Dhiraj Singh, CEO, SIS Group on Entrepreneurship, Empathy, and Leadership

Balbir Singh: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the For All podcast by Great Place to Work India. I am Balbir Singh, the CEO of Great Place to Work in India. In this podcast series, we’ll be delving into the conversations with CEOs that make great workplaces, their stories and their dilemmas. In this episode, I have with me Dheeraj Singh. Dheeraj is the CEO of SIS Group Enterprises, and SIS is a market leader in facility management, cash logistics and security. And, without further ado, let me get started with Dheeraj. Welcome, Dheeraj, thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you, dheeraj. To begin with, you know we need to know from you a story that only you can tell. You know something from your personal story where you are today, how you got started and some of the career lessons that you learned on the way and where you are today. So if you can just give a brief overview of your profile, that will really help sure.

Dhiraj Singh: 0:57

So I grew up in a small town right where everyone was supposed to become a doctor or engineer. Yeah, I chose to be an engineer. Uh, I managed to get into iit, but I knew I didn’t have an engineering brain. But I did top in the economics section. Out there I’m in the economics paper. So I realized very early on that I have a business sense. Um, and I followed up upon that. Uh, I did my m, etc. I knew I was going to be an entrepreneur. It so happened that I became an intrapreneur, so I started companies for others. I started about 20 companies from scratch, and mostly for others, and if I connect the dots, they are in the areas of financing assets, creating assets, delivering assets and now management of assets.

Dhiraj Singh: 1:48

If I look at some of the pivotal points, I mean, when I was doing my management degree in US, I left it halfway. I said I’m going back. I was on scholarship and all, but I said I’m going back to start small Heidel power plants in India. That was a business opportunity I saw. And then how it turned out, there was another company, a very large company, pectel Enterprise, who were looking at similar business for India and we chanced upon each other. And then I cancelled my ticket and went back to college, did my degree and joined them and came to start the work in India for them. Similarly, when I was in a large multinational, again in project management side, I suddenly took the jump towards the BPO side. I went and joined a BPO company, completely alien. Clearly I was the misfit there, but the skills I picked out from there that helped me start the entire engineering outsourcing work for a very large global EPC company, engineering construction company, and from there that whole business grew in India. Similarly, I knew I was good in doing deals and then I was lucky to start a private equity fund with DLF as the sponsor. So these are all turning points that happened. But at the end of it I realized I am a very strong people person.

Dhiraj Singh: 3:09

There was an incident in Dubai airport when I was part of that engineering company. I was a director in Middle East also and unfortunately the Dubai airport. There was an accident. About 12 laborers died in that incident, most of them Indian. So I was asked to fly from India because the emotions of flying high at that time and I had to go in the middle of them, hundreds of workers, and to pacify them. At that time I felt confident in able to kind of do that and I realized that I think I can handle people much better, and there’s no better group than sis if you want to get more interaction with people, um, and be able to influence the lives of people. And so that’s how I landed in sis and it’s been a long, happy, 13, 14 years journey, wow wow.

Balbir Singh: 4:02

So I think, uh, you know, if I were to pick up on something that you just said, you know, uh, you spoke about entrepreneur. You know how you started a lot of the organizations within the organizations that you’re working for and, as an entrepreneur, you have to have a very high risk profile and there are big bets if you take those. So what are some of the lessons that you learned? You know what is definitely I learned from you. You realize that you are a people person. You know we’re running some of these organizations. What are some of the other leadership tenets or lessons that you learned that you know kept you, made you, prepared you for the you know future that was to come for you and for our listeners? You know there are a lot of startup founders in India, a lot of people who want to get started Anything that you would, you know, warn them against or to just make sure that you are crossing some of these things before you get started.

Dhiraj Singh: 4:54

Right. So any startup journey is by nature of a startup. You’re going to have all kinds of challenges, ups and downs, a lot of failures also, right. But if I have to count some of the key learnings from many of the startups, that people, selecting the right people, the right team is absolutely critical right, you can’t do it on your own. You have to have the right team and selecting the right team is most important. And then setting that culture, that dna, that fabric of that company, the foundation of that company, is again super important. Then comes a lot of persistence and execution focus because, as I said, there will be challenges, ups and downs, problems to solve. You got to have that persistence that, okay, we’ll go over it. I mean, we’ll solve the issues. And that execution focus, because a lot of ideas are great in the drawing room and in the brain. Yeah, challenges when you translate into reality execution so execution focus I realize is very, very critical.

