GA 415 | Reacting vs. Responding with Sumit Gupta

Just like any skill, you can learn that skill to deal with uncertainty, to navigate. I think other than control, navigate is a very good word when it comes to that because that's what ships do, oceans are uncertain, there are waves every now and then.

Today I'm excited to welcome Sumit Gupta to the show. Now, Sumit focuses his consulting practice on leadership and working with different leaders and different types of organizations and coaching them up. And today we really just dive into that whole topic of leadership. And I gotta tell you, there's some really cool things that we explore. One of the things that's really. I'm gonna reflect on even long after this interview is he talks about the difference between reacting and responding to a situation. And then he also talks about, like the word navigating. And so the words that we use really do matter. And while this isn't your traditional sort of lean thinking type podcast, it's more. It's more leadership focused. But as you're going to hear, it's 100% aligned with what we're trying to do as lean thinkers and discontinuous improvement practitioners. So really, really good stuff. I enjoyed this one. I think you're going to like it. So show notes can be found over@gembapodcast.com just look for episode 415415. And yeah, enough from me. Let's get to the show. Sumit, welcome to the show. How are you?

I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me here.

Yeah, my pleasure, my pleasure. All right, well, hey, where are you calling in from today?

I am in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Nice, nice. We were talking before we hit record that I'm in Texas and we've got one of those. It was have a 7 degrees, 70 degrees Fahrenheit a few days ago and today it's 10. We have ice and snow all over the ground. So it's a typical winter here in Texas. You never know what's coming.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, I think we never. We don't know what's going to happen anyways these days.

Right?

Exactly what we are living in.

Yes, exactly, exactly. Embrace the uncertainty. Right? Yeah, Good stuff. All right, well, hey, I know you've listened to the show before, Sumit, and we do like to get things started with our guest sharing a quote. So do you have one?

Yes, yes. In fact, very relevant to what we were just talking about uncertainty because I think that's what leadership is dealing with, uncertainty. And there was something which I was working on for a long time. How do I define uncertainty? And I keep on Evolving this definition of leadership. So my current running definition of leadership is leadership is responding to what happens in a way that takes you forward, not backward towards what you care about.

I like it. I like it. Good. Yeah. And let's dive. I want to dive a little bit deeper into just the whole topic of leadership here. I think that'll sort of be the running theme of today's episode. But before then, tell us about yourself. Tell us about your background and how you got into your line of work, and then tell us what you're up to these days.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a fascinating story because I'm doing what I never imagined that I could do in my early days. I was an introvert, I was a techie. So I immediately fell in love with computers when I started programming because that gave me a way to not talk to people. That was something which I was not good at. And then eventually what happens is that when I went through engineering school, I started working as a programmer and in a few years I was promoted to be a manager. So suddenly I had to talk to people. And ever since that led me to a journey of understanding people, understanding what is happening behind all human communication and everything which you call leadership, and then reshifting myself or reskilling myself in those skills which I had totally cut myself off from. So that led to some difficult journeys, but over a period of time, that led me to where I am today, where I am now, totally dealing with people all day. And I'm helping leaders get better at their leadership skills because these are skills which we don't teach our children. These are the skills which we don't teach in business schools. The skills to build empathy, the skills to listen to each other, the skills to hold conversations in a way that moves things forward, even if it involves disagreement or conflicts. And then how do you address all the emotions which keep coming up? And especially in the work context, this is very important because in our workplace we have kind of shunned out the whole emotional space. So it's like we are all talking heads in the workplace and we have shut off the whole part of ourselves below our low overheads. So integrating these missing elements when it comes to our leadership and then bringing it back to our day to day life, making it very practical, very results oriented in a way that creates the kind of leadership, the way people want to be led today. It's not just about the uncertain world that we need a new kind of leadership. It's also because people want to be led differently these days.

Okay. And so you're a, are you a consultant like you go in or do you work for, for a company?

Yes, so I am a, I am a consultant and I'm a leadership coach.

Okay.

So I work with, so I do not work full time for any company now. Yeah, I work with leaders and their leadership teams. Got to help them become the kind of leaders that they want to be understood.

Got it. Okay. So your quote, you, you sort of offered a definition for leadership. I'm going to ask you to repeat it because I think it's important for people to hear it probably more. And then I'd like to follow up that, that, that, that definition with just, maybe just a general open ended question for you. Like, you know, what does it mean to be a leader? Right, we've got a definition, but what does it really mean? So maybe go for the definition again and then, and then follow it up with, with your take on what it, what it takes to be a leader.

