Built to Last: How Servant Leadership Can Power Your Business’ Legacy with Bala Sathyanarayanan, EVP & CHRO at Greif, Inc.
Episode description
This episode features an interview with Bala Sathyanarayanan, EVP & CHRO at Greif, Inc., a world-class global industrial packaging products and services provider. Grief is a legacy company, having been founded in 1877. It is also the 7th oldest publicly traded company in the United States with the same stock symbol. Prior to Greif, Bala served as EVP of Business Transformation and Human Resources at Xerox, and VP of Human Resources at Hewlett Packard. On this episode, Bala discusses how to develop an employee experience framework based on your business’ core values, how HR leaders are strategic partners to the business, and how to build a lasting legacy through servant leadership.
Quotes
*”When we operate in so many countries, there are multiple language barriers, which you need to go through. So how do you ensure that what you communicate lands appropriately so that everyone can act on the communication that is being said? One of the big challenges we have as an organization is thinking as one global organization. The headquarters is all about coming up with a framework on how you approach things in a way in which every country in which we operate can take the framework and apply the framework that suits the needs of the respective country operations.”
*”Every colleague in the company can be a leader, should be a leader, must be a leader, has the opportunity to be a leader. We believe as leaders, our job is to empower our colleagues to do the right thing for our customers. And we do not believe in a hierarchical organization. In fact, the style of leadership we practice at Greif, we call it servant leadership, which is I'm here to serve my colleagues in a way in which my colleagues could do the right thing to serve our customers.”
*”If a colleague feels safe, welcomed, celebrated, and cherished in the organization, they feel that they belong here. When they belong here, they could bring their whole selves to work. If you are supported by your manager in the organization, if you're provided a platform to learn, grow, and succeed, and if you could bring your whole self to work where you could feel safe, welcome, celebrated, and cherished, it can help drive organizations engagement up, and that could lead to better customer outcomes.”
*”It feeds both ways. Just as they are helping the organization grow, the organization has an obligation to help our colleagues grow. So we meet them where they are and help them grow for colleagues who have demonstrated the desire and the ambition and have the attitude to grow.”
*”The purpose of the organization needs to be absolutely clear so that every colleague who makes a choice to come and work in the organization can see their personal purpose connected to the larger purpose.”
*”Perfection can be a big stumbling block in terms of getting stuff done for our colleagues. Our colleagues are absolutely fine with getting something 85, 90%, right. And then they'll help us get the bridge to the last 5% or 10%. And they also feel proud that they were part of the design process rather than shoving something down their throats saying, ‘I know what you need. Take this.’ That never works and that's been a big learning.”
*”Our job as leaders is to enable an ecosystem where our managers can have these conversations and build these IDPs, the individual development plans, on an individual basis. Personalize it to suit the needs of every colleague so that every colleague feels connected to their organization through the manager, because the manager is helping enable their career growth inside the organization.”
Time Stamps
*[4:08] The Flight Plan: Get to know Greif, Inc.
*[11:01] First Class: Best EX practices at Greif, Inc.
*[30:02] Turbulence: EX lessons learned
*[35:24] Advice for other EX leaders
Links
Thanks to our friends
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