0:00:02.1 Wayne Brown: Hello. I’m your host, Wayne Brown, and welcome to the ET Project. We’re delighted to be delivering this live episode for executive talent all over the world, whom we’re affectionately referring to as Team ET. Today we’re in the city of Chicago in the state of Illinois and situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. We’re here today chatting with our guest, Ms. Rupali Kumbhani, a global strategic leader who leverages technologies to solve complex enterprise challenges. With experience spanning both B2B and B2C environments, she merges innovative thinking with proven strategies to drive impactful transformations. Known for forging strong stakeholder relationships, Rupali builds collaborative, high-performing teams that deliver measurable results. Her data-driven mindset and forward-thinking approach consistently unlock new opportunities for sustainable growth, positioning organizations at the forefront of innovation. It’s a great conversation as we touch on some of the topics near and dear to my heart around global leadership, strategic thinking as well as leadership styles, and how we can tackle the challenges of business complexity and uncertainty. Have a listen as there’s lessons in this conversation for every leader at every level. We hope you enjoy.

0:01:21.7 Speaker 2: Welcome to the ET Project, a podcast for those executive talents determined to release their true potential and create an impact. Join our veteran coach and mentor, Wayne Brown, as we unpack an exciting future together.

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0:02:20.1 WB: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, team. Welcome to another ET Project live discussion which I’m quite excited about today. I have to be honest, it’s a topic dear to my heart. We’re going to be talking about deploying strategy in complex times. Anyone that knows me knows that this is one of my passion topics. And we’re going to introduce a leadership style called adaptive leadership and look at that through the eyes of how can we deploy successfully in these complex times? Now, I know many of our clients out there and our audience are going to be very keen to listen intently to this conversation. I mean, let’s face it, the speed of change, growing uncertainty, traditional leadership models are quite often just falling short. So I’m quietly confident that many of you would like to understand how you can steer your organization through that complexity with greater agility and innovation. And we’re also going to be touching on topics such as global team collaboration, environmental changes, and how we implement against all these challenges. So sit tight. We’re going to explore how adaptive mindsets can transform challenges into opportunities, as well as cultivate resilient, cohesive teams.

0:03:38.2 WB: You know, I always have a guest who helps me navigate this whole process and today is no different. So, please help me welcome our guest, Ms. Rupali Kumbhani. My Indian colleagues around Rupali will be quietly smiling to themselves about my pronunciation of your surname, so I apologize in advance. But welcome to the ET Project. Great to have you on.

0:04:02.7 Rupali Kumbhani: Thank you, Wayne. And you did an amazing job pronouncing my name so you can take kudos for that. I’m so excited. You’re touching some of the topics which are dear and near to my heart. Also, adaptive leadership, I’ve been implementing this throughout different industries. I have worked into B2B and a B2C space into different verticals: Real estate, healthcare, software services, manufacturing. So it’s the adaptability framework which I’ve used in different industries and I find that it’s very successful and it’s helped me to drive the successful transformation.

0:04:41.3 WB: Fantastic. We’re going to go deep into this, I’m sure, and we’re going to have some very interesting conversation. We were just talking about the impact of AI before we hit record, so I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of discussion around that. Before we get into leadership and strategy and the whole business side of things, you have a different side of you that maybe some people don’t know about and it’s to do with your interest in the arts. I wonder if you could share a little bit about, where did that journey all start and how did it blossom over the years? 

0:05:18.0 RK: Oh, interestingly, it started at a very young age when I was a seven-year-old and we used to get newspapers and there were comic sections and there were news with people’s pictures and photographs and I used to take those photographs and started sketching myself. Looking at that, my mother felt as I have that niche, I have that skill and needs to be more cherished, needs to be worked upon. And she was the first one who saw that artist in me and started developing. I have worked with different artists. I did not have a professional education, but worked with different artists to learn different techniques. And it grew over the time; it took a seat back when I was more interested in my education. You know, the part of environment I come in from, India is very competitive world and to survive in that education you have to work really hard. My art took a backseat. The time when I moved to United States and Chicago, I felt like it’s the right time, I should piggyback into that and start exploring more about it. And that’s where I got to see the different side of art.

