Postgraduate Cohort Commencement Lecture by Mr Ram Raghavan

Thanks, thanks for that. Good morning everybody. Let me just begin by sharing my screen first. I'm guessing everybody can see my screen? Yes, perfect. Thanks. So first, listen, good morning once again. And to begin with, I want to kick it off with two thank yous more than anything else. First, Dr. Shani and the entire faculty and staff of the institute, thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity. You know, I have no doubt in my mind that the only way I could get accepted into your institute was through this means. If I'd actually applied as a student, there's no way I could match the caliber of the talent that I know I have seen at your institute. So at least in this way you've given me the opportunity of being a part of the institute. So for that, my sincere thanks once again. The second, it is such an auspicious day, as you mentioned already, it is Teacher's Day. So happy Teacher's Day to every one of you. And I want to draw your attention to the visual that you're seeing on screen. Not sure how many of you are familiar, but that's Hemanthi Sen, Himati Sen is actually, believe it or not, a drama teacher. And during her commutes, she realized that at Khandubli station in Mumbai, she realized that she would often see all these children, unfortunately, you know, the children begging or some of them just languishing around on the skywalk doing nothing. She reached out to them and asked them about, you know, do they go to school, what do you do, are you learning anything? Some of them were going but not fully attending. She took it on herself along with Junoon, a very famous NGO, to actually create a school on the Kandivli skywalk. And for me, it just felt absolutely apt to begin Teacher's Day once again with a sincere thanks to every one of the faculty members for their passion and relentless dedication to the pursuit of our success. You know, it's unbelievable to watch how with the nobility with which our faculty, our teachers, continue to dedicate their life to make us succeed. I think it's times like this that we owe it to them, and the only words we have beyond all the other actions and hopefully the success stories that come from every one of us is to say thank you. So I just want to make sure that I kicked it off with those two thanks once again, a heartfelt and sincere thanks, and happy Teacher's Day once again.

I'm going to talk about two subjects, and I'm going to talk about two subjects in the context that its relevance is applicable to just about everybody. It doesn't have to necessarily just be a management student or in a position of leadership. But I'm going to talk to you about the philosophy of learning, because I think it's been one of the key things that's changed my life over the years, and the need to make sure that you have a learning agenda, and the ideology that learning never stops. And the second part of what I will talk to you about is the process of building a leadership narrative. What is your leadership point of view? It's something that needs to start really early in your life, and it's not something that comes with a position. Leadership isn't about a title. Leadership isn't about a position you hold in a company. Leadership is about how you fundamentally make a difference. So I'm going to talk to you about my experiences. All I'm hoping for is that these serve as inspirations for you to become far greater leaders and change the world in the future. Let me kick it off with the learning agenda. Now, I've had the good fortune in my life to travel the world on work, and most certainly on vacations and other experiences. But I think for me it doesn't matter whether you travel across the world or you simply take a train journey between, let's say, Villa Parla and Churchgate every day. Every one of these journeys or opportunities translate themselves into experiences, and each of those experiences teach you something. Your task as an individual and a learner and a leader is about making sure you have an open mind and an awareness level that allows you to realize that this is a learning experience and how do you therefore act upon it. Simply put, how do you keep your ears and eyes open to these experiences. So the first one I want to kick it off with is a small little town in Bandara. So right after I finished my B-school, I was told, listen, your first sales assignment is going to be in a small town called Bandara, and I was like, Mandara what? And believe it or not, for those of you who don't know where it is, it is in Maharashtra, it's actually on the border of Maharashtra and erstwhile MP, so it's a border town. Small little town back then, this is 1997-1998. Back then, about a population of about 70,000 people. Obviously you can imagine, small little town, not much to do. And as I went in there for the first couple of days, I had to find a place to stay. I realized that the best place to stay was actually rent a room in the only hotel. And back then it wasn't even called a hotel, it used to be called Adarsh Lodge. So I said okay, let me go and rent a room. They had two kinds of rooms: they had one which was a room with shared toilets, and then one with private toilets attached. I said okay, I'll take the one with the private toilet. And I asked a very simple question for any one of us today we take it for granted, right? You put your shower on, you turn the tap on, and you turn a hot water tap or you turn a cold water tap and you get either hot, warm, or cold water. So I asked a very simple question to the manager of the hotel. I said, listen, do you have running hot water? He said, yeah, of course we do, no worries at all. I said great, paid up the advance I had to pay out, moved in. Next day, luckily it was a weekend. Next day I start the tap in the morning to have a shower, wait for a couple of minutes, five minutes, ten minutes later, there's no hot water coming. And for those of you who've lived in or around Nagpur or traveled around the area of Nagpur, it can get quite cold in winter. So I said nothing changed. I said maybe something wrong today, and maybe it's a weekend, so I had a shower, I had a bath in cold water. Same thing happened again on Sunday, same thing happened on Monday, and I said what's going on. Walked across then on Tuesday I finally said you know what, something must be wrong, let me go check. Walked across the manager, I said listen, when I checked and you told me you're going to give me running hot water. He said yeah, of course. He said all you have to do is give me five rupees every day, and there's a little boy who will run and get you hot water. So literally since that time for the next seven months that I lived there, I would pay five rupees in the morning, I'd leave a coin, and there would be a bucket of hot water outside my door at 6 AM. So the point I'm trying to make here is culture shock can happen anywhere. Sometimes we believe that culture shock happens only when I travel to France and the French are different from Indians, or when I'm in Japan the Japanese are different from Indians. You'll be amazed at how culture shock can happen within even a simple organization. The way one team functions can be different from the way another team functions. Even in your own lives, think about it, you may have different groups of friends. The way you are with one group or the philosophies that exist in one group would be very different from another, and each, if you think about it, is a shock to the system. So once again, my story about running hot water is to tell you that culture shock can happen anywhere. Be prepared for it, be aware of it, and make sure you learn to leverage it.

