and so anything that comes to you you're processing based on your own inner experiences and stuff like that and your body is the one that responds first and like you feel anger because of something you feel something inside and that is how that is what triggers and makes you react in the way you have to react. So now when you separate your consciousness from your you know feelings of the body and you're able to observe your body and instead of feeling like I am angry my body is feeling angry and now you're observing what is it that caused it and naming it itself will kind of take away lot of emotions like in scientific terms it is like when you try to name that emotion it moves from your limbic system to your prefrontal cortex and now you are more logical than you know just the raw emotions flowing out. So that's what it all is grounded in.

I like that. I um there's a term metacognition from the psychology world. That's it. It's exactly what you're talking about. It's thinking about our thinking and um and having that having that witness perspective and and the um kind of that critical thinking that you're talking about, which is so valuable because yeah we, we get hooked in things people say and then our emotions get in the way of us hearing them. And that's awesome that you figured that out. That's Like seriously, like props to you because most people don't figure that out and and because we don't talk about it, you know we, we talk about how do you optimize algorithms, but we don't talk about how do people optimize their own heads nearly enough. Um, yeah, I like that. That's good.

So I would not like to take credit for that bill because I think what I have seen is like so I have read one statement like how do you kind of work towards this like so there was apparently a wisdomous sage who's like this again they are all stories they come from somewhere right that the disciple asked him like how do I drop all this then the sage apparently threw a hot coal at him and said catch this And when and when he could not hold on he just dropped. So a similar incident happened in my life like three years ago my wife was diagnosed with cancer.

Oh my goodness.

And she's fine now. She's lucky, we were very lucky that way. So she's fine. but during that time like we were losing clients and my with my wife's health and all. Before that phase I always thought I was in control. I was so smart that I have planned out everything so well in life and that was my hot coal. That is where I realized like something is off like why if I planned something so well like I planned my life so well why is everything falling apart. That is when I like dropped my hot coal and that is when I realized like you know I I there's something missing. I have to like improve on this and that that made me like read lot of books in that then I have a a coach who helps me kind of like realize on these kind of principles and stuff and that made everything like insanely better the company my personal well-being and obviously like trying to like chasing velocity over speed like earlier the sense of urgency was a big thing now Like what I've realized is it is more about removing parts of yourself than increasing adding something to yourself. Yes. And that actually was a huge turning point.

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And it's interesting how, you know, the things that happen in our lives can, can be such an excellent trigger for our own um our own advancement. Yeah. Yeah. That's Thank you for sharing this story. I appreciate that. Yeah. It's part of the reason that we do this is just to normalize experiences because like the stuff that you're talking about, people don't share that stuff enough to have people be comfortable in those conversations and yet they're, they're so important to have out there. Yeah,

They're the most important things, Bill. I think everybody is living some really great experiences and everybody has a feeling that they are the only one going through it. but like I I I feel like we are not very unique as humans. Like we are so predictable. Like if you go back to Freud, you go back and read any of the psychology books, it is like okay if I say this, Bill is going to react this way and then you say this, then he's going to react this way. So if we are so predictable, what's so unique about it? like you're not really unique.

Right.

So when when you hear somebody's experiences and when you realize that right that takes such a huge burden of uniqueness from your head and that itself is so relieving you know and one thing what I've realized with Advaita and stuff like what it kind of points towards is like the moment that we are having any time in our life is basically a product of sequence of billions of years of evolution like we were forged in the stars, right? Like like all the elements that we are made out of, we are forged in the stars. But we sitting here and thinking, God, it is so cold over here, you know, when they took like billions of years to manifest is like our preference that we are trying to push onto something which we have no control over.

Right, Right.

So reality is reality but how you feel about it is optional. So that is where the suffering comes from. And when in the leadership part of it when you accept that okay this moment in front of me is a product of billions of years of evolution or millions of years of cause and effect and it has nothing to do with me. When it takes off the burden the clarity comes like that is the most powerful kind of a thing where you say okay it is what it is. I say it so often that my three-year-old now like randomly she says stuff like it is what it is like something happened and she's just yelled in the car saying it is what it is and my wife looking at me see what you're doing to the kids

And it's that's awesome though because you know in the grand scheme of things their ability to adapt and be curious and learn in the world and not get stressed is going to be dramatically improved. And that's a, you know, that's a huge win because so many people, they think they're victims of life and and and rather than, you know, it's happening. It is what it is. and what's the gift here, you know, and I, I tend to think about, you know, what's the upside of this, you know, like there's always a win in struggle whether you recognize it or not. Um, I caught part of a a lecture today from a college prof who was talking about entrepreneurship and she was talking about the entrepreneurs journey and the start and you know the squiggly up and down and then the end and she's like you can't get from the start to the end without all the middle stuff. And so if you're an entrepreneur right now and it sucks and you're in the middle like that's the game you signed up for, like you should really appreciate it because that's the learning that's going to get you to the end. Then I was like, "Oh my god, that's such a good visual." And, and people don't they don't think about it enough, you know, they get so their heads so wrapped around the the end state. And yeah, I like that. I like that. Spirituality and engineering leadership, that's a great combo. Yeah.