0:06:31.5 RK: Since I did not have an art education, working with different artists here, I came to know the art history, which I was not familiar with. And then I built it up on my skill and that’s how I’ve continued doing it. I’ve worked on different medias in different subjects. Like my profession, I like the challenges. So I don’t stick with one media and one topic. You see the paintings behind are my parents. I did it in oil pastel. I’ve learned framing. I’ve been exhibiting frequently in different places in States and outside. I have also picked up photography as a passion. So I’m placing a couple of my photos in different exhibitions also. My journey is about art as an experience and I’m a travel artist, so I paint and I take pictures of people I meet in places I visit. And that’s what I want everyone, when they bring a piece of mind, it’s bringing an experience in their house.

0:07:38.9 WB: Yeah, it’s a great story and an interesting shift. I know you talk a lot about on your website, people can buy your art if I’m correct, right? You make this available for sale. While we’re talking about it, where can people go to make the purchase or to see what you do? 

0:08:00.5 RK: Yeah, my website is www.rupaali.com, and I also not only sell the original art but I also sell the prints of them in a different form. So people who have limited space or resources wanted to have something small, or maybe having a mug, they can make that also.

0:08:20.6 WB: Well, I’d encourage everyone to go on the website and have a look. You have a huge gallery on there that people can look at and it’s really interesting. Well done by the way. How do you think or do you think that the artist in you has influenced your leadership style? 

0:08:41.3 RK: Absolutely. So, it’s not one-way street, it’s the two-way street. And sometimes people will be surprised that how is that possible? So yes, my art has that creative mind, that creative spirit comes when I’m thinking. I’m all open to out-of-box thinking. I’m all open to diversify views. Because in art, you know it, there is nothing right or wrong. Every perspective is different from an individual perspective. And that’s what I take back when I am communicating or collaborating with people. That each opinion matter and it comes from a different perspective, might not be same as me, but it’s worth listening to. So, that has opened up in how I collaborate with people. Also, in terms of creative thinking, a lot of my places I’ve worked with or I’ve done it like branding program for my client, they need something more creative space there. When you are doing a website branding, you want your customer to see what you wanted to tell them, how that should be coming out. And some of those skills in design thinking also helps when I’m building the products, their feature, how it should appear, how it would appeal to the customer.

0:09:58.5 RK: So, I feel those are the qualities that have helped me in my leadership style. And the other way is I always used to think art is very much, very, you know, I’ve been raised with thinking that artists are the creative spirit. Just they go and take the paint and start painting. That was my visualization when I started it. But the more I have studied different artists, I feel like they have gone through very methodical processes. If you see Monet, he has gone through the journey how the people should be placed and how it reflects in the design aspect of it. So it’s a very methodical process. So I’ve taken my analytical brain and used that in my art and planned it so that when I’m painting it, it’s still a planned process.

0:10:50.4 WB: Let’s jump into talking about global leadership. I mean, it’s a huge topic today. We’re a global society. What are some of the big challenges that you’re seeing out there at the moment? 

0:11:03.5 RK: I think so. So I will categorize them into three different areas where I feel there are challenges. First and foremost is the team collaboration. Team collaboration because you’re working with diversified team members in different regions, from the different backgrounds, different cultures, work ethics, how you collaborate them as one single team, how the transition of work happens between all of them and how you make sure that the final product is up to the expectation of our client and our stakeholders. And we are working on different time zones. Somebody’s working time is totally different than yours. You might be sleeping where other person is working. At those period of a time, how do you collaborate, and as a leader, how do you make sure is a one team working for a one goal rather than a separate team? 

0:11:57.4 WB: This is a huge topic that I find is, we all know agendas exist. So you’re sitting in an office in Spain, you’re working in a global team with colleagues from America, from Australia, from India, from around the world, China. Each location has their own needs, their own budgets, their own targets, their own agendas. And yet you come together in a global team environment. You speak a different language, you’re on different time zones, and you have different local pressures. And you’re meant to all forget all of that, come together as this unified, synergized team and produce the outcome. And I think the challenge is phenomenally high.

0:12:46.7 RK: Absolutely. And one more I will add is when you’re working, even if it’s the same organization, I was working as a global team and the team are from part of the same organization, but the different region has a different structure. So how you work in your hierarchy is totally different than somebody working in Europe or somebody working in Australia. And how that dynamic would be working among the team members. So that’s one of the biggest challenge. The second one I would say is the, how to navigate through environment changes. And this is getting so important in our generation and in this world than I would say 10 years ago or 20 years ago. So you have political environmental changes happening, you have your own region changes happening. And how you navigate through that, how you plan through those, that is another challenge. And the third one I would say is once you have gone through the planning, team building, the other one comes as an implementation. Because when you are in this transformation, when you’re doing this initiative, a lot of time your clients, your stakeholder, your customers are sitting all across the globe. So how you implement them, how you gather their feedback, how should be the communication, and if you are launching a new product to your enterprise, what that training looks like, how you communicate effectively with different global teams.