Second story I want to talk to you about is golf. So I'm an avid golfer, and I'm an average one at that. So one of the things when you play golf is you hit more balls in the woods or in the trees on the left and the right than you actually hit where you're supposed to be hitting. So this is a story that I had from my time in Canada. So I used to spray the ball, as we say, left and right quite often enough, and a lot of lost balls would end up being in the jungle on the sides. And you'd have these entrepreneurs, whether they were from low-income backgrounds or from generally gardeners, who would go about collecting these golf balls and then they would come, you know, when you were playing, they would come back to you with a bag of golf balls and tell you listen, it's up for sale, and obviously at a much cheaper price than you probably buy at a store. What was particularly interesting was the entrepreneurialism, the branding, and the value proposition that they had thought about without a formal education like we have had. And what do I mean by that? So very simply put, the first thing was on the value proposition. Very simply, they would say every bag was ten dollars, that's it. Now in a bag for ten dollars, you could get 20 balls, 15 balls, or 12 balls. And what was the difference? If it was one kind of ball, so it was Callaways, you would get 20; if there were Nikes, you'd get 15; if they were Titleist, you'd get only 12. So just think of it: first learning without formal education: pricing ten dollars. They all know we would have a ten dollar note in our pocket, not an issue for us to pay that out. Number one. They've understood the value proposition of how much I would value that purchase of that bag at that point in time compared to what I'd have to go and pay when I went to a formal store. The second: branding. They realized that each brand of ball had a different value and they planned for that. Third: entrepreneurship. Where else do you need a golf ball the most? When you're in a golf course, and specifically if you happen to be in the woods because you've lost your ball, that's probably the exact time you want to buy one. So you talk about timing and all of these values without formal education in management or in brand management or in communication or in strategy. So again, the point I'm trying to make from the story is: be humble as a leader, have the humility to accept good ideas — don't take bad ones — but have the humility to accept ideas from anyone, anytime, anywhere. You'll be surprised at what different and diverse groups of people can teach you, and the applicability of that learning is way beyond your wildest of imaginations.

The third story I want to talk about is crisis. We're all living in one. You've already heard Shikha talk about the fact that education and perhaps, if you think about it, none of us in our wildest of imaginations or dreams would have said education could go digital, but your institute's a perfect example of converting a crisis into a phenomenal opportunity. Unfortunately, I have had many crises over the years across multiple locations that I've lived in, and each of them have taught me many different things. I distill them down to three critical learnings that I've had, and my only ask is reflect back on the last six months because each of you in some form or manner would have lived through this crisis called COVID. Whether it's affected you personally, whether it's affected friends, family, or even if you're just reading about it, put a lens of these three aspects that I'm going to put in front of you and rethink how you would have looked to retackle this crisis, had it hits you again. Number one is human centricity. It is in times of crisis that you must refocus your energy on people. Whether it's your family, your loved ones, your friends, or even if you're an organization or an institute, how can you become more human-centric? And human centricity fundamentally starts with an unbelievable level of empathy. It's very easy for me to say, when I called work from home for the entire Colgate offices across the country, it was very easy for me to call work from home. As we went through it, it was quite interesting for us to understand some of the genuine and practical challenges people were having. A simple point on human centricity that we learned during the COVID period was we issued a guideline that said no more meetings between 12 in the afternoon and 2 PM in the afternoon, and similarly Friday afternoons no meetings. And why did we do that? The simple learning we had was that in normal circumstances, either people had maids or help or somebody at home who would do the cooking. Number one. Second, even if the couple was both working, they would be at their offices and their child or children would be at school. So infrastructure at home during lunch was minimal; the need was minimum, and therefore the infrastructure was minimal. During COVID, suddenly it was husband and wife at home, child or children at home studying, most often than not in India we also have in-laws or parents living with us, so suddenly and no help. So the same couple now had to deal with work, manage the child's education or children's education, and also prepare lunch. And not only just prepare lunch, you also have to clean up after that, because most of us should realize that same dining table doubles up as the work desk as well. So that's human centricity. That insight gave us a simple outlook to say wow, we never thought about it that way, and we just said listen, let's give everybody two hours off in the day to focus on life and focus at home. The second is absolute prioritization. And I know this is a tough one, but I urge you, ask yourself again, and you would have done it. There were so many behaviors of yours that you could have, you would have believed that I could never do without this. Ask yourself the same behaviors. I bet each one of you has adapted, evolved, and is looking at it very, very differently today. In the same spirit, what absolute prioritization means is nothing but focusing on what absolutely matters, nothing else. And the third aspect, again think of your own lives, right? How do you balance the now, which is the managing of the crisis, without losing sight of the future? Your institute is a perfect example of that. Amongst the fastest to move towards how to deal with the crisis, make sure people are safe without compromising education quality or content. But they didn't stop there. They moved on beyond and said okay, if this is what life is going to be, how do you actually make it even bigger, more enriching, and even more valuative? So think about your own lives now. You would have done a lot of things that were focused on the now, and that's good and that's right. But even in a crisis, make sure that you balance the now along with the future. That ambidextrous dexterity will be an unbelievable tool in your arsenal. And that's what you got to focus on.

