“Adapt to the new challenges that you’re facing and show up every day.”

Gaurav: Since you have worked with such big names, like Paytm and Udacity, what’s the best piece of advice that you have received? And how did it help you?

Ishan: Your career is built on the shoulders of others and there are many who mentor us along the way. So, Vijay has been a mentor for me and I’ve learned a lot from him, sometimes by getting the advice directly, or sometimes just seeing him in action. One of the pieces of advice that he gave me directly was ‘Reset, Reset, Reset’. So once I asked him, “What does it mean? You’re going from meeting to meeting. How do you manage so many different topics in a day?” His advice was, “I just make sure that when I go from one meeting to another, I’m consciously resetting. And that really helps.” As a leader, that has been very helpful, a very simple advice but a powerful one. That is all you need to do before the next meeting. Forget the earlier one so that you can go into it. It’s very powerful.

Gaurav: What you are talking about is letting go of everything that happened just a moment back and show up with a different energy altogether and start from scratch to build anew from that moment. I wish it could have been as easy as you’re saying.

Ishaan: Half of the game is purely about showing up, especially on the tough days. If you show up, then things will definitely improve. It will take time. But if you don’t show up, I’m pretty sure things will not improve. So showing up matters. That’s the second piece of advice that I’ve felt has been very helpful for me, especially in times when things have been very challenging.

The Three Pillars of Leadership

Gaurav: Ishan, you are leading an organization, you’re leading large teams, you’re managing P&L accounts of huge organizations. What do you think are the most important three pillars, which are extremely important for a leader to consider? 

Ishan: First, be a leader all the time. Be a leader for your team, a leader who can be trusted. And a leader who’s known to be fair doesn’t let politics creep in. Second is the element of team building. Scaling it up doesn’t happen by you, it happens by the team that works alongside you. So how do you invest in the right kind of hiring to build such a team? 

Hiring is important but it’s only the beginning. Once you get the team together, how do you make it a high-performing one? How do you set the right incentive? 

And the third part is goal setting, alignment and processes. There is a lot of decision-making along the way. It becomes easier, because either you have the right goal set or your processes are in place. So how do you do that? You have the right team. You’re being a great leader. And they have a lot of guidance in place on how to execute. 

So those are the three elements that are critical to scaling up anything. Companies can scale up. But when companies are scaling up, individuals have to scale up as well. It’s a very tightly coupled relationship that works together.

Upskill Yourself

Gaurav: Why is it important to upskill yourself every now and then? And what does that mean to you today, when you’re already playing the game at the global level? 

Ishan: The world is evolving at a high pace and upskilling, or learning is all about a mindset. So a learner, by mindset, is more open to absorbing new things and seeing better ways of doing the same things. I spend time reading a lot of books, and I spend time learning how to cook, I spend time improving my swimming technique, I spend time writing Scale it Up, and many other things. And that has helped me to just think more broadly and deeply at the same point. 

I also took a course in Defy and crypto, just to understand what is happening in this new emerging world of blockchain. And it widened my horizon. So, learning, reskilling is a mindset that just helps you absorb more. Holistic development is important to broaden our horizons and then in some areas, you deepen your excellence as well. Even in school or college days, we just learn and have fun in the best class. Why can’t that mindset be present all the time? 

“It’s not only about deepening, it’s about broadening because that helps you bring a different perspective to look at life.”

About the Speaker

Ishan Gupta is the Global Head of Operations at Udacity, He is responsible for driving successful outcomes for customers worldwide (consumer, enterprise and government). Previously, he built Udacity’s India business from the ground up. Udacity is working to democratise education by making it more affordable and accessible to individuals all around the world. Udacity, based in Silicon Valley with offices in China, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom, offers online education to millions of students in partnership with leading companies such as Google, Facebook, AT&T, IBM Watson, Amazon Alexa, Mercedes, Didi Chuxing, FlipKart, and others.