7 Important Life Lessons ft Arvind Nahata

If you want to make it, you need to start by changing your mindset. 

How do you separate an average white-collar professional from a successful business person? Well, here are a few life lessons from the Director of Decimal Technologies, Arvind Nahata. 

Hi, I’m Decimal Tech with another epic story of inspiration from Arvind. He says, “This journey up until now has left me with countless life lessons that I feel privileged to have learned them first hand.” He shares with us the 7 lessons he has learned so far.

1) Customer is King

We have all heard of this, but I ultimately came to terms with firsthand experience when I started selling and managing a business. I have built great relations with the customer and have had fulfilling outcomes in the long run. If not for the customer, no business can exist, and hence they have to be treated with the highest level of attention and priority.

A corollary to that also is to Empathise or “Step into the other person’s shoes and then think”. I have learnt to empathise with customers (external or internal). If you try and step into their shoes and understand, you can attend to the task at hand better.

2) Become obsolete in your current chair (share and enable your team)

It was an eye-opener. I used to be a reasonably smart worker and would keep searching/creating ways to accomplish work well and fast. However, I would never share my findings with my peers or subordinates, thinking I would lose my edge. 

My manager gave some amazing advice – “become obsolete in your current chair; only then you can rise and pick up more” – share your knowledge with all, and train/guide your subordinates/peers in such a way that they can easily replace you. Since then, as soon as I have something new, I call people and share it wholeheartedly, and I have seen magic happen. I know it may sound comprehensively counter-intuitive, but I can tell you this has been one of the things that have made me approachable to them.

3) The crucial ingredient – Right Intent

Working with so many team members, customers and partners, one ingredient that I have found that makes a super-star is the ‘right intent’. I have seen enough average calibre individuals excel because they have this one ingredient 100%. Everything else can be learnt.

4) Bring me solutions, not problems

I am a solution man. And I believe that when one stumbles into a problem, one looks for a solution from his supervisor or the decision-maker. However, a better approach is if one could go an extra step and think of possible solution options. Offer the decision-maker the problem and solution options along with your choice of option. The decision-maker will often choose your favourable option, and he will also be quick in reverting to a decision.

5) Give constructive feedback to people and provide them all the support to succeed; 9 out of 10 turn around and become gems. During a course in the MBA program, I learnt that negative feedback is what we consider feedback or, in fact, the word feedback itself is synonymous with negative feedback. Instead, can we give positive and constructive feedback?

I have now made it my style. At my workplace and the position I hold at Decimal Technologies, all my feedback is now positive and constructive; the idea is to help the individual overcome or change. 9 out of 10 times, I have managed to get outstanding outcomes.

6) Review. Review. Review. 

Objective, periodic review is one of the essential ingredients to achieving goals (personal or professional)

Start taking charge of your professional and personal life, which will be your best aid. It allows us to reflect on how we stood against our plans, what was achieved and missed, the new action plan, and how we will ensure we achieve it this time.

An example from my journal, I review myself on two things:

  1. a) My weight – I check it regularly (almost), as it helps me review my health.
  2. b) My bigger objectives in life – I have a 15 min conversation with myself every morning before interacting with anyone else. I reflect on the small actions that I need to take to achieve my larger objectives in the long run.

7) Irony to the universal belief that life is short

I believe that life is quite long, 75-80 years of personal and 40-45 years of professional. Few failures or a few years’ breaks will be minor scratches (not even dents) in the journey. And hence, don’t try shortcuts or work only for immediate benefit. Think long term. 

He concluded, “I, actually, have many more but am curtailing the list to my top 7 learnings.”

No matter what road you travel in life or where your professional plans take you, these are a few life lessons by Decimal technologies co-founder Arvind Nahata that you can always apply to your journey. It doesn’t matter where you came from or where you are going; these lessons by Arvind can be universally applied to us all.

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Kalki Yasas
Kalki Yasas Veeraraghava

President - Sales, BFSI-India

Yasas Kalki is the President of Sales – India. Having 25+ years of industry experience, he spent 12 years at Salesforce, achieving outstanding sales performance and building strong client relationships in the Enterprise business. He has also worked at Accenture, Infosys, GE Capital, Innoveer Solutions, and Sonata Software.