StormtheNorm #4: The Future belongs to the Fast

Narayan Devanathan: Welcome to Episode 20 of storm the norm, fortnightly podcast where we pick up norms that come in the way of businesses succeeding in a disruptive world. I'm Narayan

Anisha Motwani: and I'm Anisha Motwani

Narayan Devanathan: Storm the norm is now brought to you in association with Grant Thornton Bharat and includes GT Insights, a special capsule from a GT expert. Onto today's episode now, I want to start with a rapid fire quiz on the norm we are storming today. Are you ready?

Anisha Motwani: Okay, I'll give it a shot.

Narayan Devanathan: All right, here you go then. Question one. Which of the following companies was the fastest to a billion dollar valuation? Is it a) Amazon b) Google c) Tesla d) Apple

Anisha Motwani: must have been such a long time ago Narayan on I remember reading is that the billion has become a trillion and the fastest company to become a trillion dollar valuation was apple. I think

Narayan Devanathan: you've neatly sidestep that correct answer, but I'll come back to it. Here's question two in his world record, creating 100 metre sprint, Usain bolt clock. What was it around 9.52 seconds. Who came second ? Was it a) Asafa Powell b) Tyson j. c) Carl Lewis. d) Ben Johnson,

Anisha Motwani: who is members number two narayan.

Narayan Devanathan: Question number three. Which of the following happened on July 4? Is it a) America got its independence from Britain in 1776? b) Sir George Everest, after Mount Everest with named was born in 1790. c) The Louisiana Purchase from the French was announced in 1803 P or D) Swami Vivekananda died on this day in 1902.

Anisha Motwani: Well, this one's simple narayan of cause it's America's big Freedom Day.

Narayan Devanathan: All right, well, that's good, well, confident. Answer. So well done.

Anisha Motwani: Thank you. I have a feeling you weren't just testing my fastest finger reflexes, though. What were you upto ?

Narayan Devanathan: Right Anisha. I wasn't, I was actually trying to see if you are going to own the future. After all, as we receive it today's norm, the future belongs to the fast or does it?

Anisha Motwani: Well, I don't know about me being the fastest. But I certainly didn't remember who came in second after the Usain bolt. That's certainly an indication that future generations won't remember anyone but the fastest.

Narayan Devanathan: On the surface, it certainly does seem so doesn't it. This norm that the future belongs to the fast, feels as old as time itself, is articulated it with a fable of the hare and the tortoise. Pioneers throughout time became rulers by being the first to get somewhere or to conquer new lands. In business, we've had the idea of the first mover advantage for a long time. And in a frenzied, refuelled new economy, it definitely feels like you're a loser if you're not the first out of the blocks,

Anisha Motwani: All of that is true. But I have a feeling you're going to say but none of that matters.

Narayan Devanathan: Yes, but none of that seems to matter when you examine the norm just a little bit more closely. Let me take the other two questions I asked you. And you suddenly beat me to the to the finish line there. Tesla is certainly the fastest to a billion valuation. But as you rightly pointed out, the first $2 trillion market cap, that's apple or Tesla, and Apple has been around far longer than all of the others. And the answer to the third question, you are right. But so are all the other three answers. All four occurred on July 4. But the one answer you remember, and perhaps that the future will also remember, is the oldest that is America's independence. So what does that say about the norm?

Anisha Motwani: So are you implying that we may be confused in speed with what successfully endures?

Narayan Devanathan: I am wondering about that, Anisha, there is obviously a time and a place for fads. I look at fads in the same way as I look at a ramp walk at a fashion show. They're both things we throw at the wall to see which ones will stick. And the ones that stick are not necessarily the ones we throw first at the wall.

Anisha Motwani: But has a nature embedded in us indelibly that the slow get eaten up by the fast survival of the fastest is just merely a variation of survival of the fittest isn't that so?

Narayan Devanathan: It's interesting you say that? I guess the key is to remember that fast is only one variant of it when it comes to survival, and that patients are what have allowed a myriad species to survive and thrive in the natural world. And while on one level, it's the same with humans. We must also remember that our world is governed by not just natural laws, but social, economic, political, cultural ones that require us to pursue things not just for survival but for other reasons that can only be classified as human, and it applies to individuals as it applies to business.

