Transcript – Heuristic Podcast with Vinay Raman

Link to Heuristic Podcast #25 – What’s Old is New Again with Vinay Raman.

Alicia Parr: Hi, this is Alicia with another heuristic podcast. Today we’re talking to Vinay Raman. He is the CEO of CAARMO and a host of the Business Blind Spots: Exposed podcast. Now, Vinay is a very data driven strategist, very strategic, and he has a fascination for how to optimize people in business. I think we have a lot in common here. Anything you’d like to add to that Vinay?

Vinay Raman: Yeah, I find that a lot of the world today, they think of things as ‘ors’, and I like to think of things as ends, how do they exist together. I think that’s where you and I share a common thread of thought.

Alicia Parr: I think we do. Well, today we’re going to at least start off talking about heuristic of what’s old is new again, again and where that came from is, I realized, with all of our fascination very often in the world of new things, new technology, new ideas, new words there’s a lot of things that have been true a very long time, and they’re always true. I sense that, some of these old ideas, some of these old principles probably the time has come to pay more attention to them again. That’s where that came from but the reason that we’re talking about this is because of something that you posted on LinkedIn.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. That post was around grandparents and how your grandparents made you feel. The picture I’m trying to paint here is, you’re sitting on your grandfather’s or your grandmother’s knee, or sitting next to them as they’re reading a story to you in bed or something like that. These idyllic sorts of scenes, how deep those conversations were, but how relevant they were to us as kids and we still remember those times. That’s what comes to mind when I start to think about that the old is new again.

Alicia Parr: Yeah. What ways do you see this, I guess, coming up in how you run your business or maybe in the businesses of some of your clients?

Vinay Raman: Actually, I just did another post today about this idea of effectiveness versus efficiency. As leaders, I feel like we’re so obsessed with this idea of measurement of anything. Funny thing is that, effective is your ability to amplify something and efficiency is about your ability to turn the wheel 10 more times. As leaders, I feel like our job is not to turn the wheel. That’s what we have people we bring in on board for, but it’s to ask questions so that we can create something from nothing.

Go from zero to one, not from one to 10,000 and how that relates back to what is old is new, that’s how my grandparents made me feel. They asked me questions. At the end of that question-and-answer session with my grandparents, there was always some revelation that occurred to me and I go, “aah”, I may have been eight years old, but then I finally realized how I’m supposed to interact with someone at my school or my teacher. There’s an opportunity for us to not be the grandparent, but have that coaching relationship where we allow them to step into a space as their employee or partner customer that they haven’t been before. Does that make sense?

Alicia Parr: Oh, it absolutely does and that’s what broadly these heuristics are designed to do. They’re meant to be reframes. Kind of like, ‘oh, I hadn’t looked at it before.’ I think, maybe related to this, I guess, thematically. I heard or read recently that, parents of younger children when they’re still learning speech, is what baby talk is, is what parents intuitively do is, talk at a level that is just beyond their current capability, not at their current capability, but just beyond and it’s so interesting that it’s intuitive. And then, I think your grandparents intuitive as well is, how can they relay a story, maybe even an old story that helps little Vinay, you will figure out kind of what’s blocking him without just giving him the answer.

Vinay Raman: Yeah, it’s really interesting how that works. There’s this term that’s been used for a long time, ‘servant-leadership’ and I got some exception with that word. That’s a whole different discussion. I prefer this idea of ‘Invitational Leadership.’ I want to invite them to a better higher perspective of looking at things and that says, as a leader, I want to improve my process, not do the process. If I can help them understand why they can step up to that next step on the staircase, or next plateau on the mountain, where they go, oh, now I see it. Now, they know how to crank the wheel at that level, as opposed to the level they were before.

I feel, that perspective is what came from my grandparents amongst other people, leaders and bosses that I’ve worked for. But it’s this idea that they gave me said, there’s a doorway right in front of you. There’s a step-in front of you. You want to take that next step and when that internal revelation occurred, was when I stepped into it with power. Because now all of a sudden, I’m empowered to do something that I believe I should be doing and I think that’s the opportunity we have as leaders.

Alicia Parr: Yeah. Well, I think that’s an old idea that our elders and you’re probably not my age.

Vinay Raman: I’m very close, very close.