Dhiraj Singh: 5:59

The right kind of partnerships and partnerships can be the equity partner that you get or any joint venture partner, alliance partner. You have to have the right partnerships, collaborative model from the beginning. Any startup I’ve seen on an average goes through three or four change in the business model. So being able to have that ability to pivot at the right moment is super critical.

Balbir Singh: 6:25

Again, right yeah, I think you spoke about perseverance. You spoke about you know discipline, setting the procedures and how important is, uh, you know, having the right team. And you know now, as you lead an organization with more than three lakh employees, you know you’re a large-scale employer in the two ways. Sense what are some of the things for leadership. You know traits that you look for in your people and that makes your organization more inclusive, and also for people who work across thousands of locations at the same time and they feel belonged to this organization called sis. So what are the some of the traits that you look for?

Dhiraj Singh: 7:12

so if I look what I would see in myself as a leader, and I would like to see similar qualities in another leader, though it should not be the same replication because we all bring different skills, but I just posted, in fact, a photograph on linkedin where I have a tiger with actually, there were five cups following it, and the photo below that the tiger is walking in parallel with the five cups. And I said that, in my view, a leader needs to go in the front in terms of crisis, right, but then other times that leader should be one amongst all the team members, right, go along together, um, and that has a lot of meaning for me. In my style, I’ve seen that I like to keep that balance, maybe because I’m a liberal that I like that balance, but that balance is very important. Right from I’m.

Dhiraj Singh: 8:09

I can be a very hands-on leader, but I follow a very delegative style of leader. Also, I can be a great personal friend to some of the people who report to me, but I can be a very commanding boss also. I have a growth mindset, but I can be conservative when it comes to it. I can be innovative but, at the same time, be a little traditional right. So that balance is important, especially in a business like ours, right. Second thing, probably the most important thing in my view, is that you need to be a very, very emotionally resilient person, high eq right, ability to kind of bounce back, uh, after any adversity. Uh, the maturity, emotional maturity to handle so many people, their aspirations, their complaints. You have to play that anti-agony hand to so many of them.

Dhiraj Singh: 9:05

So you need to have a very high EQ, and probably that’s been one of my personal evolution through my corporate journey.

Balbir Singh: 9:17

I used to be a very volatile kind of person.

Dhiraj Singh: 9:21

I used to get upset, stressed, sometimes angry, but I intentionally, deliberately, force that change upon myself and I’m quite happy. I still sometimes get a little bit flustered, but on an average I’m quite satisfied with the output and I hope it continues like that. Second thing in a business like ours, a CEO has to be a leader, has to be a CHRO, right, okay, every leader has to be a CHRO. In fact, leader has to be a chro. In fact, we don’t have a designation of a chro for anyone else, because every ceo is supposed to do that role. It’s a people business. Um, that’s our raw product, that’s our final product. So you’ve got to invest your time in that part. The other thing I’ve realized is that every leader again needs to be able to do selling. I mean, I’ve seen you as a leader also doing that.

Dhiraj Singh: 10:12

Because selling is what gets the bread and butter on the table. A leader has to make that lead by example of being able to earn something for the team On the software aspects. Apart from having that passion, that mojo just yesterday I was talking to Rituraj, our founder of FamilySign, and he was talking about the mojo, so very important. Together with that, you need to be very confident in yourself and secure right, Because I’ve seen a lot of leaders who become insecure and then are not able to groom that next line of leadership right. I think in a people business you can’t be insecure. Everyone has plus and minus. You need to be aware of your minuses but as a total, you need to be confident and secure in yourself well, I think there are at least 10 more questions that I can ask only on that answer.

Balbir Singh: 11:10

But I must say, you know, you are one lucky fellow to see a tiger with five cups. And that’s what most of the people who are going to see that post think like. But how many hours did you have to wait? Or how many years did you have to wait for that one capture?

Dhiraj Singh: 11:26

Yeah, people see the final output exactly, just like in any business. People see the final output Exactly, just like in any business people see the final success and they don’t see the sweat and frustration behind it. Yeah, there might have been many trips where I’ve come back empty handed. Yeah, after spending almost 12 hours in the sweltering sun on a weekend out there. In this particular case, I had to wait about six, seven hours, but yeah, okay.