Anisha Motwani: I agree that social economic, political, cultural laws shape us. Isn't that why fast does seem to be winning in defining the future. Look at all around us. That's what we seem to celebrate the fastest to become a billionaire, a unicorn to market. The fastest finger on quiz shows the fastest to a T-20 century in a cricket

Narayan Devanathan: It is and perhaps that's precisely why it's ripe for storming as a norm Anisha.

Anisha Motwani: Oh! so that's what you were building up to all this while and I'm warming up to this idea now.

Narayan Devanathan: Okay, then well, I think we're in a good place to pick up speed. If you remember, in our annual special episode number 19. We had talked about the juxtaposition of fast and slow and how the pandemic made us in voluntarily choose slow. By putting life on pause. Yes, I'd say now's as good a time as any to examine if that was just a blip. Or if this norm that the future belongs to the fast, can be and it it must be stormed. And to do that, we have perhaps the best spokesperson for slow in the country today. Nilesh misra is one of India's leading changemakers, who has introduced new and socially impactful ideas, constantly ideas that have positively impacted millions of people. He has led the creation of SLOW, a community that believes in mindful living through the consumption of decent content, decent products, and decent experiences.

Anisha Motwani: does seem like just the best person, we could have the storm this nom, absolutely.

Narayan Devanathan: Thank you so much, nilesh, for joining us today and this episode of storm the norm. I'm delighted to have you here. We'll jump straight in. For years now, from boardrooms to the World Economic Forum in Davos from homes made breakfast to grab on the go, to T-20 matches where everything happens in a whirlwind. We're seeing clues everywhere, that the future belongs to the fast. And if you only follow the money, the economic angle, seems hard to disagree with that norm, what's your take on it.

Nilesh Misra: So thank you for having me. And I think along all these different moments that you mentioned, there is a parallel set of moments that I would like to present, which is when you watch screaming news anchors on television, and cringe when you watch regressive primetime content on GEC channels and cringe when you come to know that your honey might have Chinese sauce, when your child might be standing up on watching Shin Chan, or some other kind of content, which he or she should not be watching. When you are sold the idea or the fear that if you do not, if you have your child coding at four or five, they're ruined for life. When you go to a shopping mall, which all seems identical when you go to a pub where you cannot listen to the person you have in front of you. And when you don't want all of that what you want is slow. We all go through these moments, every single day. And we've just not defined it. We've just not quantified it. We've just not put a value to sort of what we're talking about how many? How many people I would say two in every three people want slow. But they don't have it yet. They don't have it in one place for sure. They've had it in scattered places, of course, you will have someone selling organic food or a nice, quiet resort to go to where you can watch the sunset or some decent content. But there's no single place for it. And I think so I would disagree with this norm and say that the overwhelming majority of viewers consumers, they want Slow, they have not been offered it. It's not that and slow is not about slow is not saying that. You just physically slow down. Not at all. It's not saying that not watch T-20 match or, you know, so I feel that it's a way of looking at life and that circles back to business that circles back to who you are as people.

Anisha Motwani: So Nilesh. You think that there are enough of your kinds out there in the world who are ready to slow down, because as much as it is a battle of slow versus fast in reality, it also seems like it's a battle of perception. What will it take for actually, India to have more like you to make this a universally accepted norm?

Nilesh Misra: I am not the exception. I'm just talking about it, i am not the exception. And I think, yes, it is a question of perception. But I am living in my village, at my home, and then the name of my home is slow. I shoot conversations here that are watched by millions and millions of people around the world, the same people who also watch T-20, watch OTT shows, watch, Amazon, Netflix, I'm talking about millions and millions of people. But like I said, it's not been brought together yet. There's not been, because what I'm saying is actually subversive. What I'm saying is that there are hundreds of millions of dollars of investment coming into businesses that are actually promoting, you know, things that need quick gratification. And Fair enough, you need those hundreds of millions of downloads. And that's how success is measured in the streams and the downloads. And but I would, I would urge that same world to look at how long a viewer spends on a slow interview. It's the same person as the same consumer from that quote, unquote, fast world who is watching a two hour interview. It's not an interview, it's like a film, who's giving me two hours of his or her life, watching a conversation that has no controversy that has nothing to deleting. That is just an immersive experience. So if it's the Battle of attention, I won in those two hours, and slow won in those two hours. So I think I think this needs to be spoken about more this needs to be there has to be an activist zeal in reclaiming slow

