Q1 Why Zoho Chose an Unlikely Talent Pool
Swami:
So Kumar, what I wanted to really focus on first is really what I believe you’ve done phenomenally different and phenomenally, you know, something that others have not done is I was just looking at this early, you know, building of, you know, when you did Zoho, you know, one of the points that came up was you were running the India Development Center and you did something which is very contrarian, which is picking up people who probably, you know, would not, you know, want to join, say a startup or a smaller Indian company and you built it into a 200 member team. And that is something that I don’t think many companies at that time did. What made you think differently and what was the reason why you did that? Because it has had a huge impact even today in Zoho. Right. So therefore, and you were almost like a, you know, person who built the foundation for it. Right. So therefore, what made you do that? And I think that that culture continues today in Zoho. So what made you do that?
00:03:52
Kumar:
I think there are two things. Right.
One is my own background in the sense that like I went to Tamil medium school up to 10th. I remember when I, you know, passed out of my 10th standard. All my teachers were saying, you know, I wasn’t good at English. So I used to barely pass in English and at least one in five exams, right….the three midterm test and half yearly and quarterly. One in five, I will fail in English.
And so all the teachers were saying, you know, in the higher secondary is in English and I won’t cope with it. And I know I am better off joining a polytechnic. So I actually joined the higher secondary school, you know, because I didn’t get admission in the polytechnic. So on the last day of closing admission in the school, you know, I joined higher secondary. But, you know, I did well in even in the higher secondary, meaning compared to the school standard. I finished third in school in 10th also third in school in 12th also.
And I went to engineering and engineering. I spent more time playing cricket. And but when I finished my engineering, when I got a job, I understood that, you know, while I was always a backbencher in school and I was never studious. Probably never done homework. Right. Always, I would say a little bit of a nuisance in the class.
But when I started working, I became a sort of a frontbencher in the work. Where like people see me as a valuable team member in the cricket field. People started seeing me as a valuable team member at work.
Right. So my own personal experience taught me that academic excellence or academic performance and how people behave and work at work are two different things. I, I might have been a complete, you know, for the effort I put in, I should have been a complete flop in academics. But maybe because I had some, you know, exceptional memory. Right. I can just read the book once before the exam and go and vomit it in the exam.
I could do well in the exams without understanding I can transfer what was in the book to the answer paper. That was a skill I was blessed with. But when I came to work, I started understanding everything because I was working. Right. I also realized without understanding, you can’t do anything. And that whole process was enjoyable.
So I would say the whole thing about the company. In fact, when I came back from the US, I felt when I was working in the US, whether it was an Intel or Qualcomm, you know, too much of resources were being wasted, meaning I felt the four years I worked in India, I know I was contributing a lot, very busy and enjoying the work and things like that.
In the US, I wasn’t doing much. It was very, very relaxed time. And most days I used to cook three times a day. That’s how much time I had in the US. And so when I started the company, I know that, you know, for every, you know, school first or the top three or top two in the class, there are 38 or 40 students who are laggards laggards like me in school, in class. So when I started the company, so it was not a thought through decision. You know, that’s what you are getting. And I wasn’t complaining because I was one of them. Because I know that, you know, whether they have studied well or not studied well, if there is good common sense and good attitude and great willingness to work hard and, you know, be a great team player. I think nothing can stop them.
Since I was one of them, you know, I know betting on people like me won’t be, will never be the wrong thing to do.
00:08:44
Q2 Culture Is Built on Trust, Not Control
Swami:
So the biggest point, you know, in one of the interviews that, you know, Sridhar Vembu talks about is, he says, you laid the foundation for the company.
Okay. He says, “I never believed that, you know, these people can ever do programming and Kumar literally picked up people, personally did training till the development center became 200 people”. And so what’s the kind of training you did to those people at those stages? Because literally, you know, you’re picking up people who you yourself say were laggards.
And what I saw in those interview was, I believe you did the training yourself, you built a culture. And this is really very, very critical, you know, tenet of how you build a company, which the culture then stays on for decades, right? So therefore, what is really the important thing that you did to build that kind of a culture?
00:09:52
Kumar:
No, I think, see, I didn’t say, you know, I said I was a laggard in the academics. So I did not say they were laggards, right? Maybe some of them did brilliantly well in academics also.
So I wouldn’t know, you know, like, so my point is, the academic qualification, right, meaning whether they were school first or school second, whether they scored centum in mathematics or 60 in mathematics, right, that what did they score in science, whether they got first class or second class, whether they can talk in English fluently or not, you know, these things did not matter. So what matters is, can they work as a team? Do they have the empathy? Do they listen? Do they follow instruction? Do they talk back when things matter? And do they commit and do whatever it takes to get the work done? And are they able to learn? Those are the most important things, right?
