Transcription of podcast with Sanjeev Loomba
Russell - So hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled And today, a new guest and joyfully, actually someone in the UK. So, we're in the same time zone. We're talking at a really sensible time of the day. My guest today is Sanjeev Loomba. Hi, Sanjeev. How are you?
Sanjeev - Russell, great to meet you. Thank you. I'm fine, I'm well.
Russell - And where are you in the world?
Sanjeev - I'm in London.
Russell - At home, down the town as we.
Sanjeev - Work town rather than town, I guess.
Russell - Very different. That's a very much an in joke. Well, it's a delight to talk to you today, and we've had a bit of time chatting, so I know we have to stay focused today to make sure that we produce some interesting conversations. So, tell me a little bit about what it is that you do, who you are, what's your background, tell me about yourself.
Sanjeev - Yeah, Russell classic. Trained to be an accountant, did an MBA, two MBAs, and then was disillusioned by the world because I didn't like the way that business was being done. And I remember at the age of 21, as a junior auditor, I used to end up spending more time speaking to my clients to say, look, there's a new market you can go for here. Look, you can do a new product here, et cetera. And my managers used to get very upset with me because they used to say, Sanjeev, here's the red pen, here's the blue pen, tick, and bash invoices. That's what we're paid to do. So that disillusionment was my biggest help. And I named my company. I got this taste, I think I had a disease, which I call potentialitis. And I just saw potential walking around, whether it was market potential, strategic potential, people potential, whatever it was, process.
Sanjeev - And I named my company at that time, which became the real potential. So, the day I qualified, I quit. Literally. The day I qualified, I quit. I didn't know if you wanted a little bit of a history, but that's it. The day I qualified, I quit. Literally. I mean, I didn't wait around for my practicing certificate and moved and did my MBA. And then I went into industry because I had a very clear, objective and thought pattern to say that I have no right to stand in front of anyone and speak to them about strategy or leadership or the mind. Or engaging with your market or whatever it is unless and until I've had the humble witness of the opportunity to be able to have done it myself. So, I went into industry and that became my real university. So as finance director, marketing director, strategy director, CEO of different corporations, different countries, different industries, and this was designed to be able to get that kind of exposure and experience and be able to bring about those kinds of changes. So that's what I did. And then I was CEO of a big IT company.
Sanjeev - We doubled it in size within two years, took it to about five and a half thousand people. And then at that moment, and this was in Paris, the company was all across Europe, but I quit. And people thought that I was absolutely nuts. I was just short of 40, and I said, that's it. I'm now ready to take this out. And during those years was born what my method, which I call valuepreneurship. And it's doing the same work. It's just looking at the world at 180 degrees to the way that an entrepreneur sees it. And we can talk about that more later. But then, since the last 2025 years, that's what I've been doing, is working with loads of organisations and individuals to coach them, develop them, develop their strategies, whether it's Johnson and Johnson or small restaurant groups literally across the world. So that's kind of been my journey.
Sanjeev - And now, of course, with the book, I want to get this message out.
Russell - Okay, so you give me a lot to pick at. That's lovely. Thank you. So, I'm very interested by that phrase you used there, which was something I strongly think we're going to have a lot of the next 20 minutes, spend a lot of time agreeing with each other. So, I'm trying to find something we can debate, really. But I like what you said there about how you look at the world. I think difference comes from perspective, and looking at the world is important. And I like what you're saying. There's a lot of speakers and trainers and consultants who have never run anything, and they're talking from theory, or they've read the latest management fat, which is fine. So, tell me about how you develop that ability to look at the world differently.
Sanjeev - The notion of so were built and constructed. This may sound a little cliched, but as human beings, were built with talents. And we have our education, our talents, our capabilities, our creativity, our innovation, our thought patterns, and whatever we are doing, the problem is this. We get over engaged in all of that stuff. We get over engaged in what we are doing, and we miss what we are bringing. It's the end impact. So let me give you an example, and again, all the examples, and I'm conscious also of time, but tons and tons. I'll give you an example of this. I was invited India, in Pune, to one of the biggest car seat manufacturers, certainly in Asia. And they said to me, Sanjeev, can you help us restrateigise? We're just veering off the path, the market is changing, et cetera, and something is not quite right.