0:14:16.2 WB: Yes. Yeah. Such a huge range of topics there. We probably don’t have time to go deep into everything. Let’s jump back onto teams just at the moment and think about some of the complexities that we’ve already highlighted. How do you overcome some of those, like how do you bring the team together in the first place? 

0:14:37.3 RK: So, yes, I have worked on both sides of the world. I have navigated and drove transformation among the team who are on the offshore locations where clients are delegating their tasks to me and I’m driving those teams in different zones. And I’ve been on the other side where I’m the client and delegating my work to the offshore team members and how the client teams are going to be interacting with the offshore team members. Something which I would say is it starts with whenever you are starting any initiative, whether it’s a global, local, or a regional basis, I would say first starts with why we are doing the initiative and what is going to be the impact.

0:15:20.1 RK: As a leader, you need to be clear of it. And it sounds simple and easy, but a lot of time you will see that’s not the case because I am clear with why I’m doing it. It has to be very specific. It cannot be something high up in the level no, needs to be the detail, saying I’m doing the global transformation to collaborate different region together so that our efficiency increase, so that our time has been reduced and so that we increase the revenue. Once you know the why and what, then starts building the team. When you’re working with different team, my first step is to identify what is the role that each team member is going to be playing in this journey, ’cause a lot of time I’ve seen leaders takes part of how we will start doing this rather than focusing on people who are going to be driving this change.

0:16:18.4 RK: We know this initiative is important, we know why we are doing this. But as an individual, as a team member, they would like to know who I am contributing to this, what is my role looks like. And when you have a well-defined responsibility, they know what is their contribution looks like and how they are going to be driving this initiative. They feel part of the initiative. And something which I do and I been having a lot of success with that is I work on what is the level of communication style. So what is your communication style looks like? Do you email, phone, or text? When there is an urgent issue, which happens a lot of time and this is a different time zone, what is your preferred way of communication? I don’t want to wake you up in the night if there is an urgent issue or if that is not your preferred way.

0:17:09.8 RK: You prefer it’s text so that you will see it without bothering your partner. If that works with you, that’s how I would love to know. And what drives you as an individual? What is your driving thing? Do you been driven by positive reinforcement? Are you driven by something reward? What is makes you go? And learning about that person and sharing what is my communication style is, how’s building that relationship from the beginning. It’s not that we are working with machines, we are working with humans. So you investing in that relationship is super helpful.

0:17:49.4 WB: So, I mean, at the start you’re talking, you really go deep into explaining and helping people understand the reason for the change. So you’re really into change management in a big way when you’re coming together with a team and then you’re starting to talk about the individual motivators and whether it’s intrinsic, extrinsic, whether it’s culturally driven. One of the things we didn’t mention was the word culture in our first introduction. And I think culture plays a big part in the beginning. But what you’ve explained really helps to strip down that culture and get to the core of individuals through the communication, through the desire to understand, and I like that a lot. I think that has such a huge impact in setting a team up for success.

0:18:41.0 RK: Absolutely. Because, you know, a lot of time and the audience needs to understand when they’re listening, it’s not relevant just to the global level, but to the non-global initiative also because when we are working with different team, I’m in the United States, even if I’m working with my regional team, all of us have a different cultural background. All have been raised in a different environment. Even though if I have been working with somebody from India who we spent the same time when we I was growing up, the person would have been grown up in a different environment than me. So what shaped you as an individual might not be something has been shaping up me as an individual. And throughout my journey what is valuable to me might not be to you. So what I do with that communication style is that opens up a window that I am open to know you better. I cannot know you in a 15 minutes conversation when I’m building a team or when I’m setting up the agenda and things like that. It’s a long process. But this gives the person saying my willingness to know you, and we are here to work as a team rather than in an individual and set that tone that it’s not going to be me versus this team or team A versus team B. Then it starts in the right foot.

0:20:04.5 WB: I guess this is a great point to bring in this concept of adaptive leadership. And I know it’s something you practice. It’s an area that I didn’t know the name of up until, well, I guess the official adaptive leadership only been around a few years through the Harvard professors, but I’ve spoken for a long time around the need for leaders to transition from 20th century leadership styles to 21st century. And adaptive leadership is definitely one of those characteristics or styles. So I wonder if you could introduce your version of what it means to be an adaptive leader.

