Here is the excerpt:

Smiti: Hi, everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of Inspiring Leadership and Leaders podcast. My name is Smiti. I’m the founder of AdvantageClub.ai, and I’m your host for today. Today, we have an amazing person recording the podcast with us. We have Sanjay Jha, the CHRO and senior VP of Mahindra First Choice Wheels, with us today. Hi, Sanjay. Welcome to the podcast.

Sanjay: Hi, Smiti. Happy to be here.

Smiti: You know, I’m really excited and honored to have you here. So, Sanjay, of course, we know a lot about you. For our audience, please tell us a little bit about your background, what you do, and your journey.

Sanjay: Yeah, sure. So, I’m a metallurgical engineer, and I also did my MBA. I started my career, as a metallurgical engineer in operations. I have manufactured pig iron, ferrosilicon, ferromanganese through various blast furnace routes, arc furnace routes, etc. And then, I moved to TQM. I’m a certified Six Sigma black belt. I’m a trained practitioner of TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), quality function deployment, and cost of core quality, etc.

And then I moved to HR after my stint in TQM. I joined Mahindra First Choice Wheels in 2011. I was hired by M&M (Mahindra & Mahindra) to implement TQM in three companies. But after six months, they decided to give me the responsibility of CHRO for this company. In addition to HR, I have also been responsible for business development and P&L for one small business.

Well, I am married to Sangeeta, and I have two daughters & a son. They are all working. So, that’s about me. My life has been like molding metal to molding men.

Smiti: That’s amazing. And one of the most interesting things about you is that you were an engineer, and then you moved into HR. We would love to understand why and how that happened. And also, even in your current role, you’re not just handling HR, right? You’re also handling business development and functions. So, there must also be another set of challenges associated with it.

Sanjay: Sure. So let me tell you, life kept happening to me. I did not plan for all these things. But my approach has always been to accept, whatever life gives you as an opportunity. And work meticulously, work religiously, learn about that role. And that is how I kept submitting myself to the various opportunities, and kept learning in the university of life, so to speak. And I always believe that once you have a pure orientation to learn with humbleness, life will keep opening new doors of opportunity for you, and you’ll keep learning, enjoying, and growing. So that is how I moved from operations to TQM in a seamless manner, and then later on from TQM to HR.

One more thing I would like to say. I firmly believe that people are the ultimate purpose of any organization. Each one of us has humongous potential. I am a metallurgical engineer, so if I compare it with the metallurgical field, I clearly see that everybody’s sitting in gold mines. It is our beliefs, values, and thoughts that are basically picked up during our formative stage, which sometimes work like gangue material. And our job is to keep removing them, so I did that. Frankly speaking, I don’t claim to be someone who planned for all these things. No, I do not do that.

Smiti: That’s great. And I’m sure with such a diverse journey that you’ve had, you must have faced a lot of challenges, especially when you grow. And growth in one domain is hard enough; growth when you’re multi-domain is even harder. So, I would love to understand how you navigate challenges when the going gets tough. Are there any examples of failures that you’ve experienced and overcome?

Sanjay: I’ll give you one example that is rather a very generic approach of mine. And then I’ll tell you one small story if time permits. So my approach is that whenever you get an opportunity, you learn. You learn from various means. It could be books, YouTube, or various other modes. Or even learn from your juniors.

When I moved from TQM to HR as a CHRO, I had no prior experience handling HR. So, I learned from my juniors. I gave most of the credit to my juniors and learned humbly. I said, “Look, I don’t know anything, accepting that I have people orientation, I am a good listener, and I am ready to learn from you.” And they all taught me. And I’m really grateful to them. That is how I keep learning. And these challenges become interesting.

I’ll also tell you one story, which will be a good message for HR folks. So, way back in 2003 or 2004, I was working in an agrochem company. As you can imagine, I’m a metallurgical engineer working in an agrochemical company. I was completely in a very different sort of territory; I was asked to implement the concepts of TPM and Six Sigma in one of the factories of this company. Later on, only I learned that a consultant had already kind of tried and failed because the union was hell-bent on “I will not allow you to implement unless you increase my salary, unless you do these, these, these welfare things for us. Okay. I’ll not allow you to show me glamorous presentations, PowerPoint presentations, some esoteric handouts, etc., and tell me some flowery words about Japan and the US. “

They were quite clear in their head. They had become violent. I initially did not know all these things. But then the Vice President of operations called me and said, “You know, can you implement? Go and implement.” And I’m a very excited person. If somebody were to say, “Can you do this?” I would say, “Yes, I can,” without thinking about what I am, the possible challenges, or what new things I need to learn about this new role.