Alicia Parr: We’re marching in that direction. That’s part of the role and then maybe archetypically, like in an organization, leaders can certainly take that role. I’ll throw this by you and see what you think. One way to think about a business is the conversion of people’s energy into economic value. If you’re going to think about it that way, then, what do you want to do? You want to help each individual amplify. The word that you use ‘amplify’ their capabilities and align, and all this other stuff. But if they’re not growing, then you’re not actually doing what’s necessary in order to maximize the value of your business.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. This is really interesting. I heard a stat once, and I’m going to change the analogy here a little bit from the grandparents to the coach. Because someone told me once I don’t want my company to run like my family, because my family is dysfunctional. I don’t think anyone should run like it. I think that probably may apply to more than one of us. This person Verne Harnish who wrote this book called Scaling Up. He was saying at this session, he said, I’d rather think of it as a professional sports team. There’re defined lines. There’s how you score, how you lose, fouls, all this kind of stuff.

But because of that, there’s these rules that you understand and as a coach, my job is not to be the striker on the soccer team, or to be the forward on the basketball team. My job is to make sure that Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant are able to unlock their greatest capability. It’s not from a point of view of I’ve been there and done that, because that’s about the ‘how’. That’s their job. But being able to ask them the questions and step out and say, here’s what I’m noticing from the lines that’s continually happening. Did you notice that, that’s happening for them to go, huh? I didn’t realize that every time I’m about to take a three pointer, I blink my eye four times. So, everyone just keeps blocking it.

But it’s this idea of stepping into that coach kind of role where you’re not supposed to know how to make your superstars look like superstars. You’re supposed to give them the space to become the superstar. I think that’s the profound thought that’s existed throughout time. The greatest leaders always just build space for their superheroes to become superheroes.

Alicia Parr: Yeah. I’ve been an athlete a few times in my life and early on I was big into swimming in a small town and we just had the greatest coach. He was so low key, but I look back and I think about like, yes, I have learned a ton from my parents and my family. Absolutely. But, who else? It was coach Jim. He just seemed to have this sense. I remember, I would go to him and I’m like, okay, I’m at the meet, I’m doing this event, how should I pace myself? What are the splits that I should hit? Finally, one day he says, what do you think? I remember thinking, I was like, oh my God, I have to think for myself and then I realized, you know what, I know enough to actually figure that out. I remember this. In my fifties, I remember that. That was how long ago? Probably 40 years ago.

Vinay Raman: How powerful is that! That emotion still resonates with you 10 years later.

Alicia Parr: That’s Right. I realized that, as a swimmer over time, I was like, meh. I was inexperienced and then I would go to these meets, I’d look at all these people and they had these fancy towels and they’re so fast. I’m like, am I ever going to be like that? Well, a few years later I am, and I saw the work and the progression and that really just gave me inspiration. I was able to apply that. I’m like, if I can do that, and if I apply myself, I can also learn that. And then what about that? That’s something that I want to be sure that everyone knows that about themselves.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. Another thing that used to baffle me a lot is this idea of perfection. This pursuit of perfection. I used to think perfection was a destination. I think that’s what I had completely backwards. Perfection is not a destination, it’s a pursuit. It’s a journey. As a 12-year-old, I may master my ability to dribble a soccer ball or swim, do the breaststroke or freestyle, whatever the case may be. I may master it as a 12-year-old, but that doesn’t mean I’m perfect or I’m a perfect for a 12-year-old.

There are still 13 and then 14 and then 18. Hopefully, what I learned as a 12-year-old is not what I’m still repeating and doing as an 18-year-old. Because my level of competition, my level of mastery has increased. I think it’s all about asking the right question. I think, again, back to this whole heuristic of asking from a place of wonder that grandparents saying, so tell me what’s happening in school. Why are you crying? Why are you sad? What’s happening? You tell them and they say, hmm, what do you think led to that? It’s not giving them the answer. It’s just asking them to define this space.

I said, well, maybe I’m just not giving anyone else the ball. That’s why no one’s ever picking me for their team. Maybe that’s what it’s all about, right? Just this idea of constantly giving yourself the space, giving people the space to ask themselves the question where they can have that revelation. Does that resonate with you?

Alicia Parr: Yes, absolutely. As you know, in the work that I do, I work with a lot of business leaders. There’s a lot of that conversation. It’s not that I never give advice, but it’s definitely not where I start. I like it so much better when the solutions emerge from the discussion. It’s very rewarding to see that. Even if it’s something that like, when I wouldn’t have come up with that as this solution, I would’ve taken a completely different approach, but then I get to keep my wonder open and alive. I’m like, well, let’s see what happens here. Because, it’s not the approach I would’ve taken, but who knows? What do I know?

