Global Leadership Insights (ft. Lakshmanan Chidambaram)

Thanks for tuning to Digital Voices Podcast, where we chat digital transformation, challenges, and opportunities across healthcare and life sciences. And now, your host, Ed Marx.

Hey, Digital Voices listeners, I have a great opportunity coming up. We are in the process of creating Voices of Innovation, Payer Edition. So if you work at a payer or a payvider and want to contribute to this book, just send an email to voicesofinnovation@gmail.com and we will send you instructions. It's super, super easy and fun. And the best parts are all proceeds go to cure cancer, and it's great for the brand of your organization to share a little bit of best practices. on what you're doing for innovation. Thank you. Welcome, Ed Marx here with Digital Voices. Hey, we have a special treat on this drop. So we're going to take sort of a global perspective, but also come back to the Americas and one of the great leaders in, I think, in the world. And you'll see why I believe that. And my friend CTL. So CTL, welcome, and please tell us your entire name and people will understand why I say CTL.

It's wonderful, wonderful to connect with you, Ed. And, you know, I followed your career as well, and I'm, uh, I'm a big fan. And before I say my name, I should say one thing. When we worked in Tech Mahindra together, you made an introduction to, to a client where we were struggling, and a new CIO had come and You were his mentor, if I remember right. And he received you so warmly. And I've never forgotten that meeting. And after you handed it over, now a few years, this is a huge client for Tech Mahindra. But every— when we took it over, I realized the responsibility of the trust that you built in your relationship. So it's been a learning experience for me. Thank you again. And, you know, that's why, you know, we've followed you all this while. And thank you for enriching my life with that experience as you're enriching others' lives. So again, my name is Lakshmanan Chidambaram, pretty long name, and everyone calls me CTL. It rolls easily off the tongue. So I'm very comfortable with both.

Yeah. So I didn't want to make a mistake on your name. And as my audience knows, my My wife's from India as well, and so she usually helps me with different names, but that one was a little bit challenging. So, but yeah, we've always gone by CTL. And CTL, before we jump in, Megan, you know, we have a lot of guests from around the world, and even though, as we'll learn, CTL is based in the Americas, what are the most common countries of our guests other than North America? I would have to say India, probably. We've had a lot of guests that some are still located in India, and a lot of them have You know, set roots in America. Yeah, I would definitely say besides America, India is probably one of our top locations. Yeah, and I think after that, it's probably Canada. And then I think we'll get— we've had a couple of people from the EU, UK specifically. So anyways, yeah, that was the first time, CTL, we met, at least visually, was working with that Prospect that became a great client of yours, and I so my perspective on it was I was amazed how great you were, and you know your your leadership style, the empathy that you show in your leadership, and the the articulation of everything that you believed in. And I think that's what helped my friend, you know, gain your trust and the trust of Tech Mahindra. And and I I remember sitting back and telling other people that I worked with, you know. in my Health and Life Sciences division of TechEd. I was like, this CTL person is great, you know, and I learned a lot from you during that. So, I think we both mutually benefited. But the best of all, the client benefited. So, that was cool.

Excellent. You're very kind. Thank you.

So, you know, one of the first questions we always ask is, what songs do you like to listen to? So, what kind of music do you like?

See, you know, My favorite is a Tamil poet called Bharatiya, Subramanya Bharatiya. He was a freedom fighter, you know, fought against the British. And like Martin Luther King, lived a very impactful life, died very early, lived amongst very difficult circumstances. But what he wrote always had positive energy, addressed issues that were bigger than himself, Abolition of casteism in India, empowerment of women. I'm talking about 60, 70, 80 years ago, before India's independence and such. And he wrote so eloquently. Every time I listen, and musicians over the decades have set it to contemporary tunes. So the songs remain the same, the words remain the same, but the musicians have made it You know, have kept it in touch with the times. And when I listen to them, they touch, they inspire, they are powerful. And I've realized listening to him, I mean, listening to his songs and his words, how important words are, the power of words, the power of good words to touch and inspire. So in my playlist, he's number one.