Anisha Motwani: Nilesh, the word always loves a contrarian view, okay. And when it comes to enjoying and listening, it's one thing because it's like, it's like a fantasy. It's like, you know, I want to aspire to something like that. But converting that fantasy to a fact of my life that requires some doing. So how do you unpeel this part?

Nilesh Misra: So I think converting it to reality is not at all, as hard as it seems. And now, what our experience through the pandemic is supporting me and it's here to prove my point that yes, you can live that life you can slow down, and not everybody needs to move to a village. Going down is not about, you know, just going and growing vegetables and having them known not everybody will have this opportunity. But we can turn slow, wherever we are, and you know, whoever we are, and every person's every consumers. perception of slow is different, like our perception of nostalgia is different if we are 13 or if we are 80 but there is certainly nostalgia.

Narayan Devanathan: So actually, that's exactly what I was going to bring up the legendary. You've already refuted this point that, you know, this is not a not merely an effect of or an after effect of the pandemic. Even though for many people, this was an involuntary interruption to our lives. But it sounds to me like this is not merely being built upon nostalgia. I mean, your food, your honey, the villagers looking to set up outside their door and those don't sound like a return to something so much as a new way of being. What would you say?

Pallavi Joshi Bakhru: Absolutely. I think nostalgia is a subset of that. Nostalgia means simplicity. Nostalgia means becoming unhurried in this sense. So to me when I narrate stories on radio, and I found that it had touched a chord it had, you know, uncovered a layer of obon dust and reveal who we actually are. We're all small towners in some way or the other. It was about that it was about becoming unhurried, uncluttered, more rooted, I would say

Narayan Devanathan: That's kind of connect the dots with another norm that we spoke about Anisha and I spoke about which is for long businesses also having relentlessly pursuing the idea of growth at all costs. And one of the things we were advocating was De-growth as a strategy for progress, not just for more profits or more revenues, right? to actually say, it's okay to register and report lesser revenue, if actually, you enable more progress for your employees, for your customers for the world, for all your stakeholders. The way I'm looking at it connecting back to what you're saying is, in some way, are we saying we are ready to make too with less?

Pallavi Joshi Bakhru: And I'm delighted that you brought this up. I think that this, this norm needs to be questioned about what is growth? And what is success? And what are investors and corporations really running after? Now, I think unless the impact prism is put through everything we do, and that impact can be anything is it about feeling great after watching some lovely content or feeling saturated after having a great millet cookie or going to a place? But the impact? The question, the problem is that people like me, who only and only look at life, work business through what impact it caused, and not through the numbers it garnered are out of place right now. And I think I'm, I'm out in many in whatever small way I can change that. But what is it that investors are are propagating, apps that encourage gambling, apps that force kids to be to become coders or think that their lives are ruined? What what I mean, isn't, this needs to change because consumers also want the good things? I think the assumption here is that you will make money. If you sell this immediacy, I think this needs to be this needs to be questioned, what are our investors? Who are how are they shaping the lives of the consumers? Who their investing companies are reaching out?

Anisha Motwani: So this is exactly, where, you know, my question was coming from in a in an economy where GDP numbers are driven by consumption. When you spoke about success in the commercial sense. You said maybe it will also become successful. Now when there are lives at stakes and livelihoods that stakes and large industry is at stake and these know what pandemic has done to the economy. What kind of a roadmap Do you see where some of these ships become more almost like norms, as against a niche that is appealing to a few? Well,