Sanjeev - So I went there for a three-day session with the top executives. And the first day, Russell, I walked in 09:00, I had twelve senior executive members of the board of the executive board. And I said, guys, what business are you in? And they said to me, and they looked at me very strangely and they said, well, hold on. Which part of we took you around two plants yesterday that you didn't quite get? So, someone eventually put their hand up and said, well Sanjeev I think all right, let's humour this guy. He's come 5000 miles. Okay? We're in the business of making car seats, making, and selling car seats. I said, oh, really? And I yawned and I said, okay, has anyone bought a car recently? I mean, I'm really rushing this, but to cut a long story short and someone said, yes, I bought a car recently.
Sanjeev - I said, I want you to give me blow by blow the detail of the process and everything you did when you went to buy a car. So, he said, I went to the showroom. I said, then what happened? He said, I went, looked at the cars that were there, and then that liked the one he thought he should get. I said, Then what? He said, I opened the door and I said, Then what? He said, Then I put my hand on the seat, and I said, how did it feel? He said, it felt good. And then he said, he sat in the car. And I said, describe that. And he said, wow, the smell of a new car and that new leather and so on. Now. I said we're getting somewhere. Then the question comes, why did you buy this car?
Sanjeev - Oh, well, because I've got two young kids, ten and twelve, and we love to take them and discover historical sites, a gentile, or this kind of stuff. And these are long drives and so we want something comfortable. I said all right. Now describe what's the issue there? So, he goes into saying that my two kids in the back, one wants to watch cartoon movies, one wants to watch actions, and then it's a big hassle and it's again gain all the way. I said, okay, and what about you and your wife? She mostly sits in the passenger seat, and she complains because the back hurts. And I said, yeah, I want the air conditioning to be very chilled and she does, et cetera. I said, now, let's see. What if you had a car seat in the back where on the television screen you've got individual settings, and in the headrest for your son and daughter, you've got headsets that come down so one can watch action.
Sanjeev - And what if you have a massager in the passenger seat? And what if your seat is chilled and this was a few but years back. I mean, I can nicely say that all of these things now exist in my car. I think they existed then, and you will not believe this, they were writing notes. I said, you’ve got to be kidding me, you're one of the biggest, the most car seat manufacturers of Asia, and this is the first time that you're thinking at this level. Now, cut a long story short, the whole organization, I mean, like down to the operatives or even the administrative secretaries. And so, then we worked on converting their thinking that whatever they're doing, even if they're writing a report, they start by thinking, what is the impact on this? On whom? In which ways are going to help? Which set of customers?
Sanjeev - That's the only the value of the end people, the customers or whoever that we serve is the only point that links us all and drives us and sets our purpose. And the productivity went shooting up. I'm not saying anything new, but what I am but it's the ability to.
Russell - Say it and it's the ability to say it.
Sanjeev - But the other thing, Russell, is that the absolute technique and step by step method to be able to make it happen, that is what valuepreneurship now is obviously bringing in.
Russell - Yes, that's interesting. Again, I can't disagree with the word you said, but you're linking this idea of value with potential as well, because that seeing that opportunity, which is an old NLP coding idea. But what you bring is fresh perspective. You're asking difficult questions. You bring in that full consultant toolkit. But where did you get that mindset from? Where do you think that arrived from in yourself? Because it's not genetic, is it? Something about you has developed over the course of time. They just wonder if that's replica but replicate copyable by other people.
