The Web Talk Show - The Leadership Trap: Why Most Training Fails

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Armando Piscaro and I'm joined today by Rahul Karan from Steady Steps. Welcome Rahul. Thank you Armando for having me on the show. Really appreciate it and thank you for whatever you're doing for the community. Appreciate it. No thank you and again I'm really really excited that you're on. For everyone who's listening, Rahul will talk to us about a few very interesting aspects on leadership. But I'll let you introduce yourself first so that our audience knows who you are. Absolutely. So Rahul by person is a giver uh a son a father and always strive to learn. I I moved into this leadership space uh with 20 years of experience and now it's been uh close to 14 months that I'm uh doing consulting organization development consulting uh and leadership transformation uh services for my clients. In nutshell what I do, I help people transform. I do human transformation and the way I do is not a onesize fit all kind of a solution. It is a unique solution for an organization. It's a unique solution for an individual. So my programs yes they are training programs. Yes, they are workshop but the way they differentiate with others is I provide personal coaching, personal uh you know involvement and when I say personal it is that you have u uh you you go for a workshop but typically when you go for a workshop once you are done you're out but with my clients I work with them for at least two to three months post my workshop to make sure that they get what they learn because the objective is not for people just to come and get trained and and pay me money. No, the objective is for me to **[00:02:00]** make sure that they get the impact that they were looking for. And and that's what I'm here to do. Uh with God's grace, God has been kind, given me uh good uh good fame, good money. So, it's not about money, it's more about the transformation. So that is who I am and I'm here to help uh organizations, individuals to be the better version of themsel. Thank you Rahul. That's it is very different from what we typically see as you very clearly said in workshops, trainings. I led workshops many years ago. I I did tons of workshops and you did see that from feedback from customers that a lot of these workshops that people go to they're all very excited they go they learn sometimes they learn something they don't learn but at the end of the day it sort of finishes and there's that excitement and then they don't do anything with it so the fact that you carry on with them that is very different and I think very much needed in the space and if for anyone who's been listening recently to the show. We're we're doing a lot of these based on training and it's just so important to have that followup. Some some people do communities around it, some people use cohorts so that people are learning together and in your case you're you're continuing that conversation. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think you you said it well that you have to find a way. It is just not always the the facilitator. uh sometimes you know the the participant don't like the facilitator for whatever reason and it's completely okay because you cannot satisfy each and every individual but it is in your hand how you get the most out of **[00:04:00]** it um and and and with since uh I have started my entrepreneurial journey I myself had multiple coaches I myself have invested in my own development and it's not that every time I got what I was looking for but every time I'm learning I'm learning that okay this may not be the right approach so if tomorrow I have to hire a coach if the coach is having this approach may not work for me so at least you you become self-aware um you become more knowledgeable about what not to do more than what to do you become more knowledgeable what not to do that is a good point I think Alex Corosi. I was listening to one of his episodes the other day and for those who don't know, he's like a serial entrepreneur, but he helps a lot of businesses through his YouTube content and other content just to grow because at the end of the day, he wants businesses to grow because he has an acquisition company. And so if businesses grow, there's a potential for him to buy them. And so he just blasts the internet with tons of very valuable business content. But one of the things he said in relation to this was precisely that there's no real waste if first of all you shouldn't say oh I'm already the best right there's always someone who can teach you something. So like Rahul was saying it's great to have coaches and learn along the way. You might find some that you don't like and you might find some that are just terrible, but it's really not a bad investment because you learned what is not good. You learned what not to do, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And see um today one of **[00:06:00]** the post that I did on LinkedIn was about what is the common leadership trap and one of the leadership trap common leadership trap related to training is whenever any leader any manager any organization the moment they see a problem whether it is about employee morale attrition productivity the most of them. What they do is they organize a training program. I need training. I need training without really identifying the root cause and most of the time Armando training is not the solution for everything because not everyone is looking for training. What we organization need to do is one they need to take a step back and try to identify the root cause and why there is a root cause. If I am having a water leakage if I just do a paint over it that leakage will not stop it will come again whenever there is a rain next time. So, so organization needs to understand that training is not the solution for every and each and every human related problem. They need to do a root cause analysis. And number two is the human angle. Talk to people. Talk to people who are actually facing the issues, challenges. And