So my view on this is like whenever things seem hard, right? Easiest thing is to visualize the like again huristics like what happened in the past which felt very hard and see what it got you like all the bad things that happened in the past got you to something really better

Right

and so that actually makes you realize so this is also taking me somewhere better I just don't know it yet and that itself is so comforting yeah

exactly yeah that's a really that is a really wise perspective to have. Um, I love that. And the way you said that was beautiful. That was like I'm going to have to clip this out and have it be like a sound bite from the from the podcast. That's because you're totally right. Like can people don't It's funny, you know, like I've had people ask me like, "Oh, you know, if you you know, look back on your life, you know, what would you have changed? you know, what would you have wanted to not experience? And my answer has always been, well, I really want to experience everything because even the bad stuff I learned so much from that it was painful in the moment. Yes. And it was just it was an investment and here's the ROI of it. And that's exactly what you're talking about. And I I think it's such a great perspective to have. Um do you talk to the folks to your 85 developers about that? Like do you talk to to the rest of your team about this?

Not really. because what I have seen is like it is everybody's personal journey and if somebody is not ready to listen to it, somebody does not feel that perspective, right? it feels like you know not something which people are interested to listen to and like lot of devs on my team are pretty young and stuff they are still enjoying the feel and so we'll have to wait for them to have that cold to be hot enough so that they are ready to drop it so I talk about this to my leadership team though who are we are going through this journey together and all that so wherever whenever we discuss some things I bring out these analogies when there are problems and stuff and that is where that's where the most impact for it is. So I don't like bring it as part of a training or anything but use these analogies to solve problems and bring perspective to the people that are having that problem.

Right. Right. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. I I tend to um um I tend to be a lot more because I haven't had 20somes on my software team in a while. Um but yeah, I tend to be more proactive about training. Um, and I'm and I'm um I tend to think very systematically about it. Um, I philosophically I'm totally stealing this perspective from the US military. Um because the the the promotion um structures in the US military are very predictable. You learn a bunch of you, you know what your next level is. You learn a bunch of skills that you'll need to be proficient at that level. And you practice them a bunch until people recognize you know what you're doing well enough that we can now give you the title and the responsibility. Um, and so I'm always thinking about, okay, what are the skills I need to teach these people so that they can get better at what they're doing? Um I love that emotional resilience. What's another skill?

The other skill is I think from a leadership perspective I feel is the ability to hold multiple perspectives at once for decision - making not just your own. So like when you say leader right like everybody's discussing multiple things but as a leader the responsibility of the decision falls on you but at the same time the responsibility of consequence also lies with you. So one thing that I observed is when I started off my career I joined McAfee. I was a developer on a 14 -15 something team. So with my perspective back then like nobody thinks their perspective is limited right like that is the beauty of it like everybody thinks they know exactly what is going on. So as a young guy, I had a feeling that okay my manager is not doing enough clearly he doesn't know what he's doing. Me on the other hand who has just joined the team exactly understands what is the right thing he should have been doing for better efficiencies and stuff. So now with the younger guys on the team and they bring up some issues and stuff like that like I realize like this was me and that that that I don't I feel pretty like I actually wrote a LinkedIn post about it one day when I heard one thing which one of our guys said how like my perspective has changed when I sit on the other side of the table. The thing is perspective is right but the problem is they don't know the constraints they don't know the second order effects that will come from their decisions and all that

Yes

So as a leader it is very important to be able to hold multiple perspectives at once like and kind of switch from one persona to the other before kind of coming up with a final thing right and there's not there is no like a perfect decision ever so there are always like trade-offs versus and stuff. So that is where you kind of have to optimize.

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I like that that that there is no perfect. Everything is just what's the consequences, you know? Yeah. What are the wins? What's the cost? You know, what's the tradeoffs? Um what do we think is going to be the best in this context going forward? Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Do you think that's a perspective that you get with like how much time do you think it takes to really start to wrap your head around that?

Um I think there's no timeline as such Bill again like I think it is a upgrade probably it's it's an upgrade. It's a series of upgrades. because the more it is you're like an LLM at the end of the day. You are like a ChatGPT model. You're only limited by the information that you can process and kind of create your model on and you're living your life and you're constantly getting more information and updating your models.

Right

So, I think we are not very different from ChatGPT and you're only limited by the information that you have and you're constantly absorbing more information so you're constantly upgrading and so I don't think you are ever perfect you know like ChatGPT is you hallucinate based on the data that you have and all that. Yeah.

But my hallucinations are true. Come on.

That's that's that's what ChatGPT says as well until you give it more information and then it says, “Oh, I'm sorry”

Right. Right.

And it corrects itself.

That's hilarious. That's so funny to think of that we're just another LLM, you know, that and and Yeah. and the the growth mindset that you're talking about is is such a it's such a and I'm I'm I'm kind of militant about growth mindset like I'm always like you're talking about the LLM gaining I'm always thinking what is it that I don't know that I don't know you know what's my double blind Um, or what is it that I know that's 100% wrong with, you know, either one of those, right? Um, but yeah, I I think I think I'm going to quote you that that that you were just LLMs because that's a really good metaphor. I really like that. Um, that's very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Good. That's a good thinking. Um, is are there are there any other skills you can think of that are that were like, Oh, I need to or or ones that you came into it with that you thought, oh, this this is actually really easy because you already had that particular skill, you know, worked out from playing cricket.

