A recognized business thought leader, Ravi Kathuria is an expert in helping organizations drive clarity and cohesion. Quoted by the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, WorldNews, NPR, and featured on PBS Nightly Business Report, CBS Radio, TEDx and the BusinessMakers show, Kathuria served as a monthly columnist for SmartBusiness Magazine.
He is the author of numerous articles and of the highly acclaimed book/leadership parable, How Cohesive is your Company? — Top-notch business performance is impossible until you cohesively align mission, vision, goals, strategy, execution & culture.
The book is a realistic and intense story of how a CEO struggles to transform the business and, in the process, struggles with his personal transformation.
Kathuria has developed a conceptually simple and powerful business management method to eliminate the noise and help companies become clear and cohesive. Kathuria introduced his Cohegic Method TM in his leadership parable. The book and the method received rave reviews from prominent executives and management professors.
Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Ravi Kathuria about creating top-notch business performance using a book.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
- How the medium of parables can effectively communicate an idea.
- How cohesiveness in a business must pervade every aspect of it.
- How clarity has powerful effects on a business and helps it achieve success.
- How the can of Coke and bag of peanuts on your flight is all you ever really needed.
- How writing a book can help a business achieve top performance.
Connect with Ravi:
Links Mentioned:
cohegic.com
happysoulhungrymind.com
Guest Contact Info:
Email
ravi@cohegic.com
Twitter
@HappySoulHungry
Instagram
@happysoul.hungrymind
Facebook
facebook.com/HappySoulHungryMind
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/company/happy-soul-hungry-mind
Rob Kosberg:
Welcome everybody. Rob Kosberg here with another episode of the ‘Publish. Promote. Profit’ podcast. I have a great guest for you today. Somebody that I think you’re going to learn a lot from, Ravi Kathuria. Ravi is the best-selling author of a couple of books. How Cohesive is your Company, is his book from several years back that he uses to grow his consulting business. Then there’s, Happy Soul. Hungry Mind. Ravi has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, NPR, PBS, CBS, TEDx, you name it. The guy’s been everywhere, sharing his wisdom and his knowledge. He finally made it to the ‘Publish. Promote. Profit’ podcast. So, Ravi, good to have you here my friend.
Ravi Kathuria:
Same here, Rob. Let me say this. I may have been quoted in Wall Street Journal and Forbes and NBS, CBS doesn’t matter. Today I have finally arrived. I finally made it. All this work, I finally made it to the Rob Kosberg podcast. This is it.
Rob Kosberg:
It’s great to have you. I love your philosophical nature. You’ve written one business book and another that is more of a spiritual book. Both of them are more parable type books. They’re stories. Tell me a little bit about your first book and your expertise, how those two things connect and how you help businesses to be more cohesive.
Ravi Kathuria:
Thank you, Rob. Great question. I am an executive coach and I’m a management consultant, a management advisor. In fact, both my books are conversations between an executive and a mentor.
Ravi Kathuria:
First book is purely business. The second book is more about life and finding peace. If the first book is about 30,000 feet, the second book goes to 60,000 feet. We all need our mentors. We all need our coaches. It doesn’t matter who we are. How Cohesive is your Company, that business book is the story of a new CEO, Trent Wertheimer. Trent is very sharp. He’s a very intelligent brilliant man and he thinks he can take the company to the next level. He was the VP of sales, gets promoted to become CEO. He says, “I should be able to take the company to the next level. I know what the problems are.” Well, the harder he tries, the deeper he begins to dig himself into a hole. He just doesn’t realize how the company is functioning and keeps running into these brick walls. So, it’s the story of, Trent, and how he must drive business transformation. The company is in need of business transformation. It needs to drive business transformation, but Trent has to realize that he has to go through a personal transformation for the business transformation to succeed. It’s this interplay of these two aspects. It’s strength, own growth as the CEO, as an executive, as a leader, as a manager, and the changing of the company. The company finding itself and recognizing what truly is the most important aspect of the company.
Rob Kosberg:
Tell me, Ravi, maybe we could even take a step back. What is a cohesive company? What does that even mean? I understand corporate culture and we speak to a lot of business experts on those types of subject matter. Cohesiveness isn’t something that you hear every day when it comes to that. So, what does that mean to you and fill in those blanks for me.
