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Contributed on May 21, 2020

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#LeaderTalk: In Conversation with Mr. Sudhir Tiwari, Managing Director, Thoughtworks India

Blog: NASSCOM Official Blog

1. Please share your thoughts on how you are managing productivity and employee morale during this crisis?

 On Productivity

 That’s an interesting one. Since we are a global company and have offices in China and Italy, we could foresee that a lockdown in India was looming large. Given the situation we are currently in, our productivity has been good as before but, we don’t yet know what the long-term implications are likely to be.

We have adopted the Agile way of working since 2001; our teams are fairly self-organized with a bottoms-up approach to getting things done. Even earlier, communicating with the teams has never been a challenge, however, over the last few weeks, frequency of communication has gone up substantially. With the restrictions on physical movements, we’ve been leveraging digital to drive seamless collaboration.

For us, the focus has never been on monitoring people – we have always been driven by output. And, that’s contributed to a cultural attribute of  trust within our teams.

So far, we’ve functioned at an extremely high level of productivity. In the initial stages our clients were understandably worried and the client leadership teams had worked with them to put them at ease.  The approach has also built confidence and enhanced trust.

it is going to be an extremely interesting time in the world of Digital transformation, as

people get used to the blurring lines between work time and family time and adapt to the “New Normal”,

On Employee Morale

 Over the years, we have put  substantial effort into building TRUST and have forged strong relationships amongst ThoughtWorkers. This has worked well when working from remote locations.

In offices, people spend a lot of time communicating with one another and also with the leadership. Accessibility to the leaders, across all levels, is a very important factor. Accessibility, trust and communication are critical elements on which our culture has been built.  In such times open communication is critical, and we went a step further this time, and as I like to say – ask everyone to err on the side of over-communication, if required.

We now have India-wide town halls once every ten days where we share business updates ( at a global and regional level) and these are very well attended virtual sessions. Interestingly, we have been contemplating conducting our country and office-wide town halls in this manner and it took a pandemic to precipitate it. We have seven offices in India and every one of them have their own all hands meetings with their respective leadership teams.,. Our leadership teams have been very supportive, establishing various informal touchpoints, and we continue to ensure that communication is uninterrupted.

We’ve also been conducting community events such as Geek Nights and others, virtually, where we have technologists and business analysts participating in very high numbers. In addition, we have Hackathons and at times they’re held jointly with the client.

Communication, we believe, is the most critical aspect of the business, especially when there’s an information overload and one must be able to decipher what’s correct and what is misleading.

2.In a Post-COVID-19 world, the disruptions you see in your business line? And, how will you turn them into opportunities?

 Every time there’s a shake-up, things change rapidly. Only this time, it’ll happen globally and not remain India-centric. An example of the latter is demonetization which changed the landscape of digital payments  in a big way. We will see similar changes being effected across industries.

• The way we look at healthcare, for instance, will change and it will permeate many levels – individuals, organizations, and governments.
• The need for cleanliness will redefine many of our habits. A lot of our  physical spaces will need redesigning – offices to malls and just about anywhere where people congregate. And, temperature-monitoring will also be a part of our existence, just as security scanners already are.
• Will there be a cultural shift when it comes to travel where people would prefer to travel on their own and within a limited radius? Does this mean that there will be shorter outings as opposed to taking longer vacations? We don’t know yet.
• Hospitality will evolve to ensure physical distancing norms, which will in turn have a large-scale impact on the industry.
• Retail and BFSI are already seeing a massive spurt in digital transactions.

These are some of the examples that come to mind immediately. This does mean a number of things will change , some of which have been ideas around for some time ,but it took a pandemic to make this shift. Interestingly, the whole world is thinking on these lines (and just not in India)

• We see a big shift we see is in how organizations will hire talent. Earlier, we’d hire from across the country but with an expectation that eventually, they’d work in one of our seven offices. Now, that’s not the case. The talent can be in any corner of the world. This gives us greater flexibility and straightway increases the size of the talent pool. This, for us, is a big and welcome change.
• There’s going to be a significant push for aggressive adoption of Cloud that could facilitate a robust and pandemic-proof infrastructure for the future.
• Cybersecurity; this is an  obvious ask with the growing dependence on digital channels and platforms.
• BCP always existed but now we will evolve such plans very differently with WFH being the ‘new normal.’

Recently, I heard this joke. It went like this – Who accelerated your digital transformation, was it the CEO or COVID-19? On a serious note though, digital transformation will accelerate for all who have been fence-sitters until now.

Humans, of course, have a remarkably short memory and once we go back to ‘normal’ I can only hope the good practices adopted now, aren’t forgotten, say 5 years down the line.

 3. How do you see this new model of WFH shaping up? Is it here to stay? Please can you do a deep-dive for us, a SWOT of sorts?

 COVID-19 has disrupted business and operating models and the old ways aren’t coming back in a hurry. Global leaders have already gone on record to post a strong case for the WFH model, going forward.

