Rewire: How To Be The Leader Of Your Own Life

By Jay Kumar Hariharan

You are meant to become the best version of yourself; that is your dharma.
You owe this not to the world, but to yourself.

How can you reinvent yourself inside out when the lightness of being is replaced by the heaviness of it all? When most of your material boxes have been checked, how to embrace the void and refuel yourself?

Author Jay Kumar Hariharan delves into years of asking himself and others questions on what constitutes ‘success’ and ‘meaning’. Why do many of us suffer from poverty in the midst of abundance? There is a vast need to reflect and be conscious of choices and dreams instead of accepting the status quo. Jay delivers interesting insights by connecting the dots and drawing patterns between highly disparate influences. Interesting anecdotes and stories ensure that jargon and ‘how to’ anchors are kept at bay. This book is a turbo-charged journey into the world of modern day corporate warriors. But more importantly, it is about the meaning of Being over Doing. These pages are for all those who have climbed the mountain and suddenly feel the on-set of ennui.

You are not alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: May 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9789352019045

Jay Kumar Hariharan

Jay Kumar Hariharan is an executive coach. He has worked with some remarkable leaders through the uncomfortable but rewarding process of behavioural change. He is a multi-talented person – a speaker, a certified deep sea diver, a para-glider, bungy jumper and skydiver. He believes in adventure in many forms. In this, his first book, he sets out to bring a meaningful renewal to those who have achieved yet find themselves, mid-career, facing a void.

Book preview

PROLOGUE: MY STORY

It was a rainy Mumbai day and I was on my way to work. The sky reflected the drabness of my mood. The incessant drizzle pelting away on this wet Wednesday added to the chaos already filling my head.

There was a traffic jam at the vegetable market near Dadar. I took in the sights and sounds of the bustling market place; so much frenetic action. Along with a bunch of suits on their way to work, there were people from different walks of life, seemingly paused by the same hand of fate for a few moments in the same time and place. Cars honked furiously, attempting futilely to manoeuvre that extra inch to get to their destination a minute earlier. Handcart pullers heaved the days produce. A BMTC bus sat spewing smoke like a habitual smoker. Commuters emerged from Dadar Station and hurried to the taxi pool – a mass transference of bodies from one sardine can to another.

Amidst all this noise, I slipped into a reverie, questions surfacing in my mind like fumes from a swamp. Why do we go to work? Why does anyone choose to work? Do we have a choice in the matter or should work have a grand purpose and meaning? If so, what was mine?

It seemed to me a very important moment and the fact that I did not have glib and ready answers, perplexed and worried me. My mind attempted feeble answers: We all had to work. We could not just exist. Work was our construct. We did what our parents had done, what our friends did. We plodded through exams as students so we could get into the real world and succeed. The objective of that success was to fulfil our needs and wants.

Was survival or success the promised destination and work the vehicle? Or was work the physical and mental involvement in creating something larger than ourselves? Or was it just about using our talents and skills to make a buck, day after day? Was it to ensure the necessities of life were met – roti, kapda, makhaan?

We have different paths, be it as an artist, entreprenuer, accountant… What was the common thread that connected us all? How much of this path was by design and how much by default? Were we merely following in the footsteps of our forefathers, who had worked in various trades? Is this what we were programmed to do during our formative lives in school and college?

I was a successful leader at a Fortune 500 media organisation. I headed the sales and business development for a brand I loved and believed in (so much so that I seriously considered getting tattooed with the logo, but that is a story for another day). A great career, a great address and salary (more than what I thought I was worth). It was all good. Or so it seemed.

But, in the process of getting to where I was, I had become damaged goods. I was not in a happy place. I had become a leader not worth following, dysfunctional; the blunt edge of an instrument. Of course, there were external factors and I was caught in the pull and push of managing them. And now my benumbed senses could take no more. The turmoil had upset me for months as things bubbled and frothed below the surface. I was battling the clutter in my mind, fighting my own demons. I oscillated between frenetic bouts of activity at one end and disengagement and disenchantment on the other.

I had a great equation with my Boss, and at the end of many an inebriated session, I would tell him I wanted to quit. Ostensibly, I had a great thing going at work. I was producing results. But somewhere along the line, I had adopted a series of unhealthy leadership habits (both for myself and my extended team). I had adopted a ‘bodies strewn in my wake’ approach and my team was not happy with me. And I was not happy with them. The frustration was mutual. This, with the gnawing pain in my soul, told me something had to give.

Deep existential questions surfaced from within about the meaning of it all. Of course, I knew I was not curing cancer with my job. My horizon extended and ended with my loved ones. So what was my purpose? Did I even have one? Would I measure my life by such a small, if positive, footprint? Was I destined for a bigger, better way of life? I was drawn to the alluring light of possibilities on the horizon. While the idea of stepping into the unknown was exciting, it also filled me with knuckle-biting fear and dread.

A car horn honked loudly, snapping me from my reverie. Turning on the engine again, I drove to work.