Vinay Raman: Yeah. With my people, the people I actually call them my experts, because they all know the stuff that I may have started the process, though went from the zero to one, but now they’re at step 685,000. I have no idea how they do it anymore. I know the general idea of the process. Like my podcast for example, Janine who runs my podcast for me, I just show up. I don’t know all the magic that happens behind it, but she’s got this process and routine and it’s not my role to tell her to do that.

She figures it all out and she does it. She tells me, Hey Vinay, I want you at this time here and here’s the reading material that you need beforehand. Just spend 10 minutes beforehand reading through that. That’s fabulous. Great, do I need to do anything else? She says, no, stay out of the rest of the details. I’ll take care of it for you.

Alicia Parr: Do you, and then thumbs up, right?

Vinay Raman: That’s right.

Alicia Parr: Question about CAARMO. Are you still focused on the pest control industry in terms of data performance enablement?

Vinay Raman: That has been the focus area. I will tell you, the outpouring of interest from other industries has been staggering. Because ultimately, it’s about people. Helping leaders ask the empathetic question so they can compassionately be a leader and that just comes through the data. The thing that I say is that people are creatures of habit. Data tells you what the habit is. So, if you know what the habit is, it’s a window into their soul.

Alicia Parr: A little bit.

Vinay Raman: The answer to your question is, while we have been spending all of our time marketing pest control, I’ve got transportation companies, bus companies, home healthcare companies, they all come on board because recruiting and intention is a huge, huge issue for them and they want to be able to identify the superpowers that exist within their current organization and try to bring that forward, so they can increase engagement with their employees. So, it’s broadening faster than I would’ve anticipated. Let me put it that way.

Alicia Parr: Wow, I mean, that was so interesting because I think you were open in terms of which way this could go, and then you narrowed your focus and now here it is broadening again, coming around full circle. The things that link these together and make them a right fit is, they’ve got field workers in vehicles. Is that?

Vinay Raman: No. The way we usually start the conversation is, I go to people and say, what are the tasks related? Talk to me like an eight-year-old. What are the tasks related to brushing your teeth? People say, oh, you going to screw the cap and you put toothpaste on a toothbrush. I was like, all right, well, you got to rub the sleep out of your eyes. Well, got to get out of bed, put your slippers on, walk over the bathroom, turn on the water, rinse off your brush.

You could come up with 40 different items before and after of actual brushing your teeth and you got to do two minutes and you got to 30 seconds here. You can build this huge thing in each one of those are individual KPIs. The idea is that, there’s all kinds of measurements, but which ones accurately reflect the behavior, that’s occurring because a series of performances together are the behavior. If someone says, I brush my teeth, well, did you do two minutes? Oh, yeah. Well, we need to measure that too. Well, did you do quadrant number one and did you spit afterwards and how do you know the quality of brushing? There’re so many questions you can ask here.

As an organization lots of times they’ll look at revenue per hour and they’ll say, hey, that’s a litmus test if we’re doing well. Yeah, but if you’re giving them a route that is not, or you’re giving them jobs, or you’re asking them to pick up the phone and call people that are not as qualified leads as somebody else, well, is that really a good indicator of success? Because there’s other coloring factors. It’s actually not anything about the industry. It’s more about all the series of decisions that they make and how they perform amongst those decisions in a behavior that leads to an outcome. Does that make sense?

Alicia Parr: Yeah. I know that a lot of businesses will tend to measure based on outcomes, which is the lagging indicator and what you’re identifying and then also, as you know, we have behavior scientists which remind us of the same thing. What are the leading indicators to that outcome?

Vinay Raman: That’s right.

Alicia Parr: If we even bring that back to athletics process goals versus outcomes goals is what I remember it was called. You hold yourself tighter to your process goals knowing that the outcome goals will follow within range because there’s things that you can’t control that are going to contribute to whether you accomplish your outcome or not. But if you do the right steps and you focus on delivering well and doing the preparation well, or brushing your teeth with the proper process and timing.

Vinay Raman: Yeah, that’s right. When I used to play soccer, I used to play in the back. I used to be a right fullback. But I was a horse. I could run forever at full speed. I just had lots of endurance. The ball would start moving back from our goal. We were cleared out and I would make runs down the sideline and I was probably faster than maybe 85% or 90% of the people. The first number of times I did that, the midfielders and the forwards like, what is this guy doing?