Balbir Singh: 11:46

Yeah, I think it’s persistence, you know, I think it’s persistence, you know, I think that’s the story. I think people see the results and it’s that passion that goes into that weight and, uh, because I think it’s that mojo, because you love what you are doing and you don’t mind the weight, because you know the outcomes are going to pay for all the efforts correct.

Dhiraj Singh: 12:04

So a lot of people ask me how do I manage with my passions?

Balbir Singh: 12:09

my personal pursuits, the.

Dhiraj Singh: 12:10

LinkedIn and my answer is time management. I see is energy management, and what fuels energy the most is passion. So I’m lucky that my passion, which I say one piece, is equal to two piece. The other piece are the people and the photography, so that gives me the fuel to manage my people at the work and manage the wildlife photography part. But from this you mentioned upon the patience. But there are four other piece right that come out from it.

Dhiraj Singh: 12:43

Um, one is the patience you need to be very patient and I’ve learned to be far more patient after my wildlife pursuits. I mean, I used to be reasonably impatient, but you can’t be impatient with nature and wildlife. They will not come out just based on your planning and your targets.

Balbir Singh: 13:05

They don’t care. They don’t care if they don’t see you.

Dhiraj Singh: 13:07

Nature has its own course, so I’ve learned to be far more patient. Second is planning helps the other P planning you need to find out the place, the month, the time, sometimes the ocean tides when the full moon is up. There are a lot of elements, just like in any business, so you need to have a very strong plan in advance. I do a lot of elements, just like in any business, so you need to have a very strong plan in advance. Yeah, I do a lot of planning for that.

Dhiraj Singh: 13:31

The third is, like in anything in life, the persistence. You’ve got to give that perseverance. Um, sometimes it doesn’t yield the results, but you got to be yeah, uh, keep trying. And the last is um, which I believe as a personal thing, is the providence as part of the P, which is basically fate and destiny. It plays an important role in everyone’s life. Some believe in it, some call it coincidental. I choose to believe in it. I choose to believe in the miracles of life, and I’ve seen this in my wildlife pursuits also. Right, and I’ve seen this in my wildlife pursuits also. I’m in umpteen number of cases where I feel that without some intervention of some I mean superpower I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I did or

Dhiraj Singh: 14:28

what I saw, yeah, so I’ve reaffirmed my belief in the fate and destiny. Reaffirmed my belief in the fate and destiny, okay, but the other learnings from this entire journey of mine is that I’ve learned to be far more adaptive. Right, I stay in tents with no washrooms and in blistering cold and and this is not once or twice, it happens quite frequently yeah, right, so while in business, we are kept to traveling and staying in hotels five star and all yeah and sometimes we start taking that as granted and as a privilege.

Dhiraj Singh: 15:00

I’m happy that I could see the other side and maintain that balance. Also, when you go out in the nature and the wild, I think you gain far more empathy for what all is there and you begin to appreciate it far more. You learn a lot from the wildlife behaviors. Sometimes that is what I put on the LinkedIn also. So another interesting part is the whole fear and risk control.

Dhiraj Singh: 15:31

I have become completely fearless after encountering so many adventures in the jungles and wild. But I must caution. Being completely fearless is also not good, right, because it can lead to, uh, some un, um, unnecessary dangers, right, but, uh, you become far more strong in mind. Right, you are able to take bolder decisions. You can become more aggressive in your business plans, right, without that paralysis by analysis of fear failure, right, um. At the same time, I was thinking of an analogy. There was a movie where um an accountant I think he was an assassin by the night time. Yeah, um hit hitman. Uh, probably his day job was so boring, um, that he had to talk to that, so so boring that he had to go to that. So, fortunately, I have enough adventure in my personal life that I don’t need to be too adventurous in my corporate life also. It’s a good balance, yeah. So I think it’s been a great journey and a lot of learnings.

Balbir Singh: 16:42

Yeah, I think you made a very one, very pertinent point that in any people business CEO is a chro and in your organization you do not have a designated chros. Uh, but why? Uh, because you know, of course as a ceo you have to keep connecting with your people. But there are so many more things that a chro brings to the table, uh, and I’m sure of course those are getting taken care of a lot of the individuals. But why did you come up with that thought of not having a designated chro?