A week later, I quit.

What followed was the uncomfortable notice period. It was like driving off into the sunset to great guitar riffs and then having to ride back for some uncomfortable goodbyes and eye-rolling from colleagues (think Jerry Maguire, minus being fired).

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but I was very clear about what I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want my current job. Nor was I hankering for a change of scenery and another job. Now, the million $ question staring me in the face was: What did I want to do with my life? How would I fill it with meaning and purpose, and also make ends meet? What skills did I have to add value to either an organisation or individual? Would I be able to meet my own, and the family’s aspirations? Was I pawning the security of my family on a whim?

It was not like this had unfolded suddenly. Subconsiously, I had wanted to move on and stop working for ‘The Man’ at some point. I had prepared for this and had set aside a nest egg to tide me over the next few uncertain months or years.

And so I set out on a life-changing journey of self-discovery and learning, starting with getting my advanced Open Water Diving Certification. Talk about diving in at the deep end! Along my journey down this rabbit hole, I had an epiphany – my own kairos moment, defined as ‘a passing instant when an opening appears, which must be driven through force for success to be achieved’. I would help leaders in their search for purpose and meaning, and dare I say it, joy @ work, by helping them navigate choppy waters to reinvent themselves. I would help them Rewire.

During conversations with colleagues and friends, I had become convinced there were other members of my tribe going through a similar phase. I wanted to help others like me. Loneliness at the top was no cliché in my own life; I had been there and stared into the abyss and the abyss had stared back, to paraphrase Nietzsche. It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a tribe to make a leader. I would help them discover a better version of themselves and this better version was just around the corner. I had a moment when it all fell into place and I decided to walk that path.

Dear Reader, at no point will I attempt to convince you that this was a great decision and you should give it a shot as well. That would be similar to having an optometrist hand you his pair of glasses to help you see better. We all have our own paths and I am here to help you find your own; to become the leader you were meant to be; a leader worth following.

Who is this book for?

You are heading south of 40 years and have had a successful life.

You may be a senior leader in an org, with a fancy set of wheels, married, with a couple of kids, nice home. You have travelled the world; been there, seen that, and probably have a T-shirt.

How then do you explain to yourself the feeling in the pit of your stomach, the niggling question: ‘Is this all there is to it?’

The quandary is this: Finally, when the pay-off is round the corner, literally the corner office, stock options, international posting, robust role etc., you notice a general decline in your ‘returns’ from work, in a form makes that sense to you, whether you are an entrepreneur or corporate, the pay-off just does not seem worth it.

You might have begun questioning the choices you made along the road or constantly catastrophising about the future. Smarter, younger colleagues sniping at your heels, lackadaisical leadership, stunted growth and learning, days of low energy, motivation, lack of direction, loss of control, political headwinds and no answers to deeper questions… Your ‘work hard party harder’ lifestyle has blurred the lines between work, play and family.

At work, people look up to you, admire you, fear you. You have built a ‘reputation’ (good or bad). You sometimes fall prey to keeping-up-with-the-Sharmas, while feeling numbed by the amount of information and clutter in your life. You seem to be running a marathon standing still.

This phase begins to look ‘sisyphean’, based on the Greek legend of Sisyphus, King of Ephyra, who was punished for being crafty with Zeus, and was forced to roll an immense boulder uphill, only to watch it come back to hit him; cursed with repeating this action for eternity.

By now, your ego has been massaged so well you start believing your own PR and hubris is but a step away. You start touting your mantra on various aspects and hold forth with a fixed world view, never mind mixing up facts and opinions. Being in the moment, being graceful, being nice instead of right all the time, being vulnerable, these elements seem Polyannish, and being fed on alpha male tropes of leadership, the softer elements get immediately relegated to the shadows.

Moving swiftly towards a fatter bank account, the lines between need and greed get blurred; how much money is really enough? Do we need to march ahead like Lemmings and expect gloriously different results? Too dark? Maybe.

Granted, the lucky few may not have experienced it in the same magnitude. If you have experienced shades of this phase, please read on! This book attempts to explore the art of rewiring; viewing possibilities and getting the best out of life at work and play! This is more a ‘What if’ than a ‘How to’ kind of book.

As an Executive Coach, I work with CEOs and their direct reports, to enable and develop sustained behavioural change in their leadership.

There was this one time I was helping a fellow coach facilitate a session. He had invited a senior leader to say a few words. The SL said, All this leadership development stuff is BS! What’s the big deal? In my career I didn’t have a coach and I did okay. My friend told him gently, "Sure, you can be a leader without investing in yourself. Let me give you an example. We all breathe, so why do people go to an Art of Living course or learn pranayama to learn how to breathe?"

It’s not that we can’t function with the way we breathe now, it’s just that we can function at a higher level when we learn how to breathe properly.