So more than that, I think one skill which is kind of understated pill and you mentioned that grow growth mindset part of it. So my journey what I have seen is like while I first I started off with the life coach or the coach that I have who used to who helps me still he helps me I meet him once a week and all that. So first time when I went and spoke to him like I was ob obviously a very confident guy a semi-successful with whatever small success I had in life and he's telling me things and I was like I had explanation for everything like I knew exactly why I was doing it then now if I were to go he's he's a very kind guy and I think he handled it perfectly well he listened to me and everything and like now if I look back at that conversation if I was the other guy I would have said like then why are you here if you know everything in the world then why are you here why do you want to talk to me that guy he said Prashanth fine it's all good what you're saying I want you to read a book and he gave me a book called Mindset I'm sure you might have read it as well yeah the book is called Mindset so I think that is the first door towards leadership or any growth like when I started reading it it the book is talks about only one principle Whether you have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset that's about it and whatever it was describing I could not think of myself anybody except a guy with a fixed mindset you know he was describing me all along that actually changed so is this who I am and it doesn't sound right you know like it is like you watch a movie you everybody wants to be the hero of the movie but all your traits are kind of projected and onto an antagonist, you don't like it like oh god by that so that is what happened with that book for me and that changed something that basically cracked that hard shell of a person thinking who that was then I was ruminating one day thinking like why why is I so sure about it now it feels like I clearly did not know what I was doing but why was I so sure then it made me think like see I reach so I come from a middle-class family and my dad used to work at another company and stuff like that. And it was it was a it was a decent journey and all but I got to a place where I thought was the definition of whatever success based on my childhood and I got there using the skills that I have. So now I can't question my skill or my own mindset because it got me over there, right? But to realize what got me over there will not let me go further is that crack. So that is where I think is the most important skill set and all the great changes came after I realized that I have a fixed mindset and I need to have a growth mindset. That is when I started listening more and speaking less and you know that that brought that opened up the LLM for better data and better experiences is how I'd put it here.

Yeah, I I that's such a good metaphor, you know. I like that. And I I I love that, you know, you had the humility, right, to go, "Oh my goodness, there's this thing that I want, but I'm not quite I'm not really there yet, right?" Um, and yeah, and wanting to have I to me, having a growth mindset's really the the big win in life. Um and and there's so many different there's so many different facets of the growth mindset it in so many different different arenas. And I think when I see people that are they're stuck and they're frustrated and they're not achieving what they want, part of what I hear from them is that they're not they're not going after that piece of knowledge that they're missing. They're not recognizing the growth mindset as valuable and and so they're expecting a result that they don't have the skills for. you know. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. I like it. Um do you guys have systems for like like you've got some really good perspectives here, right? Um I I'll I'm going to go back to asking kind of asking this like h how how do you get people ready for promotion inside the organization?

So we are still evolving Bill like we are kind of still working on like a proper you know career journey for people and all on what like like US military is like a organization that has been there for a very long time. It has evolved evolved evolved evolved and all. So we are we are a 12-year-old company but we are still evolving. So one thing what we actually do is like the principle is still the same like a person has to be ready for the role like in the sense the person should be already doing the role that he needs to be promoted to like you cannot promote a guy and then expect him to kind of fall in into the role Yeah. So that that first principles is being followed and so how we try to do this is like we are obviously a growing company and whenever we need somebody to step up into a leadership role we need to identify people who are doing really good. So what we have kind of created a structure for is like a rewards and recognition framework. So every month all the teams that we have we have the team leads who will be recommending people who report to them for the awards that we have like it's like the star of the month or like who like was the client hero and we have like a set of awards. So when people are nominated right like and obviously we choose one person who is the best but behind the scenes what ends up happening is as leadership team we are exposed to the people who are the next set of leaders for us who are stepping into that role and who are kind of going and beyond. So the next set of leaders are chosen so when you say leaders leadership is again like is like a series of thing like a CEO is a leader CTO is also a leader engineering manager is also a leader so based on whatever their scale is like they step into that role and that is the framework that we follow for kind of growing the company.

Cool.

And one one framework that I that we use in the company is like you make the best decisions when you are disconnected from the problem right like when you look at objectively like an outside person is better at solving your problem because he's not attached to your problem. So when you talk to somebody they give you the perspective. So I going through this ad and things I was able to kind of like somehow work on this. I got the space to work on this but not everybody has that space. So I had to come up with a framework which helps people to make that decision. So from my office we can actually see a board of a different company which is like in some other building and all. So we created a framework that whenever we are going to discuss about something we are not going to discuss about Innostax. We are going to discuss about that particular company’s problem. So when me and my CTO says I I like I have said this to so so many times to these people they don't listen sometimes it comes out right and then it's like we are never discussing Innostax has no problems there are no problems to discuss innostax so tell me about that company right so you're telling me the CTO of that company told the guys to do something and they're not able to do it. What do you think is the problem? Then he was like but I said it's not your problem. They said I think CTO has not communicated it properly. That's that's the problem that and so that framework so we we have like so let's call it ACME. So we said okay what is going on in ACME and that has helped like take decision making to a very different level in the company.