I like it. I'm gonna have to look him up and we'll try to Megan will try to remember to put his name in the show notes for sure. So, CTL, this might lead right into the next question, and that is, is there a life passion message or maybe a quote, some words that you live by that inspire you?

You know, there's only one sentence, and this came from my grandfather. So, I don't own the original IP for this, right? And my grandfather started business when he was 13 years old, Ed. mortgage my grandmother's jewels at that time. She kept reminding him many times during his lifetime about that. And we all saw him, we were all around him, seeing him grow up. And there was one thing that I gathered from everything that I learned observing him, that is the word you give is more important than any document you'll ever sign. Right. And I've carried this as a living principle right through my life. I worked in different geographies, dealt with different nationalities. And, you know, I've always wondered, hey, this worked in India, will it work? Now, after all these years, I'm convinced that that mantra is something that is like a guardian angel that keeps you on the right track all the time.

Yeah, that— I love that. I wrote that down. I think that's Really important because again, it goes back. You know what we talked about at the very beginning is that trust, and if you require a signature in order to have trust, that's not a good that's not a good foundation of a relationship. So tell us, you know, you're such an interesting person. Tell us a little bit about your story, both personally and professionally, like where you grew up and you know things that happened to help shape and form you to where you are today.

You know, I grew up in India. You know, I was born brought up in Chennai, which is a coastal city in the southern part of India. And, uh, you know, very sheltered life. Uh, the family was reasonably wealthy, so not really tested in any different fashion. And when I graduated, it was like, you know, there was a yearning inside me that, uh, the family was like a banyan tree. It was very protective, gave me a lot of shade. Uh, but I— there was something burning inside me to bring out the me, right, to the world. And that is when out of college I got picked up by a company called HCL. And they posted me in the northern part of— in the western part of India, in a place called Ahmedabad, where the language spoken was different. And it just took me out of my comfort zone. And I think that's the best thing that happened to me. I was asked to sell and I'd never sold before. So it took me out of my comfort zone. It made me realize, you know, the potential within me. It increased my risk-taking capabilities. And I owe a lot to my experience with HCL for making me what I am today. And I've also felt that every time there's a time when you're ready to do your next gig, like you must have been when you did Divergent, right? There's a time and the call always comes when your mind is ready.

Yeah.

Like they say, the teacher appears when the student is ready, right? And so I've always got those calls and I moved to the US and that was a big move, right? Both my kids were in middle school and elementary. And so it was a huge change for us. I took it. I came and joined a company called Syntel, worked with them for 10 years in the IT outsourcing space. And then, you know, Tech Mahindra had bought Satyam. And Satyam was India's Enron.

Right.

There was a huge fraud at the top and the job description was employees are demoralized, customers are on the fence, there are a few court cases running to a few billion dollars. How does it sound? And involuntarily without even thinking deeply about it, this is exciting. You can't do this in a lab. So that's what brought me to Satyam. It again took me into a new league, a new set of problems to solve. And I've just enjoyed every bit of the journey. And it's taken me very blessed. It's exposed me to cultures. It's exposed me to people. It's exposed— it's given me experiences that I'll carry for a lifetime and very blessed.

Now, that's super fascinating. And so now you're based in the Americas, correct? You're now— you're still here in the United States. And if I remember correctly, you're in the East Coast someplace.

You're right. I lived in Boston for 24 years and shifted 6 months ago to Dallas, Ed, which is where our headquarters is. So experiencing a new place now.

Yeah, no, that's great. Yeah, we'll, we'll definitely connect and, uh, we'll share with you. You've probably discovered some of your favorite, uh, uh, Indian places to eat, but we'll definitely connect and share some of ours in the Dallas area.

I'd love to host you.

So, um, Yeah, tell us about, you know, how— well, you just told us about how you came to TechM and then you became head of all of the Americas. So tell us a little bit about that role, what that encompasses.