Sanjeev - Yeah, it's a beautiful question, actually. I'll tell you where it comes from. When I was my corporate career that I mentioned earlier on was in two major industries. The first one was in car parts, in bearings. It was the second biggest bearing company of the world. And the second, my second industry that I worked in was in It. I'm neither an engineer nor an IT specialist. So, I was heading up business economics for the bearing company, and then I went to CEO for the IT company. Not having the knowledge and the detailed knowledge of the product allowed me to see this from the other perspective. I think that must have been the trigger. But I think there are more triggers that go back to my childhood. I mean, there's crazy stories my father was a doctor, and there's crazy stories In India where he was a surgeon and he's operating with one hand and blood has run out to the patient.
Sanjeev - So blood is going from one arm to the patient. So, this incredible obsession of looking at it from not what I'm doing, but what I'm impacting, and that's the value thing has been with me from childhood. But I realised it in my corporate career, and I was very excited about it. I mean, the day that I quit, people thought that I was absolutely nuts in my 30s running a 5000-man company in my 30s.
Russell - Interesting thing, isn't it? You either have specialists or you have generalists in light, I mean it's a very broad, very dangerous assumption but it's one of those things you're an accountant, you're a billion accountant and you really become the top accountant, but you get these specialist generalists, don't you? I think people like us are like that. We know 2 or 3% about everything and that reads perspective, doesn't it? And it's that perspective of being able to stand back and look. I mean the fact that you've got economics in your background, accounting, you've got all those different things brings a perspective that means you're never going to be the best at anything. Which is a good thing because it allows you to make these discontinuating leaps or links between different subject areas. So, I think that's the way that people can I think we often get locked into our sort of functional areas, don't we?
Russell - And it used to be the thing in large organisations when people were forced to travel around organisations and learn different sort of functional areas and I wonder if that died of death, and it actually gets in the way of our potential.
Sanjeev - Well actually it's a beautiful insight. So perspective is the word you used, and I think it's all about that. I mean add to that what is the personification, if you like, of perspective is context. So, when you put things into the context and you have something that you are serving, you're reaching out to then suddenly your perspective changes. Is it lost? No, I think it is alive ever more and difficulties like COVID and then the Ukraine or the difficulties we're going through economically right now is pushing that context even more. People don't buy products and services anymore; they buy what the only things which are going to impact their value and they're becoming more aware of their value. So, the market is becoming a lot more aware of the value and the more that the market becomes more aware of its value the more sadly, businesspeople, organizations and so on are being pushed into themselves into thinking because they're becoming defensive rather than offensive.
Sanjeev - And I love the word that you have in your which is resilience. We're losing resilience because we're starting to so this separation between value and what we do and what we bring I think is becoming ever more present and that is why the message of valuepreneurship needs to come out. That actually my argument is look at this who would you rather buy from? Someone who's trying to sell you stuff or someone who is just oblivious to themselves and is obsessed and drenched in your value and value by value I don't mean added value. Added value is a bribe. We've got to close that down, shut that down folks. Value in itself is much bigger than that. Value is genuinely understanding the impact of the changes on the lives, on the businesses, et cetera, of anyone who we are serving. And then, and only then developing responses to impact that value, whether you sell or not.
Sanjeev - But here's the question who will you buy from? The person who's obsessed with your value, understanding it, and then developing ways to serve it, or the person who is flogging you stuff and trying to win your deal? It's a no brainer.
Russell - It's a fascinating subject, one I actually like a lot because actually you're talking about the difference here between tangible value and perceived value. And of course, actually it's that switch to perceived value, which is really important, isn't it? It's that what does someone actually value? Not that thing that you produce for ten years, that little novelty switch that no one values and just gets in the way. But you think it's important. It's interesting. I had one of the big power companies on telling me all sorts of things that I should have, should and shouldn't be doing today. They're credit controlling me because my bill was day late. Can you believe that? They've got the time and energy to credit control that day late. And I was saying, so what's the value in this call? Why are you wasting my time? And then they have to read from a script because actually it's about covering the backsides and they have to stress that it's confirmed, and it's recorded.