But I was already on a tear and lots of times what I brought to the table, there was that endurance, it was not being utilized. [unclear 00:18:29] the coach started saying, well, hold on a second, Vinay just keeps doing this. Let’s just feed him the ball and all of a sudden, as a full back, I’m scoring goals and the other team is like, what the hell just happened.

Alicia Parr: They weren’t prepared for that.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. The forward is like, I’m not supposed to be covering this guy. I’m supposed to be scoring goals, but now all of a sudden, it’s kind of a chink in their armor because the team was able to leverage some of my talents. That’s a personal story there, right? But consider, if every company was able to see those superpowers of each one of their employees and leverage it. Oh my gosh. What a beautiful world that is, right?

Alicia Parr: Exactly. Well, that’s the vision. Unleashing people energy in and for small organizations, that’s the vision.

Vinay Raman: Absolutely. That’s what we do. We take data and we start help them figure out who are the superheroes in the company and what are their superpowers and it’s objective unbiased data that shows. Here’s what it is.

Alicia Parr: Collect the data. Because usually it’s so hard to collect the data that you need.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. The good thing is 95% of the data that we want is already in place. Most companies have a CRM system, they have a work order and service management system, they have a net promoter score or customer service system. Revenue system. I mean, way of tracking payments. All of that stuff is there. We actually just pull all that stuff together. When we pull those things together and put them on the graph, I think you’ve seen some of those. All of a sudden, the behavior starts to emerge and you can see how Jack does this and Sally does this and Joe does this. Ah, I know how to support Jack, Sally, Joe, separately and individually.

Alicia Parr: It’s almost like, it was a type of business intelligence tool that I guess integrates the data in a way so that you can make smart people decisions.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. That’s exactly the way I think of it. On a post that I put out in LinkedIn little earlier today is, just this idea that as a leader, I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights that I’ve had that I wondered if I’m making them the right decision. Do I have the right people on my team? Am I coaching them the right way? Am I supporting them? Gosh, should I be working harder? Or am I pointed in the right direction? Just all these things, circling and cycling through my head causing this self-doubt.

What if we could just take that all away and say here’s what’s happening, and now you say, ah, I’m going to focus on this. I’m going to focus on this and I’m going to focus on this. Because, you know for each individual person what exactly do they need and where they’re laggers and when they’re leaders. So, you can build custom training plans, coaching support plans for each individual, each unit within the company.

Alicia Parr: Are clients doing that sort of thing? They’re taking that data and then they’re implementing customized development plans?

Vinay Raman: Yeah. That’s what’s the really fun stuff is, when we start seeing the light bulb go off in the leader’s head. I’m doing one for some technicians for one company and they’ve gained about 33 technicians and they’re starting to see how 33 technicians are completely different. They see what’s the average for all of the technicians. This is the sort of the archetype and how everyone compares to that average and where they’re really good and where they need support.

Now, they’re starting to have different conversations with each one of them based on where it’s going and because it’s based on data that’s real, they can see day over day, week over week, how that’s changing, if that training is actually making a difference or not. Because the behavior is changing. Now they’re saying, hey, well, can I do this for my senior management team? Can I do it for my marketing team? Can I do it for my sales? Absolutely. It’s all people behaviors.

Alicia Parr: Yeah. How do you get the data? You said just from CRMs.

Vinay Raman: Early on with this particular customer I’m talking about, they’ve gotten into a routine because they want to keep costs a little bit more contained. So, we put some of the work on their side, which is, every day they go through and export CSVs at the end of the day. They export it from all our systems. They go drop it into our folder. Our systems go through, read everything because it’s the same exact format, reads the columns and rows and sucks it in.

In that process, from they’re dropping it in to when it’s sucked into the system takes about eight minutes. It’s updated. So, almost every day we’ve got updated data in the system. For larger customers, who’ve got more automated systems have got APIs that we can tap into. We just connect directly into that. It’s just automatic connections.

Alicia Parr: Wow.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. It makes it easy and then the next day, you see this is what happened yesterday and it’s nice to be able to make decisions. But it’s this idea that you’re not spending your time collecting information. You’re spending your time having conversations with people which is, I think, that’s part of what I enjoy about leadership is learning how I can get them to see it the way I do.

Alicia Parr: Well, the challenge with these approaches is the data collection. It can be onerous. It seems like you’ve figured out a way to use the technology that’s already used.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. What’s something that’s been appearing to us a lot lately as we’ve started to find these things called constraints. If I will take for example, this company, they’ve got four dimensions on which they evaluate a person in this technician role. Their efficiency as a technician, the number of referrals that they bring in the door, their net promoter score and finally their driver behavior because they drive a vehicle. Those are the four dimensions made up of a series of different KPIs.