You know, when we— when I joined, I told you that we— my job was to turn around a sick company in the Americas, in North America specifically. And it was exciting. It was like changing the wheels of a car when it was running at 100 miles an hour. We had to do a whole lot of changes. We had to hire new people, get new business, right? And did all that. And when we bought Satyam, Satyam was $1.3 billion and Tech Mahindra, which is, you know, was $1.3 billion and both companies had 35,000 employees each. And today it's $6.2 billion with 164,000 employees. So it's been an amazing turnaround. But after we turned around and integrated Satyam within Tech Mahindra, you know, again, there was this restlessness, what next, right? And that was the time when we made an interesting change in the organization. Tech Mahindra always positioned itself as a flexible, nimble, entrepreneurial company. And as we hit the $4 billion mark, things were getting slower, processes were taking time. So the board and the senior management team took a great decision. to split the company into 6 virtual companies, each between $600 million and $1.3 billion in size. We call it freedom within boundaries. We sign up for top line, we sign up for bottom line. Brand is not outsourced, legal is not outsourced. Otherwise, I run my company, right?

Nice.

And so you're able to develop a subculture within the company and, you know, be responsible for a P&L servicing Fortune 1000 clients. So that was very exciting. I did that for North America for a couple of years, and now they've expanded it, expanded my role to the Americas, which means I now run, you know, the big locations there are Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia.

Yeah, super exciting. So you're involved in multiple verticals. And what— can you speak a little bit about healthcare? Like, what are your thoughts on healthcare in terms of your verticals? And but share all the verticals. I think the audience interested, like, What do you cover? You know, what industries?

So we cover a broad range of businesses. It's called the enterprise business within Tech Mahindra. Everything other than the telco business, which is banking, financial services, retail, travel, logistics, railroads. Manufacturing is a huge vertical for us, but it's actually split into many sub-verticals. automotive, discrete aerospace and defense. And now we've split recreational vehicles and heavy trucks in one segment and specialty vehicles like, you know, snowmobiles, scooters and stuff like that, you know, cut that into another sub-vertical. So it's a big business for us. I just love what we do. We touch the physical aspects, we touch the digital aspects, and then we bring both of these together into where it integrates. We call it phygital. Right? I don't think there's a word like that in the English dictionary. Hopefully we'll get one soon. So manufacturing is big. I used to run healthcare, and then we had an entity that we bought with which we merged the healthcare entity. And so that's the range of oil and gas utilities. So a fairly wide range of businesses.

Yeah, no, that's pretty massive. And Yeah, I imagine it's challenging, right, to understand all the nuances of all those various industries. But I'm sure that you have the right people that are experts in those industries that help you in all that.

Yeah.

How has— can you speak a little bit about global experience? So would you recommend for leaders to sort of stretch themselves as you have and get global experience? Even if someday they come back to more localized experience, but do you think from a career point of view that that's a beneficial move?

Oh, absolutely. Now, if you had asked me 20 years ago, it could have been cloudy, but now having traveled to different parts of the globe, worked with different cultures, the learning has been huge. There are some things that remain the same, like the values that you, with which you do your business, right, hasn't changed ever, right, in any geography, anytime, irrespective of what happens in the economy or does not happen. But today, it's a global world, right? You deal with Fortune 1000 corporations where leadership is spread right through the globe. So if you were to be successful, it's just not enough if you know the US. It's a big, pretty large geography, but it's not enough if you just know that. You need to be able to learn how to interact, convince people, build trust across geographies. And nothing better than, you know, putting yourself out of your comfort zone and spending some time in these geographies. Either you relocate and spend, which is what many of our Fortune 1000 clients also do, but regularly travel. And to me, I just love it because when I go to a new place, it excites me. I go a couple of days earlier, I experience the culture, I experience the food. And so it's a wholesome experience. And I think it's made 1 1 11 for me. And I would strongly advocate it for everybody else.

Yeah, no, I— that's why I asked the question because I'm a big believer as well. I think whenever we can expand our worldview and our understanding of multi-cultures, I think it benefits everyone, not just from a business perspective, but also just kind of a, you know, a life perspective. So, you mentioned culture a couple of times. We're talking leadership now. So, tell us about the role of culture in setting the tone for an organization.