Ravi Kathuria:
This notion of what is cohesiveness, what is a cohesive company. If you look at the most successful companies and let me qualify that; successful companies with sustained success. Not companies that were there for a year and were hugely successful and then disappeared. When you look at companies that have stayed successful, what is behind it? We have enough books and theories about it. This is mine. The two aspects that I find in successful companies who stay successful for the long term, the two aspects that these companies have is clarity and the other is cohesion. Now clarity and cohesion seem like very simple words. When I have discussions with CEOs and leaders about what clarity and cohesion would mean to their companies, the manifestation and ramifications of clarity and cohesion in their companies is profound. They lack clarity and cohesion everywhere you turn in the company. In fact, CEOs themselves, and even I found companies that are still doing well, making money, when I talk to the CEOs, I find that they lack clarity. When you talk to the CEOs, they’re brilliant and what they have is a million ideas. You talk to the CEO on Monday, you come back the next Monday, he or she has another set of ideas already because they spend a weekend somewhere and I go, “Excuse me, are we doing what you talked about last Monday or are we going to do what you’re talking about this Monday?” Their organization keeps hearing these ideas and starts discounting. The CEO is asking me, “I have all the authority in this organization. I can fire anyone in the company.” I say, “No, I understand that.” I say, “I understand that.” “But simple, why are they not listening to me?” Yeah, this is behind the closed doors. And I tell them, “You have to stop talking so much.” You are confusing the organization. The organization doesn’t understand what really is important. Do you understand what is important?
Rob Kosberg:
Go deeper into that. So, what two, three, four things, or one thing do you mean by clarity? Walk me through because there must be a number of different things that you must be completely clear on.
Ravi Kathuria:
For every company, clarity is different because every company, like a person, is unique. I am unique, you are unique. Every company is unique, and it has to develop and identify that sense of clarity. Let’s talk about, Steve Jobs. Close your eyes and think about Steve Jobs and how he built the mold for Apple. What is the one component, one quality of Apple products that come to your mind?
Rob Kosberg:
For me, I’d say just they’re beautiful; elegantly, beautifully designed.
Ravi Kathuria:
There is even a more fundamental concept that applies to all Apple products. When Steve was there, he was mainly vocal about products that Apple put out being really easy to use. They had to be simple to use. In fact, the birth of the Windows’ Operating System was a copy of what Macintosh was doing because Steve Jobs said, “I want an Operating System that people can find easy. Windows was a nightmare. You needed a computer science degree. I had a computer science degree. It was horrendous. I can’t imagine how that company ever became successful. Now, Steve Jobs, comes in and says, “I want to make this simple.” You think about this philosophy, the clarity that the man has, then he goes from computers to music and he creates this iPod. It is really simple. That philosophy, that clarity, if I go to Apple and I get hired as the stock executive VP, and I try to complicate the products, you know what would have happened, I would have been fired on the second day. You have to understand what the clarity in the company is, and then have cohesion. Every decision that gets made has that clarity. If you want to create a successful company, every company that fails, it can be the root cause starting with lack of clarity. They may be Ivy league educated MBAs with 30 years of experience in the industry, but they are so confused about what the company stands for and what they’re trying to do. It’s baffling to me when I come on from the outside and I look at them and say, “What are you doing? You’re so brilliant. You have all the resources and yet you are confusing the issue. Have clarity.” The answer is to have clarity and have the wherewithal to stick with that in every aspect. That’s what the book, ‘How Cohesive is the Company’ is about. That company that Trent is managing, or becoming CEO of, they do not have clarity. Clarity has to come in and then they have to make sure every action, every decision fits. That’s the journey of the business transformation.
Rob Kosberg:
Now move me to cohesion. If a company like Apple has clarity, then what does cohesion mean? Does that mean that everybody’s on the same page with that clarity? What is that cohesion part?
