Nurturing Indian Giants

As I quit my corporate job 14 years ago, I had clarity on what was my quest - to lead myself and my business from good to great, realize my greatest dreams in deepest communion with my highest self and have it all. 

I used to lead global technology programs for American Express and before that for Citigroup. I had no idea how to fulfil my quest. Based on my belief that it's in giving that we receive, I made the purpose of my life - to support others to lead themselves and their businesses from good to great, realize their greatest dreams in deepest communion with their highest self and have it all - and began to live it through my new founded business. 

Breaking more than 10 business models through the years to figure out how to fulfil on my Purpose through my business, I finally arrived at a combination of Leadership Depth, Craft Mastery and Business Excellence.

Things began to come together in the Retreat I ran for our Brave Hearts in Karma Lakelands last year in December as I taught them Jim Collins' Hedgehog Concept. I had first read the book in Jan 2008. Understanding the concept again as we discussed it, with the benefit of having run the business for 13.5 years lit up a bulb in my head.

1. The First Insight
Jim Collin's Hedgehog Concept is about being at the intersection of 3 questions to cut-over from good to great:
i. What are you deeply passionate about? 
We are passionate about raising human consciousness. Our word for raising human consciousness is Leadership Depth.

ii. What can you be the best in the world at?
We can play to be the world's best coaches. Our word for this is Craft Mastery.

iii. What drives your Economic Engine? What would people be willing to pay you for? What is your unit of Impact - Impact / X?

I used to run 2 programs in 2010 when I started - Graceful Existence for Leadership and Life Coaching; and Realize Your Dreams (RYD) for Business Coaching.

I had more people signing up for RYD than for Graceful Existence. It was clear in 2013 itself that our economic engine was Business Coaching.

I was still at Impact / Coachee in Dec 2023, though RYD Soul (our community of RYD Coaches) had me wondering if our Impact / X could be Impact / Coach if we wanted to increase the impact of our work.

So far in Dec 2023, the BHAG was to enable India to become the world's most developed and beautiful nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous by contributing USD 15 Trillion to the Indian Economy, without a definite understanding of how to achieve this BHAG.

The light bulb moment at the Retreat was that I had clarity about the unit of Impact being the Business and therefore, our Big Hairy Audacious Goal evolved to -
In 100 years of India's rebirth, our country would be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous; leading humanity forward to a Brave New World of love, peace and joy with 1000 Indian Businesses in Forbes Global 2000, 300 Indian Businesses in Fortune Global 500 and 60 Indian Businesses in Fortune Global 100.

I hadn't as yet understood what it meant to have our Impact / X as Impact / Business because I continued to run our programs with Impact / X as Impact / Coachee.
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2. The Second Insight
The second insight was that I would need to build a community of RYD Coaches of the calibre of Bill Campbell, the coach to the CEOs / Business Owners of Silicon Valley's greatest companies -- Google, Apple, Intuit, eBay, Andreesen Horowitz, Twitter and many more - which together contributed USD 1 Trillion to the American Economy, earning him the name of Trillion Dollar Coach.

That clarity in December 2023 made me redesign the Centre for Coaching Excellence™ program for training and developing RYD Coaches.


3. The Third Insight
The Good to Great journey to Have It All is an evolutionary process. 

I had always maintained in the past over the last 14 years that if we raise our consciousness to Gear 4, then people around us in our family and our work will automatically experience Gear 1 consciousness in our space. Over the years, I have observed that if only one person from a social atom is on their evolutionary journey from Good to Great, getting to Gear 4 is an uphill difficult lonely task, making it nearly impossible to get there. There are greater chances of that lone ranger giving up on their own Good to Great journey at some point in time, exhausted at trying to carry their social atom on their shoulders.

But, if the whole social atom travels the evolutionary Good to Great journey together, the transformation of all the individuals in the social atom is enabled with greater ease, grace and velocity. There is greater fun and adventure along the way.

It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a community to transform an individual. That is why the whole social atom (coachee's business and coachee's family) being on the evolutionary transformative Good to Great journey together became the new RYD Way.