Dhiraj Singh: 17:15

okay, um, I’ll lay it out honestly. I think we have a some very capable hr leaders. Yeah, of course, we’ve interacted with some of them probably um, and even in our management structure, we follow a more of a collective leadership model.

Dhiraj Singh: 17:30

So, we have something called group management committee. I the convener, I facilitate that, I call for those meetings, but they are senior leaders who take decisions, a lot of decisions, collectively. Similarly, we have a group HR committee right when the senior leaders of HR, so it’s a collective leadership. I would say the collective leadership is equivalent to that CHRO. Yes, got it.

Balbir Singh: 17:53

Got it. So you know, on that on like, you’re a large scale employer, so tell me something about how do you make it a great place to work for your employees, how do you provide them a sense of belonging to the brand? That is a size, because your field forces across India. So how do you get some of this you know employee values, uh built in for your, in in your procedures and for your employees, right?

Dhiraj Singh: 18:19

so, as you know, we have almost three lakh people. Yeah, right, um, we are very particular that we don’t have any bias towards any particular state, language, gender, so we have a mix of people from all backgrounds, even differently abled people. We have a lot of them working with us. All our leaders, again, they come from all different states. It just so happens. Almost all our leaders belong to different states, different states. It just so happens, almost all our leaders belong to different states, right, um? We have an intentional strategy, then, also to shift some of our regional leaders owner leaders from one state to the other after every few years.

Dhiraj Singh: 19:02

Okay, so then it doesn’t become like you will belong to that state, this community, and we are very, very particular that anybody who’s discriminating on any basis is strictly dealt with, and the same goes for our clients also. Unfortunately, you see a lot of cases where a security guard in a housing complex is treated and we go all out to support our guards, right of course, unless they’ve committed some true felony, which normally they don’t. But our society feel as a privileged class that they are yeah, and that’s one of my personal value also.

Dhiraj Singh: 19:40

I consider all of us equal, yeah absolutely and I get very emotional about that too also. So that gives a feeling that this is an equal opportunity company. We’ve had people who are guards or janitors who’ve become directors, so that opportunity is there for everyone. It’s bonding like a family. The only discrimination is that, yes, performance has to be there, so it’s a performing family culture right.

Balbir Singh: 20:10

So you know, uh and uh. You have been at the uh sas group for about 13 years, 13, 14 years yeah about.

Dhiraj Singh: 20:17

It’s been, I think, almost uh 16 years of association. Yeah, full-time about 13 years, 13 years.

Balbir Singh: 20:24

So uh, tell me, uh, you know when you picked up this job and where you see your organization today. What are the some things that are that you’re proud of? You know what has changed and this is a this is a legacy organization but what are the some of the things that you’re really proud of that you know? You have been able to do that sitting in India and for the workforce in India.

Dhiraj Singh: 20:47

I think a lot of that groundwork foundation had been laid by our chairman founding chairman, Mr Art Kessina. I think he did a fabulous job of creating that culture, that structure. We have something called a graduate training officer cadre. We’ve had almost 40 such batches. They are the people who are driving a business.

Balbir Singh: 21:07

Okay.

Dhiraj Singh: 21:07

Right, it’s almost like that army cadre. They go through rigorous training, they bond together. So all of these ideas came from a founding chairman. Yeah, uh. His statement very famous is that if you take care of your people, they will take care of the business yeah, and we’ve abided by that philosophy, so I didn’t have to create something new yeah my job was to maintain that, maintain that culture, especially as you scale up.

Dhiraj Singh: 21:33

The risk is that that culture might get diluted because you’re so fast spread, you acquire new companies. So that is one part I take a lot of personal interest because the integration of new companies, any company that you acquire, they have their own history from the past, their own good thing, the culture. So it’s a fine balance of bringing them into the family without making them feel feel like, oh, bahasa types are yeah, yeah, so you have to work that, uh, and I think we’ve done that quite well. Um, and I’m quite proud of that.

Dhiraj Singh: 22:06

And I think we’ve done that quite well and I’m quite proud of that. I’m also very proud of the things like in COVID time. Yeah, we were probably the organization that did the largest number of vaccinations. We did almost 4 lakh vaccinations and we personally monitored that. Rituraj Sinha, who is Mr RK Sinha’s son and managing director he and I were constantly monitoring this um actually took the call that there will be no layoffs. In fact, we gave early salary advance because that was the time people needed needed, um, and there were a lot of other things, small things like we had our ambulances for people to go to the hospitals. Um how we took care of the all the statutory benefits, especially for unfortunate uh people who uh departed during that period. So that was a moment of crisis for everyone all of us.

