How to Navigate Knowledge Work - 10+ years in Big TechㅣRadha Amalraj
the work doesn't speak for itself. You have to speak for the work. Personal productivity for me is all about effectiveness and very less about efficiency. Am I doing the right things? Then comes, am I doing it right? There's this study at Harvard called the Dark Horse Project. They studied top performers in different fields who are successful and fulfilled. To see how did they actually get there? Are there patterns? And surprisingly, there is one pattern, which is all of them thought they were dark horses.
All of them thought they took the unconventional path. But actually, in reality, all of them took an unconventional path, created their own frameworks to figure out how do they want to do the things they want to do. And they all employed short term planning strategies. So today I got to chat with a dark horse, Radha she started out as an engineer, then went into consulting, went into tech, went into entrepreneurship, came back to tech, and became exec at half of FAANG and now is in VC doing M&A.
So she's multi passionate, she's highly analytical and she's very creative. I asked her for her frameworks. “How did you communicate at different stages of the corporate ladder?” “How do you use short term planning to go against conventional wisdom and plan a career that you'll actually love and try new things”, “And when you fail, How do you deal with it?” “How do you deal with imposter syndrome?” She had answers to all of these. We'll get to it in the interview now.
Radha, you've been everywhere. You've done everything. You were half of FAANG, Meta, Amazon, Google, Twitter.
You're now at a VC firm. Looking back on your career, achieving what you wanted. What contributed to that success? And let us know if you've got any secrets that you've learned along the way to help you get there.
I have two core principles which I think are super important and then I can talk about my approach, in terms of like how, my secret, I think there are three secrets so I can talk about, these two. I think in terms of principles, which is like the foundation of, you know what I believe in, two things. Number one, resilience. And number two, being able to, learn constantly.
Resilience. I think resilience is probably the biggest marker of success, in my view, because, you know, resilience is about I define resilience as one's ability to constantly go at it, to be able to continue learning, continue trying new things and, you know, not be fazed by failure and to be able to bounce back and, to keep trying that for me is resilience. And I think that's the biggest marker of success because the people, who really I mean, you can we've all heard of, you know, so many successful people just like coming from very simple backgrounds and really hustling their way through, really working hard and not being fazed by failure, but learning and trying something new, making these bold bets and challenging themselves constantly. And, at times I think we lose perspective. We focus too much on the successes and we forget to look at the journeys. So most successful people like, you know, the stellar successes that we see, they've all had this journey of resilience.
And I think, you know, it's not about we might think that they were probably born with it. you know, they have some secret. But I think the biggest secret of success is resilience. the second piece is, to be able to learn constantly. I think, you know, which kind of links back to resilience as well, but specifically, I think to be able to, learn from everything one is doing. And, you know, a lot of us, we are, we believe we’re lifelong learners.
And, but I think a good test of that is how do we deal with changes? Changes are inevitable, right? Big and small changes are going to be a part of life. And, how can we embrace the change, however uncomfortable that is? And, what can we learn from there? How can we get better the next day as compared to how we were the day before? And, you know, doing that, I think very seamlessly doing that. I think, in a very natural, fun way with a lot of curiosity. I think that goes a long, long way.
and that powers the resilience as well, because instead of making resilience, this, you know, uphill climbing job, just kind of, you know, approaching it with a levity and, curiosity and fun. I think it goes a long way in, being successful. so those are my core principles, I think. I like to believe that I think if one has these two components in place, a lot of things. Success, it’s just a matter of time.
In terms of you know, my hard earned lessons. I think it might sound a little bit philosophical, but I would again, like. Because I like the number three, the three, lessons that I've learned, the why, when and how.
I think just being super clear on the why, when and how is, I think like game changing. It's been game changing for me. Why is the purpose, of, let's say, my career, my life and being very clear about who I am and what I want to do.
I think, anchoring everything on that has just, you know, been super game changing for me just to have this clarity. And, you know, it doesn't have to be a big word purpose. It just sounds like this very huge thing you have to sit under, you know, tree and, you know, you realize your purpose. It doesn't have to be all of that. And it doesn't have to be cast in stone.
Just knowing that, you know, this makes sense to me. And this makes me happy at my core. And, you know, this is something that speaks to me, and, it can change tomorrow. But for today, this is my purpose.
And this is what I'm going to focus on and work towards. I think just having the clarity, you know, anchors oneself very firmly The second aspect is When. I think once you have the purpose defined, I've been able to, unearth a lot of energy to go and get things done. Now at times I've had this, tendency to kind of put away things saying that I'm probably not ready for it.
