Chairman, CKA Birla Group, CKA Birla Group
How Top Leaders Stay Emotionally Strong At Work – Kumar Birla & Nikhil Kamath
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Nikhil Kamath - Co-founder of Zerodha, True Beacon and Gruhas
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#KumarBirla - Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group
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Transcript (19 segments)
I
Interviewer0:04
I read somewhere or someone said that you never lose your cool, you have lost it only twice.
C
C. Birla0:08
I've lost it 18 times in 29 years. And the reason I remember this number so specifically is that to me it's a black mark if you're losing your cool, especially at work. You're blessed to have so many colleagues who put in so much of their emotional, intellectual equity, their time. Then for me to have to lose my cool is really not a very good commentary on me as a leader. Therefore, I've kept account of it. Having said that, sometimes it's important to be angry. You need to be angry just to express a point of view that otherwise is not going through and not getting registered as strongly as required. But I'm a much easier person today than I was maybe even 10 years ago. Even personally, I'm much less likely to lose my cool or lose my shirt over something. The chances of me just walking away from the situation are much higher. I think that's just learning from life. It's also a lot of spirituality. Getting angry in a corporate context is also a little bit about getting out of control almost in my mind, and therefore not a very good thing the way I see it.
I
Interviewer2:40
Are you somebody who... you look like a very soft person and not someone who's going to get...
C
C. Birla2:44
I never get angry.
I
Interviewer2:46
Yeah? I can't remember the last time. How do you do that? I feel like how I arrived at not getting angry is a lot weaker than it is for you. I grew up around confrontation and I don't get angry because I want to avoid confrontation that comes with the anger.
C
C. Birla3:10
But that's fair. I think that's a mature way to look at it.
I
Interviewer3:14
Yeah, so I'm actually escaping confrontation. And you're likely very right that sometimes one has to be angry, but because I'm incapable of being angry, I'm somebody who's more, again, a weakness of mind, but passive-aggressive. I would much rather ignore a person than confront the person, which would have led for me to need to have been angry. I don't cry much as well. Like I can count on my fingers how many times I've cried in the last decade.
C
C. Birla3:47
How would the two be connected?
I
Interviewer3:53
I feel like extreme emotion on one side is succumbing to the moment, the other side, anger, is trying to engulf the moment. So on those two extremes of that pendulum, I rarely go. Like I said, five times. I remember brother's stroke, dad, dog passing away, maybe one breakup, and I can't even remember the fifth in the last decade.
C
C. Birla4:27
That's quite something. That's unusual.
I
Interviewer4:30
Yeah, yeah it is. So you're very controlled then. Controlled in your emotions.
C
C. Birla4:35
Fairly controlled, yeah, to the extent that people have called me emotionally dead. People who should not be calling me emotionally dead, if you know what I mean.
I
Interviewer4:46
Is that worrying to you, or it's not? It's done in a way that, it's done by design?
C
C. Birla4:52
No, no, it's not designed. It's just circumstance.
I
Interviewer5:00
I use the excuse of work. I tell myself that I have been an investor trader for 21 years of my life. I started at 17, I'm 38 today. And there I do well by virtue of being non-emotional and not reacting, not emoting to something in work or even personally.
C
C. Birla5:25
So you've trained yourself to be like that?
I
Interviewer5:27
Yeah, I think so. Also, that's a very convenient excuse for me. Yeah, so I use it as an excuse for what? Excuse for when somebody comes asking, 'Why are you emotionally like this?' You say that my work demands me to be like this? No, I say that maybe my work has made me like this.
C
C. Birla5:53
I do get sad. Could well be right. I mean, work we do does shape us to an extent.
I
Interviewer5:58
Yeah, so that's probably also a genuine reason. I'm sure the work you do has shaped you. I mean, your work is 100 times bigger than my work. I think the nuances of it would have shaped your personality in so many ways. The stresses of your life which led you to being the way you are today, only you will know. Right? And I'm guessing you must have so many...