it is a a very known truth that uh people don't change when they are told to change. People change when the change comes from within. So when you throw things to people that hey I have done this organize this training 50% of them will take a take a laid-back approach and not come with the attitude that you want them to come. But when you involve them when you ask for solutions from them whether you take their solution or not that's a separate story but at least involve them. And the third thing **[00:08:00]** is one as I said is identify the root cause. Second the human angle. And the third piece is collaborate. Collaborate with different people. Not all the time you will have resources but collectively you may have all. So you need to identify those people who can help you and then decide whether training is the pro the solution or not. Because I have observed um Armando that when I talk to leaders okay about their challenges they tell me their challenges from a futuristic perspective that they want their team member to be ready for future they want them to be ready for all the disruption that's going to happen now when I go to my uh individual contributors or the real trainees from for them what they're looking for is how this training will be helpful for me today. So it's a huge gap leader is thinking about future which rightly he or she should I'm not debating that but on the other hand the employee is not concerned about the future their challenge or problem is today. So as an organizational development expert I need to satisfy both the parties the future uh futuristic leader as well as the practical employee and why most of the training programs and according to McKenzie report only 3% of training programs are successful and the reason they are not successful 97% are not successful is because we try to focus on quick fix rather than focusing on a long-term solution. Wow. 3%. That is I I imagined it was low but not that low. It was a surprising for me as well. It was very surprising. I know Harvard research says that 90 plus% of change management initiative do not succeed. 90%. Okay. And their research shows that the problem **[00:10:00]** is the communication here. If when I look at that McKenzie report 3% I can also see that there is some communication issues are there. So round and round it is about communication that uh that is a bigger problem. It is and it ties back to our last episode if you haven't listened to it with Mark Anderson. We were talking about the investigative world, but at the end of the day, we were talking about communication and empathy and the power of listening to the other party in order to assist or promote change or to get insights. Just like you're saying, it is very interesting to hear that from an organization's perspective, a lot of these organizations throw training at it. But you're right, at the end of the day, they should first listen to their employee, see what's happening, and find that root cause. And I think you touched on something so powerful. Maybe they don't even need an outsider. Maybe they already have all the valuable information they need in that internal knowledge base that they haven't considered as a whole. Absolutely. Absolutely. And another interesting thing Armando is it's not when when we talk about people um it's not about people don't do things that they don't know. The unfortunate part is they don't do things that they know. That is the problem. So it is not about providing or sharing the new knowledge. It is about creating the processes and systems in place that they do what they actually know. For example, it is a clear rule that you need to stop on a stop sign, right? You know it. But people who are jumping the stop sign, it's it's not that they don't know that they need to stop. They know, but **[00:12:00]** they're not doing it. So if you go and send them to a training program from DMV to to learn about stopping in the stop sign that is not the right solution right. So that is one of the uh challenge that I see in in uh in most of the corporation is uh people know today's generation Armando is is far better equipped to know the knowledge. They they don't need an expert like me to come and share the knowledge. No, I am not there to share the knowledge. But what I am there for is how to utilize that knowledge. When to use, when to accelerate and when to pause, when to stop as a leader is the critical quality of a leader. So when I step in and that's where I what I do is I focus more on the retainership program with my clients. So it's not one and done. I stay connected with my clients for a longer time because I'm I'm able to speak with the uh with the individuals. I can read their mind. I can be there when they need me because most of the time what happens our leaders are so busy. They are in backtoback meetings and and most of the leaders they take pride unfortunately that hey my calendar is blocked. I'm not available for 3 months. Come on you are a leader. You need to create time for your people. If your calendar is packed for 3 months, it it's insane. So, so the employee they need you as a leader right then when they have a problem and if I am picking their call after 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, they have already figured out their solution. And I'm not saying that you know all **[00:14:00]** the time the leader has to be by the side of the employee. That is not what I'm saying. But then you need to make sure that you are there for your people. You are available for your people and uh if your calendar is getting blocked for 3 months, it's I'm I'm sorry that you know you need to uh find another leader for your people then you are not the uh the great leader for your people. That it makes a lot of sense. What do you think of slimming down in in that space? I'll explain. So sometimes especially companies as they grow, they start to add managers and managers and managers and and different levels. But if what you're saying is happening and they have many managers but then at the end