Pallavi Joshi Bakhru: I run down connection, and I will definitely from that context. India never had more talent than it has now in its villages. It's been completely unnoticed. This is a golden opportunity for rural entrepreneurship. When millions and millions of people returned home, we were classist enough and hypocritical enough to call them migrant labour will most Yeah, of course, millions of migrant migrant labour, but in UP I have the numbers, at least 1/3 of them are skilled people, they are beauticians, they are gym instructors, they're accountants, they are bakers, they are chefs, and they're back. And they have brought back a work ethic of urban India, it's like when somebody comes back from the west, they bring back a certain work ethic. I think that that could spur a huge, huge growth opportunity in rural India, where new entrepreneurship can emerge, new ideas can emerge. But that's not being looked at. Because what we want is, you know, you launch, you launch a music video and you want 100 million views. That's it, that song might be forgotten in, whatever. That's the that's the philosophy. We have. I think, if industries were to look towards rural India right now, and in terms of entrepreneurship, in terms of these new ideas that are emerging, you could unlock huge value for themselves, for the corporations and for the country. So I think some of these counter narratives which exist, but are not being looked at, it will be great to you know, give them some respect. Now,

Narayan Devanathan: there's so much to unpack here, but at the same time, this was simply stated. So I do hope that kind of impact you've had, even in just this conversation, we're able to put it out there for our audience as well.

Nilesh Misra: Thank you so much. And I'm really happy that there's two more of you who also want to slow down their lives.

Anisha Motwani: So Narayan What's the single most important insight you're taking out of everything nilesh said,

Narayan Devanathan: it's a bit of an epiphany. But it's so clear after having heard him. And it's this 'Slow is not a time or a place, or even tastes, slow is about making deliberate choices that make your world and potentially the world better. Slow is choosing positivity and shedding negativity. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that slow is an act of positive sacrifice'

Anisha Motwani: positive sacrifice, that's an interesting phase.

Narayan Devanathan: If you let go of the things you don't need, that don't bring you joy, so that, at the end, you're only left with what you love to fill your world with, to fill the world with. And as a way of being, I would go so far as to say it's the art of doing what matters without regret or guilt, or a feeling of merely following the herd. What about you Anisha? can Slow win against fast? Is it a viable way of business and of life? What Hacks do you have for our listeners?

Anisha Motwani: This is one of those norms, you know, where you say it's easier said than done. And, and therefore, the hacks become so much more personalised and dependent on the kind of effort that you're willing to put in and the mindset that you're willing to shift. The hack that I have is that it's not about technology. It's about it's about technique that can help you slow down. People think that technology has made life fast. But there are some others who believe that technology has also allowed us to do things certain things fast, so that we can give ourselves time to do things that we enjoy doing at leisure than at pace. But I want to park the debate aside for the moment. It's not about technology, whether making it faster or slow. It's about what techniques can you adopt that can help you slow down? I want to use a very apt analogy of basketball. to amplify this. In basketball, you know, what's the difference between the best players at any level and those who aren't quite as good?

Narayan Devanathan: I am intrigued.

Anisha Motwani: the ability to play the game at different speeds. In a practice session a basketball coach did a drill where the players were asked to start dribbling from a standstill, accelerate quickly for two to three dribbles around 10 feet, then go slow down to a walk while dribbling some more and finally accelerated full speed into a jump shot. And what do you think happened?

Narayan Devanathan: I'm afraid I don't know. Because I never played basketball

Anisha Motwani: Every players struggled to execute the drill properly. And which part was the hardest for them, the walking,

Narayan Devanathan: Wow

Anisha Motwani: they would go fast the start just as the drill called for, but then the players would only slow down ever so slightly to a fast jog instead of walking. Why is slowing down so hard for young players, most young players truly believe that they must be going full speed at all times in order to beat the defender. What they don't understand is that it's not the top and dash speed that enables an offensive player to get free. The other the technique to deceive and change pace that truly separates great players from lesser ones. And when I heard about this analogy, and I said this is so true of our world of business, how can you improve your ability to control your own pace, businesses need to realise that everything done at peak speed results in employees that are out of control. The best employees are those that have begun to understand that you can't just work at high RPM all the time, businesses have to teach them that technique to dial it back, set the defence up, get them thinking one thing while getting ready to do something else. Improving the ability to control their pace and change it at will is what will separate great leaders from the rest. A very, very personal, right from individual breathing techniques to certain business practices. And we could do a whole session on that and a whole podcast episode on that. But it's important to get the technique to be able to control the pace.

