Business Is Human: The Leadership Model That Turns Care into Enterprise Value with Niren Chaudhary

That magical feeling of people feeling inspired to do more than what they're capable of comes only by having that kind of a people focused culture where people feel seen, they feel heard, and they feel inspired that they have the opportunity to learn and grow and drive both individual and collective excellence.

Foreign welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. What if the path to extraordinary business performance wasn't profit or purpose, but both in a virtuous cycle? In today's episode of Happiness Squad, I sat down with Niren Chaudhary, former CEO of Panera Bread and a global leader who has stewarded brands like KFC, Pizza Hut, Krispy Kreme and Caribou Coffee across 50 countries. We explore what it means to lead with integrity, why hiring for attitude changes everything, and how to build people centered cultures at scale even with 100,000 employees. But this conversation goes deeper. Nirin shares the profound lessons he's learned from his daughter Aisha, author, Ted speaker and radiant soul who passed too soon. Her values of courage, gratitude and generosity continue to shape how he leads and lives. If you're a founder, CEO or leader trying to balance performance with humanity, this episode is a masterclass in building flourishing organizations without losing your soul. Let's dive in. Hi Niran, it is so lovely to connect with you. Thank you for coming on to the Happiness Squad podcast and just sharing your lifelong wisdom and learnings.

Thank you Ashish. Always a pleasure to see you my friend.

Well listen Niran, you've had an amazing, amazing journey. You know, starting in India to the us, leading major companies and an incredibly rich life journey. So I want to just start by having you share a bit of your story and how it shaped your approach to leadership.

Sure, it's been quite an adventure. You know, I've worked for close to 35 years in food retail, lived in six countries, worked across 50 and had the privilege of having worked with extraordinary brands like kfc, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Krispy Kreme and then Panera Bread, Caribou, Einstein and absolutely wonderful brands and incredible set of experiences. But if I reflect on your question to share with our listeners in terms of in the core, important takeaways and I rewind my life, the first lesson was around the importance of integrity and leading with integrity on how integrity is actually a personal choice that you make irrespective of the environment around you. Right. And this, this came to me when I joined the House of Tatas, which are a very values driven organization in India that I, I think your listeners may be familiar with. And when I joined them I saw in this company this determination to lead with integrity irrespective of the difficulty in the environment in which they operated. And that's when it came to me that, you know, integrity is a personal choice that a leader makes and it is not a function of what environment you're in. So there are no excuses. So that's the first one. The second one, you know, has been always saying yes to adventure. So here I was in India and then I came across this opportunity to join Yum Brands and with them, opportunity to go to the uk, said yes, go to Holland, said yes. Go to Germany, said yes, said yes, Go to Dallas, said yes. And every time accumulating, you know, some new experiences and constantly learning and Dr. Yam similarly. So I would say very often in our, in our lives we tend to find reasons to say no. And I would encourage our listeners to think about the power of saying yes and how that actually multiplies opportunities. So that's been absolutely extraordinary that whenever an opportunity knocked, I would immediately jump to it and say, okay, let's go. As long as I was going to learn something and have an impact. I think a third important learning. As I lived and worked in different countries and dealt with people that were different than me and leading teams in the Netherlands, in Holland and countries all over the world, I found that the singular mindset to be able to connect, lead and inspire teams is to be what you want. By that I mean whatever you want be that. So if you want trust, be trustworthy. If you want respect, be respectful. If you want friendship, be a friend, right? If you want a strong relationship, be a person who develops strong relationships. So whatever you want be that has been significantly important mindset shift for me. The fourth one is when I moved to my Dallas role with Yum Brands and I was leading a portfolio of restaurants across multiple geographies. My single most important responsibility was to influence others was to lead through other people by influencing them. And I realized that influence can only come if you're trustworthy. And that being trustworthy is not only about being competent, which of course you have to be, but it also comes from having a strong character. So that was Another very important realization that I can only influence and lead through other people if I am trustworthy. And I'll be trustworthy only if I'm a man of character. And then finally, in my. In my last set of experiences with Panera Brands, what I learned was that it is so important to develop a new business model in this world, which is this virtuous cycle of profit and purpose.

Yeah.

That you must be profitable so that you can drive purpose. But then purpose should also drive profit.

Yeah.