So, because in my view, from the day we hired them, I would say most of them who are still with us and some of them who left to pursue other opportunities, I have found many rock stars among them, even though they were never toppers in their life or whatever. However, they did in academics, because even I wouldn’t know for almost most of the cases, whether they did well or not in academics, because we just didn’t care about them.
Right. So now, in terms of the coaching or, you know, training and other things also, I think there are two, three things I learned in my first job in IIT Madras in the TNET group. Two, three things of what to do and a few things of what not to do. So both I learned in my first job.
So the fundamental, you know, and the most important thing is to trust. Right. So that means, you know, for example, from the very beginning, we had a leave policy like nobody need to come and inform their manager or me when they are taking leave. Right. You don’t need permission. You just send a mail to the entire team because the team you are working with is the ones who are expecting you to be available at work. Right. And in every action, you show trust. And I believe people respond to trust. So that is one thing, you know, we did well in the beginning.
And the second thing is, you know, all of us are together to learn. So in the sense that it is not like I know everything, I have been there, done that or something like that. Right. See, remember, I was only 25 or 26 that time. So I was not, you know, like it was not I have never been a manager of people or manager of project in the four years, four and a half years I had worked in the industry. So that means, you know, in fact, one thing I used to tell repeatedly is, if we are going to make a mistake, let’s do it now. Because when we still have when the cost of the mistake is low, and when we still have the energy to get up and run.
Right. So that means that we sort of, you know, you can even say celebrated making mistakes and, you know, we were every month or every two, three weeks, you know, when something important gets done, there used to be retrospections. So this is something I learned in my experience with Hewlett Packard, right, doing retrospection meetings, where everybody can express themselves freely and openly, you know, sets the culture. So in the retrospection meetings from the beginning, you know, in fact, I used to joke in the office that, you know, we always plan to catch a monkey, but we end up capturing Ganesha, right, meaning korangu pudike poi pullayar pudikira mari. So we will start like start with a very poorly articulated goal sometimes also. But because we are so engaged, right, we keep working on it, we find so many improvements that we end up, you know, exceeding our expectation of what we wanted to do.
So that kind of bonding, that kind of, you know, working alongside people with that single-minded goal of, you know, wanting to do the best job and having this retrospection where people can openly talk about, you know, like I did the planning, people can say my plan missed many things. Right, and where the teamwork was missing, where collaboration was missing, where we made mistakes in understanding requirements or design. So people can, you know, talk very openly in those retrospections. So I remember even documenting, you know, in a 10-member team, having 10-12 pages, you know, printed pages of A4 sheets of retrospection feedback, which we categorize, analyze, and put together the improvement plan for the next, you know, next sprint, that kind of a thing.
Right, so that whole thing of trust, transparency, you know, mutual respect, and, you know, openness, right, and we are all together to learn, right, and the mistakes are okay as long as we learn from it and we won’t repeat it again. It is that kind of thing that ended up, you know, having a huge impact.
Q7 Closing the Education–Work Gap with Real Responsibility
Swami:
Which brings me to the next question that I had, which is, you know, something we talk about, which is the education–work gap, where you really say that, you know, college does not teach what happens at work. And therefore, the work ethic itself is a real issue that you face, you know, in an organization where the person has not been taught in his life prior to starting work about responsibility and accountability itself, right? So, therefore, that itself is, I think, I thought was quite telling when I heard it.
So, therefore, how do you build this responsibility and accountability for somebody who has not been taught this for 18 years? Suddenly, at the age of 21, they come into work and they are talking about responsibility and accountability. The person has to change his mental makeup. So, how do you, how do you build it? Because this is very, very important in building that culture that you have built.
00:42:18
Kumar:
See, the thing we do is we give them the responsibility on day one, right? So, in every role, for example, one thing we have even in our induction, right? First of all, the word training is banned. So, from day one, the person will be treated as a professional, right? So, and from day one, you know, they have to contribute something to the team. So, if somebody joins in a new role, it is not like they will not face a customer for three months or something like that.
Or if a developer joins a new role, it is not like they will not start contributing to the product for the first two months or something like that. You know, so we bring that responsibility by asking them to contribute on day one. So, that way what happens is, you know, since there is an environment of helpfulness, so, the moment they want to contribute, they may need to know certain things. They may need to ask help with certain people, right? So, then they start asking for help. They see other people doing, then they do it.
They understand where they are. So, because we give them that responsibility on day one, you know, the environment is more sort of self-selecting in the sense that people who enjoy that responsibility and can handle that responsibility are with us on the 181st day. The people who do not want that responsibility and the people, you know, who think they can come in and do what they are told to do and get out, right, they find this place to be a wrong place.
But having said that, you know, in our interview process also, we give a lot of importance to the ownership mindset in assessing whether somebody has that ownership mindset.