0:20:51.9 RK: Oh, perfect. I am just very similar to you. When I started my leadership journey, throughout my experiences I built that these are the core skills I’m gonna be leveraging when I am driving any initiatives. And there were time in time people wanted me to describe it. Is it thought leadership? Is it… What kind of leadership you can call this as? And I’m blanking on it. And then while doing particular research, then I found the adaptive leadership and found my principles and the way I work is very similar to the adaptive leadership. You’re absolutely right. It’s been developed by Harvard professors and it’s specifically developed for problems where you do not have straightforward answers. So there are… It’s not that I have a product, if I implement this, this will solve my problem. These are high complex challenges which needs for you to navigate through different routes to that destination. Hence the adaptability is so much a key function of that.

0:21:57.1 RK: The key skill sets which I leveraged for my adaptive leadership is, one is active listening without biases. And what I mean is I am self-aware of the biases which I have. I cannot say I’m completely unbiased human being and I don’t think so, anybody can. But being self-aware of those biases when I am listening to anybody, I try not to focus on those biases but to listening to the person and giving my full attention. And this goes back to our conversation of how to know the people when you’re talking with them. My theory is I want to learn more about you without I already know something about you because I know where you’re coming from, what background you have, what education you have so you will be a certain type of person. But keeping that aside, I want to listen to you and it helps not only listening to my team, but to my clients, to all sort of different stakeholders. ‘Cause a lot of time when you pay attention, sometimes from their body language you understand what they are not trying to say. In a meeting you might be in a situation where people are just sitting but afraid to talk because they might feel like, “Okay, am I asking a stupid question? I should not be talking right now.” But if you pay attention to the people, then you can reach out to that person on a one-on-one basis. That’s what I’ve done, and come to know that what the real problem is, you are not able to speak there, “Let’s talk here and tell me what is the problem.”

0:23:31.2 RK: And that has helped me tremendously. This is the skill I have worked very hard to develop on because as a leader we are talking a lot. So to listen is a special skills you need it. And I’m still working on it, but I feel like that’s super helpful, and it’s a very underrated skill but should be very much implemented in any leadership style.

0:23:55.1 WB: I so wholeheartedly agree. It’s one of the foundations of a good coach as well. Even mentoring, active listening, sounds so simple yet it is so challenging, particularly when you come out of a field and you may be the expert. And this was my own struggle in my career as I moved into coaching was people sought me out because I was an expert and they wanted my opinion and therefore I’m giving advice rather than actually listening to what their problem is and what their issues are. And it was a really hard transition for me, and I really admire people that have this ability to sit down and just openly park their biases on one side, as you rightly say, and have the ability to tune 100% into that individual in the conversation that they’re having. It’s such a wonderful skill.

0:25:02.6 RK: I mean, you hit some of the topics very well. As you have said it, people are coming to you for the opinion. And same goes with leader. When you are in that environment, when you are in a brainstorming session, people look towards leader to talk more. And a lot of time it firebacks on me a lot of time too, saying, “Okay, so does she don’t know what she’s doing because she’s not talking a lot?” So there is a balance and you, it’s experience will tell you that what are those times where it’s good to listen and what are the times where it’s, you have to talk and say, what are you knowing? So that’s something a dance, each leader has to go through their own journey to realize what is the right phase. And sometimes you fail and that failure makes you understand that this was not the right time to do A versus B. So I feel what you were saying, I truly understand that, and I go through that journey. I had one of mentees in women networking event, and she asked me the same question saying, but when do you then talk and when do you listen? I wish I had that right answer for you. But I have not yet figured out the right balance to tell you that with this, this situation, you should be doing this. So it’s like, it’s experience teaches you and a lot of time it’s good to feel, learn how to be better.

0:26:35.2 WB: Within your style of adaptive leadership, I know strategy is a big part and I’ll come to that in a moment, but I’m wondering how much does feedback and maybe even continuous learning, how much do they play a part in adaptive leadership? 

0:26:52.4 RK: Ah, you steal away mine. The second topic. Yes. Continuous learning is a big part of it. I’m a lifelong learner and what that means is I’m constantly seeking out for the information. I wanted to learn and be better. That may be from an individual, but that may be from any research. You have now so many source of information available. So to learn and continuously work on it, and feedback is one part of it. And again, a lot of time it seems I’m repeating the same thing, but that listening helps. Like when I’m listening for a feedback, a lot of time people start giving justification on what the feedback is, and that’s not a way to gather the feedback. Or sometime I hear people saying, oh, so when I’m actively listening to somebody, it means I’m agreeing to that person. No, it does not mean that I’m agreeing to you when I’m listening to you.

