How to Be a Better Manager with JJ Ghatak

eorge grombacher 0:02
JJ got tech is the founder and CEO of on loop their organization using AI to give team managers superpowers. Welcome to the show, JJ.

JJ Ghatak 0:12
Thank you, George, it’s good to have you.

george grombacher 0:14
Yeah, excited to have you on. Tell us live right personal lives more about your work, why you do what you do?

JJ Ghatak 0:22
Yeah, I think I think the best way I describe myself is, you know, a tech operator, a CEO, coach, and an angel investor. I call I called Singapore home. And I feel like if I draw an arc through my whole life, the only consistent theme is, is trying to bring the best out of people. When when I was 21, and joined Accenture as a management consultant, I was given people devil up of the year, as a second year analyst, when when usually most senior managers and partners get that award. And I think there was something in my DNA right from the get go in, in sort of businesses about people and, and sort of, if you don’t have curiosity about the people, you don’t build great businesses and you know, fast forward 10 or 12 years and in many ways on loop is a culmination of of that life’s work. I live in Singapore, with my wife, Ali, I grew up in India, but I’ve called Singapore home for a while I just recently also became Singaporean. And, and, you know, I personally care a lot about first principles thinking and the world sort of being critical about what they hear and what they what they see going on and, and ask themselves hard questions about what is right or wrong, which is probably a different podcast discussion. But in many ways, in many ways, what drives me as a person is to, you know, keep making progress and unlock full potential, both myself and those around me.

george grombacher 2:00
Well, amen to that. All right. So when you’re 21 years old, and you’re trying to develop people, was this before AI? Assuming?

JJ Ghatak 2:09
Yes, it was when conversations and personal charm is all we had.

george grombacher 2:15
That was all you had at your disposal? And, and it worked.

JJ Ghatak 2:20
I think if you care, you know, that’s an under appreciated skill set. You just got to give a shit. And that makes magic happen in most situations.

george grombacher 2:31
Yeah, well, I appreciate that. So how do you? Was it just the obvious thing, as soon as you start to learn about artificial intelligence machine, whatever how technology can enable what it is that you’re already doing the old fashioned way? Walk me through that?

JJ Ghatak 2:52
Yeah, that’s a good point. So I fundamentally don’t think I’m a technologist. And I think I care much more about bringing out the best in people than I naturally care about technology. And I think one of the issues with with Gen AI and the sort of the mass adoption of Gen AI is I think people are trying to apply Gen AI to things for the sake of Geneva. And in fact, us as a company, we started working with GPD, three back in 2021, even before joining I wasn’t hurt. And that’s because we started dealing with topics like feedback, and realize that feedback is a lot about language. And what generative AI models are essentially a triple PhD in English that can give people language superpowers much better than they can give themselves. And I think that is much more common approach from what problems I care about, and then figuring out what is happening new in the world that can help solve that problem in novel ways versus taking a piece of technology and trying to apply it to problems which I see a lot of what is happening in the world right now.

george grombacher 4:10
problem, a solution, AI problem be solution AI problem, see, believe it or not, AI is the solution, not necessarily. So what are those problems that you’re working on?

JJ Ghatak 4:22
Yeah, so so, you know, ultimately, we deal with topics like goals and feedback in organizations and how to apply them in the service of high performance, not in the service of documentation, or HR processes or adding paperwork and bureaucracy. But how do we adapt topics like goals and feedback in an organization because ultimately, that is the lifeblood of high performance, but the way they’ve been applied their organization’s has felt like chores, that has made people run away. And, and through our work the last three years, we’ve, we’ve ended up coming up with a framework that we call CTD, or collaborative team development to help managers really demystify what are the components of a high performing team member or a high performing team. And really not make it feel like this Whoo, tough thing for people to unravel. And where I think I feel very lucky for building a product company, and not a consulting company, or, or a sort of advisory company is that my job is to simplify things. And, and the simpler I make it the easier and make it for a lot of people to adopt it. And we have to do less scalable work on a per customer by customer basis. And, and we sort of are on a mission to see if we can deepest defy being a manager so that we can convert every manager in the world to be a good manager, because we believe every manager can be a good manager, but a lot of baggage around what being a manager means etc, that prevents us from doing so.

george grombacher 6:26
So does do the those core critical competencies that help an individual and a team perform well. Is that subjective to each organization?