And that I think is difficult, but it must be done. So those are some of my reflections as I thought back on my journey of the last 30 odd years.

Yeah, no, I think they're so beautiful and they're. You know what I love about these arenas? One, they're timeless, and second, they're pretty universal. Right. So it doesn't matter in what space are you leading. I think these, these can actually act as very powerful north stars on how to be. A lot of people in leadership talk about what to do, but if I think about all of these, they're actually not things about what to do. They are how to be. And from that place, hence, you know, the actions emerge.

Yeah. In fact, the, you know, I often think of this, the metaphor of a tree, that what you're doing are like the leaves of the tree that people can see. But what drives those thoughts is the trunk of the tree, which are your thoughts, but are your thoughts that drive your actions. But what drives your thoughts is actually what nobody can see. The roots, which are your values. Your values drive your thoughts, drive your behavior. And therefore, I think, you know, who you are, who you wish to be is so important and determines who you end up becoming and the behaviors that you have.

Yeah, I love that. It's the roots that hold us. It's the ones that nourish us. It's the one that connect. Right. I love your last one on profit and purpose. We covered that so much, I think today. You know, as I was sharing with you earlier, we just did my first TEDx talk. Flourishing was the topic making flourishing your competitive edge and purpose. Our own purpose and purpose of the organizations we lead, you know, show up in a, in a really, really big way. I love this quote by Alex Edmonds. I had him on our podcast just a couple of weeks back again, and he says, you know, if you want to reach the land of profit, follow the road of purpose. And you, you know, you talked about that where profits are important, but profits are a bit like, you know, they're like red blood Cells, that's not the reason we exist. You know, those are there to actually do a purpose which is to support life. You can't persevere.

I would just say there's an important, important nuance there that I think. I believe that the road to purpose lies through profit. If you're not profitable, you cannot be purposeful. So therefore there is. Being profitable is a prerequisite to have a sustainable purpose agenda. And that's why I think the connectivity is with profit. Because if purpose is not in turn reinforcing profit, then it becomes a random act of charity.

Yes.

And then the shareholders lose interest. And you know, and absolutely rightly so, because in the end we have to actually provide superior returns to our shareholders to be able to attract capital. Therefore our job and challenge as a leader is how do we create this virtuous cycle and how do we ensure that up purpose that we do is actually accretive to our business model and therefore ends up making higher returns for the shareholder because that's the only way that it'll be sustainable.

Yeah, I think and very much aligned with that. It's this notion of how do we through purpose grow the pie versus this mindset of, you know, split the pie and then do certain things that might not make sense and they're just dilutive of the returns to shareholders. But look, you're also, you know, of all the people I know, Niren, you're also one of the most human centric leaders and you know, many of the businesses that you have run, employees are the front line. Right. Your experiences are not. Yes, to some extent are shaped by what you do at the center, but really it's the day to day interactions, you know, in stores, et cetera. It's at the heart of so much of the success, you know, of the organizations you've led. So I'm curious, you know, we all. I'm just reflecting on my own journey that was on top of mind when at 23, you know, I graduated at 30 when I joined McKinsey. Tell me a little bit about some pivotal moments that shifted you from, you know, what I would call a fairly traditional business leader who then really started focusing on humanity and flourishing. I can imagine Tata obviously played a big role, but what might be some other things that shaped that for you?

So I think you're right. I think we are shaped by our experiences. And for me, the Tatas and then Yum Brands deeply impacted me in how I think about organizations and you know, my own sort of operating business model. So I really believe that organizations are essentially humans working with other humans in pursuit of a goal. Organizations are essentially at the heart of it, are human to human experience.

Yes.

Right. Without human human, there is no endeavor to be pursued. Right. So given that we as humans are at the core of any entrepreneurial or venture, I think the importance of people emerges from that. My, my business model is very simple, which is the job of leaders is to love and take care of our employees as we would our own family members. And if we do that and they feel engaged, they in turn will delight customers. And if that happens, then the customers will come back and you create this virtuous cycle of loyalty. And then loyalty is the most important currency to create enterprise value. So it starts, it's like a ripple effect where we really start by loving and embracing and looking after our people and then cascading that outward. I also believe that success is a function of strategy and execution. Strategy is basically the plan, but as we know, it's not the plan, but it's the execution that matters. And then if you think about the execution, execution, if strategy is to do with the head, execution is to do with the heart of inspiring people in their organization to go above and beyond every single day to do the very best that they can, and then a little bit more to execute the collective agenda of the enterprise. Now that magical feeling of people feeling inspired to do more than what they're capable of comes only by having that kind of a people focused culture, right, where people feel seen, they feel heard and they feel inspired that they have the opportunity to learn and grow and drive both individual and collective excellence. So that has been my philosophy around. Every time I have gone into an organization, my mindset is, do I have the right people working on the right things the right way? That is the roadmap for superior execution. So it's all starts with the people.

