Thanks a tonne for joining us today, Sury.

Thank you, Poornima, and a very warm welcome to listeners. I'm very pleased to be here.

The extra mile is synonymous with excellence. We really want to know where this uncluttered approach to excellence all began for you. Are there any early experiences or stories around the extra mile that convinced you that this is indeed a great value to chase?

Yeah, you know Poornima, an extra mile is all about going beyond what you are tasked to do. Going beyond your duty. That means that you are ready to do a little bit more beyond your job. That little bit more shows that you want to contribute more. That also means you're open to learning beyond what your job requires. So, many early stories come to my mind, and I would like to mention two, and talk in detail about one. So, first about my stint in Japan where we established the presence of Indian software industry in Japan, and second, my stint in the UK where we pioneered the Offshore Development Center concept through a telecom link, which was a big inflection point in the growth of the companies. So, first, let me talk about the Japan experience, Poornima. So, prior to Japan, our markets were primarily English speaking, you know, the US, the UK, Australia, etc. But Japan was number two market after the US, and it was imperative that we have our presence there. And then I was chosen to lead the foray in late 80s. However, I found soon that Japan was a much more language specific market. You know, all the systems, displays, reports, required good knowledge of the language. Not only that, when you are selling; selling also required the language part. So if you take a parallel, you know, when the Japanese went to the West, for example, the US to sell their cars in the 70s, they did not ask the customers to speak Japanese language in order to use their product, that is cars. Similarly, we could not have asked our customers in Japan to change their language. Instead, we had to change our language to speak to them. So I learned Japanese language quickly, and in 18 months or so I was able to speak at seminars. Then, you know, I had to overcome the barrier of very low awareness of India's IT progress in Japan at the time. I had to ask and work with only international companies who had experience with the Indian IT services in other countries, and then look for work which was more technical because it would be less Japanese language dependent. So all of these things work, these things required walking the extra mile, going beyond what was needed. And today, we have a thriving business in Japan thanks to our customers and our people.

Wonderful! In fact, you know, I'm going to pop a surprise on you and ask you to perhaps say a statement in Japanese. I wonder if there's a translation of Japanese for "the extra mile."

The best phrase that comes to my mind in Japanese about, you know, what I did was "Ganbatte kudasai". "Ganbatte kudasai" is "Please continue your quest, please continue your efforts." And I think that also symbolizes, you know, the Japanese culture where, you know, there is this concept of, huge concert of excellence.

So let's continue our quest a little bit more, and let's unpack the business dimension of the extra mile a little bit more. How has this deep customer and contextual understanding and focus on excellence been an intrinsic part of TCS' journey of tremendous growth?

Yeah, so this is a very good segue from the first question. You know, Poornima, we exist, all of us exist only if our customers exist. And as you work with your customers, you acquire more knowledge about their business. So you know what their business is, and how you would be able to help them more. The other dimension of this all is the technology excellence, and the innovation from us. This comes from our experience with the technology and product landscape. What is current, and what is on the horizon. So you know that we have a formal innovation framework, which is called Co-Innovation Network (COIN), which has our labs, customer innovation facilities, our academic research relationships, such as Cornell Tech and CMU, and a big pool of relevant startups. So this actually helps a lot in terms of bringing the innovation to our customers, you know, again, participating in their growth and transformation. Then the other part, Poornima, is let's face it, when the customers give you business for the first time, they put their reputation at stake, so as to speak. So you have to ensure that you make their company proud of having brought TCS to the company. And, then remember the customers do move from one company to another. And if you delivered excellence to them in the first place, your cost of sales in the second is almost zero. So let me give you another example of extra mile which was, which happened recently. So this was earlier this year, you know, when the pandemic started. We, as a company of 450,000 people, pivoted very quickly from working from offices to working from home in a secure borderless way, which we call as SBWS. This helped our customers, and you know our customers include large banks, retailers, hospitals, airlines, manufacturers, keep their operations going in a seamless manner. So, very much appreciated by them. And lastly, you know, a very good example of transformation work is the Indian passport issuance system, which has brought down the wait for a passport from several months to just a few weeks. So, the kind of difference that you can make for your customers and customers' customers is immense.

There's a lot of magic, you know, you just spoke about setting up customers for success. And, in fact, another aspect that is very keenly associated with your leadership style has been attracting great talent, and realizing their potential also. In fact, teams who have worked with you, and one of the people who used to work in your teams is my current manager. You know, she keeps telling us about the very high standard that you often set for teams, and instead of setting goal sheets for them, you actually tell them to think audaciously and completely go out of their comfort zones. So how do you get people on your teams to go this extra mile?

You know that this is a virtuous spiral. If you have excellent talent to start with, and you nurture it with work which challenges, stimulates and hones their intellect, they would attract more such talent to the company. So I've been very fortunate to work with leaders who have challenged me to think in an audacious manner, starting from Mr. Kohli, Ram, Chandra, and now Rajesh. Actually, it was Chandra who coined the phrase "realize your potential." And if you look at it, Poornima, all barriers are in our minds. And if you get down to it, we can all do what we think is impossible today for us, all can be possible. You know that Roger Bannister was the guy who broke the record for running a mile in under four minutes. Before he did this feat, you know, people had thought that a human body couldn't withstand the rigor of such running, the human heart would pop out because of the force of pumping the blood so hard. And there are similar stories, similar examples of people who have done things people felt impossible earlier. So if you take an audacious goal and come up with what is needed to achieve, that is a much better way to achieving those audacious goals.