0:27:47.6 RK: It means I’m giving you the attention to listen to your information. Then I have my internalization process. I take all this as a data and work as a data and say, what is the decision or a conclusion I came out with? Whether it’s a strategic decisions I want to make for my initiative or whether how I wanted to mentor or coach my team member or how I wanna build a team. All this mostly is around that data driven process and getting that learning and that data from all different sources so that when you give the answer it’s not something, oh, I feel this, or I have this intuition in my heart. That’s the reason I’m making this decision. I don’t think that goes well when you are a leader or when you are driving a team. When you give people that this is the process, this is the data, which I’ve used it, whether you agree or disagree, at least you have that clarity and transparency with your team.

0:28:49.9 WB: How do you go about setting up with your clients to start looking at strategies? Do you have a particular model or a method that you use when you start thinking about a strategy? 

0:29:04.4 RK: To be honest I do not follow the model or… But again, it’s following back to my adaptive leadership and the way I said that I would start an initiative. It always starts with why, why we are doing this. When my CEO come and tell me, oh, we are very disjoint globally and I want to feel this company as one individual company, my one question is, what does that mean and why you wanna do this? That’s where I started that journey because when leadership comes to me, they do not have the clear picture of what they wanted to do it. They see couple of or one problem or a couple of problem, and they think it’s not working. I don’t know why it’s not working, but I wanna make this work. And what does that mean is as a strategic leader I have to start about this.

0:30:01.8 RK: Tell me, give me all this data, give me all this information, and from different perspective. So when my global CEO came to me for that global collaboration project, I sat with all different CEOs and CIOs. I was like, what is your viewpoint on this? What do you visualize this as for your respective region and as a globe? And once you get that idea, I came to know what my CEO’s vision looks like. What is that vision is of a global collaboration. It’s easier for me to simplify what he wants to achieve and why he wants to achieve. And once there is that clarity happens, then I can build my own team. And then I went with my teams and help them understand this is we wanted to achieve. Now let’s see who we need to collaborate more and less and let’s build that team to create that strategic plan together.

0:31:00.8 RK: And the environment you talked about is, since it’s a global environment, it’s very complex. Your regular initiatives are complex too, but when you have it as enterprise level and a global level, that complexity doubles up. And that is not a one framework I felt is works completely. It’s situation based. It’s client based, is industry based. A real estate industry looks totally different than healthcare. They have a different dynamic. They need the impact as huge. When I was working in healthcare, my one poor decision will impact millions of life, and that can happen in a single minute. And that’s its biggest impact at a risk then what in a real estate industry would look like. So based on that, I pivot what my client needs and what we wanted it to look.

0:31:58.9 WB: Listening to what you’re talking about there, you’ve touched on so many of the key points related to creating effective strategy. And one of the first things for me is taking complexity, understanding that complexity, so to a point where you can simplify it and remove the uncertainty. We hear a lot of buzzwords at the moment. Complexity is one of them. Uncertainty is another one. The thing that I see with a lot of clients is they tend to think strategic, but in a static mindset, and they’re not able to think of the dynamics that’s occurring and how to build that into their strategy. Now, AI is a classic example of a dynamic that is beyond any individual’s control, but it’s something that we need to be aware of and factor into the strategy. How do you deal with technology when you’re looking at strategic initiative? Or do you? 

0:33:02.7 RK: I would say there is no industry which is touched with… Who is without the technology, every single aspect of every different industry has been impacted by technology. Now, that impact would change based on where you are working, but I would say you cannot find any industry where there is no technology impact. So we have to be. Technology is big piece of the transformations I have driven and the initiatives I work upon. My perspective is, again, I would say is two component, your agility and your adaptability. So when I’m doing a strategic planning, I know with the plan A, there will be a plan B, and that’s a lot of leaders do it. It’s not that I’m unique in doing that. What a lot of them, what people miss is if your plan B doesn’t work, can you jump quickly into a newly creative plan? On go, are you focusing things on which did not work out? Are you focusing on why my plan A and B failed? Or are you jumping saying, my goal is to successfully deliver this outcome? 