My next story is slightly different. So again, you know, one of the advantages or disadvantages of traveling around the world for work is you end up in cultures or you end up in countries where more often than not you don't speak the language. I've spent about seven years in China and a little bit more than four years in Latin America, and in both locations when my family, my wife and I, first went there, we didn't speak the language. Now we do, but we didn't. And it was interesting in the beginning that I would sit in a meeting and I would actually tell my team in China, listen, if it's easier, do the meeting in Chinese and then just debrief me, and I'll ask a few questions and we can move on. And what I realized was that the minute I asked for the meeting to be held in another language that I didn't understand, then my attention would waver dramatically. I would just not be bothered because I would be like oh, it's all Greek to me, doesn't really matter. And then it dawned upon me. I said you know what, even if I don't understand the language, let me pay attention to people. Let me pay attention to pupil dilation. Let me pay attention to your body language. Let me pay attention to where your hands are, where your legs are. And then I realized that there was so much I could, I started understanding simply by paying complete attention, even if I didn't understand the language. And the philosophy of active listening is that your dedication, your focus, is on absolute listening, and listening to everything that is said and not said. And I say this particularly in today's day and age, when we have technology as powerful and useful as it is to us, it is also amongst the most distracting things. How many of you have the courage to enter a classroom or enter a meeting or enter a project team and put your phone upside down, not have the desire to look at it and see oh, what's the latest WhatsApp message I've got or not got? How many of you have the courage to do that? Imagine if you were passionately presenting something to somebody or passionately explaining something to someone, and all I started doing suddenly was looking at my phone and saying no.

You can't multitask. So again, my learning on this is language isn't a limitation and it can never be an excuse to not actively listen. So make sure you train yourself and this is a tremendously trainable skill. Look at people, look at how they behave, look at how they react verbally and non-verbally when you say something or don't do something. By the way, start with your family and you'll realize yourself how much of a better human being you can be when you start becoming an active listener.

The second part of what I want to talk to you about are how these stories — and by the way, I just thought I'd share four or five big stories that affected the course of my life over the years. I have many, many more and I'm sure we'll have many opportunities to engage, and I'm more than happy to share a lot more of those stories then as well. The second part of it is stories and experiences are absolutely essential because they teach you or they continue to help you learn. The second part is how does one apply learning? Because when you apply learning, that's when you grow. So learning is a vehicle that allows you to continually grow. And when you continually grow, I hope and I urge and I ask every one of you, irrespective of where your ambitions are — whether you want to be an entrepreneur, whether you want to work for an NGO, whether you want to be a part of a corporate setup, whether your dreams are in design, architecture, business — it doesn't matter. How do you form a leadership narrative? How do you have a perspective that's yours? I'm going to share with you a few of mine. I'm going to try to do it BuzzFeed style, so this is like my top seven in leadership. I urge and I ask you to start forming your own.

The first one I want to talk about in my world: strategy plays a critical role and a critical part of what I do. And one of my biggest learnings over the years is strategy — which is where do you want to go, what needs to get done — absolutely important. And again, I'll use a golf analogy. I know where I tee off from, I know where the golf hole is, great, there's a scorecard, I know what I gotta do, it's quite simple actually. The reality is execution trumps strategy more often than not. Give me an average strategy with brilliant execution any day versus a brilliant strategy with average execution. We undermine the power of getting things done. Now it's not that these are two elements that stand apart; they go hand in hand. Because yes, you do want to get the right things done, so you can't be running in the wrong direction. So strategy is critical, but getting it done or execution is absolutely vital. But what trumps the two of these is how. Culture. So think about it again. You guys work on project teams, you have projects, you have classes, you have goals, you have milestones to be met, and you have tight deadlines. Sometimes to get it done, you have to go backwards because you've gone down a path and then you've realized, 'Oh my god, that was an error there, let's go take a couple of steps back to take a few steps forward.' And that's perfectly fine. Now there are points in time, and specifically when life gets difficult, your integrity or your ethics gets questioned. That's the 'how'. When you talk about 'Oh, that team did this really really fast because they cheated or they took help from somebody else' — those aspects of how something gets done is called the culture of an organization. It's the culture of a team, it's the culture of a family. And believe it or not, culture is something that needs to be thought through, curated, and nurtured. Good and great leaders spend a lot of time and energy on making sure the culture of an organization continues to do the best it can. Business results or team results will have their fair share of ups and downs, but culture is that rock that holds you through any kind of wave or storm that comes down your path.

