Aakash Shirodkar is a distinguished leader in the field of artificial intelligence and analytics with over 20 years of experience working with top-tier organizations worldwide.
As Senior Director at Cognizant’s Artificial Intelligence and Analytics practice, he has transformed businesses and delivered tangible business impact. Currently, he leads the manufacturing, logistics, energy, and utilities portfolio for their AI and analytics practice across global growth markets.
You can also learn more about Aakash on LinkedIn.
Here’s a quick summary of key takeaways:
In this conversation, Aakash Shirodkar discusses the challenges of adapting to new environments when moving cities and how it shaped his mental models and independence. He talks about his transition from sales to data science and emphasizes the importance of following one’s passion and avoiding the comfort zone. Aakash shares a valuable concept of breaking down tough situations into five variables: incentives, personalities, perspectives, constraints, and resources. He highlights the significance of understanding human psychology and managing people as a leader. For young professionals, he advises focusing on accomplishing tasks and being proactive in taking up responsibilities, as well as pursuing interests rather than just focusing on future career roles.
- Aakash changed career paths from sales to data science due to a mentor’s suggestion and a passion for problem-solving and understanding people.
- He emphasizes the importance of following one’s passion and internalizing the desire to excel rather than comparing oneself to others.
- Aakash outlines five variables to break down tough situations: incentives, personalities, perspectives, constraints, and resources.
- Personality alignment is the most challenging aspect to manage in tough situations, but addressing incentives and resources can help resolve conflicts.
- Aakash advises early-career individuals to focus on getting tasks done efficiently and avoid worrying about titles or positions. Instead, concentrate on being the person who can accomplish any task effectively.
Listen to the podcast here, or find if wherever you get your podcasts:
Ryan Atkinson: Welcome Akash, super, super pumped for today’s episode. Thank you for being here.
Aakash Shirodkar: Thank you, Ryan. Happy to be here. Happy to happy for you to get me along.
Ryan Atkinson: Yes, this is going to be a great conversation. You’ve had a phenomenal career and I really want to talk and start out open with that because you’ve owned a ton of different positions. You’ve worked in sales role, delivery roles, customer success roles, and you are now a senior director of Cognizant’s AI and analytics practice.
Talk to us about this pivot to AI from a lot of these sales roles, delivery roles. Now into AI.
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah. So the, the funny thing that my supervisor keeps saying is that, Akash has just completed the circuit. So , he’s been, in different ones. So he has that empathy. And even now, maybe I’m in sales, but, I still have empathy for all of those roles is really helps.
I’ll come back to that anyway, but, from a pivot perspective, I know you, you asked it from a career, but,, there’s a huge pivot that I want to. talk about of, moving cities. So being born in a city, then being brought up completely in a different city, working across seven different cities, traveling to over 40 plus countries, uh, for work and leisure.
So that’s the first pivot probably I want to touch upon because, culturally you change your outlook changes when you absorb all of the cultures. Yeah, and that’s the first pivot I want to talk about. Very important for me. I was born in India in a very small state of Goa. It’s a poor man’s Ibiza. If somebody wants to just understand an analogy, so it’s a poor man’s Ibiza. I was brought up in Dubai where I, did [00:02:00] majority of my education. I did then, I traveled back to India, completed my university. Move different cities for work. One thing that I always, is, one thing that I always want to point out is never be in your comfort zone, right?
So moving cities ensure that I had that kind of mindset easier for me to then put it at work on my professional and my career, and therefore it was easier for me to pivot my careers. Right. So that’s, that’s probably what I wanted to touch upon. Yeah. And then getting back to career. Yeah. , I have a very strange career are, pagers, remember them?
They used to be a thing. Yeah. So pagers, cellular phones. Remember Ericsson and, Nokia, those big phones, there used to be a Nokia model. We used to call it the brick. Okay. You could literally throw it, throw it at someone and hit his head and whatever. So majors, cellular phones, communications, technology, and then pivoting, to data mining.
That’s what they called it earlier, data mining, data sciences, cloud, machine learning. And now we speak about AI. So that’s my possible. And yeah, I’ve completed the circuits you mentioned earlier, right? Key roles across various functions. I’m in sales now of pre sales, solutioning, business development, delivery, customer lifecycle management.