Leaders need a coach precisely for the same reason. We all need help. The smart ones ask. I could tell you the world’s best athletes, sports legends and business leaders have coaches. Here are some: Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey brin, Marc Zuckerberg, Marc Benioff, Alan Mulally, Evan Spiegel etc. Hold your breath, Steve Jobs as well.

Imagine the varied leadership styles you have encountered with different leaders in different organisations. Which style is better and which worse? The answer could be: It’s contextual, a combination of nature and nurture.

The coach comes in to increase alignment between the coachee’s behaviour and the organization, to help the coachee, get better in a direction he wants to. The simple truth is ‘what got you here won’t take you there’.

Having a coach helps.

I’ve had the honour of working with some seriously smart leaders across India, SE Asia and the US, and this book is dedicated to them – my coachees – who showed up, were courageous enough to be vulnerable, did the work, honed their craft and honoured the experience.

In organisations, big and small, we notice amputated limbs, but miss seeing amputated souls. Loneliness at the top, coupled with the heaviness of being, are not management tropes anymore; they are here to be reckoned with.

Borrowing a quote from Walden by Thoreau-Many, men lead ‘lives of quiet desperation’.

This book is a walk along that journey, to make you think, unearth possibilities and flex muscles for a fuller life at work and play; a prayer for the power of change, refreshed mindsets and actionable insights to reinvent your leadership. It will also help align line of sight with changed leadership behaviour that will help you meet your life goals.

When we become better leaders, can we become better at playing the game of Life? (Hat tip Dr. Clayton Christensen, author of How will you measure your life?).

Leadership is as much about leading oneself as leading a team or org. This is an attempt to work through states and aspects that connect your twin worlds of Work and Play while acting as a thinking pod for self-evaluation. This book attempts, through the power of stories, psychology, leadership frameworks, mythology and examples (both personal and alternate disciplines), to bridge the gap between who you are and who you would like to become.

Imagine you are driving on a highway. You have mapped out your destination; you see many other drivers also headed in the same direction, some driving recklessly, others very slowly. Along the way you witness some accidents as well. Treat this book like a pit stop, to take stock of your vehicle, fuel and oil checks etc, and also to reconfigure the route you are taking to your destination. Hell, even reconsider the destination itself!

Fair warning, another metaphor heading your way: Think of this book as a phone booth. Not just a phone booth, but the phone booth a meek Clark Kent enters, and emerges as Superman!

Now, a couple of tweaks to this metaphor:

oSuperman is always Superman. The cape or external inner wear doesn’t necessarily give him super powers. Like him, you are already Superman. You only need to bridge the gap between knowing and doing.

oImagine the phone booth is a magical one – where you reflect, learn, rewire and emerge as Superman.

Well, consider this book that magical phone booth! How to get the best value from this book and your investment? Skim through it by all means. I have created three sections for easy reading, and also a nook called Reflection Lounge, with questions and notes for you to fill. I gently urge you to use that space to journal your answers/observations.

Disclaimer: I use the masculine gender as a voice or as a protagonist throughout as a generic filler, instead of consistently using a he/she format. This is as much for women at the leadership level as it is for men.

I promise you a world of learning, growth and action.

Part I

Context and Current State

1.

LEADERSHIP AND LIFE

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. – Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight

The way we show up at work and the way we show up in Life are inexorably intertwined. We don’t show up wearing a coat that’s labelled ‘Person’ only to remove it at the door of the workplace and put on another, labelled ‘Professional’.

The current business climate, the searing spotlight on top leaders, lays bare everyone’s shenanigans. The stress of meeting quarterly earning targets has resulted in a cycle of massive egos to create an ecosystem too big to fail, till it does. Sheer hubris has seen the fall from grace of leaders, global and national – Sheryl Sandberg, Carlos Ghosn, Chanda Kochar etc... The trend is likely to continue as moral compasses get corroded and quick wins remain the flavour of the day.

Why is ethical leadership at its lowest point globally? Is this a price, we pay for a capitalistic economy?

Where and when does the rot seep in to corrupt the North Star? Idols who grace the covers of business magazines, seemingly on top of the world, suddenly find themselves in the eye of a media storm. That level of scrutiny is scary. The best approach for the rest of us is to separate the message from the messenger, and move on. These leaders, legends and mavericks, succumbed either to their own PR or a sense of infallibility. As the saying goes, ‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’. As the CEO of one of the world’s largest firms, what would Carlos have gained by under-reporting his income for two years? Was it worth crashing his legacy for? Since April 2017, 252 celebrities, artists, politicians and CEOs have been accused of sexual harassment, and this list is continuously being updated.

Whether we show up as Individuals or as Heads of corporations, the first person we really need to lead is ourselves.

We bring work home and home to work. This is also the reason, coaching is described as a ‘full person’ process and the lines between Executive coaching and Life coaching become a semi-permeable membrane. When I work with CXOs and get curious about how their behaviour (the same set of behaviours), play out at home and work, I gain an insight into missed birthdays, missed opportunities to connect with loved ones, lack