And it has worked beautifully, as so many teams who worked under you and with you vouch for. You know, another aspect of, you know, your entire leadership backpack and the extra mile that carries, has been your energy around increasing awareness and adoption of STEM and 21st century skills, especially among next generation talent. How were these GoIT and Ignite My Future programs conceived? And what have been some of, you know, the insights behind how the program has grown across various schools and districts? Do these 21st century skills also, in a way, celebrate the extra mile?

So there were two aspects to these two programs that is STEM and 21st century skill. So one was the DNA of the Tata Group. So giving back to the communities where we live and work in, actually that comes as the second nature. Second was a realization as we started hiring from the campuses in the US in higher numbers. Especially when we started the large center in Cincinnati, a beautiful 223 acres campus called Seven Hills Park. So we found that there were not enough graduates coming out in STEM fields. So, I'll give you an example. In 2010, the number of computer science graduates in the whole of US was only 115,000, which clearly is inadequate. So we started looking into the reasons and found that there were not enough students getting into the STEM courses in the universities. And when we looked at the schools, we found that the awareness and the interest among students in the middle and high schools needed big improvement. We then conceived GoIT program to address this gap, and started working with the local school district in Cincinnati, holding awareness and app creation sessions for the students after school hours. So the students, who know how to use smartphones, and then they say that they know all about smartphones because they can consume content on the smartphone, they also now know how to create apps and content. Now let's talk about the second program which is the Ignite My Future in School. So it was actually conceived as another extra mile idea. So, we’re talking about extra mile today, right? So, Chairman Chandra, in one of the reviews, challenged us to think audaciously in order to increase the number of students we were able to reach. So we teamed up with Discovery Education and came up with the idea to embed computational thinking in the school curriculum. So computational thinking is basically a combination of algorithms and data analytics. And this is the basis of the 21st century skills that we've been talking about. So the audacity actually isn't the numbers. So for GoIT program, we were able to reach 25,000 students in the US in last 10 years. But for Ignite My Future in School, we took a target of, you know what, we took a target of million students in just three years. And, you know, we are very close to achieving it. So that audacity to think what you can do is really what it is all about. And the second aspect is giving back to the communities, we've been very happy that where we live and work in, we've been able to enrich the locations where we are present.

In your case, you know, the story of running the extra mile is literal as well. You took up running a few years ago and have never looked back. You advocate for a healthy body as the home of a happy mind. And you also push pretty hard for employee well being and fitness. Can you share a little bit about how this journey began for you? And what have been some of the collateral benefits that this has yielded along the way?

You know, Poornima, my passion for running started at work. So Chairman Chandra was the CEO at the time, and he took up running in a big way. So he was running marathons. So when he would come to town, his love for running was so infectious that I would join him and I quickly shared his passion for the sport. So you know, Poornima, all these years I've been working at various races sponsored by TCS, especially the TCS New York City Marathon to ensure the Team TCS runners, that is our customers, our employees, and our teachers from GoIT and Ignite My Future in School programs, have a great experience. So I am basically the organizer, so as to say. But this year, you know, I finally decided to take the plunge and run the full marathon. But, you know, because of pandemic it's a virtual race. And that's where the extra mile comes in, you know the extra mile that we've been talking about today. So I know that I would have to will myself much harder because it's a virtual race as there are no cheering crowds, no replenishment stations on the way. But, as I said, you know, we carry all the barriers in our minds, and I have the grit and determination to complete the marathon this year.

The message of fitness is something that has carried very loudly through the TCS system as well. How do you manage to do this clarion call? Because it's such a vast organization. How do you get people motivated around the cause of fitness?

I think our job requires us to be fit. And any job, for that matter, requires people to be fit. And one of the traits of leadership is people should exude energy, people should be fit. They should be seen as, you know, people who can energize, people who can, you know, get people going. And when you are fit, when your body feels good, like they say that, you know, you have a happy mind in a healthy body.

These are really, really wonderful words, and you know, for the time where all of us are sort of just getting back into, you know, our, in some sense, our zones, this is a great message to carry with us. I just want to ask you, you know, a quick rebuttal round, which was just to ask you that, what are your top three things when you talk about the extra mile? What does it mean?

Top three things to me is, extra mile really means exceeding expectations. Extra mile really means contributing more, ready to, willingness to do more than what you're given. And that, kind of, in a, you know, sets you apart, that kind of says that you're ready to take more responsibility. That also says that you want to make the team successful, you working in a team, you want to make sure that if, you know, there is something that you can do, and if someone is away, or not well, you'd be happy to take over that and make sure the team is. So you are giving a lot more focus to the team rather than yourself.

Perfect! Actually, that was my wrap question just so that, you know, we actually encapsulate the spirit of the podcast, you know, in a few lines. But actually that was the last question that we had for you. And thank you so so much!

Oh, thank you, Poornima!

All of us have an idea and a journey sketched out in our minds to reach our goals. What Sury's outlook towards leadership teaches us is that sometimes if we push a little farther, and do a little more than what is expected of us, it opens up a whole new world of opportunities. Going that extra mile serves as an inspiration for others to follow your lead and take more responsibility onto their shoulders. So the next time you put on your running shoes and feel like you've run enough for the day, trust your instincts and go that extra mile. For more inspiring conversations like this, join me, Poornima Pandey on the next episode of LeaderCraft.

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