So all of these, so, uh, yeah, uh, business functions and, and, and initially, of course, I was part of these functions. I’ve also then developed these teams move, you know, developed functions. Um, yeah. And I also have the other pivot I want to talk about is I also worked on both sides. So I’ve been working as a client and, and now I’m in services.
So I understand, what it means to be from a client and, and probably the fourth I want to talk about is. , in my career, I’ve worked with clients from maybe except Antarctica, everybody else. No, seriously. Africa. [00:04:00] I’ve done, and I’ve worked with clients from Africa, um, for one or two years, Latin America, North America.
I’m in Europe now, Middle East, India, of course, the ASEAN region, China, interesting being there done that. So essentially it’s given me a fantastic perspective. And empathy, not only of different roles, different cultures, but also different expectations when you, you know, interact people or client. So talking to a German client is completely different from, you know, talking to somebody from Japan.
Their expectations are completely different. It is not, you can’t come across as the same Akash, uh, even though your knowledge is the same, you’re the same, you know, between the six inches of your year to year, the same, but , completely need to represent yourself. Differently. So, so yeah, so pivots are there not only at career level, , pivots are there across anything and everything we do.
If we actually look closely, it’s very important to be more like water, solid, you can be a solid, you can be gaseous, you can be liquid. It’s more important to be, that kind of, uh, element, very interesting thing about water. Then I usually use it as a metaphor.
Ryan Atkinson: I really, really like that.
You gotta be like water. You gotta flow. You gotta be adaptable. I want to talk about your experience like jumping around, like moving different countries and like what that really brought to you. Cause I think a lot of people like young in their career, like it’s always in their back of their head.
Like, Oh, I want to go like live in Europe for a year, just to experience it. I want to go live in like South America or like India or any other place in the world. Can you talk a little bit more about like how that experience shaped you when you were younger to who you are today.
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah. So, see the main thing is when you’re in your own society.
You’re very comfortable because you just brought up with that your language is the same food habits are the same eating is the same. You’re surrounded by an extended family from a relative’s perspective. So you have more people to rely on. It can be a double [00:06:00] edged sword, but that’s for a different discussion. , there’s a lot of comfort factor that when you grow up in a place like go, I mean, the beach is right next door, so it’s nothing great. Okay. You’re, you’re probably there playing, soccer or any other sport, whatever, or, or, you just finished dinner and you want to go for a walk.
You’re right there at the most fantastic beach where, tourists come, but for you, it’s next door. So you have a lot of comfort and you just take the minute you move out. Your language is different. , you do not know, you do not have a support system besides your parents. Of course, right. If you move out as, as when you’re younger, you do not have a support system.
You need to figure out things yourself. Let’s say, , when you’re in your hometown, you have your cousins who are also your friends and then, you can gang along and, stuff like that. But when you’re out, you need to make friends. Like I said, I was an introvert earlier. So, it’s really difficult for me to just, things like that.
So. That taught me that taught, that gave me a sense of independence and helped me structure how I need to do things, right? So let’s say for example I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t know to do a certain thing. So what’s my structure to the mental model I always have is, is to understand, talk to certain people, gather information, uh, and then research about it and then form your own opinion and then, and then probably do that thing.
So that structured mental model is now tattooed into my brain on things number one, number two. I also moved cities across different parts of my life. So at a, at a very young state age. At a university level, at a work level and stuff like that. So that continuous movement has sort of given me how should I put it?
So that kind of feeling where you should never be in your comfort zone, right? So I’m, I’m never, yeah, the only, the only rhythm I have in life is. a schedule for a day, right? I need to get up in the morning. I need to exercise. I need to do X, Y, Z. I need to work. I need to then sleep on time. That’s the only rhythm I have, but rest everything for me is out of the comfort zone.
I’m okay. For anything, [00:08:00] which is why I told you about certain pivots. Uh, the foundation of moving cities is the foundation. Why I could then have a career arc is the foundation for the mental models that I have. Yeah. And I can talk more about them, as in this conversation. But yeah, that’s, that’s what I would call out as my biggest strengths that I’ve had because of, moving cities.
And then I, there are a lot of things, is that, you have different cultures. You just don’t think that the culture you’re born with is the best. You can take the best from a lot of different cultures. See at the end of the day. Everything is right. Everything is wrong. It just depends on your vantage point.
So it’s like that. So unless you know the context, you never know what is right or wrong. It’s the same thing about cultures. We can sit, I can sit in one part and then say, Hey, they, they do these things differently. But when you reach there, you understand context as to why they do it.