I love that. Right people working on right things the right way. So when you've stepped into roles, Niren, what have been some ways in which you've actually assessed that and then made some changes to make sure that people are at the heart and we are actually bringing them along and helping develop them into. I love what you just said. You know, it's oftentimes people think about execution as processes and communication, but what you're talking about is something a lot deeper. It is basically, you know, igniting that human spirit, human will to go above and beyond continuously, every day to make a reality, which, you know, oftentimes people think about it. It's not even my strategy I'm executing somebody else's. So what are some ways that you've actually been able to do that?

Yeah, so I think the. It's the right people doing the right things the right way. And let me sort of double click on each one of those. So the right people, I believe, is entirely a function of recruitment. You hire for attitude and you train for skills. You just cannot train attitude. Yeah. So if you have. If you have clarity on what that attitude is that you're trying to actually collect in the enterprise and the unique culture that you're trying to create, you use as a filter in all your people processes to hire. Right. And that is what I mean by right people. So, and I talked about, you know, loving and taking care of people. It's only loving and taking care of the right people, the people who pass the filter of the attitudes that you're looking for. So that's the first thing. The thing is, second one is right things. And right things is the ability to find the fewest things that matter most, that have the highest leverage, and then being maniacally focused on executing that. And the third one, the right way, is actually the culture. And to me, the definition of a culture is that special feeling that you create through a common language. So you have to be, as a leader, define what those values are and then express them in a way that they can be understood by using common language. Language is so important. So those are the three ways in which I think about it. The right people, the right things, and the right way to drive execution and unlock superior performance.

Yeah, And I can. I'm reflecting a bit on, you know, so many clients that I had a chance to work with, you know, of course, when I was at McKinsey. And now, of course, over the last two and a half years, I can totally see how these are many, you know, some of the foundational elements. Right. Especially, you know, this middle one. Today, so many people struggle because they have overflowing plates. They have role conflicts because they have misaligned incentives. Right. I can imagine. And then we roll out processes and race. C charts versus what you talked about. Hey, do we have the right people? What are the right things? What are the fewest things that matter? Priority list. Shouldn't be. I have 13 priorities to execute, which means nothing matters, and I'm just running around. And then you talk a lot about this right way, which is, you know, what is our special sauce? What is the way we communicate? Because communication is how we generate worlds. You know, we can say one thing, but if we don't live those values, we don't act that way. All they remain are words. Right.

So, yeah, I think just two thoughts as you reflected that back. One is, you know, I've also struggled with the right things. I think most leaders who are ambitious and all of us, you know, we, we are like always wanting to do a lot more.

Of course we can.

And there's a, and there's a balance to it. And I've, you know, I'm by no means perfect on that dimension, but over a period of time I've, you know, the metaphor I've come to sort of embrace is kind of the butterfly effect. Like try and see where the ripples start and then put enormous energy on that and have that butterfly effect on the enterprise and value creation. And for me, therefore, people is the start point of that butterfly effect on enterprise. Value is sort of how I think about it. And therefore, if you have that clarity around for any organization, any state that it might be in, what is that point of maximum leverage? And that can help you kind of narrow it down. And the second thing about behaviors, why I was saying, you know, like common language, if you look at, traditionally when companies talk about culture, they have these platitudinal, you know, words like integrity, excellence, empowerment, engagement that are, you know, on posters and people don't really understand them because they have not been described in the form of observable behaviors.

Yes.