My second thing — and I was hoping for a little bit of interactivity, so if this was a live presentation, if I was in person with you guys, I would have done this a little bit more interactively with you, but let's try it nonetheless. Challenges come in many shapes and forms. So I just want you to put in the chat box: is this challenging? Jump in, guys. Is this challenging? Do you believe this is challenging? You can just dump it to the top. Yes or no? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Perfect. And I got a couple of C's as well. Is this challenging? Okay, lots of yeses, fair enough. Now tell me, is this challenging? I bet a lot of you actually tried it right now at home to see can I actually lick my elbow or not. And the point I'm trying to make is if you look at the first image, it's an obvious visible challenge: I gotta walk across a canyon and I gotta do a tightrope act around it. Come on, my life is at risk here. But tremendously trainable challenge, it's like riding a bike. When you were born, you didn't know how to ride a bike, but you trained yourself and you learned how to ride a bike. The second one is an unbelievable skill set: when life throws, as we say, when life throws lemons at you, the ability to make lemonade out of it. So again, a trainable skill set simply because life has pushed you into a corner and you have to figure out how to make the best out of it. The third one sometimes are invisible challenges. And believe it or not, there is a large number of challenges you will face — whether it's in your personal lives, at school, at work — where you will go through more invisible challenges than the visible ones. The visible ones are things you can prepare for; the invisible ones are the ones that really will test your mettle as a leader. It will test your capability of first and foremost identifying it before you can even begin solving for it. The other build I have on it is that every decision you will make — every decision you make today, by the way — comes down to three variables and three variables only: it's all driven by gut or instinct, experience, and facts. The mix that each of us apply to make that decision on these three variables changes based on the risk associated with the decision. Let me repeat that: all decisions each and every one of us make today comes down to gut or your instinct, your experience, and facts. The mix comes down to the risk associated with that decision. Think of it this way: you want to watch the next Netflix movie or the next Netflix series. You read a couple of things on it, you will watch it. Zero risk. Worst case, after 30 minutes or even after a few episodes, you'll stop watching. Almost zero risk, except a little bit of time is gone, that's about it. The second: you want to go on a vacation, or you've been on many vacations, you want to go another one, and you're picking an airline. Besides cost, you then say, 'Hang on, you know what, my experience with this airline was better, or my friend's experience was better, my family's experience was better.' The third one: if I tell you, listen, deciding to spend let's say 20 lakhs on a car, suddenly that decision becomes a lot more critical because the risk is 20 lakhs. You will do a lot of fact checks, you will go for test drives, you will go and research, compare one car versus another car, you will go and look for reviews, you will do a whole host of things. Same thought process. So just think of it that way. Solving for a challenge comes down to identification of challenge and then using the three criteria I just solved for it, the mix being different based on the risk associated with it.

My third one is about adding value and not intelligence. And I say this with all due respect to all you bright, young, smart kids out there. You are phenomenally smart. Your strength as a leader is amplified when you're able to let the best ideas, the best solutions leave a room, not when you are the smartest human being or trying to be the smartest human being in the room. And sometimes adding value can be a simple task of even silence. And we often forget that. We believe that a high share of voice equates to phenomenal presence and therefore equates to better leadership. Not necessarily. Leadership is about making sure you're able to add value to any task — whether it's a simple household chore, or solving a problem at home, or even working in the subgroups that you probably are on case studies, and most certainly when it comes to the work life in any corporation or even a business that you would start yourself. How can you add value and not intelligence?

The next one I want to talk about is resilience. And I cannot overstate this enough. If there is anything that I would want you to walk away with, it is resilience: the power to be passionate and persevere. Because that will be the single biggest variable that will help you define your success and help you achieve your dreams, whatever they are. You have to learn how to fail, because there's nothing better than a — there's no better teacher than failure. And I want to give you — I had the good fortune of meeting Juan Luis Barrios. Barrios is a Mexican mid-distance runner, so he does 3000, 5000, 10000, and he does half marathons as well. I had the good fortune of meeting this wonderful gentleman a few years ago in my life. And it was a very interesting story. He's an Olympic athlete. So I'm going to give you context of failure from the point of view of an Olympic athlete. The Olympics come across once in four years. So think about it: you're putting your blood, sweat, tears, time, everything you've sacrificed so much for one event that takes place every four years. Just think about the sacrifices, the pressure, the anxiety building up towards that. You've done everything you can. So he obviously was a wonderful racer. In the Beijing Olympics, he came seventh, and he missed it by about 12 seconds — he missed getting a medal, he missed being on the podium by about 12 seconds, give or take. So he put his heart and soul back into elevating himself, did a phenomenal job, and then trained for the London Olympics. In the London Olympics, unfortunately he came eighth, so he moved backward. But funny enough, he missed the podium spot this time only by three seconds. Now think about this: your entire life dedicated to one single event that occurs once in four years. How easy is it to give up when something doesn't go right? Guess what he did? He didn't let it falter at all. He subsequently went on to win many races in the Pan American Games, in the Central American Games. He started running half marathons. In fact, I think he came fourth in the New York Half Marathon. So he didn't give up. His passion was running. He realized that he came up short; it didn't stop him from giving up. He just asked himself, 'What do I need to do differently?' I just thought I'd share, and this is something where your mettle will be tested in life — whether it's at work, whether it's at play, or whether it's in your personal pieces. Your mettle will be tested on this fundamental aspect of life called success. And you will succeed the more you get comfortable with failure.

The next one is about remaining curious. I'm an avid reader. I read anything. I ask a lot of questions. I read books on any subject if I just find it interesting. So when I was in Latin America, you hear a lot of noise about the drug cartels and things like that. I said, 'Okay, this is a subject I didn't know,' so I went to pick up 15 books on the subject and I started understanding it better, so I get a flavor of what it is. Similarly, you move somewhere else, you pick up a subject. So I urge and encourage you strongly: open yourselves, be phenomenally curious. And in this day and age, technology gives you unbelievable accessibility. You can read about any subject you want, anywhere. And if you don't like reading, technically you can even watch it. By the way, hopefully a lot of you have learned a lot of new skills during this lockdown period. I know a lot of people who've done the same thing. And that's about curiosity. Curiosity once again will allow you to grow. Growth translates itself into development, and development translates itself into success. So once again, keep growing and keep being curious.

The last two I want to touch upon are very, very personal. I touched upon a little bit on the culture of how things get done. And I think in this day and age, leaders must be authentic. Leaders must walk the talk, and leaders must hold themselves to the highest of ethical standards possible. These, for me, are non-negotiable leadership traits. It is something that you must say no to, no matter how hard or difficult that obstacle is. Never lose your authenticity or your integrity, because the one time you do compromise on this, I guarantee you, you will be compromising forever. So make sure you define what your authentic style is and what defines your ethical standards, and do not deviate, do not under any circumstances, no matter how tough they are, waver from this definition of authenticity and integrity.