of the day the managers are not leading as they should. Is it better to have a leader that listens will that with with that scope more than have many of them or or is it okay to have many of them? What what's the balance? So uh so we have tried and when I say we I have seen in organizations where they they have tried to have um a functional manager and a people manager. So so there are two group of people or two two individuals one is focusing on the functional aspect the technical aspect of the work and one is focusing on the people management as aspect of the work. It was a it was a good innovation model that that we introduced but it it was not able to yield the results that we were hoping for. Um it's just a similar situation like sometimes kids goes to mommy's and kids goes to daddy's right but when mom **[00:16:00]** and dad when they are talking together when they are together and talking to a kid is a different uh environment altogether because there are certain things mom only knows there are certain things dad only knows and then if the mom and dad they are not talking to each other the kids will take us for ransom unfortunately Right. So, uh the the approach here should be is your um your your leadership pipeline. The way we replenish our grocery stock every week. Similarly, we need to replenish leadership stock. So, the leadership or leaders should not be developed when there is a need. Okay? You need to have leaders being developed every now and then so that whenever there is need you can do plug and play. Now many organizations what they do is they provide leadership training when someone becomes a leader and and in my opinion that is too late. So the leadership training has to start at the inception at at the start of the employees work if they are starting fresh with your organization and um and what I mean by leadership training leadership program and and don't get me wrong it is not only about the the LinkedIn learning or you know Udemy platform or online training or for that matter inerson workshop no it has to be a holistic approach yes those programs are important but there has to be live mentorship or maybe day in life. So, so these newcomers can sit with leaders when they are making decisions can sit in their meetings how are they behaving can sit with their it could be they can accompany with a day with them uh they can give they can be given mock projects they can be given responsibilities to mentor. Now **[00:18:00]** this is all should happen but many places Armando these things are in paper but in reality it does not get executed and that's where we today we see tremendous number of mental health issues the number of uh you know patients with cardiac arrest the number of diabetes the number of blood pressure patients is increasing and and it is not only about the lif lifestyle or the or the food habits. It's it's also about the mental stress is is the pressure which people are not able to cope up and and who are these people who are creating pressures. Yes, it is easy to blame an corporation but corporation who is corporation corporation is built by people. Corporation is built by leaders. So if today we have to focus on reducing the mental health issues in reducing the obesity issues, reducing the health issues, our focus has to be on leaders because most of us I mean whether we are individual contributors, whether we are working for corporations, working for government, wherever we are working, we always have leaders, managers. Okay? So if we focus on building them right providing them proper education it would be a different world altogether and and I know saying it is very easy for me execution is challenging and that's where what I have done and uh I always believe in creating ripple effect and making an impact in your own inner circle. The world is too big for you to make an impact but you know you can make an impact in your own home. So what I created uh Armando is a LinkedIn group and it is fairly new just this March 30th only I have announced a leadership sounding board what this board is is for leaders by **[00:20:00]** leaders because many times leaders they don't have a go-to place because an individual contributor has a manager yes from a hierarchy perspective everyone has a leader to the top to the sea level and the sea level also may have a coach but in in the day-to-day practicality leaders have alone leaders are alone they don't have go-to play people so that's why I created this group where people can share the challenges they don't have to share details like who is the the name of the person name of the company no we just want the situation and then they can get a different perspective because it is all about the perspective you know from from your perspective you may think that this cannot be solved or this problem cannot be solved. But there will be someone else who will tell you hey you know what if let's say if you're playing a chess hey move your horse from here to here you think you are checkmate no you are not there is a still an option for you because your mind is blocked your mind is not seeing that that open option someone else can so in my own capacity uh I have created this group it's free of charge is there is no the only investment is time uh so I'm looking for leaders who want to contribute to this group so that they can uh make healthier and a happier place for people and then individual contributors can can join and and ask their challenges ask their issues to get different perspective. I think that's a great idea. Communities are big and they're getting bigger because people have always had that longing for belonging in all manners of life. But it turns out that communities **[00:22:00]** for likeminded individuals for a specific topic, micro communities are extremely important and extremely valuable because people have that same like you were saying that same situation and many of them have already had that situation happen and they can share their results, what happened, what they maybe they didn't get it to work but