This shift will enable us to fulfil on our purpose of supporting people to have it all with greater ease, grace and velocity, one organization at a time, by implementing the RYD Way of Life for all people leaders.

Only when all people leaders in the organization walk the RYD Good to Great journey, will we be able to fully enable Business, Leadership and Culture Transformation to support the business to journey from good to great.

As a result of the above insight and reflection on that insight, our BHAG shifted to:
Our BHAG 2047 is to be the world’s best Transformation Ecosystem for Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, Founders and CEOs; nurturing 60 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 100, 300 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 500 and 1000 Indian Businesses to be Forbes Global 2000 as Businesses we coach become Spaces of Grace for people to joyously lead themselves and their business from good to great, realize their dreams and have it all with ease and grace; supporting India to be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous; creating a Brave New World.

4. The Fourth Insight
As I attended the CEO Bootcamp with Verne in Spain in Jan this year and the CEO Summit with fellow Scaling-up coaches from around the world at Harvard in August, one thing became abundantly clear to me that without the Leadership Team being engaged in the Business Excellence journey right from the start, the CEO would struggle to lead their business from good to great because good to great is a team sport.

Originally, the plan was to engage the Leadership Team in Year 2 of the Coachee's journey but the Leadership Teams were not getting engaged organically as there was no clear pathway for that within the program.

The above insight made me realize that we could accelerate our coachee's journey from good to great by mentoring the leadership team on the Business Excellence journey in Year 1 itself, making it easier for our coachee to implement Business Excellence frameworks.

We did not have to wait for the Leadership Team members to be on their own good to great journey, which was really their decision. It could not be their CEO's mandate because the good to great journey to Have It All has to be chosen by each individual and cannot be imposed upon.

But, being mentored on the Business Excellence journey could be the CEO's mandate. And, the Business Excellence journey would provide a pathway for Leadership Depth and Craft Mastery journeys for the Leadership Team members.

5. The Fifth Insight
As I looked for a tighter alignment between our Purpose, BHAG and Impact / X, I realized the Impact / X that would best serve our purpose would be

Number of People Leaders / Business of the Business Owner on the Have It All journey

Our measure of Impact would be: How many people leaders in the business were on their good to great journey because we could bring about Leadership, Culture and Business Transformation if all people leaders in the Business were on their Good to Great journey, speaking the same language, inspired by the same purpose of realizing their highest potential to make a massive positive impact and have it all.

Our Unit of Impact would be = X = Business of the Business Owner on the Have It All journey

Implementation of RYD for a Business would need to be Top-down – from the CEO to L1 Leaders to L2 Leaders till all people leaders are on their Good to Great journey with RYD as their structure of success.

As I reflected on the above, I saw an error in our BHAG. If our Impact / X is Number of People Leaders per Business, then our work is to build the world's best Transformation Ecosystem for Businesses; not the world's best Transformation Ecosystem for Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, Founders and CEOs.

The next iteration of our BHAG became:

Our Big Hairy Audacious Goal 2047, in 100 years of our country's rebirth, is to be the world’s best Transformation Ecosystem for Businesses; nurturing 60 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 100, 300 Indian Businesses to be Fortune Global 500 and 1000 Indian Businesses to be Forbes Global 2000 as Businesses we coach become Spaces of Grace for people to joyously lead themselves and their business from good to great, realize their dreams and have it all with ease and grace; supporting India to be the world's most developed, beautiful, greenest nation with her citizens happiest, healthiest and the most prosperous; creating a Brave New World.


Based on the above Insights, the following Actions emerged and were taken:
1. Iterate the RYD program, the Brave Heart and the Ashoka program to begin with, to include mentoring the Leadership Team in Year 1 of the coachee's journey. 

When the leadership team members are ready for their own good to great journey, the RYD Coaches would offer them a 2-week gift coaching Awaken Journey for them to explore RYD as a structure of success for their good to great journey..