Yeah I like it.

That's a framework.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's really that's really smart because it it's the hot seat is not here in the house, right? You're you're you're it's it's kind of the whole, you know, the witnessing of but you're sticking the problem over there and being dispassionate about it. And I really like that. Yeah, that's a that is a very good It's a very good leadership perspective to to be able to have that and and I'm a huge fan of critical thinking which requires you to be able to step back a bit and and look at the problem. That's that's very cool. Yeah,

It definitely has changed perspective. Yeah, it it definitely helps. We have seen that for sure. Like,

Yeah, I like that. Again, I'm I'm I'm probably going to quote you, so Yeah. Yeah. It's good because I like I like the way that you're um framing it, you know, and and it it gives your CTO the mental space to think about it differently. And that's always I found that's that's always super helpful to be able to to give people at whatever level space to really think about stuff and not be emotionally hooked into it And that's the, you know, like that's the thing that I've always tried to do with all my teams is is get whatever emotions have been going on to be pulled out of the situation because humans think better when we're not stuck in fear, you know.

Absolutely.

which is usually the the thing. That's usually where we get hung up. And so if I can reduce everybody's stress load, then that's the that's the win. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's one more side to it, Bill.

What I've realized is like when somebody questions like why I did something what I did, right? Like there are people who ask like why why do you want to do this and all rather than explaining what I tell them is like now you are in my seat and I am the guy who is questioning you. So let us say okay this is your decision and then all you have to do is just ask about this okay now I have this constraint okay now I have this constraint which will happen and like most of the time like what I have seen is people kind of do not have bad intent they just are charged with emotions on like this guy should have done this or this guy should have taken this decision but when as soon as you put them in your seat and your intent is right and you have an answer a good of good intent for them right eventually it comes down to yeah I think you have taken the best decision or whatever but they end up giving you so much perspective from their side of the fence that you get to hold one more perspective for your leadership at the same time the other guy now he's not resentful at all and they they become an advocate of your decision- making and they become like like the the the leaders that we have in the company whenever we have this discussion and they become advocates And they are the guys who are taking the Innosax culture forward because this is how it goes towards and they also realize that the leadership also the the exact leadership also does not have any bad intent. Their intentions are absolutely on point but there are some constraints because of which these decisions have to be taken and one more thing whenever we speak to our leadership team what we say is like see there is no Innosax there's no company it's on paper it doesn't even exist it's just a figment of our imagination for the people who report to you you are Innosax so behave like what Innostax should be doing with them rather than delivering everything to somebody so now you are the people you you are the leader of the your own people, you need to fight for them, not accept whatever the leadership is saying.

Right. Right.

Because at the end of the day, you are Innostax for them and they work for you, not for a figment of somebody's imagination. And that also helps.

Yeah, that's a really empowering perspective for a team lead. I really like that. Yeah, that's good. That's very That's very good. Yeah, because I think I mean sadly I've seen a lot of team leads who they don't have that perspective and they're not willing to fight for their teams and then the individual contributors just don't work very well. You know, they're not because they know and and they don't they don't trust that their efforts will be rewarded, right? and and you know and in some contexts they don't trust that they can actually speak openly. Um and for me that's I I always think about how do I maximize psychological safety for my team because I really want them like I never want them to think I'm the smartest guy in the room. I I want because because I I only have my answers, right? Like I want that's why I have a team because they have better answers than I do on average. Um and I want them to feel like they have better answers than I do all the time, you know, and if randomly I have a better answer at some point in time, I'm going to try and be very diplomatic about bringing it up. But you know, yeah, psychological safety is such a huge um it's such a huge advantage when you can build it inside of a team. You get so much more out of your people. It's amazing.

It's a difficult thing to achieve still. Like frankly, I feel that even as Innostax, we are not there yet in terms of psychological safety. like it depends on your the person that you report to. Mhm. I feel it it depends a lot on the personality of the person that you report to as well like yeah like I feel the people who report to me have the psychological safety but I'll be careful to say that that is carried across to the entire organization because I speaking to one of the team leads and he's a very empathetic team lead and he's very good with his people. So he gave me feedback saying that there are a lot of leads who look at this more as a power the sword that they can yield right they they might kind of like use some frameworks here and there but again it comes down to individual empathy on how that person actually thinks right because as the exec you never have access to how they are thinking and all that. So we are trying to get some skip level meetings and all that but still as a leadership team you are tend to trust the leader more than the individual contributor on some level until there is enough noise from the individual contributors and everybody is just trying to survive and do not want to get into trouble. So you never have enough information. So we are trying to build that safety in and we are trying to get some leadership training for our leads. and like 2026 is like one of the things as leadership we what we have discussed is we will use 2026 to build our people and not just the company like what we have realized is there are multiple layers in how companies form like first it is outcome driven. in the beginning it has to be outcome driven the client needs to get the value in that case like collaterals are acceptable and everything then you go into process first and then you go into people first so now we are in process first board and not people first entirely so we are slowly transitioning and yeah we we actually got great place to work certified as well like so we are we are way better than a lot of other companies but personal admission is I I don't think we are there yet like there is a lot more space there to go and we still like run like startups so there's like lot of mental pressure on our people yeah the intent is good so people see that but again there is a lot more room to improve for Innostax for sure