My last one is have fun. Seriously. Life's too short, and as we're all seeing, life has so many ups and downs, most of them unfortunately unpredictable. But what we can do is how we choose to thrive in those moments. And having a sense of humor — I don't say this because at the end of the day Colgate is about smile. I don't say this because we consider our mission to make sure that more seven billion people keep smiling healthily. It's not because of that, but it's also simply because humor allows you to fundamentally relieve stress. So it also keeps things light-hearted, and trust me, you will get a lot more done with having a sense of humor than anything else. In closing, I wanted to just share a quote that I live my life by. It comes from Sir Winston Churchill, which is: 'Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.' Just think of that for a moment. Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it. And all I want you to do is keep flying as high, as much, as long as you possibly can. So with that, I want to open up to questions.

Wow. So the bitter — let me start with the bitter and then I'll end with the sweet. First, thanks for the question, Manan. So the bitter experiences — I'm an eternal optimist, so I don't have bitter experiences, I just have experiences that are not so nice. And I would say the not-so-nice experiences of working from home is there's no clear definition of when a work day ends and your personal time kicks in. So they kind of become seamless, and the workday seems to extend itself into your personal life a lot more than perhaps when we were all physically going to locations. So I think that would be something that's visibly changed that I would like to re-change back in some form or manner, whether we go back to work physically or not. For me, how does one make sure we are able to balance work life better? That's the sweet part. Actually, many things. I think I've never been as engaged with my children's work and their learning journeys. And they see me doing something and they say, 'Wow, can I learn that?' So my participation in their life has gone up tremendously. I would not have seen this aspect of what they do and how they do it and where I can add value frankly into that process as well. That's one. Second, I think the biggest beneficiary of the work from home process has been our dog. Our dog has just absolutely enjoyed being you know just sitting in a room next to me sometimes. Even if he's not barking or doing anything else, just the fact that we are around — he's probably been the biggest beneficiary about it. So from a sweet point of view, like I said, a far deeper understanding of my children's lives and their learning journeys, and then of course watching my dog have a happy expression on his face 24/7.

A great question, Harvey, and a subject that's very, very close to my heart. So let me start off by saying I think our commitment on sustainability — and we look at sustainability in a much broader context. We look at it in the context of sustainability at our home: what are we doing ourselves, whether it's our offices, our factories, our people. What are we doing? We look at it from the point of view of our communities: whether it's recyclable tubes, whether it is educating people or elevating oral health in the country. And then we talk about our planet. And our planet most certainly beyond just recyclability, but it's also about usage of resources. Whether we like it or not, a large, large component of our product categories use water, and water is amongst the most scarce of commodities on the planet today. So we look at sustainability from a much broader footprint. Coming to your question specifically on what we are going to do, I think two things, and I'll link it to both the points I've made on what we do for our communities first, and then I'll talk a little bit more about what we're doing for our planet as well. On the communities piece of sustainability and our mission to elevate oral health in India, last year October we actually launched or relaunched our flagship product Colgate Dental Cream, which you all have grown up with — the red pack of Colgate. We relaunched that with the single best technology in oral health since the invention of fluoride in 1950. It's a patented technology that we had, that we've applied and put into every tube of toothpaste on Colgate Dental Cream, whether it's the 200 rupee tube or the 10 rupee tube, irrespective of the profit impact on that. Addition of that technology even on our rural packs — it was a choiceful decision for us to make sure that our commitment to elevating oral health improved. That's one. Second, on the recyclable tubes, as we've taken a stance as leaders of the industry to open source it. So despite the fact that we came up with the idea and invented it, we are open sourcing it and giving access to everybody because we believe in collectivity for greater impact. So what I can tell you is look forward to this space. The recyclable tube is coming to a market close to you very soon.

Well, tremendously. I think Dr. Shani is also familiar with a couple of many things that we've done in this period of time, and I don't know where to begin. So let me start with the factories themselves. In the past, let's say a line would shut down or there's some problem on it. What would you do? You'd call a group of engineers in and they would physically have to go and solve the problem. We've had zero issues in the last three or four months now actually, because any issue that's come up actually has been solved through virtual reality. So quite literally, the folks at the plant put a set of virtual reality glasses on, and let's say I'm sitting in the office or I'm sitting at home, I can participate in exactly what's going on at the plant and help them solve the problem. So that's just one example of how we've used digital to solve problems that in the past would have almost certainly required a group of engineers or a group of people getting there. That's one. Second, the product categories that we operate in today, which is largely oral care and personal care, the quality stringency for us is of the highest standards. In fact, our internal standards are way above government norms in any country in the world, because we believe at the end of the day consumers trust our brand and our products and actually put them in your mouth — not just your mouth, but also your family and your children's mouth as well. So the diligence and the stringency we apply to quality is very high. So anytime we create new products or we do something new, we have to run what we call batch runs or test runs at the plant so that we know what was created in the lab actually can be produced at a mass scale without any compromise whatsoever to quality. Because making something in a lab is very different when you're doing a million toothbrushes at a time — two completely different paradigms. So that entire process is being managed digitally today. Our quality teams, our R&D specialists are all engaging with the plants 100% virtually. More than anything else. And the third one that I'll highlight on the complete other side of it — in fact, I think Dr. Shani knows it, I have a sample here somewhere. Here's my Palmolive hand sanitizer. A product that was developed entirely virtually. I only got a sample in my own hands to try it for the first time after the product was shipped. So that's another example. And most recently, in fact, you'll see it over the next three or four weeks coming out in the market as well. Just yesterday I was involved in our first ever virtual launch in the company. So we have a huge — let me give you some insight into what's coming your way in the next three to four weeks from us at least. We have a huge new product launch on whitening, and we've signed up a youth icon, a Gen Z icon, to continue to help us engage better with the youth of this country: Sara Ali Khan is our latest endorser for brand Colgate. So we did an entire launch event with Sara Ali Khan 100% virtual. We had avatars made and the whole thing was done with green screens, green roof, green screen shooting, because none of us could physically do anything else. So we converted all our places into green screens and shot it. So I can go on and on with the list of digital examples, virtual examples, where we've continued to do something different. In fact, every week I connect with different consumers. I actually meet consumers around the country virtually. Last week we even started doing store checks. In the past, I would have gone to, let's say, Namakkal in the south and I would have physically gone to the stores and visited stores. But we're doing that virtually now. They literally walk me around the store with their camera on, and we interact, ask questions, and in one hour you can transport yourself from Berides to Namakkal to Chittoor to us.