Narayan Devanathan: Anisha you know, I'm a marathoner. And at the heart of successfully running marathons is exactly the same thing of controlling your pace, but I don't think I ever noticed the lesson that was there for me to be one but thank you for bringing this out.

Anisha Motwani: Interesting you as a marathoner as well. Okay. The next one for me is actually the more difficult one. We have to give ourselves the permission to go slow. The most difficult part of going slow is losing the guilt and self permission. legitimising slow is hard. We've been trained for decades to be busy work long hours, say yes, listen to the siren call of more and more money, more likes links followers, we are trained to be more efficient to cram more into each minute each hour each day, the cult of speed has pushed us to a breaking point, we are almost living on the edge of exhaustion. And we are constantly reminded by our bodies and minds that the pace is spinning out of control and jet, we don't stop. So we need to give ourselves the right to determine our own tempos and control the rhythms of our own life without feeling guilty, we must get back in touch with our inner tortoise. Without the guilt and without the fear of missing out.

Narayan Devanathan: I love those two phases in the cult of speed as the enemy and our inner Tortoise is what will get us across the line at our pace. What's number three?

Anisha Motwani: Know, it's important to know that it pays to pace your passion. And let me take an example to explain this. You know, I've seen so many women in the kitchen who love cooking. And they experiment with amazing recipes and churn out some really young food. But that's where it stops, they leave the kitchen in a mess, the presentation is like really, they'll just dump it there. The entire effort of a beautifully cooked to recipes just seems so half baked, if the, if the peripherals around it are also not given equal attention and time. So it's almost like saying that you are passionate about something, but you're compromising on something else, which is not your area of interest. And in watching this, it reminds me of times in my career, when I discovered a passion for part of the job, I would like to see to do that part, to the best of my ability with all my passion, only the sweep other parts of the job that I didn't enjoy as much to the side forgetting delegating, or under loving that part of the role. Only problem is just like those women in the kitchen. In doing this, you missed the whole story. Finding one part of the process, we loved, we missed the other parts. Knowing your pace will help you enjoy the full process and make the outcome so much more refined at all levels. There will be a sense of pride in it. So for me pacing your passion so that you are giving it full attention, not just to the call, but to all aspects of it would for me be a hack that I would want to remind myself off.

Narayan Devanathan: I think this should be kind of inscribed on a plaque and given to all leaders Not just for slow, but I think it's a great eye for creativity in all aspects.

Anisha Motwani: Yeah, absolutely. We just just pay attention to what we love and ignore the rest of it. But the final output gets compromised. Yes. The next one has been deliberated and discussed a lot. But you know I think it is it's so fundamental that you know I might not be doing justice. If I don't bring this out. We have to take money out of the equation. Money is important. But money is not the goal. It's only a consequence of success. We know it is essential to good life just like freedom, freedom and good health as hygiene as that. But putting money as your goal will only lead you to a frustrating and never ending quest for success. You will never achieve an experience to happiness and success you'll only have a pile of money. So instead of aiming for money, aim for things that will make you happy. Like I said, it sounds very cliche, but we have to you know dedicate ourselves to a profession and work hard to be the best at what we do if we give it our best if we are totally committed. And of course, if we are lucky to do the kind of work that we enjoy doing. Even if we don't, we have to give it our best. The money will surely come later as a consequence of your great work and professionalism.

Narayan Devanathan: As eloquently put Anisha as nilesh was talking about his own experience, having moved to a village outside of Lucknow and pursuing his passion,

Anisha Motwani: if we make a case against fast growth, I think nilesh did that too. By emphasising and constantly reminding ourselves of the various benefits of deliberate and responsible growth. And, and we all know that I'll just I'll just list them out. We know that slow emphasises process and choice. It's not about being lazy, stupid or indecisive. It's about knowing that the ends don't justify the means. How you get where you're going is a choice, and it's a choice you get to make. Only you can decide what kind of journey you'd like to take. We also know that slowest smartly balanced and in the end more profitable Fast profit and short term thinking is why business and capitalism has failed humanity and the planet. I also believe that prosperity is a far more meaningful measure of success than profit. When we all slow down, we connect more deeply with ourselves, each other and with our communities. And that's where real change happens.