Yeah yeah it's um it's it's having a a system where you can um you can consistently across the board help people understand to help the team leads understand how to improve the psychological safety of their people because when you have a when you have a systems approach to it um you can then everybody speaks the same language right it's kind of like you guys probably have standardized QA processes and and you know it's not like every engineer has their own QA or every team has their own process, right? And so everybody gets the same kind of language, you get economies of scale, but also if one team starts to bump into some kind of friction in their QA process, then they can talk to other people and go like, okay, what like what's going on? Why are we struggling and you guys aren't right? It's the same thing with psychological safety. um systematizing it and having a shared language and getting the leads to all be um what's the word I want um incentivized to operate the same way. it it takes the whole power dynamic thing and flips it around. Um because they they start to understand the value for themselves of executing on a servant leadership um game plan. Yeah. Yeah. It works really well. Yeah.

What we're currently doing is every week like all the leads meet with our CTO and everyone and it's like a round table thing where people bring up the problems that they have on their team and everybody discusses as a team to come up with what is the best approach and that is kind of implemented. So we are a small team still right we have eight to nine leads at the moment. So it's easy for us to all to get in a room and kind of discuss individually and even the new policies that we think are necessary we run it by them. It is like our parliament in a way and so we kind of like veto through things. It's more around you know alignment with majority of the people then the other people get convinced and the moto of those meetings are either you convince me or I convince you kind of a thing and then then those things become like our process. So that has been helping a lot. Earlier it used to be the exec teams thinking that this is what is required for the company and kind of took it forward. But that that change has helped. Now what happens is whenever somebody kind of talks to the lead they have the context they have the reason they have the intent and that helps take policies the right way to everybody.

Right. Right. Yeah. I I haven't seen HR policies work as well as because the the team leads can do very different things to help the the people out in their because everybody's different, right? Like you know, you've got seven individual contributors in a team and they all have different things going on. It's really hard for HR to mandate a policy or set of policies that's going to work across the board. whereas a team lead can go, yeah, okay, you know, you need this and you need this and it's fine and here's how we make it all work. Um, and the the level of scale is just in the team rather than trying to have something like I was at a company where HR had had put in some policies that before I got there and and the team that I inherited was not amused. Um, let's put it that way.

and and you know I was like okay you know like what's friction you know like what's going on and and when they started talking about the policies and I realized how how HR was well-intentioned but they didn't really like they weren't getting the right feedback loop and so I I ended up going to them and going look you know I I know you meant well, but um but but here's the consequences, right? Like and they were like, "Oh, we didn't we didn't know that like that's a problem." And so they ended up reversing just removing the policy completely. And so then, you know, we got to go, okay, how what do we want to do? How do we want to operate? Um, and every other team also had the freedom to do that. And so we made decisions for our team that work great for our team. They wouldn't have worked for the other teams, right? Because they have they have different stuff going on.

And it's a, you know, it comes down to what's the personal responsibility of the team lead um to number one, as you said, fight for the team, right? um and to to know how to go do that effectively. Um but but also really to just understand that that's you know that's their game to play right like that's really the thing.

So my perspective on this is like again this is an there is an institutional way of looking at it like even if you take US government for example there's a federal government and there is a state government. Sure. So there are few things that federal government takes care of and rest the states have the flexibility to do what they want.

Yeah. Exactly.

[00:48:32: | GUEST : Prashanth | So it comes down to power. So what we have done is we have global policies across all the teams and then there is like the work from home policy that we have like we are in office team. We don't like we don't have like a permanent remote or anything of that sort.

Yep.

But we definitely want to have work from home policy. But one from home policy if you are too mandating it it won't work well because what we see is like as a tech team and we are working for the client and for us it is very dynamic. It's so we we prefer be like we in the sense at least the leadership and the main leadership we prefer keeping it in office. So when we brought in the work from home policy, we gave the flexibility to the lead to decide who can take work from home and who cannot take from work from home because at the end of the day they are responsible for the outcome. So they should be the one who who are deciding. So I think what we have seen is like you will have to you cannot centralize all the decision making obviously

Exactly

Like HR trying to take a central decision for everybody does not work. 60% can be central I think 40% there should be autonomy with you know fail safe for consequences where you know you own the consequences. Yep. And obviously psychological safety for the team leads also to make bad decisions that everybody makes bad decisions that's okay if you fail we we'll bring another policy which will fix it and so that's how we are managing it for now.