Russell - And I'm thinking you've spent 15 minutes of my life listening to the fact that I'm one day late in a call, I just got back from holiday, this is the reason I'm one day late. And it's like, just listen to me, just listen to what I need to say. But I think a lot of process and risk drives out that idea. I love words and any portmanteau words. Great. So, value promotion, I can see the value, I can see entrepreneurship, I can see put the two things together. So, tell me a little bit about the concept of valuepreneurship.
Sanjeev - Valuepreneurship is from inside you. That joy of saying, look, my talent, my skills, my knowledge, my education, my products, my services, what I've created, I'm going to take this at a kind of even higher level, then bring it back to a transactional level. And that is that none of this belongs to me. It's been my good fortune along the way to have I'm not getting evangelical about this, but it's now part of what I'm the resources and the tools that I have, it's worth nothing. It is your education, your skills, your talent is worth zilch. The only thing that matters, and it's very interesting, if we talk about legacy, I'll come back to that in a second. The only thing that matters is how I was able to use it to make what impact on whom? When people talk about purpose and when they talk about the joy of work.
Sanjeev - The joy of work does not come from plying your trade. The joy of work comes from seeing the impact that it's made. Right? And here's the other thing. This is not just some philosophical lecture and moral lecture on this, Russell. Think about this. If we go back to this now at a transactional level and if I ask you the same question again, that who will you buy from the guy who is the person who is obsessed with making an impact and understanding the changes that are going around you or from the person who's trying to sell you, their wares? And you will say, of course the first guy. And who will you argue more on pricing with? The second guy. So, who's going to become wealthier in any case? So, as it happens, valuepreneurs will become much wealthier. But the spirit inside goes from the me to the you.
Sanjeev - The day that we can wipe out the me, my resilience goes up and the joy of delivery of work, there's examples which are bursting out of my mind. It's just about how much time you have that I want to be able.
Russell - So what's interesting is you're linking back to the things you said earlier. So, what you're saying is valuepreneurship is about the people who see the possibility, in a sense, and the other people are the people that see the necessity. So, they buy from pain. And a lot of marketing is about pain points. And actually, I agree with you, it's actually about opportunity points, about, oh, I could do this, rather than I must avoid that because that's the good side of business, isn't it? I need to defend myself from my customers rather than saying I need to actually enhance someone's life today, so they'll pay me more money because it'll be a pain free exchange. And I think we've got too much into the idea of pain and too far away from your idea, which is the opportunity of the value that you bring. It's the deal that we have in the organization, isn't it?
Russell - What value do you need in your career and how will this organisation deliver that and how will we work together to deliver it for both of us? And I don't think we have that conversation, though.
Sanjeev - No, we don't. And we don't have it in organisations. And again, it goes back to what you were saying earlier on, that we've lost perspective and we become functionally siloed. So, what happens then? The problem with functional silos and the problem with why do we get into functional silos? Why don't we see it from the other way around? Why are we seeing it from inside out is because we train, we become experts in today's day and age. Everyone, as you said, is an expert in something. But then what happens is we start to become reliant on that expertise and we become defensive about it. And therefore, we close walls down. I had a finance director and a marketing director coming to blows last week. Literally, one guy is saying, the marketing director is saying I need to recruit 25 more maintenance engineers. And the finance director is saying, no way.
Sanjeev - Why? Because each of them, neither of them is wrong. One is protecting the organisation. One is wanting to grow the organisation. What's wrong with that? But there is no common perspective until I intervened, and I said, Guys, let me just understand why 25 more maintenance engineers? And we go into a very clear indication of it's a medical device, it's a cardiology machine, et cetera. And he's saying that, well, for German hospitals, it's not an issue because they have a spare one lying around. It's a half a million euros, that's no problem. But for private cardiology clinics in France, this is huge. And they're losing money because they can't treat patients. And cut a long story short. So suddenly I asked, well, if you went out into the market in France with 25 extra maintenance engineers, he said, yeah, I can bring the solving of when a machine goes wrong from 9 hours to 2 hours.