You know, I talked to you about the 5 virtual companies we created within Tech Mahindra, and I've been at it for the last 6-7 years now. And we have a very powerful culture within Mahindra and Tech Mahindra, very powerful culture, very strong brand, known for ethics, known for corporate governance. So we had a good base to take off. And we also realized that as a large corporation, we have a duty to the communities we work in, right? So that, you know, the goal is that we should enable, you know, the communities that we live in to rise. And that's the only way we can rise as well, right? That's the philosophy. And what we did was, if you look at IT services which we operate in, We compete with many firms, right? And if you take all our PowerPoints and look at them, you'll find that everybody is minus or plus 5 or 10%, right? And what I've realized is that if you bring in something new, somebody else copies it in some time. The only thing your competitors cannot copy is culture. And it's much more easier said than done. It's a an intense effort. It comes from deep belief that a leader has, right? And then his ability to drive it in so that every person in the organization imbibes that finally, right? And so the best is to explain through a practical example. You know, I love running. And sometimes some of your best thoughts come when you do what you like the most. And for me, it's running. And as we were running, we said, if there's only one thing that we focused on in this life, there are so many things you can do. and there's no time for doing multiple things. One thing that you would focus on professionally and personally, what would it be? And it kept coming back that customer delight is just the one thing that you would focus on. And it sounds very cheesy, right? Everyone says customer delight is important. And so we said, what does customer delight mean to us? So we said, you know, one, you need to have happy employees who come into work. It's a very abstract word. Happy employees who come into work, only happy employees can make magic happen, right? So the quality of work that they deliver should be exceptional. So we did a lot of work around creating an environment where people can travel the distance between good and exceptional, where only merit matters, right? And so it takes years to do this. And, you know, it takes training your middle management, your leaders at the middle management layer and the senior management layer to imbibe this. The second part that we looked at was training and knowledge of digital technologies. Because you see, Ed, in our business, digital technologies in the last 10 years have completely changed everything. And we didn't have these technologies— AI, ML, augmented reality, virtual reality, metaverse, my God. And so we made training a top priority, training anytime, anywhere. And that thereby we master these technologies and we can hold the hands of our customers and help them win in the marketplace. The third thing that we realized to create customer delight was to understand the customer's pain points extremely well, anticipate trends that are emerging in their industry, and come up with solutions and ideas that can help them win in the marketplace. So we put inordinate effort in understanding our customers' business. This was number 3. And number 4, we said we'll do all-round clean business. Right. When I say all-round clean business, it's just not top line, it's just not bottom line, it's just not DSO days, but doing everything right. And finally, we said we will do what is right for the customer. And sometimes what is right for the customer is not right for you. Right. And I'll give you an example. There are 1,000 people doing testing and we were talking about customer delight. The team came up with a brilliant idea, extreme automation that would reduce it to 500 people. Everyone celebrated, and then the guy who managed the P&L for this account woke up. He said, my God, 500 people worth of revenue is going to go away. Oh, but we have to stick to our ideals. Why don't we stagger this? We'll do this, but we'll stagger it over 3 years. That way the impact will not be on year 1. And this debate, we allowed it to happen for some time, and then it came to a leadership meeting, and we said without blinking an eyelid, Do it now. Do it now. And once that message went out and we did it, the P&L got hit, the revenues dropped, and in 18 months, the account showed 20% growth.

Wow.

Every year it has been growing at 25%. So it's an oxymoron, you know, you can't go wrong by doing what's right. It's a very nice statement. I truly believe every alphabet of it. And 46% of my customers have been with us, with Tech Mahindra, for 10 years or more. We are like 3 spoons of sugar in a glass of milk. You mix it, you know, you can't separate the milk and the sugar. The customers trust you implicitly. They've given you the keys to their car. And if you betray that trust, you know, you wonder, some people say, oh, you lost an account. You don't just lose something. the rot sets in, right? And I believe that culture, just to summarize, is like the lighthouse, right? When the sun is shining and the sky is blue, even an ordinary company can look extraordinary. During those difficult times when it's dark in the night, when there's a storm, culture is like a lighthouse that guides the ship to safety. And it never changes. These ideals for 6 years has not changed. We've repeated it again and again and again and again till it's got into the DNA of the first person who's standing on the ground there. And I believe that's a key differentiator.