Dhiraj Singh: 23:03

Uh, for us it was more so because we were out there in the front, we were emergency services provider, and how we handled that. I think that definitely is something of a moment of pride for us.

Balbir Singh: 23:15

I think I am aware of some of the great stories that we heard about SIS at that time and, in fact, we even awarded your organization as one of the leadership in times of crisis. That’s a category that we had got for two times, and especially when you’re employing so many people who are at the front forefront of this right right, you know that’s your security guard. So, and it really uh, warms my heart that you did not decide to lay off even a single employee. Yes, uh, and that’s why we did see a shoot up in employee sentiment across india inc. By about four to five points, and that was a very India specific scenario where most of the organizations took the employee first. Stand that we are not going to lay off our people. We’ll probably take cuts. At the senior levels, we’ll take more cuts, but for our employees who are at the bottom of the rung or who really need to, or probably are the single learners of the family, they should not go without salaries. I think India Inc. Learners of the family, they should not go without salaries.

Balbir Singh: 24:11

I think india did a fab job at that time. Of course, we are seeing some of that plateau now because wellness is becoming the biggest change, so, on that I wanted to ask you, since you touched upon covid and also you know, how do you create a more inclusive culture for your employees, and you yourself are interested in wellness, and how it provides you perspectives on life and leadership. I wanted to ask you about employee well-being. You know what are some of the initiatives, and that’s becoming very, very prominent in india, especially with gen z, it’s becoming even more pertinent and I, as an organization, you have a lot of employees who are in that age categories, in their 30s and 20s, uh, so what are some of the initiatives that you’re doing, uh, to take care of well-being of your employees, so that they feel you know they can give their best selves to work?

Dhiraj Singh: 25:02

absolutely. Uh, I am a strong, almost fanatical believer in the well-being for it, because a healthy employee is going to be far more productive. Right, can give far more to the company, to the clients. Right, and ours is a stressful job, as many jobs are right, but these jobs are physically demanding. Also night times in rough terrains, I mean in. I was in Madhya Pradesh, in Raipur, chhattisgarh, and the heat out there at this time is just almost unbearable and our guards have to stand there. So, but that’s our job.

Dhiraj Singh: 25:44

Right, as our strategic management, we make sure that everyone is taken care of. For medical insurance, you have one of the best medical insurance programs for all our employees. We last year introduced for that life insurance and that probably is one of the biggest welfare schemes that have been liked by our staff, because no other company does that to the level that we’ve done. That right us right from 50 lakhs to five crores is the amount that we’ve covered. That gives a mental assurance not to the employee but to the whole family. Yeah, um, we recently conducted a medical test across all India covering every district 680 districts.

Dhiraj Singh: 26:35

That was a huge mammoth exercise where we had everyone undergo their medical examinations, even in COVID times. I’m again. I’m a believer in meditation and mental stress management. That is one of the most challenging and most escalating problems, even for the workforce Mental stress of all kinds. I held personal meditation classes online for a large number of people. I was doing that meditation with them together. I wrote a book on that meditation also after that and we have continued that for our hr team continues to do that for mental stress relief.

Dhiraj Singh: 27:18

We have the helplines etc for all our employees yeah so we have a holistic approach and then, of course, setting that ex by example. Uh so people I take them for treks, on walks and some people realize that they are not as physically fit and they make the efforts to become fitter. Okay, and I sometimes do it bluntly also. I just yesterday one of our hr guys again seen after marriage. He’s put on on a lot of bait and at a young age I had seen him climb the stairs and he was panting. So you have to observe certain things and give the right feedback. Yeah, so if you give that feedback and you yourself lead by example, yeah.

Dhiraj Singh: 28:01

I try and take as much care of my hair. I think it makes a then a ripple effect across the organization. I to some extent yes, I’m personally a little proud of this fact that yes, I was able to alter that scale of fitness for them.

Balbir Singh: 28:18

I think leading by example is very, very important, uh, especially if you’re able to do that as a leader, you have that added advantage, correct, uh?