0:34:13.4 RK: And that’s my goal is let’s move towards that. So how quickly you bounce to that would drive to your strategic thinking, will drive to the success of your strategic planning. And also the adaptability, saying once the new things came, new technology came, you said AI is coming up, but AI is a very beginning stage of AI. You wouldn’t know that what is the six months of AI would look right now, and what is it? We are in three year of AI looks now. So if people do the roadmap planning for five years, which we are used to planning, would not work. You need to have that adaptability and you have to understand, this asks for me for a sprint level planning rather than more bigger two or three years of a planning. And when that change is happening for your industry, when AI is shaping up to the level where you think you are ready, are you able to pivot and adopt to that new changes, would drive the success of your strategy.

0:35:19.0 WB: There’s a lot of factors in there that we could talk about for a long time. Scenario planning is one part of strategic planning. I think it’s probably underutilized. As you said, many leaders will have plan A, plan B, but perhaps they should have plan C, plan D or at least look at the scenarios should these events occur. Then we also have, we talk about agility and adaptability. One of the areas that I like to also tease clients about is how do you become the disruptor rather than have to adapt or be agile because you are disrupted? How do you become the disruptor and the catalyst? And that requires more of a future forward mindset. Do you talk or do you work in this area as well? 

0:36:16.4 RK: Yeah, so when I am doing road mapping with my clients, what is their roadmap for one year, three or five years looks like, a lot of time it’s always there as a component that what you want it to be. Again, is I want it to be a brand known for giving best quality results to my client or giving best property to my clients. Once that goal is said, what level of quality means to you, how we define that? There are leaders who are more data driven, they are more forward thinking in the technologies. And there are more focusing on relationship, that how I wanted to improve my customer’s experience. There is a two different side of it and how that technology will help them. So if you are customer experience based or you wanted to improve, just focus highly on customer experience for your three year roadmap, then what are those technology looks like? And keeping eye on it. A lot of time when you’re starting your journey or when I’m starting my journey, all the information is not available. I might not know what is the future model looks like, but there are teams.

0:37:26.0 RK: If there is budget available, would be just focusing on this. They are looking for what are the new technologies available to us. Which looks like a good investment for the company. And we can start and join it from the beginning rather than at the tail end of that company. And what is the vetting process? Because some of my organization has a very huge vetting process. So they may not be able to pass through that. Considering all that factor, if you have a team and if you have resources, I would highly recommend to invest on the team which dedicated work on the futuristic technology. And one thing when people are interested or companies or CEOs very interested into innovative products or innovative technologies, my theory is a lot of time they lack is the tolerance for risk, ’cause anything new have a huge, huge chances of failure.

0:38:22.1 WB: Yes.

0:38:22.5 RK: And which you have not seen it in that time. ‘Cause when you are talking they all feel that the product is going to be delivered what they are thinking. But when they passing through the journey is not the case. And that risk tolerance, a lot of time C-Suites think that they have it. But it’s my job, I always remind them it’s going to be coming with that high risk. And are you open to that? Failure should be allowed. And if that is the case that no, we cannot fail, then innovative products or a forward thinking is not for everybody.

0:38:57.8 WB: That takes a lot of inward looking as well, to see whether the company is that type of company that tolerates that risk, that level of risk and failure or whether they punish it. And there are many companies that fall into that latter category. You also open the door to a word that we haven’t used yet, which is collaboration. And I think collaboration is an area that helps us as an individual organization reduce some of that risk. So we can collaborate with other organizations where we share that forward perspective and developing something new, perhaps with another organization to minimize part of our financial input, perhaps part of our whatever it might be. So I think collaboration is a big element as well. I don’t know what your thoughts are on collaboration.

0:39:55.6 RK: Absolutely. Collaborations, a lot of time organization cannot do everything by themselves. Just like as a team. I cannot drive initiative by myself. I need my entire team to do the successful transformation, to do successful initiative. Feel is the same with every organization and it’s not a lot of time. It feels like it is true for the small or a mid sized organization but not the big enterprises. But that’s not the case. I’ve worked with the big enterprises and sharing becomes very easier. There are certain datas you do not want to share. There are data privacy is very important. What our security is very important. But collaborating with different organization, different products helps them to build something which is very unique and specific to their business model and helps that the smaller organization to build themselves up, and say hey, I’ve did this for a big enterprises, now I can do it for the rest of the people. And you being a first person or a first organization, you get a lot of benefits out of that. So I feel like collaboration is huge, but it needs to be, again, I will go back to the strategic thinking, is it needs to be strategically planned.