Sanjeev - And that converts into money, and it converts into the joy of being able to treat the patients and not have them hanging around with nasty conditions. And suddenly that 25 salaries turn into €6 million, and then you turn to the finance director. So, the answer was always in collaboration. It's always in the value of the end market. But we've got to think that way. We've got to change our culture to think.
Russell - And that comes back to the point again you've made, which is it's about saving wages as an investment, not as a cost.
Sanjeev - Because that's one of the problems here. Why not 30 engineers? Because if you haven't calculated the actual benefit and managers are very poorest stats, and I often think our conventional education is a problem here, and often because of accounting. So, people are poor at numbers. Often, they're quite efficient at accounting, but they're okay at finance, but they're very poor at statistics. And I would encourage any malign manager out there to go and learn statistics because it's actually the thing that brings economics together with accounting, and it allows you to have a conversation which shows the value. People don't know how to calculate return on investment. You go and talk to the senior leadership and say, what's the IRA and IRA the ROI on that decision? And they'll say, I have no idea, because you can't calculate it. What if you could?
Russell - Love to.
Sanjeev - Let's show you how. Why are you doing this?
Russell - Because you've never calculated the value. So, you've obviously encapsulated all these ideas into a book, which is great. Tell me what's in the book and who you aimed it for in the first place.
Sanjeev - The book, it became a bit too big. It's 550 pages, much against the advice of my publisher, who said, let's do it in two volumes. I'll tell you what's in the book. I'm not answering your question. I'm conscious just for a second. And I was sitting in Crete on a beach, finishing the book off about a year and a half ago, and my publisher said, Sanjeev, it's too big. Let's put it into two volumes. And I said, how do you want to split it? And he said that, I think the material is superb. Why don't we do you've got all the philosophy and the thinking and understanding of valuepreneurship, and then you've got the hard method in step-by-step technique. So, there's the split. There's two volume one. And I thought, okay, fine. And of course, there was a commercial logic to it. And next morning, I woke up and I called him, and I said, no, Andrew, it's not sitting right with me.
Sanjeev - I have no right to say to anyone, do this without saying this is exactly how you need to do it. So, it's okay. Now, to take your question, it's called the 9th Gear. It's called the 9th Gear. The method is valuepreneurship, but the book is called the 9th Gear, and it's in five sections. If I quickly tell you what they are, that kind of describes what the and what it is and who it's for. This first section, in all its 110 pages of glorious understanding of what is value. So, there I actually, first of all, established the culture of value. Not only the culture of value, the understanding of value. What value isn't? It's not moral values I'm talking about. It's not value added. And then actually gives you models to be able to work out value. Then the second section is all about strategy.
Sanjeev - And whether you are a CEO or an entrepreneur or, frankly, a musician or a sportsman, it doesn't matter any for everyone what is your approach or strategy? Of course, I've written it. That section more from the point of view of a corporate and given examples of corporations that I've transformed the strategy of step-by-step guide. But it applies to absolutely everyone. Then the third section is fine. We've set up the culture of value. We've understood that here I've given you the method of strategically and organizationally making it happen step by step and planning your work as well. Now, is your mind in the right place? Are you resilient, to use your word? Are you confident? Are you resilient? Are you in fear? Are you sitting in front of your customers like a beggar saying, I wish I get the contract? Or are you there as a leader saying, I have like you said about the ROI?
Sanjeev - Are you saying to your management that my please, dear management, please invest in this project, it's a great project? Or are you saying, this project delivers an IRR of 46%, and we know that our tolerance limit is 25 and then? Would you like it? So, you're in now a position of leadership that the project hasn't changed, so it's getting the mind to be in the right place and resilient and calm and strong and available. That's the Section Four then talks about the leader and I'm arguing that what is tomorrow's leader? Is it 50 habits? Is it seven habits? And I'm not bringing down anyone's work. All good work is being done. To me, there is only one habit and that's it. And what is the shape of the new? Is it even a person, the new leader, or is it a total way of engaging with the world and a philosophy?