You know, I wanted to be an entrepreneur very early on in my career, but I felt like, oh, I don't know what is out there. I feel I don't have the skills. I probably have to wait it out. And, you know, because we fear the unknown, and we feel like we're not ready. So I think, once I figured out my purpose, I think I've been able to go for it and have the conviction that, you know, I'll be able to learn along the way. So I think, and this is something people might not understand.
Like, you know, people around you might be like, oh, why are you doing that? It doesn't make sense to you know, to me. And, they could have a different point of view, but I think, you need to know that the time is now. And the question to ask is, if I were to do it today, because I know that this is what I want to do, how can I make it happen today? What steps can I take today to get closer to that, rather than leave it for tomorrow rather than go for, you know, an ideal, well-defined path as a conventional wisdom, how can I chart out that path for me today? I think that's a very powerful question. even though it's uncomfortable, there are lots of unknowns. But I think just starting with that question makes a ton of difference as to when, the when is now. And finally how.
Right? Okay. How do you make plans? How do you make this happen? So I think just being kind of, very scrappy in one's approach and kind of having the honesty to, you know, understand what's going on and remove the judgments and figure things along the way. I think that, again, I believe, makes a ton of difference.
So why, start with a why look at, you know, when, the answer is now. And, then you figure out the how how is, you know, sitting there waiting for you to, figure it out. You mentioned risk and failing, and I.
I want to probe there a little bit because. Some can say, you know, being “I'm really good at my academics, I work hard, I get into the schools that I want, I get into the jobs that I want.” And I'm sure you've seen this in, in your, around you, that people who excelled up to a certain point when they get into a team with so many smart people, there's a lot of struggle that come out. There's a lot of insecurities and lack of confidence because you realize, oh my gosh, there's so many people that are so smart. So have you experienced that yourself? Have you experienced, by, how do you get comfortable with something like failing and trying new things, when you know there are things that you can hold on to that will give you a bit more comfort? Yeah, I love that question.
Because, I would say one big companion, in my life, probably a companion I haven't wanted is the imposter syndrome I’ve always had that, I think it started from me being this gawky teenager because I felt like I was very different, and I probably stood out in ways I didn't want to stand out for. at every step, you know, getting into, an engineering college, a top engineering college in my state to getting to the best business school in India, to working with these top employers, working in different geographies. I think countless number of times I've felt like an imposter.
I felt like, oh my God, especially in cross-cultural settings, that I don't belong. My accent is so different. I look so different. And being the only female voice in many rooms, I just felt very, under confident.
I just didn't feel like I belonged. but I would say, I think the thing to keep in mind is failing is going to be a part of the journey. I think we can optimize for it, optimize for succeeding constantly. But that just means we wouldn't grow because we would end up doing the things that we know very well, But that's not where growth happens. So I think, the regret of not doing something is going to be far higher than doing something and failing.
despite the imposter syndrome, despite feeling like, you know, I probably don't belong or. Oh, my God, this seems very challenging. There's so much of, pain and, you know, struggle. I think it's worthwhile to still go and try. I am today where I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams.
And I do have a long way to go. And I would say the single biggest thing that has helped me get here is, kind of embracing failure, And it doesn't matter how many failures one has, you just need few successes. I think there are some much to unpack here. Number one I think you pointed out was failing is okay that's just something we have to get comfortable with if we want to grow.
Because actually, the learning happens when we are uncomfortable. But I think the second thing, which I also find difficult sometimes is I failed, but I don't know exactly what my takeaway was. I think and that to me comes in a few different ways. One side is probably psychological. I want to blame someone else and trying to protect myself from saying, oh, I was stupid.
I couldn't figure this out. So that part, to me exists and is hard to overcome. To say, okay, I can't blame anyone there. I need to take responsibility. That's one thing. And the other thing is figuring out exactly what happened that attributed to the failures, because sometimes there's so many factors that are involved, it's hard to tease them apart and figure out, what am I really learning from the failures? Do you have any examples or any tips for others when they do fail, how can they get the most out of that experience? I love that question.
So, I would offer three things here. I think first is, being able to deal with the failure emotionally. I think the second piece is to be able to figure out a good way to learn from the failure. And finally, the third piece is, get comfortable with, you know, failure being a part of the journey.
So going back to the first two things, dealing with failure, I think, this again links back to how one looks at failure. Right? Like failure sucks every single time. Let's make no bones about it.