It’s interesting to visualize how things will pan out. On one hand, we will have a lot many people working from home and on the other, even if 33% of the workforce were to go back to offices, the new norms would mandate a very different kind of arrangement.

Let me elaborate, conventionally it was estimated that 125 sq ft is the average requirement of physical space per employee. Now, this could go upto 150 or 200 sq ft. We haven’t done the calculations yet but this will have a significant impact on the real estate sector. Offices, beyond the purview of work, have usually hold a social component too where people get together on a regular basis. We’ll have to see how this need is addressed through technology in the long run.

Digital intervention, of course, saves a great deal of commuting time, especially in cities like Bangalore. And, as I mentioned earlier, we will have wider access to the talent pool through this model.

Now, client interactions are happening over informal settings,  from the confines of our homes and enabled by technology. This is very different from the formal set-up we were used to. This interesting development may help us build closer and more human connections apart from the obvious business partnerships . Having said that, selling through the digital medium is a whole new experience that has a learning curve. Over time, this mode may become the preferred one which nudges out face-to-face and physical interactions.

Leadership styles also need a rather big mindset change and there are powerful tools available that make real-time and virtual communication easy. This is a great opportunity for Immersive Media (AR/VR) to progress. We are exploring different technologies too.

The workplace-culture change is an unknown area. With reduced peer-to-peer informal communication, in the long run, we will have to wait and see how this aspect evolves. For example, the way we conduct interviews has already changed. No more do we have face-to-face physical interactions and the customary handshake at the beginning and end of an interaction is a thing of the past. Another question; how will innovation evolve? Perhaps, it will focus on creating better solutions for a contact-less economy.

WFH as a shift will have an impact on diversity at the workplace. This mode of work will encourage more women to view their careers in a different way given the added  flexibility with working styles. At Thoughtworks, we have a ‘Vapsi’ program in place which encourages women to come back to work after having taken a sabbatical for a personal reason. We hope remote working will make that shift to work a lot easier for women or anyone who has taken a personal break from work.

Learning and development will change significantly. This move will have the added impact of  pushing more schools and colleges to adopt a broader use of digital learning methodologies.

Amongst the downsides of the WFH approach, I would predict  the thin line between personal and professional life ebbing away. With the power of technology, we are always at work. And, I can see the distinction between these two parts of our lives completely disappearing in the future. We can address this change through strict discipline and place greater value on our time and how we spend it. This is easier said than done, of course, but we must make great efforts to balance our life.

Lastly, we will probably  end up as the screen-age generation where  conventional social interactions, in person, may become awkward.

 4. How can India optimise from this crisis – manufacturing and services angle? Things that will work and those which won’t?

 Digital will be embraced like never before. Additionally, the Indian tech sector has picked up strong management skills over the last several decades. When you combine the two – we are presented with tech and managerial skills that are probably unparalleled in most of the world. We could be looking at great days ahead for Indian IT as new models of working evolve.

In the face of past crises like Y2K or 9/11 or the 2008 GFC, Indian IT has shown immense resilience.

So, while we did miss the mark when it came to the manufacturing sector, this is an opportunity for Indian manufacturing to reimagine itself with a focus on Industry 4.0. The emphasis should be on identifying and implementing the right reforms when it comes to labour, capital, and land acquisition. This is a great opportunity for India as worldwide there’s a clamour to de-risk and reconfigure global supply chains.

When speaking about services, one cannot forget the role of public services in this pandemic; government forces such as local administrations, health officials and the police have found an opportunity to forge a new relationship of trust with the people.

Another adversely affected area will be immigration and visa-related travel or relocation which could see the impact in the short run but market forces should eventually  balance that out.   

 5. Specific Leadership traits during disaster recovery.

 Jim Highsmith, a global leader at Thoughtworks has written a paper and structured a framework on how to be a leader during a crisis. COVID-19 presents a reasonable time to adopt  this model. His paper gauges a few things about leaders –

• Adapting : Do you have the ability to adapt? Do you respond to change or display inflexibility? The recommendation is that one accept that change is upon us and repurpose  resources accordingly.
• Exploring : Are you willing to explore new thoughts and ideas and reconfigure existing plans? Internal as well as with clients ?
• Facilitating : Do you believe that the best solutions come from the front line? We’d recommend leaders facilitate an environment where ideas  move upwards, and rapidly. It’s critical to listen and act on what troops on the ground have to say.
• Riding the Paradox:  Finally, are you capable of riding the paradox? There may not be any ‘right’ solution in sight and yet leaders must have the resolve to go ahead with informed decisions. In the current numerous scenarios will crop up. We should be in a position to consider the outliers. That element of consideration is very important.

COVID-19 is a classic case of a Kodak-moment hitting the entire planet with a vengeance. We need to be open to the fact that we may not have all the answers right now, but that should push us to be more  adaptive to move ahead.

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