Narayan Devanathan: So you know what, what this brought to mind was something that I think we've kind of alluded to in one of the episodes in the past. Yes, sir, it touches upon the, the old Greek philosophy of time, and the two concepts of time, right, the Greeks looked at the linear Kronos, but also this other concept called Kairos. This is the time when special events happen in the present moment. We live life based only on chronological time. And because of that, that makes everything fast, because our journey is based only on chronological sequential time alone.

Anisha Motwani: You are so right, chronological time is always based upon a start and an end. And it is in our human nature to reach the end as fast as possible. Isn't that so?

Narayan Devanathan: Yeah. So while reflecting on the five hacks, and I have an unusual role model to bring up here, I'll just take 30 seconds for this, as much as every one of these case is so perfectly relevant for business. One person I think, who has embodied this all his life, is one of my favourite authors, Ruskin bond, I think you know, from technique to giving himself permission to slow down to pacing, his passion, to getting money out of the equation, when he actually became rich, only at the age 54. But he started writing at 16. And then that's it. He took money out of the equation, but he made a case for deliberate growth, not fast growth. I think we can all pick up each of these five hacks that you have so insightfully called out and apply it in our own way. So in fact, fully hacked is always a nice,

Anisha Motwani: Thank you. Narayan

Narayan Devanathan: All right, it's time now for storming the norm with GT insights where we will have the GT expert, Pallavi Joshi Bakhru telling us how business can specifically help storm this norm. We have with us a Pallavi Joshi Bakhru partner, Grant Thornton Bharat, Pallavi wears multiple hats at GT and leads the private client services, as well as the India-UK corridor business.

Pallavi Joshi Bakhru: Thank you Narayan. A pleasure to be here.

Narayan Devanathan: Thank you. So what advice would you give them in terms of deploying slower strategies?

Pallavi Joshi Bakhru: You know, the way I read slow is, it's the ability to take decisions which are more deliberate, which are more conscious, and are more responsible. So it's not necessarily at the you know, by sacrificing speed. But I think it's just being more conscious of what you're doing. And this is increasingly becoming important because of the stress on sustainability within the corporate world. My advice for future strategies for businesses would be one, have a vision, I think, you know, increasingly, people want to work for organisations that have a purpose, right? And equally, the outside world also wants to know, what do you stand for? So it's, you know, important to define that, then, of course, is the focus on sustainability. You know, that's completely non negotiable. People need to start evaluating your people practices, your position on diversity, and not just diversity on the board. But you know, across the organisation, the shop floor included, you know, the impact that you're making on the environment, how do you deal with your waste and affluence? How do you conserve water? How are you switching to more green energy in your operations, I think the other piece of advice would be to think long term, you know, we tend to forget that the organisations are going to be around a lot longer than we are. So, you know, our, our decision making doesn't necessarily have to be influenced by the quarterly, you know, reporting format. And then the other thing would be, I think, to be inclusive, and lastly, to be nimble, because, you know, you have to be able to embrace change and stay relevant. So really, you know, businesses really need to update it to, you know, what I call go up that accountability ladder.

Narayan Devanathan: So, I'm going to join three thoughts as I think the key stones of the advise you are giving Have a vision, make sure sustainability is a big part of it, and be agile enough to ensure you're delivering enduring this.

Anisha Motwani: A taken for granted norm, a deeply insightful guest perspective, hacks to storm the norm and a business perspective. That's a full plate to wrap up Episode 20 of storm the norm, now powered by Grant Thornton Bharat. As always, there's multiple places you can catch us on on Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud and JioSaavn by just searching for storm the norm and on saregama carvaan 2.0 devices on channel 453. This is an Anisha

Narayan Devanathan: and i am Narayan.

Anisha Motwani: Signing off for now we'll be back with a new episode in shortly. Thank you and talk to you soon.