Just as an example, maybe they don’t have water, which is why they cook things differently, right. Which is why they like different kinds of cuisines. So there’s a big context to that. Yeah.
Ryan Atkinson: I’m curious. How does that, how has, so you built the foundation of like the mental models and like being outside your comfort zone, which is awesome.
But like, how is that, how has that like transitioned into like the business world from like a leadership perspective or just like your day to day role? Like all these different cultures are coming together. You’ve learned a whole lot. Do you have any like specific examples of like how that shaped you in your like professional career?
Aakash Shirodkar: So here’s the story, right? So in, in, in the, so I’ll answer in the story format. Okay. Right. That will also give you a good view of this shape. So in the nineties finishing school, uh, I wanted to become a scientist or an astrophysicist. I clearly remember, one of the kinds that, conduct research, invent, discover not too much about curing diseases, not too much, more on the other things.
Yeah. My school projects, I recall very clearly. The one school project that I got rave reviews for, but it was the same theme. It was, are [00:10:00] we alone in the universe? So I used to always do this science, scientific things, stuff like that. And yeah, so my intellect was had different plans for me.
So I had this aims, wishes or whatever it is you can call at that point of time. At that young age. I don’t want to label them as ambitions. Yeah. So let’s just say they were, wishes or aspirations or whatever. My intellect had different plans for me I didn’t qualify for engineering medicine.
So I did the next best thing. I got, I did a degree in physics. I pursued physics. I completed the degree. And then I started and then , I started a job as sales, nothing to do with physics. Yeah. Okay. But, but subliminal messaging. So the backstory is subliminal messaging. Keep that in mind.
So let’s pop that for a minute. It’ll, it’ll come back. So I started my career as sales. Uh, I mentioned before, right? Pages, cellular phones, things like that, communications technology. So I do professionally again, the mindset of not being in the comfort zone. So I, I grew professionally. I’m moving to a different city.
I want to prove myself, that kind of I grew professionally. I got I got promoted. I’m moving cities, taking bigger roles. Taking up exciting challenges. And even though I was not a scientist, I reminded myself that I should never be in a comfort zone. I didn’t use that an excuse to beat me up.
I use that as a springboard to improve myself. Come the two thousands, right? Yeah. Newspapers are full of reports about the software boom, right? The internet, Tim Berners Lee internet computers, right? Bill Gates and Steve jobs where the Elon musts of today and so on and so forth. Right. So then everybody is talking about these wall street quants, because in finance is where the first data mining.
And analytics, everything was taking place, right? Even at that point of 1990s, 95s, 98s, things like that, especially the investment bankers. So we had all of these things about computers, software, wall street, quants, and and [00:12:00] suddenly, certain cities are booming because of this. Right. And then what happened was Microsoft came, DOS became obsolete, Windows was launched, and then technology was, was speaking.
I kept up to date about all of these things. And this is where subliminal messaging I was saying, right? So my subconscious played a part. And then in 2010, after 10 years of almost working in sales in telecom, banking, whatever it is. A mentor called me, he said, Hey, Akash, what are you doing?
I said, I’m having a cheesecake. Why? So he said, okay, listen I’m in IBM. I know we’ve not been in touch, but there is this thing called data science. I want you to try. I said, what?
And the, and the friends that are on the coffee shop are looking at me. What happened? So I got up, I walked ahead and then I had a conversation with essentially he wanted me. And so he knew me, right? He’d worked with me before. He knew that I love to learn. He knew my passion. He knew that I was a guy who, whose attitude was.
Get things done, right. And that’s the potential that you saw in me. And I was happy in my role at that point of time, . I had just in fact, three months ago or maybe, maybe yeah, three or four months ago I had moved to a different city, taken up a larger role in my organization and I was leading as the regional head of sales for, enterprise products and stuff like that.
So, so yeah, so I was doing well, I had just moved, everything was going fine and I love my job, but I knew somewhere that I was in my comfort zone because I used to keep doing my target. My team was fantastic. I had a fantastic relationship with everything. I could just go to sleep for a week and everything would be still fine.
All my budgets would be met. So that’s when I thought, let’s give it a thought. Okay, so let’s give it a thought. I did some research. In fact, I did a lot of research. [00:14:00] That’s a quite an understatement that I’m saying I did a lot of research. I spoke to a lot of people. I spoke, I chatted with a lot of folks on different forums, and stuff like that.