We roll those all together to come up with one score. Someone’s a 53 out of a hundred, someone’s a 78 out of a hundred. But what we’re also finding is that, look, a technician can’t make more revenue per hour if the distance between their visits is 18 miles versus two miles. Where does that come from? Somebody else owns that ability to bring the clustering of the jobs. That comes from sales. We start to actually say, who owns that KPI? Sales owns that KPI. So, we bring those KPIs as influencers of the score of this person. So now, we’ve got a constraint score, and I’m saying this guy is on four dimensions, they’ve got a hundred, a hundred, a hundred, and then they’ve got a 20 because that’s coming from this other team. That’s what’s holding them back.

Now we’re starting to find out where those dependencies lie in the organization that are holding people back from fully becoming that superhero. There’s always been that felt sense for that person on that role, that frustration, we can now point to where that frustration starts, which is exciting stuff for me.

Alicia Parr: Well, and then your business leaders can tell the difference between complaining to complain and complaint that’s based on something actually happening in fact.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. Another thing that has started to happen is, we’ve started to take a look at these KPIs and we’ve started to see how much variance there is in an outcome. If we can start to see how much variance there is, as in, let’s say, I want to do 10 of something. I want to make 10 stops per day and some days it’s six, some days it’s as high as 14. We’ve got a lot of variance there.

Well, you can keep telling them, hey, work harder, but because of various other factors, which we can show what that is, are you going to get between six and 14 every day? But as a leader, I just want 10. So, now I know what process is holding my people back. If I can figure out the process, that’s holding them back, well, that’s where I can step in as a leader and say, all right, it’s time for me to improve that process so that every day they’re getting between 9 to 11. That’s much tighter. I can improve that process. I could reduce the friction because if I reduce friction, my people have the capability more being more successful.

Alicia Parr: Well, yeah, I know there’s a busy season and people get really worn out from the long days during the busy season.

Vinay Raman: We’re talking to a transportation company that runs a major municipal fleet in Northern Virginia. They get dinged as a county whenever they miss a stop. As in a bus doesn’t go to a location because they’re running behind and they don’t find out till a month later. It’s tough to go to the driver afterwards and say, hey, you missed four stops and they’re like, I made 18,000 stops this month. Keep telling me 30 days later. They’re like, okay. Alright, fine, thanks.

And then, go drive off. But the ability to be able to see that within maybe even four or six hours or even 24 hours, that’s go to them and say, hey, what happened here? Well, someone was getting on with a wheelchair and I had to stop. We didn’t know that. So, it’s not necessarily their fault. It was an accessibility issue that was holding them back. Just uncovering all this stuff and being able to empathize with where your employees are in their plight. I feel like that’s where the magic happens.

Alicia Parr: Well, I think the benefit of getting feedback rapidly on whether something’s working or not working or why it’s not working is, that’s very powerful and it’s always been very powerful. I think that’s one thing that I liked about sport and I was not a ball sports person. I was, I’m an endurance athlete. Like a stupid engine that lasted a very long time, as long as you just point me in one direction. But what was really great, it was so easy to measure.

There’s time and distance and yes, there are other variables but it’s a constrained set of variables and you can definitely make some assessments and, if you’re the one out there doing it, you know how you felt like. Oh, today I ran a 5k in 19 minutes and 58 seconds. The next time, I did it in 20 minutes and 36 seconds. Let’s say it’s the same course. I’m like oh I felt like, doo-doo the second time. So, obviously there was something. Or it was really, really hot humid or whatever and you really know why right in the moment. Whereas at work, a lot of this stuff just gets lost. Or, the person may be doing it understands it but by the time they’re getting feedback on how to improve their performance, it’s gone.

Vinay Raman: That’s really interesting because I was a medium distance runner. A hundred-meter dash. I just didn’t have the upper body mass to keep up with some of those guys. The last 25 yards, I was gaining on them, but the first 75 yards, upper body mass made all the difference in the world. But you put me in a 400-meter dash with them by 200 meters, I’m 10 lengths ahead of them.

Alicia Parr: Now you’re going, you’re warmed up.

Vinay Raman: Yeah. But then at the same time, you put me into a mile I’m getting bored by then. I’m like, okay, is this thing over yet?

Alicia Parr: Oh, my goodness.