Nice. Yeah. Yeah. the getting the team leads to feel safe is one of those I think it's an undervalued perspective like I don't think enough I don't think enough CTO's really think through how to make that happen um and and and I think you know in the long run the the team performance suffers suffers for Um because if you start to think about how do I do it, then you start thinking about okay, what systems do we put in place and how do we approach things and what are our mitigation strategies and um how do we have everything be like the conversations be oh you're taking a calculated risk. Okay, cool. What's the worst case scenario? you know, um, and is that something you're will like, you know, that everybody's okay with, you know, and how do we get how do we get everybody everybody to be good with it? And, um, I think because early in my career, um, I worked for a founder who was really good at asking prompting questions that got me to talk about that stuff.

and and then I just started preloading every conversation that I had with him with things that I knew he was going to ask me anyway, right? Um and and then the next company I went to, I did the exact same thing and all of a sudden everything was easy, you know, like I'd go talk to the VP of Venge and I'd be like, "Here's you know, all the stuff." And he'd be like, "Oh, well, of course, yes." and it was super easy, you know. Right. Right. Um, so, you know, I got to give props to that guy for for for being consistent in how he asked questions. That's true. And it was it was very much a it was a excellent learning opportunity for me, you know, I got to say. So, it was cool. Yeah. Um, any other Are there any questions that I haven't asked you that you think I really should? What have I forgotten to ask?

I don't think I think everything comes down to one or two things, Bill. Like it comes down to staying grounded and kind of understanding you having empathy for your team. I think that all any question that you ask will probably circle down to the same kind of question the psychological safety and how the teams operate. so only thing I can add from the psy psychologically psychological safety standpoint is like any if something goes wrong what we kind of first question what we ask is what was the intent what were you trying to do?

Yep. so and if the intent is good and the logic is sound I think like one thing is like that problem comes down to me I have to handle it one way or the other because everybody makes mistakes kind of a thing. But if if the intent is there, logical reasoning is not sound then probably he's not a good fit for the job and we probably overindexed on his ability to do something. So that also gives us an idea like what you have supposed to do and if intent is wrong he's out like that is he's not supposed to be in the company like he's trying to do something which was not in good benefit. So that makes gives us a very strong decision tree in terms of what you're doing. So people who have stayed with us longer and like who have worked closely with and all they understand this so they take some decisions which actually help the company. But that being said again like I'm personally I want to work on the communications piece also what I feel is like whatever I'm talking to you probably some of the IC's on my team might really is that what they're trying to do because you know there are layers out there. Yep. and everything might not be translating directly to the people it is supposed to. So that's how I feel about it.

Yeah. Yeah. I I communication is huge and that that's definitely one of the things that when I started leading teams, I spent a lot of time um working on my communication skills and um starting with getting over my I I used to have really bad social anxiety Okay. And and so my starting point was getting over my social anxiety and and figuring out how to do that in a way that was again s a system. I I built a system for getting over social anxiety and and um and then I you know for presenting and now I like public speaking. So, it's, you know, it's kind of one of those you you you work work your way through the layers um of where you're at to where you want to get to and and um work that growth mindset.

I've seen your podcast, Bill. Nobody can ever say that you ever had, you know, speaking anxiety or public anxiety like the way you engage people and all. It is really amazing. It's you bring out lot of information from people like the way you speak, the way you kind of are warm with them and kind of give them the space to kind of do the creative thinking on the podcast.

Yeah, it's really amazing.

Um so full disclosure, 25 years ago I couldn't have done this. Like it was like not Yeah. Yeah. you know, it's I I couldn't talk to strangers 25 years ago, you know, and it it was it was really rough and um there were two things that got me started. One was I started leading software teams and the other thing was my my older son was born and I didn't want to be a role model like that where I had social anxiety.

That is that is a huge motivation.

Yeah. So, I had two big motivations and I was like, "Okay, I got to figure this out. I got to figure out a way to do it." And um and a friend of mine kind of gave me this framework. Um, and I started off with two minute exercises where the the the crux was to go to Starbucks and and order a cup of coffee and then ask the barista how their day was going. And that asking how their day was going, like I the first half a dozen times I did it, I was sweating when I walked in the door because that was so scary for me. And you know, it's it sounds like crazy considering what I'm doing now, but at the time it was I I did not know how long it would take me to stop sweating.

But what was the problem, Bill? Like I mean, I understand this framework helps. It's like a crunch until you can walk again. But what was the problem behind it?

So there was a couple parts to it. One of them was I had um it it was a it was a um what do you call it? It was a recursive loop. Um one of them I was afraid of what people would think of me.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

And the second was I was afraid that I didn't know how to start a conversation.

Right.

Right. And so I wouldn't and people probably thought I was arrogant and like wouldn't talk, you know.

Right. Right. Right.

Um and and the weird thing is despite that, every now and then I would pop out and I would do something. Um and that would get me amazing ROI, right? Um but to do it consistently is the challenge, right? Um you know, doing it once every five years, it isn't really helpful. Um and and so and and I didn't want to model that for my kids. And if and I knew that if they were got started struggling with social anxiety, I had to be able to give them a system that would help them that I could stand behind.

Right. Right.