Yeah. I thought, data science scientist. So all of that subliminal messaging research, whatever it is, all just came crashing down in my mind. I said, I’m taking this. Right. Yeah. I had to start from scratch. No problem. I did it. I, I don’t think it’s it’s a challenge. And, and I remember a book came out Forbes I don’t know if it’s no Howard business Review article came out DJ part who was Barrack Obama’s chief ai scientist.
Okay. Yeah. And Thomas David Port. You must have heard of him from analytics, right? Yeah. Both of them wrote an article in, in, in 2012. How would business review data science, the sexiest job of the 21st century? That was my tipping point. Interesting. I said, I want to do this. I said, I want to do this. I joined and start from scratch, but I’ll tell you what, it’s not actually that you start from scratch.
You start from scratch because you really don’t know that you do not know the knowledge. And I chose my niche in that. See, see one is you could be a totally bland niche. When you could be a project manager in AI, right? Just a project manager. Doesn’t know anything, just manages project. I can take that back.
I doesn’t know anything. All my project manager friends might say, feel something bad. I can be a data scientist. Right. So my niche was, I am fantastic at understanding people. I’m fantastic at understanding clients. Yeah. Right. I’ve been a client myself again, because of my different cultures exposure, moving cities, understanding how people, what people mean when they speak certain things, right?
Yep, yep, yep. Which countries mean a [00:16:00] no? When they say no or a no, when they say yes. Yes. Right. So how does it work? So all of that came into, when I said, you know what, I want to be an SME right in the data science world. Yeah. That’s where I started as being an SME. I started off as a telecoms SME. And then as I grew, I could manage the data scientists better.
I could manage projects better. I could manage revenue better. And then I started evangelizing, right. Both internal, external, IBM is a fantastic organization. Oh, yeah. At the very tip of the spear in terms of research on AI, quantum computers, things like that. Right. They have divisions of research engineers who give at least, file for at least 40, 50 patents a month.
So that’s their run rate, right? They counted. So the research divisions just counted on the number of patents that they bring in. So being in that kind of ecosystem where, I was big fish in a nice little pond, the smallest fish in a very big pond on man. I mean, first of all, I have fantastic support system.
My, my mother. And my wife, they have never, ever discouraged me, even though they have no idea as to what I do or, what I’m going to do, they say, you know what, do it, you will figure it out. I love that. , so I think changing careers. It’s not something you should take lightly, but it can lead to more fulfilling and satisfying professional life in the long run.
So if you take a three year view, a five year view, it’s not going to work. But if you take a 30 year view and say, 10 years down the line, 20 years down the line, how do I want to retire? Yeah. I don’t know who said it, but someone said someone important and famous, of course said, you certainly need to change career three times.
Right. Yeah. So that was the [00:18:00] first time, that I want to change. I changed my career. Pros and cons are there, do your research, what, take the leap of faith.
Ryan Atkinson: I love that and get outside your comfort zone. That’s what I’m really taking it back from this. But I do want to talk about like switching jobs and the benefits of like sticking with your job if you want to do it or if you don’t want to do it.
Can you talk a little bit more about like the pros and cons? Cause Gen Zers right now, I found some stat. Job hopping is common amongst, this is like a Forbes article. Quote, job hopping is common amongst any generation or Gen Zers generation. Gen Zers are switching jobs at a rate of 134% higher than before the pandemic in 2019.
So can you tell us a little bit more of like why, Gen Zers may should stick with their jobs or if they shouldn’t, what should they consider?
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah, so, so I think if So you have the Gen Z’s, you have like people from my generation and then you have people from my older generation, the older generation, the way we saw it, they used to be in companies for 20 years, 25 years, 30 years.
And majority of them started and ended with one company, right? You would join a Ford and you would retire at a Ford as an example. Right. So, see, I think my personal opinion, right, I have jumped quickly and I have stayed in an organization. I’ve done both. Okay. So I’m not coming from any high ground to say one is better than the other, but there is all, there is always a context of when to do what, right.
To the, to your specific question on Gen Z and the, and the very important, uh, number on, on, on the 134% that you mentioned. See, Barack Obama’s, words is I, I clearly remembering him saying, right. There are see, there are a lot of people, who know what they [00:20:00] want to be, but they don’t know what they want to do.