JJ Ghatak 6:38
No, I think in the same way that the components are what makes a human being fit is the same. Right? And today, we know that to be fit and healthy. You need to eat and eat and drink well. You need to sleep well. And you need to work out. Right and, and sort of when someone is deeply unfair. It’s one of those three. Now, that doesn’t mean that if everybody does all of those three, they all become was involved and start winning Olympic gold medals. But by breaking them down into constituent parts, each individual and each organization can make progress in terms of how much progress I think is often dependent on context and the organization. But we think that the core ingredients of what makes a good manager is not necessarily organizationally dependent. Neither is it functionally dependent. So what is it? Good question. So So essentially, the way we look at it is there there are really five hierarchical layers to it. And I think the core component here is that there is a hierarchy. And at the base level of it, is each person’s what we call energy level, or what is their intrinsic motivation. How energized are they how non burnt out they are, to really show up to work every day. And, and the correlation between that energy of motivation and performance is becoming more and more clear. And most performance frameworks don’t put that at the very foundation. The next layer on top of that is sort of what goals people are trying to achieve. And the issue with a lot of gold frameworks in the past is that they’ve been very top down in terms of how it helps an organization achieve goals, but very rarely sort of go down to the individual level to give them clarity on what they should be working on. And so we define goals as either one of targets, or projects or skills, or a combination of the three that that each person is is working on. And ultimately, to get every person to a base level of performance, it is important to manage their motivation, and manage that clarity and prioritization around their goals and track progress against them. And actually, if every manager just did those two things really well, they would have at least an average performing team member in every team member. Now, the next three layers on top of it are what sustains performance. So the layer on top of gold is what we call celebrate feedback to help people understand superpowers. Typically people have looked at celebrate feedback as recognition or praise, but actually where it adds even more value is helping each people to articulate what they actually really good at. The layer on top of that is improved or constructive feedback to help people identify blind spots. And lastly, on top of it is ongoing continuous learning and development or growth based on each person. specific skill goals or feedback that they receive, and actually improve feedback. And continuous growth are much more high performing credits, versus low performing traits. But typically, when when someone has a bad performer, they tend to think about all the things that a person can do well, and give them constructive feedback. But actually, that further reduces performance, then increases performance. And typically, when you have a high performer, you’re like, you’re doing great, but they don’t get enough constructive feedback. But what they actually craving is more constructive feedback to learn and grow. And so most managers are aware of all of those five components of managing motivation, manager goals, both types of feedback and ongoing learning as the core competence of their job as a manager. But I think what we’ve been able to impress upon people is sort of the hierarchy that exists within those five layers. And the fact that if stuff towards the bottom is broken, doing anything towards the top, doesn’t really move the needle. And that context can change week, or on a week, or even a day or a day basis. And a lot of managers don’t sort of communicate or have the right feedback loops, especially in hybrid organizations to really understand how people are doing at more basal levels. And so both through technology, as well as conversations, we sort of imbibe that framework in organizations, which is why for us, we see ourselves much more in the service of making every manager effective. Technology, no technology, I think that’s, that’s, that’s the next layer question. But effectively breaking it down into constituent parts, we make it super easy to execute on.

george grombacher 11:54
I think that that’s great. It makes a ton of sense. Is it any size organization could benefit from this? I guess my my ultimate question was, how do you train? If we’re in a big company with lots of managers? How do you train them up on this framework? And then turn them up on the actual tech? Yeah,

JJ Ghatak 12:15
I think I think training is again, a great word, right. And if you look at most amount of corporate training, there’s about $370 billion spent on corporate training, and a lot of people would say, a vast majority of that spend is incredibly ineffective. And largely for two reasons. One is, when we train, when we preach something to people, they don’t necessarily internalize the model, or internalize anything that you’re telling them to do. And then even if they go through a day or two of training, and like having a ha moment around it, it doesn’t get sticky after that. So so what we do is typically run sort of a 12 week curriculum with the managers of an organization and, and typically when organization has one or two managers, what we tend to say is that there are other more pressing problems to solve, rather, they can’t benefit from it. But typically, critical critical mass exists once you start have 1020 3040 managers or more in an organization. And typically, we would then run them through a 12 week program that would first start off with sort of a four hour workshop around the framework, key competence of it, and much more in a conversation or workshop orientation, versus a breach the model because anybody can go learning anything online, but the value of putting them in a room is to drive discussion and get to certain aha moments. And then we will sort of introduce the tool as a way to then drive an ongoing habit around those five layers, we would then do a check in about six weeks down the line. Because certain habits are easier than others. Typically we see energy checks or celebrates happen easier, improve feedback, being harder, that’s where AI actually helps make that process a whole lot easier. So we would do sort of a two hour refresher midway through and then at the 12 week mark, we actually generate what we call a prism summary in the product on each of their direct reports taking all of the goals and the feedback. So so people get to see end to end in terms of how building the right micro habits around the framework then lead to a much more holistic understanding of every team member and lead to far more effective data for purposes of giving people ratings or bonuses or or calibrations, etc, whereby it’s very much micro observations that add up so we sort of take people through a bit of a quarter long journey to sort of go from the framework to the tool, and then the the end benefit of So they see that end to end process that they can then drive themselves up. Nice.