Sanjeev - But as a leader, how do you develop that magnetism? How do you develop the respect? And how do you become admired, adored and so on? Then Section Five, Brussels, which is the final one, takes you into the realm of unifying people, unification, relationships. Because if there's one single problem in the world today, the scourge of the earth is disunity everywhere you see, whether it's within an organization, within a small cafe or at country levels, it's just disunity. So how do you bring unity and how do you bring collaboration, cooperation, build excellent relationships. So, it follows that whole flow. Now, who is it for? Absolutely everyone who is engaged or wants to engage in any kind of professional pursuit, be they the CEO of an organisation, be they the President of the United States of America, or a musician, a sportsman or a handicraft person or a small trades person sitting on the corner selling their wares.
Sanjeev - It's for absolutely everyone.
Russell - Yeah. As you were chatting, because I've got an idea in my head, but as I was chatting, I just went and bought the book on Amazon.
Sanjeev - Kind of you.
Russell - That's right. That's no kindness at all because I have a method in my madness. But I just noticed 41 outrageously good reviews.
Sanjeev - Thank you.
Russell - I mean, four and five stars. So let me just put that on record, because actually a lot of people have books where they're either marmite because either people love them, I hate them, which is fine, but yours is a complete wave of they got brilliant marketing team, or you've written something that's very good. So, I'm going to have a look at that. But what I'd like to do, if I can propose this and I've done this with other people, is I'd like to sit down, read the book and then maybe reconvene and actually maybe dig into a few of the chapters, because I like a lot of what you said, it chimes in with more. But I think I can offer better value to my audience by maybe exploring a few bits in a bit more depth, if you'd be interested in that.
Sanjeev - It would be a joy for me. It has been wonderful to speak to you during our session and also before having our chat, it's. It's been I think you and I are very aligned. So, you're right that very often you want podcasts to be a little bit controversial, but I think we happen to be aligned. I want to share this with incredible modesty and humbleness and gratitude. Actually, I want to say this. I'm speaking on this stuff and helping organizations of people, or whatever it is, around the world, different organisations, different industries, different countries, fortunately. And again, I'm saying this with consciously and highlighting any ego aspect, but I'm saying it just to share. I never get anyone who refutes the idea because it's compelling. I mean, I guess the things that you and I have been sharing, it's actually difficult to say. I'm not saying anything new.
Russell - None of this is mine. This is human nature. Everyone wants to buy with integrity.
Russell - And I think you fall into that category of there's two categories, I think, of which are either structured common sense or enlightened common sense. And I think you've fallen into that second category. And I think the people who are able to have common sense are the people who appeal to the widest audience, because actually it's that perspective and content which I like. But we're getting to the second episode, so let's not do that.
Sanjeev - Okay.
Russell - All right. It's been a joy to talk to you. Remind us of what the book is called, where we find it.
Sanjeev - It's called The Ninth Gear spelled ninth. The Ninth Gear. Or you can search it by Sanjeev Loomba, and it's on Amazon, it's Waterstones and various other places in Barnes and Noble or wherever.
Russell - And do you have a website people can have a look at and investigate your work?
Sanjeev - Yeah, it's very simply valuepreneurship.com that's.
Russell - It very good. And I see by your website you're on Facebook instagram twitter, twitter.
Sanjeev - But I'm mostly on LinkedIn, actually, I'll be honest with you. The other places that my social media people are wanting me to climb on. But LinkedIn is my prime.
Russell - Yeah, brilliant. Okay, well, it's been an absolute joy to chat, and as I say, let's reconvene a few months down the line. Give me a chance to read the book and pick some notes out of it and let's see where we can take this. And who knows, you might be on your second book by then, so that would be good to talk about as well. But it's been an absolute joy. My guest has been Sanjeev Lumber, as he said, valuepreneurship.com. And the book is the 9th Gear, available in all good online and offline bookshops near you. How's that? Sanjay, it's been an absolute joy to talk to you there. Thank you so much for your time.
Sanjeev - Thank you very much. Russell, you've been a joy for me.