There’s a big difference. Okay. Okay. Let’s give, let me give an example. Right. So, let’s say I want to be a chief data scientist by 35. Some Gen Z. Okay. That Gen Z is 22 25. He says, I want to be a chief data scientist by 35. They, he says, I want to make X amount of money by X amount of age. Now look at the most successful people.
And what do they say? They say, you know what? I’m really interested in computers. I want to figure this stuff out and they end up being Steve Jobs because they’re passionate about what they want to do, not what they want to be, right? They say, I’m really interested in solving problems about machine vision.
Then you will end up like a chief data scientist. Because you’re passionate about something you want to solve a problem, right? Yeah, this is the context that I want to start, that first of all, in order to be extraordinarily successful in your career, you need to take a genuine interest in your book.
And if you’re fully absorbed in what you’re doing, you’re likely to excel at it. Whether you’re recognized or you’re not recognized, whether you achieve the position or the desire, the journey will be a fulfilling. Now take that in context with your job. If you stay, if you’re passionate about it, if you, do have some kind of tenure, remember you’re establishing credibility.
They will look at you and say, You know what? That’s the guy who gets things done. He’s passionate about, what he does. So you establish your credibility, your expertise pays off. You have an organizational influence. And then you will have a natural advancement and you will eventually become what you want to be.
Ryan Atkinson: I [00:22:00] think that is like so cool. And following your passion is like, I think you, when you’re doing something that you really like, and I think a lot more people, I’m, this is a personal take here. I think just like more people, if you are passionate about something that you find in your job, you should.
Consider like freelancing on that and being like, Oh, I actually really enjoy this. And maybe someday, like I can do this as a full time gig. And yeah, I think that’s, I think that’s something that Gen Zers should consider like a whole lot more. Yeah.
Aakash Shirodkar: There’s a lot of peer pressure also about Gen Zs, right?
Yeah, for sure. My friend X is earning, whatever, 300K or whatever. I am at 275, even at 25 makes a difference. But essentially both of them are living the same lifestyle. What is it that a person with 300K can do more than somebody with 275K or even 250K, right? As an example, I’m giving you a guess.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Has it, does that change like throughout your life? Or is it just, is that like all, cause that’s definitely true. Like people my age, it’s like, Oh, like I’m going to compare myself to this person or this person. But like, does that change as you get older? Yeah.
Aakash Shirodkar: It does. It does. It does. You, I think it does.
It has for me, it has for a lot of my friends. Number one, I can tell you out of my own experience. Number one, I used to have this one big thing that, big manager, I need to be a big manager. I need to have a team. Now I really don’t care anymore. I think my strength is in here. I’m very happy in a matrix environment.
My organization is huge. Yeah. What cognizant has, uh, 360, 000 employees all over. That’s, that’s huge. That’s really something. I have a highly matrix structure. 60% of the people I’ve talked to in a day do not report to me, but we get things done. Yeah. It has double digit growth. I am, whatever I’m going to do well this year I’ve been doing well for other years.
So I think, that, that kind of context changes. Once you start moving once you start taking things internal, going back to my point, right? What you want to [00:24:00] do rather than what you want to be, when you pull things internal, then you have more accountability, more understanding, and then more confidence in yourself.
And that passive confidence noise is, is really the ultimate. And, and then your context changes, then it’s not a, it’s not a race. It’s not a rat race anymore. It is about, am I improving 1% every day? Hey, how much did I learn? Okay. Say you had a fantastic client meeting, but. You still go back and introspect.
What could I have done better? Now, when you are in that mode, then your, your your sense of relations are completely different. It is not that number that drops into your account. It is not the role or the designation that you’re. This thing will, it’s not, yeah. And at the end of the day, what do we want?
, we just as, as humans, , we want respect. Somebody wants to earn more, to get more respect. Yeah. Somebody wants to do X thing to get more respect, so we want respect, but do you respect yourself? How much do you, invest in yourself? How much do you feel you need to get better?
Um, so once you move the entitlement out, move internally as you grow up, I think it happens naturally. At least for most of the people and at least for the people that I know, I, I can give examples of outliers as well, but you know, that’s always the case, right? There are always outliers and stuff like that.
Ryan Atkinson: Cause like, yeah, there’s just, there’s so much pressure to like, do well, but you make a really good point. Like once you like internalize, like what you want to do and like, are you happy with what you’re doing? Or like, do you enjoy what you’re doing? I think that’s like the ultimate alignment. I think for me, that’s one of my biggest fears is like getting into like a role or like doing something that I don’t like to do because I get purpose out of my work.