george grombacher 15:05
As you’re introducing this to prospective users, you’re pitching it to companies. What is the pushback that you receive?

JJ Ghatak 15:15
Yeah, I think there are a couple of things that we hear. And actually, that that’s led to a bit of a strategic change for us too, because we’ve already worked first started with the app, right, and then the software around it. And as we often put the companies that often felt, listen, all this sounds great, but we don’t know if our company is ready. We don’t know if our managers have the awareness of how to how to go about it. So I think sometimes leaders believe that people need a certain level of sophistication, and do adopt sort of a new model, and a new approach, right, which I generally think is more perception than reality. I think every organization can be agile, for instance, it’s just a question of, are you going to invest in doing it the right way. And then and then two, is, is often skepticism around a whole suite of tools that have existed over time, around things like goals and feedback, that have generally felt like work or chores for people. So what we find ourselves in is dealing a lot with the baggage of performance management, and sort of how it did that has been as an approach in, in most organizations, which is why we realized that we kind of need to, like feed this to people in bite sized chunks. And now we even do like leadership workshops to sort of walk them through the framework, like, actually, it’s not rocket science, it just, it just stitches it together in the right way, it’s actually not that big a shift. And then the other thing I say is that companies tend to solve only the top three problems. And and sometimes if survival is at stake, you then start thinking about sort of what will just keep me alive for the next day versus So investing in your people investing in your managers is a little bit more of a medium term investment. But I think what’s happened through the pandemic as well with the shift to hybrid work. And with sort of the macroeconomic uncertainty companies have stopped hiring a lot of people. And so a lot of focus on like, how do we do more with less? And how do we sort of get the most out of our existing team that allowed me to realize that it’s really about better managers, and then knowing how to execute with resources. And so we’ve actually seen more demand for our business to the pandemic. And towards the end of it. I know, some companies have seen below a pullback, in budgets, etc. We also haven’t a go to market strategy that like it just to business leaders directly versus a functional organization so that business leaders directly see how this impacts their business outcomes. And that might affect on how we get viewed by business too.

george grombacher 18:10
Fascinating. So always, you’re always receiving feedback from your customers and your prospects, just like you’re helping your managers and refining and changing, hopefully. And it makes sense that companies would be more interested in in. And it’d be great for your organization that you have organizations, companies that are trying to go and develop their existing folks versus trying to just hire more. And so who knew JJ, who knew?

JJ Ghatak 18:44
Now totally, and you know, I think we live in a very rapidly transforming world. And I think on the one hand, that creates a lot of uncertainty, but I think that also creates a lot of opportunity. And I think that for businesses that kind of need to make sure they control their own destiny, and sort of control what they can control and leave the rest I think sometimes you get caught up in is interest rates gonna come down or stay where they are and what’s gonna happen to inflation. But I think as a business owner, I’ve realized certain things I can’t do anything about. And worrying about that then distracts me from doing what I can control. And so so I feel like my posture is somewhat changed also in terms of how I think about running a business through the pandemic. And realizing that, you know, we live in a different world today than we did three, four years ago with 0% interest rates, and this is my first sort of downturn to work through as a business leader. So I’ve definitely learned a whole lot with with where things have been going. Yeah,

george grombacher 19:53
well said. Well, JJ, thanks so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can organise Asians engaged with you.

JJ Ghatak 20:01
Yeah, so like our websites on loop.com. And, and if you’re looking for me, I think LinkedIn is the best place to find me. On loop, JJ will probably bring me up in in any search. And I read every message that comes to my mailbox. I may not always reply to everyone, but I definitely read everyone. So if anyone’s intrigued or wants to chat more, I would love to hear from you.

george grombacher 20:27
Excellent. If you enjoyed this as much as I did show JJ your appreciation, share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to on loop.com and dig deeper into what JJ has been talking about today. And then you could find him on LinkedIn as well and I will link all of those in the notes of the show. Thanks again JJ. Till next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.