You know, you, I'd much rather have a line that explains what you, what is expected rather than having a one word ambiguous definition of what this culture is. So I'll give you an example. Some companies might say courage is important, but some companies might say focus on what you can control, not what's happening to you. I would say the latter is much better. Some companies might say behave with integrity. Other companies might say be congruent in what you think, feel, say and do. That to me is behavior. Right. So therefore I'm a big believer in express your values in the words and express them in the form of observable behaviors that is more easily understood, that can be more easily observed. And against that, then you can have this flywheel of a very tight culture.

Yeah. And that's also how you can actually, you know, I've always thought about this. I've always believed companies talk about cultures, but cultures are so dependent on the leader who's leading a function or a geography or a plant. Right. And so there's always like, how is there a. How do you create a harmonized way? There'll always be some uniqueness, but how do we create a fabric? And I think these behaviors and cascading these behaviors is a very powerful way, because what you're basically saying is, hey, this is what we mean. Now, there is a certain element of the special sauce that a leader. Right. And the way they show up is gonna add. But here's the 60, 70% of the foundation. And, you know, I reflect on my own. Like, we always used to joke about this at McKinsey. Right. I was reflecting on a proposal that I was on with five other partners. We had not actually talked. Now, this is not best practice, but we had worked remotely on the proposal. We had all come together 15 minutes before the client meeting, and we had actually led the proposal and the client's feedback back to us. Were we really like you because you all know each other and you are just seamless. Right. There was a consistency around it, and I think a lot of it comes from the behaviors that we have lived and grown up in for so long. And that's why you can pull teams together. And I think it's the work that most companies actually don't do. I think the mission, vision, values, world starts with talking to everybody, defining something, and then they become words, but they don't get lived because the next work of translating into behaviors doesn't get done.

Yeah.

So I want to pivot a little bit, Niren, and I want to talk a little bit about your daughter and how her life, you know, really shaped and her strength shaped you. Share a little bit about her story and, you know, how that has also shaped you and frankly, how your definition of success has changed.

Yeah, thank you for that question. So for the listeners, you know, I've lost two daughters over the years. One passed away when she was eight months old. Her name was Tania. And the second one passed away more recently. Her name was aisha. She was 18 years old when she passed away. And I have a phenomenal son right now who's a musician. His name is Ishaan, and I'm incredibly proud of him. So to your question about the loss of my daughters, I think my losses have been extreme, but I think there's nobody who's listening to this podcast or even you, Ashish, who has not lost something or someone. I think that's a very intrinsic part of the human journey. And the question is not that it happens to you. The question is, what do you do with it?

Yes.

And how do you allow it to shape who you are? And could it actually be something that you embrace and that shapes you in such a way that you become stronger and you can walk taller and you can walk further. And that certainly has been my endeavor. Aisha, in 18 years, achieved more than many of us achieve in a lifetime. So let me brag a little bit about Aisha. You know, she was a motivational speaker on ted. You just been on ted, Ash. She spoke twice on ted. She has over a million hits on two of her leadership talks. She's the author of a best selling book called My Little Epiphanies, available on Amazon. There's a movie inspired by her on Netflix called the sky is Pink and a documentary inspired by her called Black Sunshine Baby, also on Netflix. Incredible. You know, for a young lady who achieved so much despite how little she had, and she has really inspired me because she was able to achieve so much because of her clarity on her values. To our earlier conversations. Conversation. What she believed in was what allowed her to think and behave in different ways. And I'll talk to you about three of her core values, which since then I have embraced. Her number one value was courage. That focusing on what I can do and not what's happening to me. So even as our health declined, she kept focusing on, well, what can I still do? And not on what can I not do anymore? You know, and she kept sort of moving and finding new challenges to conquer. She writes in her book, pick the Highest mountain to climb on and the dullest of the Days to shine on. Meaning when times are really tough, that's when you need to pick a high mountain and do your very best to get to the top of the mountain.

Wow.

Because fulfillment lies in the endeavor to get to the top of the mountain and not in reaching the top of the mountain. So she talked about courage. The second is she talked about gratitude. That there is always something to be grateful for and how gratitude is actually a daily practice. And if we look at the world through the lens of gratitude, we discover everyday miracles. And it gives us the strength and the energy to keep moving forward. And the third one that she talked about was the importance of generosity. And she wrote in a book that if you can't change your own life, there is always someone else's.

Wow.