Yeah, that's gold. So thank you for that. I was taking copious notes, especially as a young CEO of a new organization. And yeah, there's lots of great wisdom and why I wanted to have you there. Yeah, and I speak very highly of everything that you said. You know, in my time at TechM, the things that you said ring true. from CP, you know, the CEO on down. And yeah, it's just fascinating that these sort of— it sounds almost idealistic, but if you really practice it, it really has the benefits, the outcomes, the results that you spoke about. Is there something around leadership that you'd like to share? So aside from culture, you know, What are, what are one or two key leadership traits that you look for when you're thinking about expanding your team? You know, what are some of the attributes that make a great leader?

Great question. You know, if I were to look at leaders that have inspired me, a genre of leaders, it would start with Moses, right? Abraham Lincoln. Nelson Mandela, Martin— Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, right? If you look at these leaders, they, you know, they went after a cause that was much bigger than themselves, right? You know, and that, you know, enabled them to rise to become almost godlike, right? So the one thing that keeps running in my mind right through is that I should leave my footprints in the sands of time. And it should be for a cause that's much bigger than myself. If you can marry both of this together, your results will be magical. And I mentioned all these leaders because they did magical things. They were ordinary human beings with their own failings, but went on to do extraordinary things to become godlike. And so lots to learn from them. So when we look for leaders, we look for leaders who are caring, leaders who, you know, for whom performance is important, but, you know, building people is equally important. Doing things the right way, you know, if there is a goal that you need to reach, and many people reach the goal in many different ways, doing it the right way is very important, right? And so we look for ethics, we look for character, we look for team-building skills, We look for people who nurture, who celebrate in the success of others. Those are some of the important characteristics that I look for, apart from the fact that they should be hard-driven and want to do something different.

Yeah, that's great. I was actually asking from a selfish perspective. So I just threw that question in because you're a fascinating leader. And I just wanted to get some more wisdom, not only for myself, but the audience. As well. So you mentioned running. So we're going to shift a little bit out of culture and leadership. You mentioned running. How did you start and why do you continue to run?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I, you know, I'm lean, right? You've seen me. And I thought, for me, lean is equal to healthy, you know, is what I thought. Right. And for many years, I used to go for my health checkups and come back and the doctor says clean shit. So I thought whatever I was doing was right. Till a few years ago, I went for my annual checkup and the doctor asked me, what the hell did you do to yourself? And I said, what happened? He said, your cholesterol has gone up. And he said, I'm going to start you on a tablet called statin. And I said, how long do I need to take it? He says, you take it for life. I was taken aback. So I took it and I developed a back pain. And then I went to India for 10 days. I think I forgot my tablets and my back pain went away. So I went back to the doctor and he says, yeah, it's very common. It happens to people. Don't worry, we'll blend something that will suit you. That was when I asked him, I said, listen, I want to— I don't want to be bound to this medicine thing. Release me, I'm willing to be a slave. And then he told me, he said, every time I ask you, what are you doing? You're saying you're doing everything right. You have to relook at your life. And then I relooked at my life. I realized that I was doing these early morning flights, taking a Starbucks coffee, getting to Las Vegas at 2 in the afternoon. When I'm hungry, I come out and I like some Asian food. So I see this Chinese wok, greasy food, you eat it, and then you do your conference, late night food. That was life. And things changed, right? And I got myself a trainer. And I did my upper body, my lower body. I couldn't run from one end of, you know, I couldn't do 500 meters of running. I would be huffing and puffing. So they got me steadily onto it. And that's how I got in because I wanted to be healthy. And I'm so glad that I did it. Once you do, and I mentioned the statement already, the teacher appears when the student is ready, right? One by one, I got introduced to world-class people, great trainer. And the guy said, oh, you have to meet this massage therapist who's world-class. So I got introduced to a fantastic massage therapist. So I had an ecosystem of people who talked about good things, right, and who got me on the right track. And then I ran a mile. I said, I like this thing. So I increased it and increased it till I do about 5 miles a day. And I love it. You know, I'm by myself, my mind is quiet, and good things come and talk to you. Sometimes an interesting conversation you've had with a client, a book that you've read, and one thing leads to another, right? So it all started with health, and I'm so glad that, you know, my parameters have gone back to normal. And, uh, you know, I just love it. I want to keep it that way.

