Our guest, Rashmi Ranjan Mohapatra, CEO of Parry Enterprises – a fast-growing group with net sales of INR 74 billion (EUR 8.1 billion) – is a true believer in the tremendous potential of human beings. He believes that a strong work culture, which drives personal growth while providing clear boundaries within which to operate, is key to unlocking that potential. After all, it is people who make the strategy happen, and culture shows the way to reach the goals.

Key Takeaways

Assessing the team

When stepping into a new organisation, Rashmi assesses his team—understanding their skills, experience, educational background, and personal motivators. Recognising that employees have been following established patterns for a long time is crucial. It’s essential to evaluate whether those work patterns align with the direction he aims to grow, or whether there are gaps, which will lead to resistance and friction. Both are natural and should be embraced as part of the journey to take your team along.

Uncover the unsaid and unwritten: the real culture

When entering a new organisation, Rashmi goes beyond the written code of conduct and guiding values to uncover the unwritten code—the unseen and unsaid cultural elements that truly define how the organisation operates. This involves observing how conflicts are managed, how stakeholders interact, and the behaviours displayed across formal and informal settings, such as corridor conversations or canteen discussions. These cues reveal the organisation’s actual culture and its alignment with stated principles.

How leaders can uncover the unsaid? Leaders should engage actively, remain present, and build trust by walking the talk, especially since they will be closely scrutinised, particularly if they are new. Understanding the emotions and reactions of team members is crucial, as these often reflect underlying grievances or resistance, rather than a direct rejection of new ideas. Leaders must connect on a personal level, going beyond surface-level interactions to genuinely understand and align with their teams. In some cultural contexts, such as in India, where people may not always be candid, reading between the lines becomes even more essential.

Communicate your thought process

Typically, a small percentage of innovators (2–15%) will adapt quickly, while the majority—about 60%—remain steady and resistant to change, requiring gradual engagement.

Rashmi pays a lot of attention in communicating his thought process and the big picture. For large organisations, it’s critical to ensure alignment between what the CEO, board, and management understand and what is conveyed to employees at every level. This message must remain consistent and unfiltered.

To achieve this, leaders should utilise every communication avenue—whether town halls, emails, or personal interactions—while consistently exuding energy and ensuring the message reaches the ground level in its purest form.

Drive teams into a state of flux

Rashmi drives his teams into a state of flux, helping them embrace both the thought process and the big picture with their hearts and minds.

A state of flux is a transitional phase where the team becomes more open and aligned with new ideas and directions. It’s a period when the team becomes more receptive and malleable.

Leaders can sense this shift through subtle cues, such as team members starting to ask new types of questions or engaging with the bigger picture being presented. This state often emerges after initial efforts to build understanding, like introducing industry trends, the need for relevance, and long-term goals. For example, transitioning to automation may initially cause resistance, but with time and clear communication about its benefits, the team begins to align and participate.

Leaders must be patient, recognising when the team is ready for deeper change. The goal is to guide them through this flux with a roadmap, milestones, and active involvement, allowing the team to feel confident and invested in the transformation. Only when the team reaches this flexible state can leaders effectively implement significant changes.

The credit goes to the team, and I take the failure

As a leader, Rashmi emphasises the importance of embracing failure as part of the learning process. Leaders always should make it clear to the team that they should never fear failure. In change processes, they have to try new things, and failure is inevitable. It is a leader’s job to ensure that the team feels psychologically safe by reassuring them that failing is not only okay, but it’s part of trying something new. It is important to celebrate failures because it encourages openness, learning, and accountability without blame. This approach fosters a culture where people feel safe to experiment and grow.

It is also important to remember tha when people see success stories, like five successful brands or organisations, they often overlook the fact that behind those successes, there are usually around 120 to 125 failures that paved the way for those achievements.

Believing in transient advantage

Rashmi believes in the concept of transient advantage rather than long-term competitive advantage or disruption. As a leader, he focuses on incremental improvements every day, always striving for positive change. While they operate within a framework, they must be aggressive in pursuing new ideas, even if it means risking failure.

The qualitative process sets the tone for how they operate across different sectors, whether it’s in service, manufacturing, or future tech. When the qualitative aspect is strong, the outcome is reflected in the data. The data is simply a business process outcome, showcasing the strength of the qualitative foundation.

Measuring culture is feeling the energy

When measuring culture, Rashmi focuses on the observable differences in the system, people, and organisation. If employees are passionate about the big picture and act as brand ambassadors, it reflects a strong culture. This energy in the workplace leads to tangible results, with growth indicating a sustainable culture. Every touchpoint with the organisation, whether internal or external, should exude this energy. It’s crucial to connect both mind and heart, as this creates positive energy that spreads across the team. Ultimately, employees should feel energised, motivated, and excited to return to work the next day.

Rashmi believes that tools like Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and similar methodologies only psatisfy a scoring pattern, provide surface-level metrics and don’t truly reflect the depth of culture. NPS may indicate whether someone is convinced about the culture, but it doesn’t capture its essence.

Organisations are people and leasdership is managing human beings

Any leader, regardless of their position in the organisational hierarchy, must understand that they are ultimately working with people. Processes and systems are essential, but they need to be embraced by individuals with both their hearts and minds. If team members don’t genuinely engage, they are like robots, and no meaningful results will come from that. Leaders must ensure that every team member is committed and aligned with the vision and strategy, even through ups and downs. Only then can they deliver. Leadership, therefore, is about managing human beings, not machines.

Unlocking human potential

Rashmi believes that humans possess immense untapped potential, often unbeknown to themselves. A leader’s role is to understand their team, identify their strengths, and help propel them forward. This process brings a deep sense of achievement, not from hitting targets, but from seeing the next generation of leaders surpassing expectations. A great leader takes pride in seeing team members grow and exceed their capabilities, rather than fearing competition or insecurity.

Healthy competition encourages each team member to perform better, while unhealthy competition is driven by a desire to outshine others. A true leader nurtures the potential in their team, helping them achieve things they never thought possible. This “Eureka” moment, when team members realise their own growth, is a powerful and rewarding experience for both the individual and the leader.

Culture is on top of strategy

A vision statement defines what an organisation wants to become, but for Rashmi, the crucial question is how to get there. While the “what” is easy to state, the “how” is critical, and it lies in the organisation’s culture and values. Culture is key to achieving strategic goals, as it drives sustainable business outcomes. Without a strong culture and values, strategies are unlikely to be executed effectively, leading to a misfit. As Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”