I called the admin head of this factory and landed in the factory one day. This gentleman said, “Man, you don’t understand the risk, okay? These union leaders will not allow you. They’ll beat you. Unnecessarily, why do you want to mess with them?” So, I said, “You don’t worry. Just allow me. Just set up a meeting for me, and I want to talk to them.” And then he asked me, “Have you ever handled a union?” I said, “No, I’ve never handled a union. I have only interacted with human beings”. So he said, “Fine, good luck to you.” I said, “You don’t worry. I will come back in one piece,”.

And then, let me tell you, it was a small room, seven well-built union leaders. They were all sitting. And then I introduced myself, and I said, “Look, so I’m here to pick your mind. I want to implement this TPM and Six Sigma concept, so what do you have to say?” And they started blasting at me. They started using abusive words for management. The first guy simply said, “I will not allow you to do that, come what may.” Then I asked the second person, “Tell me, what is your view?” Then the third person, then the fourth person. By that time, I reached the sixth, seventh person, the energy had started tapering down. Then the seventh person said, “You are not saying anything. You’re just listening calmly, so you also say something, no?”

I said, “Fine, so gentlemen, I have listened to you people with all humbleness, with all due respect. Please listen to me also with the same kind of respect. Moreover, please consider this a dialogue between human and human. It is not a discussion between management and the union, okay?” They said, “Fine, go ahead. What do you want to say?” I said, “Three months ago, there was a fatal accident in this factory. Are you all aware? Do you all recall?” So they were not prepared for this conversation. I said, “I have gone through the logbook, and I came to know that by a forklift, one casual laborer was killed.” Then I said, “Recently, in the recent past, one burn case happened near a pump. Are you all aware?”

They started looking at each other. And then someone asked me, “What the hell do these two things have to do with your TPM and Six Sigma?” I said, “Hold, hold. How many times do you all visit the shop floor? I have seen that the condition is very, very bad. There are a lot of acids and chemicals lying there. How many of you can call your family or your wife and your children tomorrow and take them to the shop floor and proudly say that this is the place where we work?” And there was a dead silence.

I said, “Gentlemen, this is the reason I want to implement Six Sigma. I’m not going to show you any PowerPoint presentations. I am not going to give you any handouts, etc. I’m not going to waste time, but you’ll have to work with me, and every morning, we’ll go and clean the shop floor. Are you all ready? I am going to change. I take the charge, the responsibility that I am going to change the face of this factory.” There was a silence, a deafening silence for two minutes. They started looking at each other, and then one old person said, “Yes, we are in for it.”

And in four months, Smiti, I can tell you that we changed the entire thing. The same factory got the President Award for Safety. So my message is that if you’re humble and believe in human-to-human dialogue, you can create any wonder. The moment you start becoming a very intelligent person, you start trying manipulative techniques, and then it becomes you versus me.

Smiti: I love that. And I got goosebumps myself listening to this story. And I love how instead of going through that standard corporate PowerPoint presentation, you decided to just talk about what matters to them. about their family, their own safety, and their colleagues’ safety. That is what really hits home, especially if you’re looking at a blue-collar population versus a white-collar.

That also syncs with my next question, that different employees have different needs. What works for a blue-collar worker might not work for a white-collar worker. Employee needs also constantly change over time.

What would you advise HR leaders in terms of steps that they can take to address these constantly changing needs? What used to work pre-COVID does not work today. So, how do HR leaders navigate that?

Sanjay: Yeah. So there are some basic needs, such as physical and psychological safety, if you refer to Maslow’s hierarchy. These needs arevery important. If people do not feel safe at the workplace, both physically and psychologically, they will never deliver their best. They’ll always remain closed. HR leaders must understand their needs. The best thing could be to talk to them and understand their diverse needs and address them. So, this is one aspect.

The other aspect is that thanks to technology and various other factors happening all around, we are truly living in a VUCA world. VUCA is not a management jargon anymore. We are truly living in VUCA. The skills are becoming redundant at a much higher rate. Roles are becoming redundant or less important than they used to be. So all those types of things are happening. The organization is going through a restructuring process more frequently than earlier.