And so and and and you know both of my sons have had this have had experiences when they went to bigger schools of being like and and not knowing anybody of being like okay dad I I don't know what to do. And I'm like oh you know here's here's the system. Here's how to go run it. Try it for a week. Let me know what happens. Right. Um and it it worked really really well for them. Um, I just broke it down into okay, these are the this is what I'm afraid of. How do I what do I have to do? You know, number one, emotional resilience. Like, how do I manage my brain chemistry, right? Um, what are the skills I need to go to manage my brain chemistry so I can go and do this thing? And then how do I set up doing the thing to be as successful as possible so I can work past my fear? Because one of the things that I noticed is that um reps doing it over and over and over again diminishes the fear over time. It's um it's exposure to therapy. Right. Right. And so, you know, the first time I walked into Starbucks to go run this recipe, I I couldn't actually do it. Like I was so afraid I couldn't do it. And but I was like, "Okay, I walked in the door." That was the win, you know. Um, and then the next time I said, "How's your day going?" They said something. I have no clue because I I you know, the script obviously and and I said, "Thank you very much. Hope the rest of the day goes well." Which is the second part of the script. And then I walked out the door and I was like, "Oh my god, I actually did it." Yes. You know, it's And then um I did 15 more reps. Like every day I would go and do it. Um, and , and then it was easy, but it took me 15 reps to get it to be easy. And then, um, the next thing was five minute speed networking.

Okay. And it was live, it was live events, , pre, you know, this way before COVID, right? We were having, there was lots of speed networking around here. And so I'd go to these five minute events. I knew how long it was going to last. It's five minutes. I wrote a script out in advance, so I had a list of questions to ask every person that I talked with. Um, and , I think after like three events, I was like, "Okay, I got that down. Now, let's go to 15-minute networking events." Um, and then I started learning how to do presentations and Yeah.

That was actually

and in parallel. Yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Um and I learned, you know, like and I used my software team as my guinea pig audience, you know. I told him, I said, "Look, I need to learn how to do presentations." Um, are you guys cool if like every meeting we ever have, I do a presentation as part of it? And they were like, "Okay, sure, until it gets to be like a problem." and and it it never got to be a problem. So that worked out. And then you know after a few months of that um my VP started asking me to um help with presentations he was doing just providing content. Um and then he started asking me to present the stuff for my teams.

And then he went on vacation one day and was like, "Oh, here you can do the whole thing." And so, you know, I'm like, it's very iterative, right? It was like, you know, little little steps. And so, you know, the hardest presentation was probably the first time I had to get up in front of the executives and just talk about my team, right? Um, and you know, by the time I had to do the whole presentation, like I knew all these people and they were easy to talk with. And so it was just, oh, wait a minute, now I've got everybody else's slides, you know, um, and I need to make sure that I understand everything. Um, and I'm comfortable and that I practice it a bunch and, you know, kind that was the next the next piece. Yeah, it's all it's all it's all building systems. It's you know yeah it's the way my head

growth is very your your growth is where your fear is Bill like that's what I tell my team also like you should keep doing what you fear and oh yeah to a person who does not understand that it would feel like okay it's just talking to people but the person who is going through it it is oh yeah as close to hell as you can get to yeah so kudos on that that's it that's a great transition

Yeah and it's it's you know it's the balance of of being uncomfortable but not terrorized. Right. Right. Right. You know, you you got to be able to um you have to be able to self-regulate your fear.

Right. And um I do a lot of breath work to to self-regulate my fear. Um, and then like if it's something big and I'm like, "Oh, this is then I'm not I'm doing breath work, but also I make sure that I' I've eaten well beforehand. Um, that I'm really well rested, that I know people there. , and and that combination makes it easier for me." That's true. Yeah.

For me like I I kind of try to close my eyes like meditate and kind of try to understand like why like trying to disconnect and see like why does Prashant fear speaking so much like what is what are the thoughts that are actually going on? What are the thoughts that get triggered when I imagine myself trying to speak to somebody like this is just another approach like framework is always the best Bill because it is like take this do one two step two 3 4 then you kind of are at the you know the outcome that you want to like it it works best for 95% of the people out there what I feel is like for myself it has always been around like what is the core of the problem what am I fearing what are the thoughts and looking at the thoughts and thinking like okay So, so do I fear being judged? Do I fear that I am not good enough? Do I fear? And it's always some voice in your head that you heard in your childhood somebody tell you and you believed it because so you had to deduct all those things out of you because the Bill that I'm speaking to is the real Bill. It's not a created Bill, right? He was just like clouded by all the thoughts that were created in his head from childhood and somebody told Bill that when you're speaking it's not good enough and Bill believed it and that is the biggest problem.

Yeah. Yeah. It's um have you heard of Adlerian psychology?

No.

Jose. So, Joseph Adler um Joseph Adler was a was a contemporary of um Freud and he his perspective was it was very much a growth mindset perspective. He was like yeah stuff happened to you in your childhood but that doesn't define the rest of your life. You you bu you build, you know, you figure out where you want to go and you what strengths you want to develop and, you know, where you already have strength and where you're weak and then you, you know, figure out how to move ahead there, right? And and his perspective was very much not victim. It's like everybody has everybody has some kind of negative stuff happen in their childhood. Right. Right. Right. Right. Some people don't learn how to do math well. Right. Okay. You can still learn how to do math well. Right. Right. Right. Right. Some people don't learn how to communicate well. You can learn how to communicate well. Right. Some people don't grow up learning how to manage their emotions. You can learn that, you know. Um it's it's all about the learning and the drive to go learn and how to improve your life. And and for me that resonates really really well. Um because it it means that anything is possible. I have to put energy into it, you know. So

Brain is just a bunch of neurons like forming every time. So you are definitely not the person you are the next minute you have more information about something new. So we are ever changing. We are transient. So like thinking about ourselves as a fixed being who is already like fully evolved in the biggest limiter.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're just like full of words of wisdom. This is very cool. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Bill.