0:41:15.2 RK: Is this something I wanted to build inbuilt ’cause it takes a lot of data. One of my organization we created our own data platform or data platform services because it gathers a lot of critical data and it’s a valuable data rather than sharing with others, it makes sense to make it inbuilt. But when we were doing deals, when we are doing the planning of the deals or a P&L of those deals, we have used external deal management tools because they’ve already knows how my business is working and what is that deal process looks like. So there is nothing new and innovation we have to do in this. We can build upon what they have already built it and create a features which work specifically to my clients’ need. So that’s divide. You have to think, I highly believe when there is a matter of data it’s wise-able to create your own because data is gold. Data is the key to everything.

0:42:13.4 WB: You mentioned earlier in the conversation that you speak with a lot of the managers, you get their input, you collect the data. One of the… There’s many great sayings around the fact that strategy is useless without the ability to execute the strategy. And when we look at, I talk more from an alignment point of view. When we talk about implementing or executing, do you find the challenge lies more in taking the strategy and executing it throughout the organization or in creating the strategy in the beginning? 

0:42:52.8 RK: Wow, that’s a tough question. It’s very similar to, sometimes people ask me, what is your favorite? Do you like planning or do you like the implementation piece of it? Personally, I do enjoy planning because there is a lot more complexity involved in that. So that’s my favorite topic. But in terms of challenges, you ask, it’s very similar. I wouldn’t say one is easier over the another. The time when I was telling you that I was driving this global collaboration initiative, simultaneously one of my colleague was driving initiative to create a global methodology that can be leveraged by all global regions. So that we talk the similar language when we are driving projects. This looks very similar. The reports looks very nice. So when that person has developed the methodology it worked very fine. It was going nicely. He collaborated very nicely with people. But when the time of implementation came, now people are finding challenges to implement that methodology in their respective regions for so many reasons. And that was the time when he started struggling. And I’ve been called upon to say, hey, we need you to drive this because we see how you’re working in a global collaboration.

0:44:20.1 RK: Now, given it’s a different team, it’s different team members, the impact is very similar. It’s enterprise level and it goes through the similar pattern of what I have… Would have done it, which when I got that initial talk, it’s this talk to the stakeholders who are part of this regions and say why? Why you are not doing this implementation? What’s holding you back? You were part of the conversation when we were building it, so you were part of that journey. What has changed? And that one-on-one active listening conversation gave me insight that when they were building it, they might not have thought through that it is so huge and humongous that they are heading to the resistance from their team to implement this. When you do that, again that strategic thinking comes in a planning. So now what? Now it’s still at the implementation stage, but now I have to go back from the beginning saying okay, we have developed a product which is not workable for people. How I modify this, so it worked for different regions, and then how I can implement that so that it makes sense to them and it inspire them to use that and it’s effectively usable and what that looks like. So the challenge is no, it does not changes. It’s very similar. It goes back to the same loop. The framework is very similar. Whether you are at implementation stage or whether you are at planning stage. How you apply it depends upon your situation.

0:46:00.5 WB: Thank you for that because what you very nicely explained there is the need for strategic planners to have a greater awareness about the challenges that may or may not exist through the implementation phase and build that into the strategy in the first place so that everyone can be on board. I’ve been party to so many failed global strategic initiative for that single reason, that in this country we have to do this. And that’s not what you’re talking about with your strategy. And therefore we can’t implement exactly as you’re talking about. Now, had people who created the strategy had that awareness in the beginning, it could have been resolved at that front part rather than waiting to look off to the implementation stage to realize the pushback. And I think that’s not always possible to foresee, but…

0:47:03.8 RK: Yeah, and that’s what I would say. Yes and no. Yes, we need to keep that in mind. Saying when you are building a plan, you always put a contingency saying if you say two days, I will add five days so that anything changes that a contingency will help. Same way in strategic planning will help. But a lot of time what they would haven’t seen is when people are agreeing they might not have thought through that how the team which using it’s going to come back to you and how they’re going to be doing it. That’s where we talked about that agility comes in a plan. It’s am I focusing just on a problem or the leaders which fails during that time is, they would be like, but you said yes that time, we invested so much money and resources to build this product and now you’re saying it’s not usable. Your focus shifted to the problem rather than solution. So your agility to saying, hey, we worked. This has happened. Right now is not time for a retrospective. You should do that. That what we can do it better next time. But this is time of action.