Balbir Singh: 28:25

and then you also have lessons from wildlife, and you’re, of course, gray hair always, always helps yeah, I’ve got yeah no, no, I’m just saying because, uh, then people know you’re walking the talk, you know, not just giving advice on, you know, health and well-being. So I’ll go to my favorite question right now, something I ask all the leaders all the time what is that one quality or one question that you always ask when you’re hiring a leader for your own team, someone who’s going to work with you?

Dhiraj Singh: 28:55

um, as I had emphasized, I think emotional maturity, emotional resilience is very important for me. So the question I’ll ask normally for all our senior leaders especially, is what’s been the most stressful moment in their life and how did they handle it? That gives me a fair idea as to what they consider as stress and how did they cope with it, how did they resolve it. So that is one of my favorite questions okay, okay.

Balbir Singh: 29:22

So, basically, how are you able to take care of your own well-being in the times of stress?

Dhiraj Singh: 29:27

Yes, and also, how did you react to it? Stress is basically a reaction.

Balbir Singh: 29:32

It is not the external environment that throws stress.

Dhiraj Singh: 29:35

So how did that person react? How did he manage himself? Can be reflective of how that person can manage against stresses in the business. Got it.

Balbir Singh: 29:45

Got it and we have been partnering for last four, five years. Uh, so how has the great place to work partnership you know the survey that we do with all your employees how has this partnership helped you?

Dhiraj Singh: 29:57

it’s been a great partnership. Uh will be because it’s raised the awareness, um, on a both formal basis as well as informal basis, on a both formal basis as well as informal basis, that there are expectations of an employee from an institution like ours. There are benchmarks that need to be followed, there are things that need to be improved, there are things that need to be sustained. It sometimes feels like you’re on a treadmill, right.

Balbir Singh: 30:30

But it’s a good treadmill.

Dhiraj Singh: 30:33

And that’s why every year we are happy to get on this treadmill.

Balbir Singh: 30:37

Yeah, same thing for us. We just concluded our annual learning conference where we dived into our own results. So we always also eat our own food, so it’s a point of reflection for us also. Uh, dhiraj, with this I will like to move into, uh, some rapid fire questions. If you’re game for it, absolutely all good. So I know you read a lot of books and you’ve also written a few quite a few, yes. But what are the books that you would recommend you know that have had the maximum or highest impact on you? Two or three book names that you think are something that you know really added value to you.

Dhiraj Singh: 31:15

Uh, there’s a book called personality by nettle right. Uh, different type of personalities, how people are yeah it’s a very interesting book to understand why the different personalities and then, similarly, how the brain thinks, which is by the Nobel Prize winner, daniel thinking fast and slow. These are some of the examples of the books that I enjoy learning. Of course, my own book All Out is something that I’ve loved writing and I encourage everyone to. Not because of the book, I mean the owl’s photos, photos or the but it’s about that journey that was the first time I started photographing in my life, okay in early 2022.

Dhiraj Singh: 31:54

I’d never held any camera in my life, I didn’t know about any birds, and I embarked upon the project that most birders consider the most difficult task to complete all the owls in Indian subcontinent in one year wow, if I were to define your leadership style in one words or two words, how will you define your own leadership style?

Dhiraj Singh: 32:15

I only earlier mentioned about the balance part. Yeah, I think any leader goes through a journey, um, as he or she progresses through the corporate ranks, and I think for me it’s been more evolutionary. If I put in a word how I’ve evolved myself as a leader, um, how I’ve evolved myself as a human, as a person, that is something that I constantly rate myself. Just yesterday there was a discussion um I won’t mention with whom, but post discussion and it was a little tricky discussion I rated myself that I was 85% in terms of how I should have handled that discussion. So I work towards improving on that. So it’s an evolution, so I’ll call myself as an evolutionary journey.

Balbir Singh: 33:06

So, reflecting on what happened yesterday and probably what is the best advice that you received as a leader, there are a lot of advices, but two that come to my mind.

Dhiraj Singh: 33:20

One is by Mr Rajiv Singh, the chairman of DLR. There was an incident that happened in my life about 12 years ago where I trusted somebody a lot and that person backstabbed me. It had a lot of repercussions. So Mr Raji Singh was aware of that. He called me and he made a statement that look, don’t stop trusting people, because that’s one of your strength areas, because that could have been a point where I would have probably switched. The other is again ritrasana, managing director. I’ve learned a lot in terms of managing that again, emotional balance in terms of stress. And he gave an example of the lizard when it’s on the wall. Yeah, so lizard might feel that it is holding up that whole wall, and so there are two learnings from this that you need to be humble. It’s not that that lizard is holding the wall and not get too stressed about things, that the wall will fall if I kind of move somewhere.