Great question, Anurag. First and foremost, let me say despite COVID, we haven't stopped our efforts. Our commitment towards sustainability — and I use the word sustainability in a much broader aspect, like I said earlier — remains unwavering. We are not, just because there's a crisis, for us it doesn't mean that we should stop doing what we believe is the right thing for our people, our communities, and our planet. So what are we doing specifically? Let me take you through a few things. Let me start on the planet side of it. Like I mentioned earlier, coming soon to a market next to you will be our foray into recyclable tubes. We've already announced it internationally as the first company in any category to move into tubes that are 100% recyclable. I think that's the first piece that will physically be a tangible piece that you will see. The second thing in terms of what you said like hand washing campaigns or overall health improving and increasing your oral health and hygiene standards and practices — you'll see initiatives on both those fronts. On the oral health piece, for example, we piloted two initiatives in Delhi and Bombay with about four million children in each, combined reach of about four million children between these two cities. And the simple premise was the introduction of a second brushing in the day. Unfortunately, most Indians do not brush twice a day; they still brush only one time a day. We want to inculcate that behavior in the early years of people. And we ran a pilot with the Delhi government and the Bombay government at schools to introduce an incremental brushing as a post-meal brushing exercise. We're now working with the Andhra Pradesh government to replicate the same model. Similarly, we've tied up with the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar — a phenomenal university — we've tied up with them, and once again with their, I think they have about 30,000 students at any given point in time in a year.

Once again with them we have a program of providing oral hygiene as part of the curriculum. The third piece again I'll link it back to the digital equation that you touched upon a little bit earlier, or the question asked me how digital are we. Our flagship program, our flagship schools initiative which is called Bright Smiles Bright Futures, where we normally go to about 10 to 11 million children a year. Obviously schools are shut, so we physically cannot get to those children, but we're actually working with Google and other digital solutions where we're providing the same content through virtual means. In fact, the first pilots have already been executed, and what's been truly encouraging is the fact that the parent is participating with the child. So in the classic Bright Smiles Bright Futures program, the teacher would teach children the behavior at school. Now because education is being done at home, actually the parents are participating with it as well. And last but certainly not the least, from the other side of it, we're also engaging with the profession. So as part of our social responsibility again to make sure that we amplify oral health, I don't know if you're aware but we launched a Dentist for Me, all online consulting service, 100% free. That is, in fact we pay the dentist obviously, but that's completely Colgate's cost. But you could get — we knew that a lot of people were having some elements of oral health issues and couldn't physically get to a dentist, and they needed access, so we created an online platform called Dentist for Me where you can call in, a series of dentists reach out, talk about your problems, and they'll help you with solutions. So those again are ways in which we are driving that behavior. There's one more initiative that I cannot talk about because for obvious reasons of confidentiality, but you can trust me, it focuses on the same water piece that you — every drop counts. Yeah, it's we're looking at a very social way in which we can engage Gen Z specifically to amplify the voice and amplify the need for making sure that every drop really really counts. So there's something that's going to be coming your way in a very fun and exciting manner as well. You'll see it, and you'll remember these words that I just told you when you actually see it in the market.

Listen, fantastic question. First and foremost, let me thank you and your mom for being loyal Colgate consumers. Listen, we value every one of our consumers tremendously, so thank you for the loyalty. It's what helps us do what we do well. The second piece of it, I think somewhere maybe I should do this as a more deeper follow-up session with Dr. Shahani as well, and perhaps we should do an entire program on building brands and how communication can help build brands in people's lives. So let me start there. I think the philosophy is about building brands. You buy products, but you buy into brands. And what do I mean by buying into a brand? You buy into what the philosophy or what the brand stands for. And for us, our simple purpose in life as a brand, for Colgate the brand, is we believe that everybody deserves a future they can smile about. So in effect, we champion optimism. So when we created this piece of work, and we call it master brand advertising, it's not about trying to sell a product, but it really is about touching, like you rightly said, emotional cords that are building at the cusp of society. So these are, if you notice the subjects we have tackled, are not commonplace subjects. These are subjects that are often — I don't want to use the word taboo — but they are not spoken as freely as we should be talking about them because they are genuine. So we began the series with, if you go back about a year ago, we started off with adoption. So we spoke about adoption. Now we're talking about remarriage, and we're talking about a few more. So you'll see a series of these come through, and we have a lot of YouTube videos as well where we augment this piece with what we call real life, real stories. So hey, Monty sent my opening slide by the way. We've done an entire film on her. You talk about honor, Arthur Arnold the paraplegic weightlifter. We've done a story about him. We've done another story about India's first blind paraglider, Devyanshu. So we've got so many such stories, and the fantastic thing about our country is there are so many brilliant examples of championing optimism. So I think we've chosen that to be our philosophy that builds the brand. And like I said, that's about building a brand that you buy into. That's one part of communication. There is also another part of communication which is what you could define as more informative, right, where a consumer or even you want to know what a product does for you and why do I need it. So we look at advertising or we look at communication in the context of how do you build a brand and then how do you also make sure we solve people's problems. So at the same point in time, I will have an ad featuring Runway Thing that talks about freshness, because that's also a problem people have while we do this. So it's about and versus an either or. One second piece of it I would say is that every piece of communication fundamentally looks to touch a functional aspect and an emotional chord in every human. Right? And if you think about how all our brains function, it's System One and System Two. System One is that instant emotional connect. You know, you like something, like you said immediately when your mother glanced at each other, you didn't know what it was. If I asked you at that moment to explain it, you wouldn't have been able to, but it struck a chord. That's System One. Then System Two kicks in and you still need some level of rationalization to help System One. So we look at communication on that front where we balance what we call emotional aspects of advertising along with functional aspects. The balance can waver and that can be different. So in a piece like remarriage, it could be 99% emotional, but in a classic Max Fresh or a whitening TV or a whitening YouTube ad, you'll see it could be a little bit better balance between the two.