Yeah, yeah. And I think the definition answers that question. So let me, let me go over that again and maybe I can break it down. The definition is leadership is responding to what happens in a way that takes you forward, not backwards towards what you care about. If I have to break it down, the key elements here are responding, which is different from reacting. I'm responding to what happens. What happens is take all the uncertainty or all the unpredictability and responding in a way that takes me forward towards what I care about and what results I want to produce. Now that makes it very practical. That's something you can apply in any given moment in this conversation. How can I respond in a way that takes me and my teams forward towards the result that I want as individual and as an organization and as teams? Does that make sense?

It does. I want to focus in on. You said something was really interesting, the difference between reacting and responding. Let's break that down a little bit. What's the difference between reacting and responding?

So reacting is something which would happen without our conscious choice. So if I am faced with an angry or frustrated employee, if I react to that in a way that does not take me towards my possible or future, where I want to go. Let's say I want to move towards a future. I want to create a particular result and for that I want to have a happy and engaged team. Almost everybody knows that they want engaged teams, productive teams to move to where they want to go. But let's say you are in a stressful situation. Let's say you are in a conflict situation. Now do you respond in a way that takes you forward, which might involve turning off your trigger mechanisms, your natural behavior of maybe being an extrovert, maybe being an introvert and doing something which serves the purpose rather than what you are used to or what you're comfortable with. That's the difference, I would say from. Responding is a matter of choice. Reacting is a matter of what your default patterns are.

Yeah, I'm wondering also, you know, we sometimes on the podcast we talk about different sort of neuroscience topics and the difference between sort of your, your, your so called lizard brain in your. Which is largely driven emotionally. Right. And fight or flight kind of things. And then you have your prefrontal cortex where you're thinking critically. And so I'm wondering if reacting is more of a lizard brain type response and responding is a more prefrontal cortex response. What do you think?

So the first part. Yes. So reacting is more like where your amygdala get triggered and before you know, you have done something or you have reacted in a particular way. And the second one, yes, prefrontal context. But I think it's very important to realize that it's not just about the brain. The second one, responding is a full body act. This is something which you do with your full awareness. That's where the choice comes in. So rational thinking, the best rational thinking is always accompanied by a calm state and a deep breathing. Otherwise what the amygdala does is basically triggers you up and you start to operate in a particular way from your shallow breathing.

Oh, I love that.

And you mentioned neuroscience. What that does is it actually cuts off the oxygen supply to your brain and that makes the rational thinking even more difficult.

Oh, I love that. Yes. So yeah, it's a physiological and a brain chemical. It's all working together. Like and famous thing the Navy seals here in America do when they're under stress is they'll box breathe, right? And so they, they're breathing in for five, six seconds and then they hold it for five, six seconds and then they let it go for five, six seconds and then you leave it out for five, six. So you draw this box, if you will. And so I do, you know, from time to time, like my 15 year old son makes me crazy and I'm like, ah, you know, and I just got to settle down. Right. And so breathing, Right, that's box breathing or something like that. Yeah, it's because it's all connected, right? Your physiology, your brain, it's all connected. Yeah, it's like a spider web. Yeah, fantastic. So Hey, I understand, Sumit, that you're also a photographer, so that's super interesting to me. You know, here at Gemba Academy, we do a little bit of, you know, video, and we don't do a lot of photography per se, but talk a little bit about your photography and how does that. Does there is any sort of relationship between that and your leadership work?

Yes, I think there are a lot of lessons which I take from my photography and that I take it forward with my leadership with the executive teams who are like very, very much into action mode. And what I mean by that is when I am out there photography, I cannot go out with an agenda. I cannot go out with wanting to get five pictures or 10 pictures. It's more like I have to forget that I have a camera and then I am photographing something and then maybe a good picture will happen. So it's kind of a meditative practice for me. The more I try to get a good picture, the more difficult it gets. And that's exactly bringing it back to can I be in that moment and allow what is happening around me to basically come to me, rather than me trying to force a picture out of it? The way I take it is that there is a scientific, there is a rational side of leadership and business, which is where you plan, where you break things down, you move forward, you do your strategic thinking and all of that. But then there is also the artistic side of leadership, where you're talking with people who, as we just spoke about, are not just thinking machines, they are emotional beings, they are physical bodies. So when it comes to that level, there is a point where actually trying to control, trying to break everything down from rational point of view actually makes it more difficult for you to achieve the results. So sometimes, even when your tendency is to just jump in, what you have to do is just step back and breathe deeply, as we just talked about. And that, ironically, that helps us achieve the results faster and better results over time.