at least you'll know what didn't work and so those groups are very valuable and I'm very happy you created it because I don't think we stop and think a lot about these managers or leaders where you were saying it just where are they going? It's like when sometimes we I fortunately have a very good communication with my wife, but there's a there's a lot of people that the man or the woman or whoever in the couple does the work uh goes to work every day and keeps everything there and the other person doesn't know and and they might be really stressed by what's going on in the work even if they're doing well. It could be that it's just hard or there are some difficulties or challenges and there's no one to talk to and so that just keeping it in is very tough and sometimes you just need I actually soundboard you mentioned I wrote something I don't know 2008 I think on my blog back then which was not really a blog and it was about having soundboard just someone they don't even have to know about what you're talking about just be there and you just bounce ideas off them and you yourself sometimes just figure out the solution by having that interaction. And so this community is such a great idea because it it just it will allow so many people will empower so many people **[00:24:00]** to keep going and reduce some of that stress and maybe even find solutions. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think you're spot on. uh 50% of problems get resolved the moment you speak out from your heart. Okay? Because when you're speaking honestly you're also getting an answers in your mind in your head and uh when you when someone else is hearing that from a different perspective you will not you will be surprised like at times my kids tell me that hey no dad this needs to be done like this this needs to be done like that and I am taking a different route altogether. So you never know who will be of help to you. You don't need to have a very professional person to go and talk to you know uh the new employee in your team could be the resource for you. So, so from the coaching and mentoring it's not always to look up to the senior person or the experienced person you know uh the newbies can also coach you maybe may not be on the things that you are expert but on the things when they are expert uh that is that is something very very important and another aspect is most of us we always tend to believe that till we make things perfect. We should not move on. We need to make things perfect. And and and I was also like that individual for a long time in my career. It's very late in my career. I realized that there is no nothing called perfection. There is no purple squirrel available. There is no uh you know uh unique things that are available when it comes to uh the process or or or the um strategy. A strategy a **[00:26:00]** strategy a good strategy is a strategy that is executable not on paper. So uh our focus should be on taking imperfect action but on consistent basis. Start small. Even if your goal is to uh walk uh you know a mile or maybe 10 miles a day, start small. Start with start with half a mile. Start with one mile and then gradually you will but yes be consistent. That is the key aspect uh to succeed consistent. I what you're definitely on point on that and you before the call we talked about small small but big which is such a good insight in all manners of life. Right now, you were just saying about small but consistent because you make an impact. Even if it's a small impact, you're doing it consistently. You'll get to where you want. You want to start running a mile, well, you have to start walking a few feet. And we see it on technology, on social platforms a lot. We get in that trap where I post something on Tik Tok and it might get 100 views or 500 views and we're like, It only got 500 views and you're feeling down about it, but why don't you stop and think? And I and I there was this post I saw which was the perfect example. They put images of what a room like looks like with 10 people and what a room looks like with a 100 people and what an auditorium looks like with a thousand people and what an arena looks like with 10,000 people. And so you see that it's like, oh wow, yes. 500 people saw your post and you were saying before the call, you might make an impact to one person. Even if 10 **[00:28:00]** people see your post or they listen to the podcast, that's enough because maybe you made a change in that person, one of 10. It doesn't matter if you make a change in one of one million or one of 10, it's still that same person. Absolutely. Absolutely. Then uh funny thing happened uh few weeks ago. Uh I was talking to someone on LinkedIn u and uh that person shared with me that do you remember me? I have worked uh with you 10 years ago and I yes the name rang a bell to me but not exactly what that person was u doing. And then he shared with me that I got some success in my work and you called me to congratulate and that day you made me so happy. I was so happy. I was so excited and you just made my day. Now he shared that with me. But when I did that I had no intention that okay I need to make his day happy. I just did a job of a leader. If someone had a a small success, I just picked up my phone and congratulated him. But the impact it made on him is something I'm getting to know 10 years later. Right? So at times we are supposed to do what is right, what is good. Don't go into that thinking habit will impact him or her. No, that is not for you to think. As as an human being, as leader, our job is to do good. Be good, do good. And when you be good, when you do good, it will turn out good. May not be today. Today you may not see the result, but yes, eventually you will. It is very similar to a bamboo **[00:30:00]** tree. you know bambi tree you know you need to nurture it you need to water it for five years till you see something growing and after five years within 30 60 days it grows for 90 ft so think like a you know you are doing like a bamboo tree when you don't get