Please, please, from the book Thinking Fast and Slow, if I'm not wrong, Daniel Kahneman. I would urge all the students to pick up the book. It's a fabulous read. It's a lovely read by the way. Thank you so much.

So let me start that lovely question. Thank you. Let me tell you, I'll even tell you about the genesis, the biggest story I could give you is the genesis of the Nimbu Pani stories. Believe it or not, it came, the idea came from — so you know we have a management training program, we call it the BLP, we come to institutes such as yours and recruit. So the idea was given to us by the current batch of BLP students. It wasn't by seasoned executives, it wasn't by the management team, and most certainly it wasn't by me. Okay? So three young, didn't even barely finish their first year with us, came up and we were talking about the idea in a town hall that we were having. The problem statement was how can we engage the organization better. And these three young wonderfully talented people came and told us, they gave us this idea saying, listen, one of the things we're noticing is that in every person we've spoken to at Colgate, in some form or manner, has a heroic story to talk about how they've overcome the problem and done what they do because they're so passionate about the organization, its culture, and what we ultimately do for society. And they said, why don't we curate this into something bigger? And that was the birth of the Nimbu Pani stories. So literally it was a young group of — I think the three of them would be all of what, 24? So not even a year into the company, and they came up with this idea. And their whole idea was, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And they said, hang on, let's make it a little bit more culturally relevant, and they said instead of doing Lemonade Stories, let's do Nimbu Pani Stories. We created that, and the kind of — I can't tell you how proud I am when I see the stories that have come out. There have been more than 300 stories of exemplary actions that people have taken, you know, their families have taken, to step up and solve problems whether it's for the company or broader society at large. So that was the genesis. So to me, I want to share with you the birth of the idea itself, because I think the birth of the idea in itself was a Nimbu Pani story. You know, so much so that — what you're gonna like, you're gonna like what I'm gonna say next — so much so that we've got so much momentum on it that we're now converting it into a coffee table book. Wow! We're converting it into a coffee table book, and actually with a personal message from me to anyone and everyone who's contributed into that Nimbu Pani story, so that it's something that they can have for posterity and they can feel proud about with their family and friends as well. So that was the birth of the Nimbu Pani stories. The stories are, I mean, some of them make you cry, some of them inspire you, some of them just make you step back and look in awe and say wow. You know, I like I said, for me more than anything else, I feel tremendously honored and privileged to be part of such a wonderful group of people who, without anything else, without a nudge or a push, instinctively have stepped up and done some wonderful things. And the fact that a young group of peers want to recognize their own peers and come up with the idea, to me that's the biggest win we could have as an organization.

I would love. I'll do it maybe one step further, Dr. Shahani, which is maybe I get those three people who actually created the idea, and you know it'll be a wonderful session for the students as well because they've just graduated, so it's not like they're a dinosaur like myself who've been out of school for a while now, right? So they'll have a lot more context than I would probably. So would be happy to bring them over and let them tell the story from their perspective more than mine.

Yeah, that's my philosophy. I don't want to get extinct, that's all.