And I do believe that as human beings, we feel most fulfilled at a very deep level when we are able to help others who are less fortunate than we are. And there is tremendous meaning and power and healing in the act of serving others. So these three values of courage, gratitude, and generosity I have actually embraced, and I try and live by them every single day to shape myself into becoming the human and the leader that I want to be.

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That's nice.

You always have that. Yeah, right. And you might not know that might be the sun in somebody's dalist day.

Yeah.

So no, thank you. Thank you for, thank you for sharing those through these experiences. You know, Niren, did you always define success the same way or did your success change through your experiences as you went through life?

It certainly has evolved and changed. You know, as I. As one goes through one's life, you realize that What a gift life is and how short life is and how it is a unique opportunity for each one of us to leave a dent in the universe and to fully embrace this opportunity, the single opportunity that we have. Of course, in India, we think of multiple lives, but, you know, I don't know. But let's say we at least know that we have this one life, and why not make it, like, absolutely extraordinary? And then I think I felt that if that is what true fulfillment or success is, that, you know, I left nothing on the table. Like, I gave it everything that I had and some more. What does that really mean? So it's the following. To me, life is not a singular dimension experience. Life is like a kaleidoscope of experiences. So it's. You're not just defined by one thing, which is who I am at work. I am defined by a kaleidoscope of roles and responsibilities in my life. I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm a peer, I'm a student, I'm a coach, I'm an athlete, I'm a musician, I'm a linguist, I'm a community server. I'm a spiritual student. And there are these many dimensions to who I am that describe for me the human experience, which I know that you'll agree with is true. No, none of us are like, actually, but we very often live our lives in pursuit of that. Just that one big thing. But I believe that if you step back and recognize that life is a kaleidoscope of experiences and true fulfillment lies in trying and pursuing excellence across all of these dimensions every single day, that is what a successful life is. That. Am I a better father today than I was yesterday? I'm a better husband today than I was yesterday. I'm a better student. I'm a better coach. I'm a better human today than I was yesterday. I'm constantly. Am I pushing my boundaries to really fulfill my true potential in this holistic sense of who I am as a human and not just one dimension of life. That's what it means to me.

Rather than define ourselves, so many people just define ourself as work, right? And, you know, I read this Clay Christensen's book, How will you measure your life? Way back in the day. And I was. And it. You know, he has a lot. You know, I don't know if you've read this book, but I love how he compares it to strategy, right? And he says, look, external work gives us constant sense of worthiness and instant feedback on what you're doing. But many of these other dimensions, you know, they. They give us feedback long term, but frankly matter so much more. So I love your invitation to our listeners to not just define your life singularly, but really in a. Across the full dimensions of how you show up. You know, the other part that you mentioned, Nirin, that comes through very clearly is you didn't say, be excellent in everything by some external measure. You said, try to grow and become better every day from who I was yesterday. So it's very much an internal present frame that you can control, right?

Yes, that's absolutely right. It's kind of, am I better tomorrow than I was today?

Yeah. And what can I do? I can always choose to do that. I control that. You know, I might not control becoming the best CEO or the most, you know, the most giver out there. And isn't it crazy? So much of. Especially in. In the 30s and 40s, our orientation is external and work consumes so much of all of our attentions. Everything else gets sidelined. And then we are constantly looking out for, is it good enough? You know, what is somebody else getting? How am I that right? We don't actually focus on the gain from where we started, where we were yesterday and where we are today. And that pivot can be such a big, big, big difference.

You know, this comparison with others, I think, is a very human thing to do. It happens to me, it happens to everyone. And then I think it's kind of like a lot of life is getting to the right place from the wrong place, where you then take a deep breath, you acknowledge that, and then you just let it go. And then you say, okay, I'm going to focus on my world, my kaleidoscope of experiences, and try and give love and generosity and gratitude for what I have. So it's a human thing, I think, thinking about other people, what's happening, because, you know, we're all trying to be our very best. But I think the magic is getting to the right place from the wrong place.