Vinay Raman: I think, just to your point, different people have different sort of strengths and being able to see where that is, that between 200 and 400, man, that’s where you put Vinay.

Alicia Parr: Well, it’s so interesting. Because going to track meets I think was, I only ran track the one year because I was swimming it was so neat. Because you could just see by the body types, middle distance, shot put. Distance runner. You could just tell by looking at people. It is so interesting that different body types are so optimized and yes, the training amplifies that difference for sure.

I firmly believe that. Like you, I firmly believe that, that applies not just in sport and athletics, but it applies in the work setting as well. Let’s get somebody analogy wise. Let’s get Vinay with his middle-distance endurance and amount of speed and body type and put him in middle distance and then if we ask him to do a mile every so often, we understand. It’s outside of optimal.

Vinay Raman: Where I love this analogy is going or it’s sort of the direction of this analogy is this. There’s a lot of talk around diversity, equity and inclusion these days. What we just talked about there has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that you got the right qualifications to do a role. You could be black, yellow, white, purple, polka dot, whatever. That doesn’t matter.

Alicia Parr: Nope.

Vinay Raman: It’s that, are you a middle-distance runner? Because that’s what I’m looking for. Or long distance or whatever the case may be. Being able to see that in an unbiased and objective way so that you can put the right people who’ve got the capacity and the hunger to do it. Again, I love this. I feel like that’s where the magic occurs.

Alicia Parr: I think so. No, I don’t think so. I know so. This is like, that is my like. What I’m about, man. Let’s figure out how to help that happen.

Vinay Raman: That’s your jam.

Alicia Parr: That is my jam. That is my purpose. That is what I’m here to do. I figured out. It’s a gift. I was very lucky in my thirties to come across triathlon. I’m not super great at any of the three things, but I can put them together and that was a gift for me. Because I’m like, I knew I could be this good at something and what a gift to find something that you can work at and not just improve myself. I could try to improve myself in basketball too. I would never be great. To find something that you’ve got this natural talent and interest in and then work really hard to see where things can go and that is a rewarding experience that I want for everyone.

Vinay Raman: Recently, I’ve never played ultimate Frisbee my whole life. My wife played a lot in college and things. We wanted to get our kids into something. Our younger kids they’re 12, 11 and eight. We wanted to find something and we put them in ultimate Frisbee and she’s like, hey, why don’t you try? I was like, ah, I’ll give it a shot. It is perfect for people who got middle distance speed because you’re going 50-yard sprints. All of a sudden, there’s this older 40-year-old guy who’s just running laps around people who are 20 years old. I feel fantastic.

They’re like, just chuck it, Vinay will get there. I’m like, yeah. But imagine if you had all your employees feeling like that, right. You were just kind of tossing them the ball, you’re throwing them the Frisbee, you’re getting them to be that second leg or the anchor leg of that relay or whatever the case, the analogy is here. But they’re just in their own. You don’t have to ask them do things; they’ll go faster than you could ever imagine. That’s where they resonate.

Alicia Parr: I have an ops and compliance manager and she was saying to me yesterday, she’s like, ah, I love a really good PDF fill-in form. I was like, good. I’m glad you’re on my team. Thank God. I don’t relate. I appreciate.

Vinay Raman: I love that. I don’t relate, but I appreciate. I want to have to use that.

Alicia Parr: Yeah. That’s awesome. Well as we said, we let the conversation go all over the place, but I think that, there’s a lot of old ideas and principles that have threaded our conversation together. I appreciate your time. Is there anything that you were thinking about in our conversation as it relates to, as old is new again, that you would like to share before we wrap up?

Vinay Raman: Yeah. I’d like to people to harken back to some of those firsts. The first time they did something. Instead of them always thinking about doing it again and just cranking the wheel harder, go back to that experience and that feeling that you had the first time you learned something. The first time that your older brother let you play, go skateboarding or play basketball with his friends and how you felt part of something here that was bigger than yourself and it just made you feel good. I think as a leader, if you can start to think about that how you can revisit those old feelings and how to help people on your team feel that way. There’s some power.

Alicia Parr: There it is. There’s the magic.

Vinay Raman: There’s some power.

Alicia Parr: Yeah. I love it. You’ve just got this talent that’s different, but I think you and I are a lot of the same thing.

Vinay Raman: Agree.

Alicia Parr: That’s awesome.

Vinay Raman: Thank you. Thank very much for the opportunity to talk with you.

Alicia Parr: Pleasure is mine.

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