results and then you bring this perfect example Armando about the social media about the views yes I I also get paranoid when I see LinkedIn you know there are people who are getting 1,000 views on LinkedIn is this big or you know 1,000 likes and you know my posts are averaging you know 25 30 likes and I was wondering am I doing something wrong and do I need to do something differently but then I have given a lot of thought but then I then I came to conclusion well I need to do what I'm doing yes I need to learn how to get better okay I don't want to be complacent about it because things are changing so I need to learn what are the things what time I need to do the posting visuals are good for LinkedIn make connection commenting. So all those things I'm doing but I'm not too much worried when it comes to hey that many likes because likes does not mean anything you know what it means is the impact the transformation on people. So yes and that is excellent because likes definitely are not important but then also reach we see it with the numbers we it doesn't really compute in our minds to think of as people but then if you go in and look at the stats the research has shown that many people just consume content. They do not interact **[00:32:00]** with it. So while Tik Tok is a very engaging platform still on Tik Tok which is very tremendously engaging and this applies to LinkedIn and Facebook and all of them the vast majority of the users just consume they they don't they don't post and then some of them post but then some interact and some don't. And you might change someone's life by them just consuming your content and they they're just there. And you see it when you go live. There's some people that just stick around and they might watch one hour of you talking on your own while no one else stayed, but they were there and they were listening and they didn't comment. They didn't say hi. They didn't interact, but they listened and maybe something you said helped them out. Absolutely. Absolutely. I I totally agree. and and and then uh and um like Instagram I learned that Instagram uh there are so many people who just binge Instagram right and then for for hours and there is no interaction they're doing but what is happening is I see and I see at my home my wife my daughter suddenly I hear a a bust of laugh okay by watching some videos so you know as we know that laughter is a medicine So if something is making you laugh, if something is able to make you do things that you don't do normally, that is an impact that tool has done to people. So so yeah, knowing how the magnitude of impact is important. And when I was saying about likes, so yes, from a data perspective, number of likes is a good data point. But when what I meant that likes does not mean because if people are liking it but **[00:34:00]** not making anything difference in their life then it has no meaning like it it happened it's a funny story uh I did my first LinkedIn live few months ago we did not which did not go as expected some technical issue but still there was like two or two and 1/2 minutes video got created and then automatically got posted. Okay. And in 10 minutes I I noticed that there are 10 likes and I was wondering that did really people saw my post? Did they really actually watch the video? Because the video was nothing. It was there was nothing on that video because there was some technical glitch but still people liked. Mhm. So the point I want to bring is sometimes people don't even review do not read and they just like it and you may feel happy that oh wow people have done this people have done that but the real uh real happiness should be when people gives you feedback how it has impacted their life how it has helped them uh because changing uh if if you can make change in someone I think that is the biggest thing you can do uh in anyone's life change for better and as individuals that's where we should be striving for. Don't make live don't make life difficult for people. Make life easy for yourself and for people. Give them the experience that they want to come and work with you. Don't give them an experience that they are just one and done with you. Provide a meaningful experience. Provide build your aura in such a way that people love to talk to you. Build your aura in such a way that people are excited to do a meeting with you. Don't push off people. **[00:36:00]** Don't rub people wrong way. And there are people do get rubbed wrong way unknowingly. Unknowingly they are anyway getting rubbed. So but knowingly don't do that. Avoid it. So yeah, that's that's what it is. Uh it's it's a is a wild wild west uh out there Armando and u we just need to do our own bit to make things happy to make uh world a better place. You mentioned that earlier about people having an experience perhaps of stress when they first get into a leadership role because they didn't know about they weren't prepared. So what is the typical trajectory for leadership? Are people mostly in your experience getting groomed for leadership just because of who they are and that's sort of the path they're following? Or can leadership happen for some who perhaps thought they would never be in those positions and are just just working along and then suddenly they found an aptitude that could take them to a leadership role. What is how common is that or is it mostly the people that are just on that path from the start? So, so the irony is that people want to move upward. That is the irony. And why I say irony is because not everyone is there to be a leader. Okay? And I'm not saying that everyone cannot be a leader. That is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is there are certain people who so okay let me take a step back. I believe that there are certain things that comes naturally to us. Okay. not that you uh you get from outside world naturally to us. Maybe your your communication skills, maybe your personality, maybe your artistic, maybe your people management skills. So as individuals, it is important for **[00:38:00]** us