And I think that is key. And yeah, friends, I think just to, you know, give you a little bit of. We all do that, right? The comparison when we were in, when we were cavemen, we probably looked at the next cavemen and said, is this cave bigger? And did he have more stuff? Because, you know, if he had higher chance he'd get a mate than I do. So it's very much, you know, it's in our biology, how we've evolved. But the key is so one to accept that that's how it is. I face that all the time I was in, you know, while we were rushing towards, you know, this TEDx. Last week, the week before, I was on that Saturday, I was at home and I was telling my wife, you know, we've done a lot. But at the same time, I was like, oh, my God, we are not. As far as I was literally falling into the trap of, look at person X and look at where they are and the capital they've raised and what they're doing. Look at person Y, the number of followers they've got, and look at where we are and look at that community. I was literally going through the cycle, right? We go there. But I think the key, as you say, is also know that that's going to happen. Know when you're in that spiral and then be able to pause and set that to say, okay, so I want to be able to improve from where I am, but let's actually ground in how far you have come and what are the learnings, Right? Focus on the learnings that we can integrate from where we are to rise to the challenge rather than beat ourselves down. And I think that space, if we are able to pause and create, is. I think the. Is the space that you're inviting our listeners to take is.

Yeah. I have a short story to just illustrate that. I have a wonderful, wonderful friend called Sandeep Das. He's a Grammy Award winner tabla player, and he grew up in India, and he went to the traditional Indian gharanas. Gharanas are like the tradition of learning from masters by living in their home and doing all the work with them. And so he grew up in that more traditional way. He's a phenomenal human and a great player. And he was telling me one day, he said, my master told me, my teacher told me, I want you to be perfect. Practice, practice, practice till you're absolutely perfect. Right? And then I want, once you have reached that state, I want you to play imperfectly and then get back on track. Because he said, the real genius is to get to the right place from the wrong place. You got to learn how to do that, but you have to know what the right place is. And then he was teaching him to actually make mistakes so he could actually get back to the right place. So I think the really wonderful thing for our listeners is that, you know, all of these impulses are very natural.

Yes.

To compare and to. And to not feel that great sometimes, you know, and then being embarrassed with that thought, you know, like, why am I thinking like this? But it's very, very human to do that. I think it's not bad that that happens. I think what's important is to catch yourself in that moment, take a deep breath and say, now let me get to the right place from the wrong place. And I think that's where growth happens.

Beautiful. Get to the right place from the wrong place.

Yes.

Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit, go back to the topic that we started with. Look at Panera. You championed employee wellbeing, servant leadership. It's a core ethos of the company. Talk to me a little bit about how did you build that culture? You know, you've talked about the importance of culture. How did you build that culture in a place which has so many distributed stores? Right. I mean, there is so much happening all the time. How did you do that? How do you. What can leaders who have that kind of distributed systems, not one office, one location, one geography, but almost so many. How do you make that happen?

Yeah, you're right. Panera, you know, 2,000 stores and, you know, 100,000 employees. So the question is, how do you create a people focused culture? So of course there are many dimensions to it. But I would like to highlight the single or most important dimension. I think the most important dimension is that it is always leader led. It is led by the leader and then actually also led by the leadership team and other leaders. It's not just the CEO. I mean, that all leaders are actually leading by example because we can all talk the talk, you know, but it's our actions that really define what the culture is. Yeah, it's very. Words are cheap, as they say. But do you really behave basis the values and the behaviors that you've articulated, which is the cornerstone of the culture that you wish. Wishing to build? So it gets tested the most in tough times. In tough times, the organization is essentially observing how are my leaders, how are they making decisions, what actions are they taking and are they truly congruent with the behaviors that they have articulated as being key for that enterprise? So we had a core value of us, our company at Panera was to always, you know, be people, people centered and people focused and to treat everybody with respect. So like I said, it gets tested in tough times. So when the pandemic happened, very tough time, business was obviously suffering and we had to protect the business and the brand. We had to furlough our employees just like many other companies did. So we had to furlough about 25,000 people at the front line. Now you can imagine this is A tough action that you have to take, you must take. Because as leaders, you have to do the right thing for the company. But the question is, this is a pivotal point when you have yourself go back to your values and your behaviors and ask yourself, how can I role model in this difficult situation my care for people? Right. Because that is what then defines culture. So what we did was we saw that CVS and Walmart were hiring 100,000 people. We reached out to those two companies and ask them to hire our furloughed employees. And CVS in fact, set up a website for us for our employees to apply and get a job with them. Now that to me, is demonstrating respect and going above and beyond an action that you're taking that you have to take for the sake of the business. So you don't shy away from that.

Yes.