Nobody wants to fail. You know? It hurts our ego. We put in a lot of effort, a lot of earnestness.
And when it doesn't go away, it obviously sucks. the way I deal with it personally is, to really, I think, move on to action, move on to, what I can do with the failure. dealing with the psychology of failing is to really put things into perspective. And, you know, try to focus on the next steps and in terms of how one can learn from the failure, it's to really, I think, be honest with oneself and look at what you know, one did well in that situation, what one could have done better and what the next steps are.
based on, I think, our own analysis and also, based on inputs from people we trust. that typically works for me. for someone who's gone up to the top, definitely being able to manage time, being able to manage tasks, being able to manage how you get to your goal is so important. I love to know how you view personal productivity and what are the things that you've learned over time.
That's maybe against conventional wisdom about what productivity really is. Personal productivity for me is all about effectiveness and very less about efficiency. So which is where what matters to me is what are my goals? What am I doing? you know, towards those goals.
So am I doing the right things? And then comes, am I doing it right? So that's how I measure personal productivity. So for me, a day well-spent is a day that I spend, you know, time on doing things that really align to what I want to be and who I want to be. and, you know, a state of, like, being in the flow and really feeling satisfied and accomplished at the end of the day is what I strive for. conventional wisdom, I think what I see generally, I think, something that I do differently is that I try not to be very busy. I, I don't think being busy is the best thing.
I think, it's important to create space for oneself to really, reflect. And, that is the space that, you know, one can you can really be creative. So I think it's very important to, create those buckets of rest, of breaks between the different things we're doing. And a lot of people I see, you know, and even I've been there, I've fallen into activity traps. I'm trying to optimize 100 different things and fit them all into my calendar. And, you know, feeling proud of my multitasking abilities.
But I have, left behind those days. And I try to, really look at ruthless prioritization in terms of what are the things that align to my goals and, where do I need to spend time? And, I'm able to, like, cut down a whole lot of things from my list of to-dos because they're not aligned to what I, need to do. So I think that's shifted for me. And, it's just made me, a lot more satisfied, that, you know, what I'm accomplishing in a day and, gives me a lot more space to think about things. Give things of a different spin, because I get a lot more time to think and experiment and, evolve in the process.
How do you do something like this on your earlier on in your career? I remember feeling the pressure of everyone working so hard. And even though I know it's busy work, it felt really bad to. To say, okay, well, obviously everyone, we're not really doing something productive here. I think the theme you've talked about is definitely know who you are.
Being able to feel confident enough to do that. But when you're earlier on in your career, what are the steps you can take to protect, let's say, your calendar? How do you communicate it, let's say, to your managers or your team so that you don't lose the relationship with them, but still be able to achieve what you want as well. I would offer three things there. Number one, to be able to look at, let's say, one's calendar and to be able to figure out what are the things that can be done differently.
I think, you know, it's very comfortable for us. Human mind likes to, you know, likes routines. And it's very easy for us to get into a routine of this is a task and this is how I do it. This is the time required.
And, you know, let me move on to the next one. but to be able to zoom out and, I would also maybe, you know, put in, put a check in time every week to start with, to analyze, like, where are you spending your time and, what is it aligned towards and what are you learning and how is it helping with your career add this weekly block and then do a start stop, continue analysis for like five minutes that what do I need to start doing differently? What do I need to stop doing and what do I need to continue doing? I think that would be a good exercise to really, be mindful of where you're spending your time and how can you do that better. I think the second piece, I'll offer is, also extending this to like slightly longer horizons of time, having a monthly block, having, let's say, a quarterly block, being able to reflect and creating these, you know, moments of reflection and asking these questions about, you know, where you’re headed to be able to, look at what's the direction, what's the trajectory, what you're doing well and what can you do better? I think that goes a long, long way in, boosting your personal productivity. And, for you to then really examine that.
Is this the best use of my time? So I think, also anchoring it on a mindset. Right. The final point, that I'll offer is your time is your most precious resource. So almost attach an hourly rate to, you know, whatever you're doing.
So it should be like my hourly rate, for example, is, let's say, you know, X dollars. So is this like worth, is this particular task worth X dollars? If not, you know, it's not that you can go back to your manager and tell him or her that they should change the type of job you're doing, but you can then, you know, like valuing your own time and just, makes you look at things very differently and then makes you challenge yourself in terms of how you can do different things or do things differently. One theme that's really strong and really important to take on is think for yourself.