Yeah, that's something— that's a great story because, yeah, you're right. Oftentimes they just— people just throw medicine at, at a problem, and it really doesn't take care of the problem. It just adds a lot of times. adds more to the problem. And so, but if you take control of your health and your wellness, uh, it can really make a difference. I, I see. I didn't know that, uh, that story, and, uh, that's fascinating, and that's a great testimony to the power.

I didn't, I didn't intend telling that story. You're a great interviewer. You're drawing me out.

No, no, that's good because it's so important for, for my, for our audience because, you know, we all deal with that. You know, we're always in a rush. We're always Yeah, trying to, you know, be the hero and we sacrifice our health and sometimes our family. So I want to talk to you about family next. So how do you sort of balance life or integrate your life to where, you know, you don't neglect either your work or your family or other things that are important to you?

You know, from my perspective, I found that this work-life balance, and we talk a lot about it in the corporate world, Is a little bit of an oxymoron. Because what happens is suddenly you're working on a deal, you worked on it for 2 years, and it peaks. When it peaks, your mind, body, soul, every cell in you is inside that deal, right? And so you're working on it day and night. And at that time, you know, it's like a sports team that works really hard during the season, right? They're traveling 25, 30 days, whatever they do. and it's intense. But what I've realized is once that intensity is over, you'll have to pull back. You'll, you know, do things that you like, regenerate yourself, right? Take the breaks that you need. For me, taking vacations is important. Me and my wife do it. We went to China last year. It was such an educational experience just taking time off and doing this. So taking those breaks, you know, have helped. Having said that, could Could I, should I be spending more time with my family is a question that I ask myself all the time. And my wife asks me all the time as well. You know, hopefully we'll find a good equilibrium, but I, there are bursts of intense activity and then I pull back to regenerate.

Yeah, that's good. That's really good advice. Yeah. And how it kind of ebbs and flows both directions. and can create a healthiness on both sides. So, CTL, I hate the fact that our time has come to an end because I could speak with you forever. Like I said at the beginning, I just found it fascinating when I served with you on that prospect and who became a customer and just, you know, all of your insights and your leadership and the way that you handled yourself. And so this has been terrific. I've learned a lot again, and I'm sure our audience has. Is there something that we missed in our conversation or something we spoke about that you want to double down? I give you the last word.

No, I quite enjoyed the conversations. And I said, we're not going to prepare and let the authentic self speak. So thank you for your very thought-provoking questions. And you, like I said, I've been following you even after you left TechEmp. Right. And I followed all the interesting work that you do and learned from my experiences with you. And that's why I reached out to you saying, oh, I've seen you do all these interesting talks and we should do one. So I would like to thank you for your time, for your questions, and an opportunity to reconnect. And I would love to stay in touch. And I want to thank you and your audiences for this opportunity, you know, to have this discussion.

Yeah, well, CTO, the gift is ours. The leadership insights you provided and all the cultural things are gold because they're very practical. There are things that aren't theory, but wow, you can actually put these into practice and have these great results and everyone wins. So thank you again. I want to thank my producer, Megan. She's awesome as always. And thank you for listening to Digital Voices.

Thank you for listening to Digital Voices podcast with Ed Marx. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe on your preferred streaming service And leave a rating and review. And most importantly, thanks again for listening.