Have you studied the Stoics at all, like Marcus Aurelius and this type of thing? Because it seems like a lot of what you're talking about is sort of controlling what you can control. And I'm a big believer in that. You know, I've talked about it a lot on the show. Is this something that you. That you've looked into in the past and worked into your practice?

Yes, so I have studied a lot. I have studied Stoic philosophy, I have studied neuroscience and the physiology of what happens behind meditation. I have also studied a lot of, like, the ancient Traditions of India, China, the traditions of yoga and Buddhism, which kind of point towards the same things. And now neuroscience has kind of basically proven that. But there is a. Yes, there is a lot of similarities. If you go deeper into these ancient traditions of wisdom.

Yeah, yeah. It's like these things have been around for, you know, as long as time, right. Sometimes. And, and we just forget. I feel like in our busy world and this hyper connected world where we're always busy and we're always going and it makes it hard, you know, and there's so much noise that you can't see the signal sometimes, you know, so. So like what advice do you have then for. I mean, everybody's got different personalities, right? Like different leaders have different leadership styles and one style, because somebody might be a natural extrovert, for example, versus an introvert. It's fine. They can both be fantastic leaders that they might go about it slightly different ways. But I would argue perhaps the extrovert, maybe, maybe I'm wrong here. Correct me if you think I'm wrong. Maybe the extrovert leader could struggle a little bit more. And I say that because I would call myself more of an extroverted leader in some ways. And it's easy to get amped up when you're in a crisis or something like that. Is there something to that? Like your personality type?

Yeah, I think personality is a very important topic because I don't want to mix personality with the person. So the personality doesn't define the person. So somebody can be extroverted, somebody can be introverted, and they might be good or bad at particular skills or things, but the question is not about their personality. The question is what is required in this situation. Do you really need to pump up and be that kind of a leader or do you need to take a step back and calm down? And then can you do that? Because irrespective of whether you are an extrovert and introvert, you can still do both kind of things depending on the situation. Or you can figure out a ways of doing that by having an extroverted leader plug in some parts of your profile if you don't want to do that. Personality is wonderful to talk about people, to talk about leadership from a rational point of view. But once we make it practical, the only thing which matters is that in this moment, again, am I doing what will take my company, my team, myself, where I want to go?

A random question. What is your opinion of like email texting? Just these, let's call it impersonal ways of communicating what's your take on that type of communicating?

So if I talk about the rational thinking, I think the written form of communication works better. It allows you to have better discussions, better documentation, better reasoning. But if I talk about emotional connection, if I talk about physical presence, if I talk about trust, if I talk about empathy, that almost is impossible or very difficult in a written form of communication. So I think it has its advantages. But we need to be mindful of using the right tool for the right.

Yes. Yeah. Like if I'm explaining to my wife how to turn off the water to our house because a pipe broke, you know, I mean, well, okay, maybe that's a bad example or preparing for some technical task. Right. This is where step one, step two, step three. This is beautiful for email, but yeah, hey, you know, there's some argument going on or something like that, or you're frustrated with someone and you. And you go to email or text or something like that. I hate it, man. I feel like it causes so many problems because I might read your one sentence completely different than you intended it. Right. And now I'm upset and then I hit reply. Oh boy. And then we have this big problem. So are you a fan of just when you're frustrated, go see the person or pick up the phone or jump on Zoom or something like that? Or what's your advice there when you're feeling frustrated or there is conflict?

Yeah. My advice is to separate out the objective tactical conversations about tasks, deadline projects, from the relational conversations, which is about trust, team building, having one on one conversations, building empathy, support, offering support, offering feedback, and not to mix these two. So we can be very objective about what happened, what mistakes were made in a project. But that's not a reflection on your performance, on your skills. And that's a conversation we will have separately in a physical format, in audio, at least an audio format, if not a video or a physical format. But that doesn't stop us from talking about the projects. But the leader, it's the leader's responsibility to make it very clear that the project discussion is not a reflection on your skills or on your place in the team. That's a separate conversation which we will have separately. The person should be very well aware that there's a place for this and there's a place for this.