But you take the tough decisions with humanity and with compassion. And not only that, it's not that once you have cut the cord that you had, furloughed employees are now forgotten. We also did was that every week the furloughed employees could come with their family and have one free meal at a Panera close to their home and get an update as to what's happening with the company so that they don't feel that they have been forgotten. Right. So that is how you shape culture. It's the actions that you take when times are very tough to demonstrate your firm resolve and commitment to the behaviors that you have defined as being the cornerstones of the culture that you wish to have.

Yeah, I'm just thinking about that, Niren. And you know, the story beautifully highlights, you know, respecting what we started our conversation with. Profits and purpose. You know, oftentimes people might get too focused on one. Right. If you were just focused on profits, you'd just say, we let them go. We don't go above and beyond either in providing the meals. As you said, staying connected. You can treat it as transactional and that's what you get. Right. You get a transactional workforce after that, when you hire them and say, be loyal, that's not going to happen. That's a very hard thing. But I can also see if we are almost fully purpose focused in a business that has such high labor costs, you would not be around. And then you do the worst thing, which is you fold business. And now you're not affecting 25,000 people, but much, much, much more than that. What were the conversations like, Niren, as you kind of as a leadership team through thought about those two moves? I'm sure. There were many others. As you thought about those moves, the move of transparency care, going above and beyond. What were the inner boardroom conversations like around that decisions?

Yeah. So I think like I was saying that you know that when, when one is hiring the leadership team, you're hiring against these values and these behaviors. So actually everybody in your leadership team thinks the same way. They all know that caring for people is important to them individually and collectively. And therefore that's why hiring for attitude is so important. So if you hire this people who are wired the same way, then these discussions just happen organically and they're happening not only in the executive team level, but they're happening all the way down with restaurant general managers who are, who are in far flung places in the country who are then treating their own employees with the same level of compassion and respect that you are trying to do for the enterprise. Because you're selecting the right people, you know, and people who believe in what you believe in.

Yeah. So it's a little bit like of.

Course as an executive, as a CEO, you need to align that with the, with the board and make sure that they see that you are not making any compromises on, on what's right for the brand or the business. And this in fact has a potential business benefit as well, which would be that these employees, you build a reputation of being an employer of choice and Panera has been selected as being an employer of choice multiple times over the last few years. When you're an employer of choice, then you drive engagement, you drive retention, you drive efficiencies and you drive lower cost.

Yeah.

So it makes business sense as well.

You know, it 100% does. Right. You know, Alex Edmonds's work and now that has been, you know, replicated around flourishing and well being by Yan Emanuel. So for our listeners, I'll share that. Right. Two to three and a half percent higher alpha is what companies with higher employee satisfaction, top places to work, you know, and it's a causation, it's not a correlation. So there is a real opportunity to create significant shareholder value if we double down on our people. But that requires building something that is true over a long period of time, not just in times of good. But Niran as you're reminding it especially gets tested in times of hardship. It takes three to four years. Right. For it's a long term strategy. That's why we talk about flourishing as a competitive edge. Right. It has to be a strategy. You have to double down on it. But you do it both from a Humanitarian reason, but also from a very strong financial case. It's an advantage that most companies find hard for others to compete. It's how Toyota got to where it got. It got, you know, so. No, I think it's beautiful. So look, you've had incredibly challenging roles, you know, lots of demands. It's not easy being, being a CEO. We talked about a lot around how you help an organization flourish. What are some of your own Niren personal daily or weekly practices that you use to stay grounded and lead, you know, with that clarity, with that compassion and with the energy that you have.