Right. Not to accept everything that everyone else is piling on you. Even though they do that, how are you going to show up in order to get what you want? In the end, that type of protectiveness for me is really crucial and something that we're not taught.
I think thinking back to school, the the best students were the one who said yes to the teacher whenever things happened. And so when we're in the work environment, a lot of us become the yes person who says, okay, if you want me to do this, I will do this. And we forget about who we are.
And what you're saying, right, is why you need to know who you are. Work is not a separate entity. You have to figure out where you want to go and make sure work brings you there, as well as whenever other people put us in a situation that's not helpful. We need to be able to reflect. We need to be able to point out exactly what's not working, and not just to blankly say, oh, well, this is not working.
So, I don't know why I need to blame someone about this. So I think that sense of self-awareness and that sense of proactiveness and agency really seems to be a theme. absolutely. And, you know, kudos for identifying that as a theme, because definitely I think, when we start out, see, most of us, we go through our education and then we get into the workforce and, you know, it's it's almost like we try to we we're trying to do our best with whatever we're able to receive from the environment.
We're all trying to learn there. but it's important to be able to zoom out and, have the confidence, kind of like empower yourself to, ask these questions, to value yourself, to not just follow whatever you're being asked to do, but to and also, I think it helps the process. It helps everyone involved if you're able to, I think really go back reflect and empower yourself to, you know, understand, understand things better, to question things. So just identify how can things be improved and not just follow the instructions blindly. Right.
And we've all seen that. I think unless somebody challenges the status quo, unless you're able to like, you know, examine things from a distance, unless you're able to, like, really, understand things deeply. things will I mean, we're just playing a maintenance game, which doesn't help things at all. True innovation, like, you know, and creativity is, what comes out of, like, this ability to reflect, the ability to challenge, ability to take risk. I love the way that you put that. The maintenance game is what most of us are playing.
And we want to be in the creative game. The game that actually pushes the boundaries. Make us a little bit uncomfortable. Make some mistakes. Trying new things. The next thing I would love to get your thoughts on is since you have been through the entire ladder, I wonder if we can focus in on the communication you need to do as a knowledge worker? A lot of the things we hear that people struggle with. I also struggled with, was this idea of articulating your work, really being able to not just let the work show for itself, but be able to bring some visibility to it.
So I'm wondering, depending on the level you're at, let's say individual contributor to manager or to some more director executive, the executive levels, how does communication change? How does communication stay the same? How should someone think about how they communicate at work? like you said, communication is extremely important. the work doesn't speak for itself. You have to speak for the work. You have to represent your work very well, and you have to represent yourself very well, especially in large corporations. I think it's super important, to manage perception. And communication is a very key part of that. because like, realistically, there's so many things happening that to be able to capture people's attention in a very large ecosystem, So, going back to the different levels and what the communication requirement are as an individual contributor, simplistically speaking, an individual contributor, somebody who is an expert on an activity or a domain, be it, let's say an engineer or a program manager, they’re focused on a particular technology, a particular feature or a particular program.
So there the communication requirement for the person is to be able to, be very clear, to articulate what they're doing. So the communication needs to be functional, needs to be, clear and comprehensive and concise. Speaking of managers, managers typically are, you know, managing a bunch of individual contributors. They, you know, dealing with a whole bunch of stakeholders.
the communication requirement for a manager is to be able to, you know, give clear instructions to the team, give direction to the team, give clear guidance to the team. and with peers, to be able to share relatable context so they can compare contrast. And, you know, in the larger scheme of things like, form an alliance with different teams and just be effective. Cross-functionally. And with the higher ups, the managers need to be able to tie their work back to the mission of the org and to be able to, show how you know, the work the team is doing is connecting to the larger scheme of the org. you know, that's how the role translates into the communication requirements.
And speaking of, let's say, leaders or executives. So they are the ones who are defining the, direction, and the culture of the org or the business. They're setting the tone pretty much of everything that's happening. So for them, it's very important. I think the softer aspects become super important for leaders and executives.
They need to be, you know, super authentic. They need to be working trust of the people they work with. And they need to have that vision that, you know, that that can bind everyone together, that, you know, is inspiring for people.
So if you see, like, you know, what I’ve detailed are essentially different aspects of good communication. So for a good communicator you need to be clear. You need to be concise. You need to know your audience. You need to connect through your communication.