Yeah. So there's obviously been a lot of uncertainty over the world, you know, in the last few years with, with COVID and. But you know, it wasn't just uncertainty is lived long before COVID ever became a thing. Right. I Mean there's always uncertainty in the world. 30 years from now, God willing, there won't be Covid or something like that, but just there's going to be uncertainty. There's going to be. And that, that I feel like some people, again, thinking about different personality types, There are some folks who really, really yearn for certainty in their life. If they don't have certainty, they are just very unhappy. They're uneasy where some people, they're more comfortable with it, they could just roll with it, they're okay, but. But no matter what, one thing's for sure, uncertainty is never going away. So what is your advice for folks that are leading people in an uncertain world, which is always.

Yes, and especially all the true for leadership. Any kind of leadership is uncertain because you're dealing with people. And as I figured out after making a few mistakes, that you cannot treat people like you treat computers. You cannot press buttons and expect people to behave or show up in a certain way. First of all, acknowledging that uncertainty is all there is when it comes to people. And that's not a bug, that's not a bad thing. That's just a natural thing. Just like any skill, you can learn that skill to deal with uncertainty, to navigate. I think, rather than control. Navigate is a very good, very good word when it comes to that because that's what ships do. Oceans are uncertain. There are waves every now and then, even if you're going, let's say from Amsterdam to New York, the same route is never the same. Same is true for leadership. Even if you have done something 10 times before. Every conversation is new. Every conversation can throw up a supplies. Now, how can you navigate? Just like sailors navigate the oceans. They cannot control the waves. And if they try to control the waves, it will be futile. How can you navigate the uncertainty? That first of all, just using a different word takes the pressure away. And then acknowledging what is coming up, uncertainty is a rational way of thinking at it. But the emotional side of it is anxiety and fear and sometimes anger to cover up the anxiety and fear. And one thing which I've discovered is that fear never blocks us. Fear never stops us from doing something. What stops us is that we stop fear. So we stop fear and we say, this is wrong. So let's get into action, let's brush it down instead. If people can just acknowledge there is uncertainty, this is new to me. I don't know what will happen. And I'm feeling something. I'm feeling anxiety, I'm feeling some fear. Okay, let's just take a deep Breath here and then move along. So if we just allow or acknowledge the fear, the anxiety, whatever the uncertainty is bringing, it will actually make it easier for us to move forward not just with ourselves, but also with others around us.

Yeah, fantastic. Navigate, respond, don't react. Navigate. I like it. These are, I feel like the language we use, as you say, really is important, right? And because words matter, right? Obviously when we're speaking to others, words matter, but even when we're speaking to ourselves, right. I feel like words matter and I don't mean like believe it and you can achieve it. You know, I don't talk like that. But this, things like this. Navigate, respond, don't react. I feel like these, these are very good cues that we can remember and breathe, you know, calm down, you know, sort sor thing, Control your emotions. Yeah. So good stuff. Hey, do you have any final words of advice or wisdom for folks out there before we wrap things up?

I think as we were talking about words, I think just to be mindful of the kind of words we are using and then how can we replace it with the easier word? A lot of the words which we use like time pressure, deadlines, weight, like I feel weighed down by or burdened by something are coming from either the very production oriented factory world or they are coming from the military. And there is a particular kind of involvement you need in war. That's not what we need in the workplace or what we needed in the factory floor. We don't need it today, especially when we need to be creative and we need to engage our creative mind. So being very mindful of the kind of words we use, often subconsciously and then replacing it with something else. Yeah, yeah, that would be, that would be the last, last thought that I would say.

Oh, that's great, great. This has been really good. I mean most of our audience is in the sort of the lean or six sigma or continuous improvement world. But these things that you're talking about, you know, they, they transcend everything. Right. And so I really appreciate you coming on and I've learned a lot and I, I'm going to really reflect on just the whole idea of responding versus reacting and navigating. I think these are really key points. So thank you for taking the time to come on. How can folks connect with you Sumit if they want to LinkedIn or something like that or website.

Yeah, I am very active on LinkedIn so anybody can reach out to me there. And then I also have a website which is deployyourself.com and I have a newsletter and I have a podcast on the same website. So.

Okay.

Anybody who logs into the website will.

See that and say the URL again.

It's deploy d e p l o.

Y yourself.com deployyourself.com okay. And we will link to to your LinkedIn in the show notes so folks can go to so it's S u m I T sumit and then Gupta G u P T A so but yeah, this is episode four. So just go to Gemba podcast.com and look for 415 and we'll have it all linked in. So yeah, thanks for coming on. This has been a lot of fun.

Thank you. Thank you Ron for having me and asking the wonderful question.

You're welcome. All right, you take care. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 lean and 6 Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.