Fabulous question. I could spend hours talking on it because I'm very passionate about both subjects, design and innovation, and I fundamentally think they are integral to each other. You can't do one without the other. You can't design well without innovation, and you can't innovate without design. So I would say quite a few things. First and foremost, let's tackle it. Good design always starts with solving for human problems. So one of the things that was drilled into my brain as part of my Design Thinking Catalyst learning journey was that it has to start with solving for a human, a person. And ideally, when you start putting a muse together and you solve for a real person — if I now say I'm going to help Shamit, that makes such a difference versus saying let me create a solution for people in the age group of, I want to talk to young women in the age group of 18 to 25. It just completely loses personalization, right? So the first philosophy is solving for people, and in people ideally you want a muse, and you want to solve for that muse more than anything else. The second part of good innovation linked to design is, if you've defined your muse well enough, empathy to understand what you're solving for. And I think that these are what I would define as the two core foundational pieces. Everything else after that is fundamentally prototyping and getting it right, and you'll go through a series of iterations before ultimately you'll solve what would be the most optimal solution for both the muse and the problem in their life that you're looking to resolve. Right? I think where organizations go wrong is when they emphasize too much on the solutions before they've even understood either the muse or the problem they're trying to solve. And I think that's the first part of it. Second, organizations fail because they believe that they're going to get it right the first time, and you won't. I can guarantee you that. I've run an innovation organization. My rule of thumb used to be, for every 100 ideas that came up, at best only 10 would succeed. At best. So that used to be my normal rule of thumb, and we had even modeled the whole thing financially and it was a proven model that we showed over time: if you want to create $100 million worth of innovation in actual realized innovation, you need a billion dollars worth of ideas. Right? So I think the first part of it is the capability side which goes down to understanding the muse and then the problems. The second are what I call tools and techniques. Right? So think of it. If tomorrow I briefed you and I said I want you to build — I want my son to build the best sandcastle he possibly can, right? So the second part of it is tools. What I can do is I can make sure I define the rules of building a sandcastle. I can make sure the resource of sand, whether it's a bucket of water, whether it's a spade, whether it's a shovel, whatever it is, whether they're molds, I can give him 20 different castle designs for him to get inspired by. I can add three more people to his team and say listen, take help from all three of them and do it. I can give him space. So the second aspect of good innovation and design is when the right resources are applied within the right constraints. So good innovation and good design happens when you are able to balance resource with constraint. Right? And the third piece of it for me is capability. Now, there are some people who are innately good at design and innovation. Their ability — I look at it as a simple trait: the ability to balance your left brain and your right brain. Or try this: can you chew gum and whistle at the same time? Right? Seemingly easy task, but it doesn't necessarily always happen. And I think good innovators, good design innovators, are those who can manage their right brain and their left brain and are able to shift between the two of them seamlessly. And I think that makes a huge difference. The last but certainly not the least, I would say very simply, to me what is innovation? Innovation is nothing but an idea that adds value. That's it. Otherwise you can have — and value can be in the form of solving your problem, value can be in the form of saving you time, value can be in the form of saving you money, value can be in the form of improving productivity, value can be in any form or manner. And I think we spend too much time sometimes on the ideas versus the value the idea adds. So I would say that for me would be the core of how organizations succeed in the philosophy of design and innovation. What's changed today for me is the biggest change is the virtual world and the physical world are blending. So tomorrow I could put a QR code on a pack of toothpaste and I could show you stories about what's inside it, the source of the ingredient, where did I get the mint from, you know how much of XYZ has gone into the making of this product. In the past I could not do that for you. So I think future design and innovation will come down to how can you blend or integrate technology into the physical world.

Would love to hold a design thinking session for you guys. So at Colgate we have a philosophy called Paying It Forward. As in, it's like you rightly said, it's not just about being trained, but the commitment then to pay it forward, which means we have to make it a way of life at the company. So it's a commitment. If I can't just say I want the training, but I then have to be able to say look, I have then gone and done these many sessions or I have trained another 100 people more myself, because then it fundamentally becomes a way of life for the organization. So we have a philosophy called Pay It Forward.

On some levels similar, but many differences. So let's start with the differences, I guess. Number one is penetration frequency of usage. In China it is significantly more than India. So while only a third of India claims — not even reality, just claims — that they brush twice a day, the actual number is a lot lower than that. In China it is much higher. So I think the fundamental behavior of brushing has a higher prevalence both in terms of its penetration as well as its frequency. On urban fronts we're equal on penetration, it's 99%. Rural is where China jumps ahead. So rural, you can go to the smallest of villages in China and you'll find a proper toothpaste, toothbrush in just about every home with every consumer, right, from the point in time that they're a child. Number one. The second thing is their willingness to spend a lot more money on oral care is very, very high. So simple example I can give you: take the world of — I'll jump to the other spectrum, I'm going from rural to perhaps the top 5% of any country. In India, I take something as electric brushes. Right? So in China, electric brushes is a one billion dollar category already. In India it's barely about two million dollars. So even amongst a group of people you would argue are well educated, well-versed in the need of oral hygiene, even within them the willingness to invest that kind of money on oral care behavior is not that high. The third difference is very unique one, is on the professional side. So unlike India where the bulk of the profession of the dentist are largely private, in China the bulk of the dentists are largely government. And you go to the hospital or you go to a dental hospital and you carry your own file as a patient, because today I could meet you as the dentist, but let's say three months from now I come in for something else, I could meet another doctor. You know, so it's your responsibility almost of sorts to be bothered about your oral health, because the dentist is not going to remind me because the dentist is going to keep changing. Now in a private clinic in China it's different, it's much like the way we have it in India. Having said that, there are similarities as well. Sorry, the other difference I must say is the biggest, the most sought after benefit in China is whitening. In India it's pain relief, and after pain relief it's whitening. So but again, in India there's a difference. So in China, what they search for and what they buy, the numbers are very, very similar. So about 30% of the population is searching for whitening related products, and about 25% of the market is whitening. In India, funny enough, 20% of the population, at least urban Indians, actually search for whitening. So whitening is the most searched term in oral care, but only 1% actually go and buy a whitening product. So those are the big differences.

Thank you so much. No, I love the opportunity. I'm more than happy to. So the first cut, the agency's already had a crack at the first cut design, but your point — we've hit on something so big that even we're trying to figure out what's next. So we are trying to figure out what Nimbu Pani 2.0 is going to look like. So by all means, if there are ideas or thoughts, more than happy to, because I also believe the coffee table book is brilliant, but I'm guessing there's also some kind of a digital thought process that could bring tech, design, and something else together. So we're trying to actually — maybe you guys can have a crack at it because we do have capability. We can even print individually print tubes. So one of the other thoughts was to create a mock-up cube of each person's individual story and kind of give it to them as something that you would — it's a branded tube with your story on it. By all means, have a crack. Like I said, I've learned, I'll take ideas from everywhere. I'm not shy about accepting ideas.

Thank you, thank you very much. See you later, alligator.