You need to be able to inspire and based on, you know, the level and the role, there are different aspects that become super critical. But also, I think as one progresses through the levels, these skills are additive like a manager needs to be able to know how to describe the work, and a leader needs to be able to manage different stakeholders and be able to tailor their communication accordingly. So it's it's, kind of, you know, honing different facets of communication, realizing what the, you know, requirement is in that context. And, again, like trying, different ways of doing that and, you know, making it work for you and for others. I think others might have noticed this as well. You're great at taking big concepts and breaking them down, usually into threes.
And of course, this is what we talk about on the channel, frameworks. How do you simplify, clarify your ideas with others? Do you have any go to frameworks that you've collected throughout your career? There's so many things, that come to my mind. For communication, I think, the framework I use is that effective communication essentially comprises of two things.
So skills and, confidence. in terms of skills, I think there are four key skills that are required to be a great communicator. The first is, preparation. The second is to be able to, contextualize the communication, third piece is storytelling, and finally the fourth pieces ability to summarize. Let's go through each of these very quickly.
So preparation is super important right. You need to have a point of view. And that conviction around your point of view will help you massively with your communication. number two, to be able to contextualize.
So being able to understand like what this particular communication is about, is it a practical communication where the, you know, you're trying to solve a problem? Is it a social communication where you're trying to bring people together, trying to inspire people? Is it an emotional communication? where you’re trying to, you know, help somebody out when you're trying to show that you understand their point of view and, you know, give them a certain emotional comfort. typically, like in both situations or in public speaking it's a combination of all of these. But tailoring, I think, depending on the context is something, a useful skill to have. And then comes storytelling. I think we're all, you know, we love stories and, stories are comprised of three things visuals, emotions, connection. So I think, if you think of how we talk, like, to our friends or family, we just talk in a very different fashion when compared to how we talk, let's say in a work setting.
And the difference is that when we talk to our friends and family, we are just being very authentic. We speak from our hearts. And, you know, normally the way we speak is we tend to bring things to life. We help the person like, see what we saw. And, you know, there's a lot of emotion in how we describe things in the way we describe.
And, you know, because it's coming from a place of connecting with who we're talking to. Whereas in work settings, I think a lot of us lose out on the skill. We believe that we need to be professional. We need to be like, you know, we need to appear a certain way. Of course I'm not saying be super chatty, but, to be able to bring the storytelling in, whatever you're sharing, I think that makes a ton of difference.
And finally, I think summarizing, the attention span, especially in, in today's age and time is very less. So it's important to be able to make sure that, you know, your communication lands. And the way to do that is to summarize very effectively or ask some, you know, questions to clarify understanding at the end of whatever you shared.
So I think, these are the skills that, really helps with powerful communication. And the second pillar is confidence. So confidence itself is a skill, right.
Because it's very learnable. and with practice you can get better at being confident. But if I have to break down what confidence means in comunication I would say it's about, two things. One is authenticity. And second is, again, connection.
Authenticity. I think, if you see, like, powerful communicators that just have this ability to sound like themselves, they do not, you know, try to sound very professional or different. They just sound like regular people.
And because they are, you know, being vulnerable, they’re being themselves, they also give the listeners, the audience and whoever they're talking to the room to kind of like go inwards and be themselves and be comfortable. So I think that makes a ton of difference because, you know, people don't remember the facts, but they remember how they felt. The second piece is connection. Right. So, a lot of times I think we especially if somebody is shy, we can think a lot about, like, what do I look like in this? You know, when I'm talking to people, what do I look like? Are they judging me? And it's a lot about, you know, what I come across as vis-a-vis what am I bringing to the table? What does this person want? So I think it's important to be able to really be in the moment, be open to really see people and to try and see how can I add value to this conversation. that's really, you know, the purpose of communication.
Ultimately, communication is not about sharing things. It's about connecting. It's about, you know, what you get through to somebody rather than what you are broadcasting, what you are sharing. Right. So I think that gets accomplished through confidence. So, yeah, I think these are four set of skill sets and, you know, two pillars of confidence.
what I keep in mind, to be a powerful communicator, like, if I have a communication situation, like a quick early on, let's say if I had to, do a public speaking, you know, engagement, I would ask myself that, you know, are these, like, these are like some check points I have to be able to gauge if I did a good job. Communication is about connecting, not just sharing. I love that you bring that humanness to this. And on that note, thank you so much for sharing all of this.
Check out Radha on LinkedIn. I left the link below and I'll see you in the next video, bye.
2024-06-20 20:55