0:48:12.3 RK: This is the time where you pivot and say, okay, it’s not working. Why not working? Let’s figure this out together as a team rather than it’s working very well in North America. Why Asia doesn’t understand this or why New Zealand has a problem with this? No, it’s we as a team, we can share something which will help you build this in your team. Let’s do this. How we can collaborate, and that’s agility and adaptability will help you to drive.

0:48:43.3 WB: Very nice, very nice summary. What’s the future look like? Where are we heading? I’m going to ask you the million dollar question. Right? So are there any major trends coming up the leaders need to be aware of? As you already mentioned, five year planning maybe is not realistic anymore. The short, medium term, do you see any major trends evolving that we as leaders should take into account now? 

0:49:08.9 RK: I would say AI is here to stay. So it’s not going to be going away and it’s going to be playing some sort of role in your role, in your environment, in your organization. But go with the AI with a strategic way rather than following the trends. I’ve been seeing a lot more that it’s good to have AI under your belt, whether it’s in the technology, whether you’re talking to your stakeholders or shareholders and saying we are implementing AI, it’s really good. There are investment happening but not strategically. I would say don’t follow the trend but go through the basic which we have started this conversation with. Start with why you want to use AI and how it’s going to impact your business. That can be possible without AI. Can it be solved without that? Then go with that solution rather than just investing resources into solving something because AI sounds trendy. So that’s another aspect I will see. The resources has been used in a very wrong way or not thought through. Something you invest right now might not be useful after two years because AI is evolving. And also take care of your team members because there is a lot of, lot of confusion’s happening.

0:50:33.0 RK: Anxiety is happening with the team. They are feeling it out and do not know which direction they need to go. At the end is the skill set of the human would be really important in this phase. AI has been developing but I don’t see it has been developed to the level that we can work without the human intervention. So what is needed is you can build your own AI team and making your own team aware of how we can use AI in their day to day life and give them training, give them enough resources so you have a loyal team which will build up your loyal customer base.

0:51:15.0 WB: How do you balance your own time between your passion, your artistic flair and your global leadership, your strategic thinking, your adaptive style? How do you balance everything yourself? 

0:51:29.7 RK: One more thing I will add. I’m also an advisory for a nonprofit organization. So yes, I would say what I do in a professional life, I bring it that to my personal life or throughout my life, my work life balance is not a clear line saying this is the time where my work finishes and my personal life goes. It’s always blended for me and it’s what is priority for this given time is. So I’m big on prioritization. Just like when I’m doing initiative or just like I’m doing planning for any organization, what is my priority? And it cannot be 15. If it is then there is something wrong in that. What is my top three priority looks like on a quarterly basis? And I would spend a lot of time on self reflection. I feel a lot of time leaders stay away from that or an individual stay away from that because there is no ROI in that ’cause I cannot take that, what is going to give me extra money, extra time or extra something by doing a self reflection. But for me it’s more important than anything. So I carve out time in my life and see what variety I’ve said is going in the right direction or not.

0:52:48.0 RK: Do I need to pivot here? Do I need to do that agility we talked about saying, one month ago it seemed good plan to work on my art but it feels like there is a lot more demand coming from my work and which means I have less time and less priority for that and that means I would not be able to exhibit that much paintings and that’s okay. What is my priority looks like? And I work around that.

0:53:12.9 WB: I think there’s probably a lot of aha moments just going… A lot of light bulbs just going off for some of our listeners because, yeah, this is the strategy that many of our global leaders are talking about today. Right? It’s not about so much work and life. It’s about how do you live that harmonious blend and be okay with that. And in your case, you’re saying you set your priorities and I think that is so foundational to making that a workable approach. So thank you for sharing that. Rupali, where can people connect with you if they’re fascinated by this conversation? Where can they go and connect? LinkedIn I guess, your website? 

0:54:01.4 RK: LinkedIn is the best place to connect with me. LinkedIn.com/rupalikumbhani, so my first name and last name. I would love to hear everyone’s response and see how you feel this works with your team, works in your organization. And do you think that it will not and why it will not? I would love to listen that and would love to have conversation on this topic.

0:54:27.3 WB: Well, thank you for being a wonderful guest on the ET Project.

0:54:31.9 RK: Thank you, Wayne.

0:54:34.2 S2: Thank you for joining us on the ET Project, a show for executive talent development. Until next time, check out our site for free videos, ebooks, webinars and blogs at coachingforcompanies.com