I loved like podcast conversation like this is awesome. Like I love doing this. And it’s just the biggest fear in the world is to do something where I wake up, I’m like, Oh my God, I do not want to do this. Yeah. I also want to talk about a really interesting concept that you brought up beforehand of like breaking down every tough situation in five variables we’re all going to come across [00:26:00] like tough situations in our personal lives, professional lives.
Can you talk about those five variables about how you break down a tough situation? Hmm.
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah. So I have this habit of mental models. So let’s say if I want to learn, I go back to the fundamental mental model of understanding foundation, learning it from scratch and then building up that knowledge rather than superficially reading and all that.
So that’s, so my habit has always been mental models. I talked about a mental model earlier also. So that’s one of my early careers are very painful. 98% of the time you feel like you’re an idiot. I’m talking about myself, but I think this can be, this can be labeled on all of us. You’re either lost, you’re either confused or you’re insecure, right?
And then you have certain, some star performers who are like Lionel Messi They just know everything. They just know when and stuff like that. And you’re like, I have taken care and prepped myself for three, four days. And I came out with nothing. How? Okay. So again, my previous thoughts, internalize, introspect, carry a voyage of self discovery.
And when I, when I did that with a lot of things, I noticed that in every tough situation, I face professionally, I could literally break it down into five things. What are the misalignments from an incentive’s perspective? What are the misalignments from a personality’s perspective? What are the misalignments from a perspective’s perspective?
What is the misalignment from a constraint’s perspective? What is the misalignment from a resources perspective? Any situation has either two or three of these misaligned and that is where the problem lies. [00:28:00] Interesting. So we have, let’s say a team and then you have two personalities that don’t walk in that team.
Let’s say it’s a five member team, right? Yeah. Could be anything, but let’s say if I remember two people, their personalities are not working. All right. Let’s say there are two big leaders within one organization. The CEO tells leader A, Hey, you guys need to work together. It’s not happening. Now, is it in, are they incentivized to work together or they’re not, or they’re incentivized to build bigger portfolios, which is why they’re competing against each other.
So that’s an incentive problem, right? Perspectives is really simple. You and me could be looking at the same thing, like two sides of the coin, heads and tails, your perspective is right. My perspective is right, but. I have never tried to see, come to your side and see, Hey, there is something different on the other side of the coin.
So that’s the perspectives things. Constraints is, I don’t know, some, somebody could have a problem at home, his mother could have had cancer, whatever. He has some constraints for which, , they cannot work properly or something with that resources. The resource is very simple.
Yeah. Does he have the right tools, the knowledge he or she, whatever it is, right? So. So if you look at this incentives, personalities, perspectives, constraints, and resources, all boils down to five things. Maybe there’s a sixth one. I haven’t found it out. If I do, maybe I can write a book on it or something like that.
I have just misaligned variables, made these situations more difficult to navigate. I try and put my finger on this and then when I put a finger on this, it’s easier to say that, okay, this is the problem. This is what we need to solve it.
Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Which of those five in your experience has been like the hardest to get aligned?
Like once you identify it, how do you align it?
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah. It’s generally personality, isn’t it?
Ryan Atkinson: That’s what I thought it was going to be, but I still wanted to ask.
Aakash Shirodkar: I mean, come on, even if somebody doesn’t have an incentive. [00:30:00] Yeah. Who would anyway support, right? Because you’re good to them. But if the personalities don’t match, Oh my God.
Sometimes, you just solve it temporarily and then, it comes back as a bigger problem or it comes back as passive aggressive, whatever it is. But if personalities, are a problem, then, it’s not going to work out. It’s the same thing. I mean, you put it, look at it from a relationship perspective, right?
You’re going dating you could people say, Oh, she’s so much like you. Yeah. Do the people who are like us, really genuine are all the couples that way. No, I mean, it doesn’t work that way. Right. So yeah, it’s all a personality thing. You could both software, you could both like video games.
You could both like horse riding just randomly. I’m taking stuff, but you know, if you, if there is a, there’s a personality aspect of it, so I think, personalities is. Is very difficult to humans are the most difficult to manage
Ryan Atkinson: that is facts. And, that from a lot of clients across a lot of different cultures, humans are very complex.