2. Clarity for whom we were not the right coaches and for whom RYD would not be a right structure of success. Sharing that with the leader during the Explore conversation before inviting them to join RYD and checking in if they would be a right fit with our Purpose and Values:
i. I am not your coach if you only want business coaching. We integrate business, leadership and life coaching to support our coachees to lead themselves and their business from good to great, realize their dreams and have it all.
ii. I am not your coach if you only want leadership and life coaching. We are business coaches committed to nurture great businesses in India. To enable that, we take our coachees on 3 journeys simultaneously – Business Excellence, Leadership Depth and Craft Mastery.
iii. I am not your coach if you want to build a business to create personal wealth. We only work with those business owners, entrepreneurs, founders and CEOs who want to create massive positive impact in the world through their business. Personal wealth is a tiny by-product of that.
iv. I am not your coach if you are on a sprint - you want coaching for a short duration and want short-term results. We are on a marathon because to build something great takes a lifetime. We take our coachees on long journeys, one year at a time.
v. I am not your coach if you want to create success at the cost of everything else in your life. Our work is about supporting our coachees to have it all because above all, that is our purpose.

3. The program got divided into Awaken Journey and Hero's Journey. Awaken Journey is a 2 week gift coaching immersion for the leader to get in touch with their Inner Wisdom if RYD is a right structure of success for them in Year 1 and in every subsequent year. Building something great is a rigorous journey. Even if a leader is 99.9999% sure about travelling their Hero's journey with RYD as their structure of success, they will stumble in their journey ahead. It is better to invite the leader not to travel with RYD as their structure of success, if they are not a 10 on 10.

After every year, each coachee would go through the 2-week gift coaching Awaken Journey for them to re-assess where they are at. If they are not a 10 on 10, it would not serve the coachee, it would not serve the coach and it would not serve the community for the coachee to travel to the next year with RYD as their structure of success.

4. RYD is a training ground for nurturing great businesses from India. The training is as rigorous as that of an athlete training to compete and win a gold medal at Olympics. The 2 hours weekly deep-dive is merely integration. The real work is in the pre-work, post-work, growth habits and transformative practises. The fun and adventure is in doing the push-ups in the RYD Gym.

The action became setting the right expectation about the journey for someone exploring RYD as a structure of success.

There is hard work not from the energy of a High Performer sourced in Fear; but from the energy of a Peaceful Warrior, a Super Performer sourced in Love, Purpose and inspiration to create massive positive impact.

5. Create a game for existing RYD Businesses to up-level their Leadership Team members on Scaling-up at no additional investment because this would be baked into the program offered to the new coachees.

Therefore, I invited Verne Harnish, my Business Excellence mentor, to be a mentor for our community and inside of that, invited him to lead a deep-dive for our community members and their leadership teams.

The intention is to use this privilege to inspire our community members and their leadership teams to go on a Scaling-up Learning Expedition for 2.5 months till the deep-dive with Verne on 15-Jan-25. That would create Scaling-up intelligent Leadership Teams, making it easier for our coachees to implement Scaling-up to lead their Business from good to great with greater ease, grace and velocity.

I would offer to hold space for the Leadership Teams to keep the learning engagement high, for those of our coachees for whom this would contribute.

The game is for the coachee and their Leadership Teams to read the book 'Start to Scale' by Verne, share their Daily Insights, ask themselves at least one Question on a daily basis based on what they have learnt and identify actions through a weekly Socratic Learning Hour attended by the CEO and the Leadership Team to implement the learnings to make a difference to their people and / or their customers. The next step would be to schedule the actions on the calendar and taking the action in the quarter scheduled.

This would help in integration of the learnings, otherwise what we learn remains as information in our short-term memory and vanishes subsequently; making the whole learning exercise a waste of time.

Trust this helps you to better understand
i. the inter-connection between your purpose, the Purpose of your Business, Values of your Business, Impact / X, and BHAG.
ii. that clarity is arrived at through an ongoing iterative process with what would most serve your customer as the north star.
iii. that the final outcome could have been arrived at purely through Business Excellence, but it would have lacked heart and soul which gives energy to play the game as a marathon for greatness.

Keep learning, reflecting, inquiring, growing and taking action to contribute to joyously lead yourself and your businesses from good to great, realize your dreams and have it all with ease and grace; while having lots of fun and adventure along the way 💜

Loving you,
j.