to be aware of who we are. So what are our natural talents? So when we know our natural abilities then we need to focus on uh the path. What I have observed that there are so many people I have I've met in my life who are great mentors not leaders because just because you are a great mentor does not mean that you can be a great leader because in mentorship the accountability is less. There is no shared accountability in in most of the mentorship roles. Okay. Unless and until you are you are paid to do that that's a different story. But in leadership you have a shared accountability. The moment you become a leader you have accountability of all the team members that who are working with you and you are leader not just for that one team you are leaders for the entire organization. And that is one of the biggest challenge I have seen or probably the mindset I have seen in leaders that they consider themselves leader for that one group one team it you are a leader for that organization my friend I have seen people let's say they're going in elevator they don't even talk to people from other teams I mean what kind of representation you are doing for that organization so so from a uh from From a trajectory perspective, we learn leadership right from young age. Armando, it is not that we learn from college or universities. We learn leadership right from our home. So your environment teaches you a lot. How you are seeing your parents, you are seeing your uncles, your aunts, your family, friends, you are seeing everything right as you are growing up. So you are developing your mindset, you're developing your **[00:40:00]** experience. Then when you go to college, you see your professors, you see your uh u you know probably the colleagues, some senior colleagues, grad students. So you are developing your leadership skills there also knowingly and knowingly. Then there are certain individuals who invest time in going and consuming the content around leadership by reading books, reading listening to podcast, going to leadership events. So you are learning all those things. So not necessarily mean when you join a corporation you have no knowledge about leadership. No that is not what I mean. You have knowledge about leadership but probably your knowledge may not be relevant for that organization. So um most of the school systems if you see uh in America Armando uh first to 12th it's all about positive psychology. Okay which is good. I admire positive psychology. But what I do not admire is not being honest with people. It's everything cannot be good good good good. So the challenge today's millennials face in corporate America is because from grade 1 to grade 12 no one has told them that you're not good on this. What they have heard is all A's you're good you're amazing you're awesome. That's what they have heard. When they come to college probably they the harsh reality hits them but the truth happens when they enter corporate world then the manager tell you hey know what what create report you have created is BS the email that you have written has lot of spelling errors and then you get into a shock oh my god what is he telling me why is he telling me like that or why she's telling me like that that's the truth that is the reality and that's where we as leaders we need to **[00:42:00]** be aware of the environment I'm not saying don't don't uh show mirror to people but you need to be aware from where they are coming it is not their fault it is not that employee fault that no one has given him the feedback so as a leader if I do not know the background if I start bombarding on those people if I start just telling them the spade is a spade which is a right for my for me as a leader but I need to understand from where that person is coming. So for me I need to take a step back uh give them an opportunity to speak that hey you have sent build this report how do you think this report looks do you think it has everything do you think anything is missing do you think you can make it better having that kind of conversation versus just telling them hey man this reportless BS so so from a leadership perspective to come back and then close down on the question is uh at times you know there are people who will stay in that individual contributor role but they would could be a great mentor and then there are certain people who will roast to the leadership role right from the uh early stage because they have adapted well to the environment they have grabs those things and that this leadership comes naturally to them and there is in most of the organization there's another thing I have seen is there are people who are not announced leaders So they don't have a title but they are so influential that people go up to them for advice. Why? Because they are natural leaders. So organizations should pick up those individuals to whom **[00:44:00]** that leaderships comes naturally to them and groom them well early on. like how the NBAs or the NFLs they have their own scout teams to to scout for players traveling to different countries. Similarly, organizations also have their own scout to identify who are those people who to whom that natural leadership is coming so that they can bring them they can bring them to the uh you know cohort based program where they are grinded uh and then they are getting all the right tools and techniques to to hone their leadership skills. So that is what I would recommend for people and and it in in most of the times we see that because the organizations are going too fast they have to have people because uh I think uh there is this rule of thumb for every four or five individual contributors you have to have a team leader you have to have a manager otherwise it becomes too tedious for for people to uh to get the work accomplished. So think about it. Um you don't have that right leader. What you do is you just promote someone in the team. Mhm. And whether that someone is ready, not ready, they want to be a leader, they don't want to be leader, there's no questions asked and you just