Good. Um I just looked at the time and realized I'm we're we're over. Um this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Thanks, Bill. Like we are over because we are enjoying the conversation. like I I've learning like your journey and stuff and which is really inspiring like I I see like from and what age was it when you started going into Starbucks and trying to like Oh, your anxiety.

Oh man. Let's see. 38.

Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't I didn't get over my fear of public speaking till after I was 50. Yeah. Age is irrelevant. Yeah. I' I've decided that all this stuff about, you know, age and the number blah blah blah. I'm like either it's totally irrelevant or I've got some weird genetic freakiness going on. Um because No, I it's it just doesn't matter. You know

The reason why I asked is like it is it gets harder as you age to kind of change something like changing yourself at 15 is way easier than changing yourself as 40 like the neurons have already formed like if you look at the brain chemistry and all that like the maximum number of connections are when you are as a child that's why it's easier to learn new languages when you are a child and then slowly what happens is the unnecessary neurons starts disconnecting and that's how your adult life forms like that is the brain the concept behind it. So when when changing at 38 is a a very diff the the quantum of effort that is required to kind of change is lot higher that tells me like something was like super strong that you said enough is enough I will change this and that that itself says that talks about the resilience like when changing at 38 is not an easy feat that's where I was getting it

You know I think with because neuroplasticity is a thing. I believe that it's easy to change and evolve and learn and I and I think because I have that belief, right, it makes it it lubricates the process, right?

Obviously. Yes. 100%.

And and so, you know, it goes back to struggle, right? Right. Like the for me the struggle is high value, right? And the the win is in the struggle, right? And so um because like I'm learning, right? I'm I'm pushing myself and um I like to push myself. I like to challenge myself and I don't see that having gray hair or no hair means I need to stop that, right? You know, it's like why not? It's like um there's a guy named Cameron Haynes who's a um he runs ultramarathons.

Okay. And he's mid-50s I think. And he's doing 100 plus mile 100 plus mile running races. Right. Right. like for fun like and and his thing is I need to push myself and I don't ever see that ending, you know. Um and so, okay, maybe it takes me longer to learn whatever. There's probably other things I'll learn in the process of the struggle, right? That if it only took me a quarter of that time, I would never learn. Right. Right. So I'm like what are what are all of the what are all the upsides of the investment in effort? Right. Right. Right. Right. So for me it's like the whole the whole game is it's a win you know.

Right. Right. Right. No definitely. Last question for you Bill like what is the new thing that you're working towards like you like you worked on your public speaking skills and like you're doing some amazing podcast. Is there something else that you are kind of pushing towards?

So there so there's two things I'm working on, right? Um one of them is sales. Okay. Like I have to learn how to sell, right? Okay. The other thing completely different is I'm learning about farming. Holy. Yeah. So So I have this side project. It's a regenerative farm, right? Um it's a one of these days I'll be doing my podcast from there. Okay. Um it's about three hours from here. It's still in California. And um for multiple reasons, I decided number one, I love the area up there. We've been we've been visiting, my girlfriend been visiting there a bunch and started talking about moving there. Okay. Um, and then we started learning about regenerative farming and I was fascinated by the idea and and it it kind of was like multiple pieces all lined up. Um, I I love the area. Every time I go up there, it's like beautiful and peaceful and I'm inspired. Um, we bought a piece of land and had to build everything. Okay. And so I'm learning all these other skills along the way. So it's all these other struggles. Um, and by the way, most of them I suck at, so that's even, you know, like more interesting. Um, but like that's, you know, I'm I'm learning carpentry and how to build fences and work.

You're you're amazing like you're amazing the way you think. Okay, now let me think of public speaking then suddenly carpentry let me do this like the diversification that you have is actually inspiring for me because I I'm good at one thing and I keep doing it that like the breath that you are going after it's inspirational. I should think about some you know something completely out. Yeah, it's really good. Thank you for sharing that.

It's um it's what keeps me feeling balanced. I'm good. You know, um, you know, like for for the first 10 years of my software development career, um, my weekend hobby was wind surfing and I went wind and there's really good wind surfing here in the Bay Area. Um, I would go wind surfing on the weekends and most days after work because there was a place near to my office, right? um or I was mountain biking, one of the two, right? Like that was the that was my thing. And then um and then it was surfing and rock climbing. and and I you know that um and and and now it's farming is the is the is the side, you know, like I'm watching YouTube videos on how to build small buildings. Okay. Totally different.

I I'll I'll try to find something to do completely different from what I'm doing and I'll share that with you, Bill, and I'll just email you.

Beautiful. I love it. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. We'll have to do a podcast on that. We'll 100% any. Yeah, that'll be fun. 100%. Next time we do a podcast, I'll have to be up on the property so you can you can it'll be the backdrop.

I will be the host. I will come prepared about stuff and I I would I would like to interview you. I think you have more insights to share than I have. You have done more things in life than I have.

Well, I' I've got a few more years than you, so you know, it's kind of been the the you know, the way it's racked up. So, this has been awesome. Thank you.