So, like, we might, that’s what I think is so crazy is like, like, we’re two humans right now, but we might not even agree what, like, our favorite color is, or like, we might not like my favorite color is blue. I don’t know what yours is. What’s your favorite? Okay, another example is someone’s favorite colors like green.
It’s like, Oh, well, we don’t even agree on that. Like humans are complex human beings.
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah. And humans also don’t like to be wrong. Right. And then it branches out into different emotions and stuff like that. So yeah, the complexity of personalities is most difficult to manage.
Ryan Atkinson: Interesting. Is there one of those to align those personalities?
What comes to mind is like figuring out like the incentives to get. People to like, figure it out these personalities, but like, is there a different one or what one corrects them the most?
Aakash Shirodkar: Say again, the answer to that is on what kind of personality that you’re dealing with. That’s right. So the personalities need incentives.
So it’s what you’re driven with, right? So, yeah. If certain [00:32:00] personalities are just passive aggressive because they don’t have the perspective in place, you give them the perspective and they say, Oh, okay. My bad. I didn’t think of it that way. Things like that. Sometimes what happens is one person has less resources.
He knows about it. He doesn’t want to, uh, admit it. And therefore, he’s having a clash of personalities with somebody else or something like that. So you quietly understand through a back channel that, you know, Hey, given the right resources, he will think he’s on an even keel. And then, you know, he or she then will be, not clashing from a personality perspective.
So I think different therefore understanding of humans, understanding of human psychology. Is a, as a leader, I mean, that’s basic. It doesn’t matter what your knowledge is because once you grow professionally up the ladder, which is why CEOs, right? I mean, a CEO doesn’t need to be a chief data scientist at all.
Or the best chief data scientist will not be the best CEO at an AI AI company, right? Yeah. Uh, things like that. So yeah, at, at a certain level, everything gets stripped off and it com just comes, come. You just need to understand how to manage people. Interesting. I mean, certain CEOs need to manage Congress, certain CEOs, you don’t need to manage, no, it is true, right?
Certain CEOs need to manage diversity and personalities over there. They need to one curious thing, right? How do you manage high performing teams? That itself is one of the biggest skills for sure. It’s actually easier pushing a team from let’s say level one to level three, but pushing a team from 4.
5 to five is, is a bigger challenge and then getting them there, which is why the best coaches are the highest paid, right? Interesting. , so yeah, so I think, depends on the personality, , you need to manage.
Ryan Atkinson: Interesting. And last question for you, this has been an awesome episode talking about a whole wide range of topics, but I’m just curious, like young, young twenties you, we’ve kind of distilled it from this conversation, but like what, just what advice would you have for someone early in their career to have a successful career?
Aakash Shirodkar: Yeah. Two really, two pieces of advice. Advice. Number one is simply learn on how to accomplish [00:34:00] tasks. Just get stuff done. I’ll give you an example at every level and at every organization, in every group of friends or wherever there is always those guys who excel at describing problems. They are sophisticated, you know, in explaining why something went wrong and why it can’t be fixed.
My advice is how about. The people who say, I’ll get it done. Let me take care of it. If you project an attitude of whatever is needed, I can handle it or I can do it. Whoever is running the organization will notice. You might think, that it’s a curse to be good, to be good at your job. No, it’s not.
People are going to notice. And then they will say that these, this is the guy you assign him something. He’ll just kill it. So don’t be impatient. Don’t look out for those plum assignments. Be the guy who gets stuff done. That’s my advice. Number one advice. Number two, I’m just going to reflect back on worrying about what you want to do rather than what you want to be, who you want to be.
I just want to reiterate that, right? We’ve fully absorbed and obsessed about what you want to do and you will achieve your position, desire, journey, everything what you want. Nothing is linear in life. It’s exponential. And just as Warren Buffet, right? He made 80% of his wealth in the last 15 years of his life.
Everything will come crashing down. It’ll all be in your hands. So I would, I would [00:36:00] just talk about these two advices for folks. It’s 99% of our problems are in our head. And the attitude is what sets you apart.
Ryan Atkinson: That’s amazing. Well, Akash, thank you so, so much for joining us today. This was an awesome, awesome episode.
I talked a whole, uh, talked about a lot. So thank you so much for being here today. We really appreciate it.
Aakash Shirodkar: Hey, I really love this, right? What you’re doing is fantastic. Keep going. More power to you.
Ryan Atkinson: Awesome. Appreciate you.