And, in this world of investor-led growth, today’s youth are very curious, knowledgeable, digitally savvy, and very impatient. They would like everything to happen yesterday. The human brain is not tuned that way. So, HR folks need to appreciate that and be sensitive to the management.

All said and done, we are dealing with people who are not just workers or who are not somebody holding some designation. They are somebody’s father, somebody’s brother, somebody’s husband, somebody’s wife, somebody’s daughter. So treat them as they would like to be treated in their family, among their friends, etc. So that is veryvery important.

And if you refer to the Industry 5.0 document, this document also talks about keeping people at the center. It’s high time we start thinking about and designing work systems, workplaces, and everything so that machines and humans can work together. Machines can take care of routine things, whereas humans can take charge of creative work or novel things. With that backdrop, people must be given training on adjacent skills besides the skills, like competence about digital savviness, entrepreneurship, result orientation, execution excellence, and innovation. These are the critical competencies for today’s employees to remain high performers.

However, apart from this, they should also be imparted with adjacent skills. This is an organization’s responsibility, so they can seamlessly switch to another role or job when their role or skills become redundant. People should also be trained to remain open. They should not be close-minded, thinking that if I have learned metallurgy during college time, I can only do metallurgy work. So that happened to me, but when I reflect in hindsight, the key learning for me is that we should be open to new changes. We should embrace them and be ready to learn new things. And HR has a vital role to play in this.

The third thing is building the emotional fortitude of employees because, thanks to this VUCA thing, we are going through turmoil. The emotional rollercoaster is the order of the day.

So, it is very important to create not just a resilient organization but also resilient employees, who can emotionally be prepared to face any eventuality or untoward incident. The organization should take the responsibility to place people who they are asking to go because of whatever reorganization. These are some things I would like HR folks and HR heads to keep in mind.

Smiti: This is insightful. And thank you so much, Sanjay, for sharing that. And like you rightly said, we need to create a people-first strategy where we need to look at them as human beings and not just as resources. And when we’re talking about such a fast-paced changing world, especially when we spoke about investor pressure, you spoke about how profitability and revenue have become more important than anything else; it also becomes harder to drive employee engagement. Because there is a lot of insecurity being built into today, “Okay, 10% of my company has been laid off, so for the remaining 90%, how do you engage them, and what strategies have you deployed at Mahindra First Choice Wheels actually to drive a better employee experience?” That’s my last question of the day.

Sanjay: Okay. Though I firmly believe that each of us has humongous potential, because of the limited resources and time available to any organization, the organization focuses on top talent. That is the sad part, but that is the reality. So far as the engagement of top-notch people is concerned, they love taking on challenging roles, allowing them to experiment, pilot, at times fail, and scale the business. They love that kind of thing.

So, in our organization, we provide ample opportunities. The used car industry is new in India, and it is still evolving. There’s not much precedence, so to speak. So, in this kind of industry, nobody can say that I am the ultimate repository of knowledge and experience. So we allow our people, our courageous people, so to speak, who say, “No, give me an opportunity, and I’m going to pilot this idea, and I will scale this.”

In many cases, they became successful, and regardless of their grade or even department, we made them business heads. There are cases where there was one guy who actually worked with me in HR and Business Excellence. He is now heading a very big business. So there are many such cases. So this is for top-notch folks.

For other people, communication is the lifeline of any organization. The more you communicate in a transparent manner, the more you inform people. Do you know what our current situation is? What kind of competition are we facing? What is the industry situation? People become aligned. They get more and more engaged. They appreciate it. So communication is very important.

Apart from that, there are a lot of rewards and recognition programs. That apart, I have the advantage of being a coach. I’m a certified PCC-level coach. So, I keep coaching people. Our mind is a meaning-making machine. If you could help people, take a pause and ask them to reflect, “What am I fearing?” “How can I sort of improve my capabilities and change the beliefs and values that are not working or serving me, and grow in my life?” That helps.

So, in our organization, we have conducted this coach leader program for our senior folks, and we are trying to create a culture of coaching. These are some of the ways through which we are trying to bring real engagement. Though it is not sufficient, I must tell you.

Smiti: Now this is great. And thank you so much, Sanjay. And that also brings us to the end of the podcast. Listening to your insights has been immensely amazing, and I love how humble you are, especially in such a large position today. I’m sure our audiences will learn a lot, too. Thank you so much for your time today.

Sanjay: Pleasure. Thank you. Thanks a lot.