Well, that's such a good question. I think refueling yourself and, you know, making sure that your soul is hydrated is so important. And I think for me there are a couple of practices. One is like, I have this determination to be happy every day and to be happy. Yeah. My happiness every day is to doing some do something that I love. And I love music. So I will definitely play every single day. I play music for at least, you know, 30 minutes to an hour. It's, it's a way of me just sort of being and enjoying the process of music. So music is very important. I love to meditate. I, you know, there is, I can recommend to the listeners something I discovered recently called core meditation. C O R E meditation. And you know, I, I struggled with meditation, to be honest, till I found this particular device. It's kind of a tactile device that you hold and you can actually feel as you meditate, which helps me concentrate and I love it. So I, I do that for, you know, 10 or 15 minutes every day. It really sort of grounds me. Third is that I practice two master skills that I think the listeners will be benefit from. If there were two things that you practice every single day, I can promise you that you'll be successful in various aspects of your life. I'm going to show, I'm going to share that those two skills with you. One is the habit of being curious. And that gets expressed in the form of learning something that you like. But you find stuff every single day. It could be learning about AI. It could be learning a new language. It could be learning a musical instrument. It could be just the muscle of learning something new curiosity. And the second one is resilience, where resilience is basically doing something that you think is important even when you don't feel like doing it. And this can happen multiple times in a day. And that's why I think it's a daily habit. You've made a resolve to eat Better. And then you're tempted by that ice cream that's lying in the fridge. So you resist that you're committed, that you're going to go for a run and it's raining outside, you don't feel like going, you go for the run. It's those little tiny battles that you have where you actually develop the mental strength and the tenacity to choose your response and not to give in to temptation in a way.

Right.

So I think being curious, being resilient, being happy every day and just having that meditative moment of gratitude are some of the ways in which I try and stay grounded.

I love those. I was reflecting on my little ice cream in the afternoon yesterday. Naren. I will, I will for sure give those a try. And to our listeners, you know, definitely. Look, as Niren said, these are practices, right? It is something we live. You might not get it perfect from the day one, but even if you get it one time every day and then start to make it two, and then three and then four, but make it a core part. Curiosity, resilience, meditation. I'm going to try this core meditation. I'm going to check it out. I meditate daily. I've not heard of that. And I'm always curious about all the different modalities. So I'm going to give that a shot. And yeah, something I love music. Niren, we would love to post a couple of your new pieces that you've recorded. You shared one of those with me in YouTube in the show notes. So I'm going to do that for our listeners and viewers because they're really beautiful pieces. Thank you. They're very introspective pieces. Thank you for creating just beautiful, beautiful music.

Well, I can do with some extra hits.

Now, of course. Look, I would love to close with. You've talked a lot around, you know, you've talked a lot around practices that I think all of us can do. You know, what advice would you give Niren to CEOs or founders, you know, who really want to prioritize people but often feel pressured, you know, whether it is growth, profitability, et cetera, knowing that, you know, profit is critical to pursuit you purpose. Yet how do we not so lose ourselves in that pursuit of purpose at all costs that that value of people gets, you know, gets lost? I see people falling into the trap all the time. So what advice would you have for them?

Sure. So I, I, I think this new business model of the virtuous cycle of profit and purpose appeals to the listeners because I do believe that that is the future in this, you know, broken world. Today, it requires for each one of us in our own world to elevate the importance of purpose. And you can only elevate the importance of purpose by making sure that there's a reinforcing loop back into profit. So do good, but make more money, in other words.

Yeah.

So there are, there are three things I would like to share with the listeners how you can do that. One is make sure that your purpose activity is within the sandbox of your business model and your brand. So if you're a food company, don't go around fixing homeless shelters.

Yep.

You know, fix, fix hunger or do something around hunger. Right. So be close into your business model is the first thing, otherwise there's no chance of that purposeful activity strengthening your business model. Second is to do things that are purposeful for people, community or planet that elevate your brand structure and therefore give you pricing power. So do it in a way in which it elevates the pricing power of your brand because it is valued by your customers. And if it, if you have pricing power, you can actually make better margins and more money. And the third is indulge in purposeful activities of caring for people, community or planet in ways and it can actually drive employee engagement because if employees stay, they become more efficient and your costs go down. So if you practice these three things, which is purposeful activities that are close in to who you are, what your business is, but then make sure whatever purpose you're doing, you ask yourself two questions. Is it brand accretive or is it accretive to my employee value proposition? If it is not, don't do it.

Yeah.

And find those that actually will. And that's how you build this flywheel of profit and purpose.

Niren, this has been such a beautiful conversation. Thank you. Very soulful, very heart and mind centric. I've taken so many notes. I'm sure our listeners will really, really benefit from this. Thank you for taking the time and and I look forward to our continued collaboration, my dear friend, in the coming days to come.

Thank you. Ashish. I'm really inspired by what you do and always a pleasure to speak with you.

Cheers. That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider, consider leaving us a review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week. Sam.