move him to uh the leadership role. Uh and that is where I see uh a challenge because there is no leadership pipeline. there is no bench. So if you see the NFL or on NBA and they're bring the reason I'm bringing sports because sports is close to my heart and and you learn a lot many things from sports. There is there are so many people on bench. Uh this last weekend we were **[00:46:00]** in Philadelphia. We watched this uh 76ers games against turn to Raptors and uh what we realized that it was a team B for 76ers that was playing because all the A players they were injured. How could they have still a very competitive game? Because they had bench you know in NFL you you had m you have multiple uh you know your quarterbacks one quarterbacks get injured you have number two number two number three. So this is the bench. So why aren't we as organizations, we are learning from the sports that we watch on a day-to-day basis. Why are we not having bench for leadership? So that's a good one that that's a great analogy. The I've seen it very much with friends that they might be let's talk about my industry. So we're in engineering, computer science, etc. And I've seen people who are very good, tremendously good at what they do in software for example, and they're very good at managing their own time and they're proactive and they're some of the best employees, right? But then what you just said happens and they get promoted to a leadership role or a manager role and now they have people under them that report to them but they don't really want to do that. They were having fun doing the other thing and they were so good at it and now here they just go and manage people. So they turned into from having studied and practiced and actually enjoyed and had a passion for software for example. Now all of a sudden they're in business and in management and that might not be what they wanted but then they get promoted more and then obviously there's the money part and now they have reports **[00:48:00]** that have reports that have reports and so it's very hard for them to come back down to the actual working which for some people it's actually especially in software it's so fun if you enjoy it you it's a creative process and it's an analytical process so you use both sides of your brain so much. It's a It's a fant I recommend it to anyone just to try it. Software is great because you can It's like a an alchemist. You can create something out of nothing and it's exciting. It's hard sometimes, but it's very exciting. So going from that to being a manager, if you if you like being a manager, fantastic. That's perfect. We need leaders. But if you were just pushed along, that just derails your path. And I think the bench idea is fantastic. We should have leadership ready to go for when it's needed and you you hone them, you start training them and but people who actually want to do that, right? Correct. Correct. Correct. Yep. And and and in that what I have observed is when you identify those high potential employees, how you identify is where the rubber hits the road. Because if you just identify high potential based on their numbers, based performance, that is how typical organizations do Armando. In my opinion, that is not always the right thing to do because you need to look at the mix of many things. Yes, numbers are important, but numbers are not everything. You need to see their personality as aspect. You need to see their mindset. You need to see their background. You need to see their culture that they are bringing to team. There are so many things that you need to look and then you identify **[00:50:00]** that okay this is my true high potential employee. The unfortunate part is the high potentials are all those high performers and high performers they are very very difficult to manage is is the is the reality because all uh great employees are difficult to manage. uh I'm sure if you go and ask my leader I was difficult to manage for for him uh or for her because I had different managers. So it's important for us to really do the right identification because in couple of situations I have seen that when I am presenting my solution they say oh yeah we have this we have this but then when you I did a deeper dive the problem was yes they had it but how they were executing was the problem. So they were not getting the results because the execution was not happening right. So just because you have a high potential program, you may think that okay yes my leadership is good. No, you really need to do a deeper dive and then uh make sure that you have a right process in place, right way to evaluate people and it is easier than said done. I know in the bigger corporation it's it's real challenging but the small to medium enterprises it's really easy. It's fairly easy I would say to to manage the process. That's very very true and the not only having the process but following through with it and to that point I actually have one last question for you here re in your books you speak a lot about habits and and positive habits what how does one start creating positive uh habits so that they can accomplish these structures properly and and grow. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so yes, my my **[00:52:00]** both my books, habits for miracles and be actionoriented, I I talk a lot about positivity a lot or talk about habits. Uh first and foremost is in my opinion is the your environment in which you are uh living in which you are breathing um and what I call them is your inner circle. So you need to be aware about your inner circle. Your inner circle is critical and inner circle are basically those 10 20 people with whom you are interacting on on a regular basis. Um and and that 20 number could be high it could be smaller as well. So so that is number one. You need to make sure that your inner circle is right. And within Arando there are people who really drive change in you. And there are people who really bring you down and they're still part of your inner circle. Okay. So I what I what I call them is those people who are bringing change in you they are your energy boosters. And the people who are bringing you down they are your energy drainers. And the unfortunate part is both these people will exist exist in our world because not everyone is having a great day. Sometimes that the person who is your energy booster could be energy drainer depending on their own environment. The critical thing is important for us to know who are our consistent energy drainers and who are our consistent energy boosters. So that is number one. So you need to have that inner circle. The second thing is our mind we receive close to 50 to 60,000 thoughts in a 24-hour period. That is what the number according to research and the unfortunate part is out of these n these thoughts most of **[00:54:00]** them almost 90% of them are negative thoughts. So when you are surrounded in your mind with all these negativity is really become challenging for you to stay positive. So it is it is important for us to keep our mind mind positive and one way or couple of ways for us to keep our mind positive is to to continuously listen or to read positive literature. Uh focusing on positive mind talk. Even when negativity is creeping in, you need to change your thought process, your mind talk. And I talk in my book mind talk. So talk positive to your mind. And the third thing is the positive people. So, so you should be having some people in your in your circle that when you are feeling low, you call them, you become up. So it could be a friend, it could be your spouse, it could be your mentor, whoever. But you need to have some people to whom you can you can count on. So to change the so these are the some of the foundation for building positive habits. One is to keep our mind positive. Second is as I said about the uh inner circle and then that the third thing I would say is your willpower because if you are if you do not have a strong willpower then you will not be able to sustain it. And what I mean by willpower is let's say if you want to go for exercise in morning 6:00 a.m. you are all good intention to go but you're not able to wake up. Sometimes your alarm does alarm does not go away or you know sometimes you know you're sick sometime you're tired it's not happening. But if you have a strong willpower then there **[00:56:00]** are no excuse that will stop you then there is no one in the world who will stop you from doing that thing and that is that willpower and willpower you need to master your willpower and these pos the inner circle that I talk about will help you doing the positive uh you know to strengthen your willpower your energy boosters will help you strengthen your will will hour. The another thing that will help you strengthen your willpower is knowing yourself. Let's say 6:00 a.m. Okay. Now, let's say if you are a 20-year-old person and just giving a some uh data here and if in last 20 years hardly you have ever woke up at 6:00 a.m. Now you say that tomorrow I want to wake up at 6:00 a.m. Yes, you can have it. But then you need to look at the data points. You need to know yourself. Are you a morning person or not? If you set up 6:00 a.m. time for you to go to gym, you're setting yourself for a failure. So being self-aware, being aware about our own strengths, our own abilities is important. So instead of going to 6:00 a.m., go to 6 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. or probably you know earlier later in the day. So that is what I mean by knowing yourself. Knowing yourself is also is you know what are the things that brings the best in you. Does the pressure brings the best in you? Does the autonomy brings best in you? Does lot of information from uh your leaders bring best in you? You need to know that and you need to share these these this knowledge with your people. So let's say tomorrow you have a new leader. You need to explain to **[00:58:00]** them what is the best how you can bring the best in you. you need to share your working style with them otherwise you will get suffocated and then you will not uh you know be able to succeed. So the success remains in our hand. So if tomorrow you want to build positive habits these are the three things I would recommend you. Number one is you know uh know your inner circle who are your energy boosters and energy drainers. Number two is uh focus on uh your uh strengthening your uh you know positive literature. Increase your um reading or um listening to music or talking to positive people. And number three is the willpower. And willpower strengthening your willpower will happen when you know yourself. When you know yourself, you know, then sky is also not the limit for you. you can really uh do whatever you think you want to do. So that is what I would comment on how we can focus on positive habits. Rahul that's that's excellent advice. I think to anyone listening if you follow that advice you will see some positive change in your life. It's not a question of if. It's just that's how it works. And Rahul has many years of experience in this has written a couple of books on the matter apart from uh large body of work. So yes, positivity very important but with a purpose right and with a structure if possible. Rahul, it has been an honor having you on the show. I really appreciate you coming on. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about leadership but also about what you do and your business? Sure. Uh the easier way is for them to type my name raulcarsharma.com. **[01:00:00]** It's my website. Uh would encourage people to connect with linkedin.com/raulkarsharma. And um if they connect with me and mention about this show uh I'll be more than happy to share a complimentary copy of my ebook be actionoriented uh because focus is on making that small uh change making that small taking that small step for bigger change. So it was a pleasure to be here on your show Armando. Wishing you the best my friend. Excellent. Thank you so much Rahul. And you heard it there. I'm going to put it in the show notes, but uh feel make sure