Balbir Singh: 34:20

So these are two important learnings I have and who is the leader that you admire the most? Uh?

Dhiraj Singh: 34:30

And who is the leader that you admire the most, kiraj, I put it in two categories, if you allow me. One is people who I’ve not met, but I know about them.

Balbir Singh: 34:38

I’ve heard about them.

Dhiraj Singh: 34:40

In politics I see Nelson Mandela, mr Nelson Mandela, as a great leader personality, maybe because of his again ability to rebound and emotional resilience over a long period of time. Similar traits again in sports I see in Michael Jordan.

Balbir Singh: 34:56

Okay.

Dhiraj Singh: 34:58

How he again came back bounced. So, these are leaders that I don’t know, but I get inspired In terms of people that I know I’ve worked with. I call them as my five r’s. Yeah, right, it so happened again by fate or destiny. These are people with names starting with r. Okay, so mr rajiv singh again has from dnf, I’ve learned a lot from him.

Dhiraj Singh: 35:20

uh, mr ray o’rourke, who’s uh the uk company, one of the largest from there. Um um, mr R K Sinha, who is the founding chairman, rituraj himself. And the last star is my wife, rashmi. She’s a leader at home and, yeah, I get emotional about it, but I’ve learned a lot from her too.

Balbir Singh: 35:43

And I think I saw a photo on LinkedIn. Think, uh, you go, sometimes you go on your wildlife cap photo capturing journeys together. Is that right, I think I saw one picture.

Dhiraj Singh: 35:54

I’m not too yeah. Yeah, she used to go with me more often. Now she is, uh kind of given up, okay, it is sometimes too stressful for us, okay.

Balbir Singh: 36:02

Yeah, so we made peace on that no, no problem, I thought I just saw a photo and, uh, before we wrap up, I can’t let you off the hot seat without asking this question, and you have told about your learnings from leaders like Mr Rajiv Singh. What will be your advice to young leaders? You know in India Inc, because we keep hearing about Make in India. You know what a potential India has. India has its own growth story. Even though all that, while that’s happening, the stock market has rebounded back in India.

Balbir Singh: 36:30

So we have great story. So what’s your advice to young leaders in India?

Dhiraj Singh: 36:36

My first advice would be be original.

Dhiraj Singh: 36:40

A lot of us are trying to be copycats social media influence. They want to be that. I think originality is a concept that might be underrated, underestimated. Sometimes. Being original means you have to be slightly rebellious against established norms. I follow that in my life and sometimes it’s proven to be a disaster. Often it’s given me the results.

Dhiraj Singh: 37:13

The second is, again, I would advise the young generation especially to invest in four categories, four management categories time management very, very useful. I mean time is limited for all of us how we utilize that time. Multitasking I do trade training programs for time management. Some of the reputed lawyers actually they consult me separately for this. Okay, so time management is one.

Dhiraj Singh: 37:39

Your body management, which is a physical management, that energy source right, you have to invest in that. Network management, networking with all kind of people. And lastly, again my favorite is emotional management right. So you got to make sure that you invest your time efforts in management of these four categories. Second is that while you should love doing deals, but you should love people also. I mean you should love growing people as much as you love growing the valuation of your companies, right? Uh, that would be my yes summary of advice. I mean the future. I see, um, for workforce is going to be a balance or the leaders who will succeed are those who have a unique blend of empathy, creativity and technology. Okay, so these are the three nys, but empathy, creativity and technology, the combination of these three, are what going to be, uh, the differentiators of real successful leaders.

Balbir Singh: 38:42

Okay, absolutely empathy, creativity and technology yeah technology is at the center of everything you can’t run away.

Balbir Singh: 38:49

You can’t escape, and I think we are seeing some of the fastest advancements happening in technology in our lifetimes right now. Absolutely so. That’s a separate conversation altogether. Probably we need another hour for that. But with that, dheeraj, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for arranging for this podcast and making yourself available and sharing some great insights for our listeners, for some young leaders and for everyone. How do you keep a balance between your passions, your work and something that gives you a lot of pride in doing so? Thank you again.

Dhiraj Singh: 39:24

It’s been an absolute pleasure, thank you so much been a pleasure thank you.