Swami:
So, how do you find that?
Yeah, see, we have what is called a skill assessment and a learning capability assessment. For example, if it’s a salesman, right, we ask them to sell whatever product they can best sell, you know, if they have experience, right? Whatever product they can best sell, we ask them to sell that to us.
So, during this, we actually push the person, right, and ask various questions. For example, you know, I’ll tell you, we have one question, you know, like it’s an angry customer sending a mail and it comes to you, you are the person who have to respond to that question, right? We give this kind of question is part of the test we give to all the college graduates, freshers, right? Surprisingly, you know, that question, you know, it’s a four line by the customer, upset customer, but that four lines, in my view, there are six things for which a proper response will include six things. You know, six points of response are there in that.
But 80% of the college freshers will actually say, there are some problems in my support team. Our management is hiring another support team. Once the new support team is hired, you will get a better service. And another 10% will say, you know, we appreciate your problem. We are working on a new release of the product. You know, please hang on, we will give you the new version free to you, right?
Only 1% of the students will actually say, you know, I take responsibility. And I will come up with a plan or I will come back to you on by when we will address your concerns, but I am responsible from now on you can reach me. So it’s a simple four line, you know, escalation mailed by a customer. In fact, I have read probably 2000, 3000 responses by students. And it’s hilarious to read some of the responses. How can people think like this?
Q9 Building Decision-Makers, Not Escalators
Swami:
So, so this whole thing about a zero follow up and this whole thing that you talk about, when you really go about hiring and looking for people, you don’t get these kind of people so easily because 99% of the market does exactly what you don’t do. Right. Therefore, how do you therefore get these skills into the, because you are a large organization today. You are probably the largest, you know, retail ERP company in the country. So how do you really get these skills into people because you don’t get them ready made.
Right. Therefore, how do you do that?
00:52:27
Kumar:
Yeah, I think, you see, I would say there are many people who want this. Right. So it is a, so when we do lateral hire for some of them, there is a cultural shock. Right. Because they have always, you know, say one thing with many experienced people is that they, they want somebody else to make the decision. Right. So, but for example, over the last seven, eight years, you know, if somebody has a problem, you know, I have a policy that what is your recommended solution. So, you know, you have to tell me three recommended solution and which is the best solution and why. If you are not able to decide between the three or you want a validation of which one you recommend is the best, then we have a discussion. Right. In fact, surprisingly, 90% of the problems don’t come to me now. Last five years, I would say. Right.
Because the moment we tell them, no, don’t, you know, in fact, I say, don’t be a victim, be a victor. The victim mindset is to come crying, saying, I have a problem. The victor mindset is find the solution, talk to the people who can help you implement that solution and get the, you know, solve the problem.
In fact, we talk about this cow in the ditch story. Right. So basically, you know, like, you know, when when you see a cow in the ditch, right, there are three, four kinds of people. People walk past the cow in the ditch as if they didn’t see it. Right. And there are people who may call others to help or inform others that there is a cow in the ditch, help and move on. Right. And the third set of people are they put in the effort to lift the cow out of the ditch. And the fourth set of people are those who not only take out the cow out of the ditch, but also make sure they cover the ditch so that no more cow falls in the ditch. Right.
So we tell people we want all our people to be the fourth type. There are too many ditches here and there are many cows in those ditches also. Right. So for God’s sake, don’t just walk past the ditch, you know, as if you have not seen it. Report it. Right. Because if you want this place to be better, you know, it’s not going to happen by magic. Right. And one year later, if you say this is still bad, you are equally responsible. So that is the ownership mindset. That is the attitude we want to see in people. Right. So for all problem, in fact, I tell them, you know, every problem that is there in the company, I am not the only one responsible for it. All of us are equally responsible because you have poor sensitivity. The problem is so damn important, we have all the resources, all the time, all the energy. You know, everything is there. Why don’t we then say it is it is it has to be fixed. So that that is helping in. So the moment people come in, they see that. Right. We try to assess this in our interviews also. We tell them about our culture and this everything. But when people join, we also make sure the first time they report a problem, we ask them for solution. The first time they share information, we ask them for recommendation. Right. So don’t share information with me. Share your recommendation. And why? No, I will say yes or no, because if you share information, I make the decision after analysis. You put in all the hard work. I get all the experience.
So this is something I tell repeatedly to people. If you want to translate your effort into experience, you have to come up with the solution. Otherwise, effort and suffering are yours and experience is mine. So these things are helping in people, you know, understanding.
In fact, some people also when they interview three or five year experience in the industry and they come back and say, you know, this guy is like a one year experience only. That also gives them pride that whatever rigour we are doing, even if sometime it is tough, you know, they can actually when they talk among their friends, college friends or school friends, you know, they feel they have actually grown up as a professional lot more than the average industry.