Ravi Kathuria:
Yes, beautiful question. So once, if I’m Steve Jobs and I’ve said, “The clarity that I have is we have to make ease of use. It has to be simple,” then cohesion is when I build a product, whether it is a music product, whether it is a software product, I have to go back to my designers and drive that in. I have to now work with my hardware guys and make sure that the hardware that they design, the number of buttons that they put on the product has to have fewer buttons. I have my satellite remote and it has so many buttons. My brain is confused now because I still have the old one in the other room. Who is designing this stuff? It has to propagate everything that the company does, all the products; in fact, the number of products, the number of versions of products that you create. If Microsoft manages to irritate me because they came up with Windows 10 and all the good features of Windows 7, they threw out. I still struggle with, and I go, “Oh my God, who is making these decisions?” These people lack clarity and cohesion. Clarity and we talk about cohesion; it has to flow through in every aspect, every decision and action. I go into companies they tell me, “Look, Ravi, we have developed a great strategy. This is a great strategy.” They’re very proud of it. They hired one of these fancy consulting companies who charge millions of dollars and produce this fancy presentation and binder. The CEO is trying to impress me, “Look, well, we produce this strategy.” I said, “That’s wonderful. Good for you.” And then I asked them, I said, “What is changing in your company because of this strategy? Tell me one thing that is changing in your company.” And they look at me like, “What are you saying?” I say, “If I go in your company right now and I grab the next person I see, and I say, ‘this company, your CEO just spent millions of dollars with this fancy consulting company, and as a new strategy in his office, what are you doing different because of that strategy?” I tell the CEO, “I’m willing to bet that 90% of the people that I meet out there are not changing one thing because of your new strategy.” So, cohesion is taking the strategy and operationalizing it. If you as the CEO do not understand how the strategy is going to change, and people in the company do not understand what they have to do differently, save your millions of dollars or call me earlier, so I can cater for you. Let’s not beat around the bush. Let’s have clarity. Why didn’t you engage me at the right time? Let’s have absolute clarity on why you’re bringing me in.
Rob Kosberg:
So, Ravi, tell me when it comes to clarity, what are some questions that a company, the executives of a company need to answer so that they can create this clarity initially? What are some questions for them?
Ravi Kathuria:
Mr. Rob, you are so wonderful. Your questions are absolutely beautiful.
Rob Kosberg:
Well, thank you. I’m just curious. I want to create clarity. So, I want to know what the hell I’m doing.
Ravi Kathuria:
Yes. In this book, ‘How Cohesive is your Company’ I introduced a management method and the management method has five facets. At the center of these five facets is a facet called spirit. Spirit, not in terms of philanthropic or social aspects, spirit as in essence. So, what is the spirit of the company? What is the spirit of the business? Why does the business exist? What is the purpose? Right. What, more importantly, is the business model and core management philosophies of that business? Whenever I have watched very successful CEOs, they have two or three core management philosophies that they do not violate. They keep it very close to them. Let’s take, Sam Walton. Sam Walton is gone but Walmart was the number one Fortune 500 company for many years in terms of revenues; even more than ExxonMobil, the giant. It would generate billions of dollars in profit. Have you ever gone into Walmart and seen a $3,000 suit?
Rob Kosberg:
No.
Ravi Kathuria:
Isn’t that an amazing? If you walk in there and you saw a $3,000 suit, what would be your first thought that goes through your mind?
Rob Kosberg:
What are they doing in Walmart?
Ravi Kathuria:
What are they doing? This seems to be a mistake. It seems like a typo. Imagine if you were an employee working at Walmart and you find the $3,000 suit and say, “This cannot be true.” All of us understand that. We have absolute clarity about what Walmart stands for. How is that? I listen to all these great business gurus who say, “You have to exceed customer expectations.” They’re wrong. They’re absolutely wrong. These people don’t understand what business is about. That is not how you make a business. You know what makes business? It is meeting customer expectations consistently over and over again. Promise the customer something and then deliver it every time. If you’re on the board of a company and the CEO says, “I want to exceed customer expectations.,” I say, “Who’s paying for that? Am I the investor paying for it or are you the CEO paying for it out of your own pocket? I’m a business. I want to deliver what I promise. I want to deliver exactly that, every time.” Then the customer respects me, and I respect the customer. I use Southwest Airlines as an example. Southwest Airlines gives you half a can of Coke and one bag of peanuts. It doesn’t matter if you have a million miles flying; they’ll give you half a can of Coke, and one day the air hostess, she gave me a full can and I went, “Oh, my God this got to be the best day of my life.” I was beaming end to end, but if all I get is half a can of Coke and peanuts, I’m satisfied. What I want from Southwest is to fly 20 times from Houston to Dallas on time, get my half a can and the peanuts, and that’s all I want. I do not want you to feed me a huge lunch and tell me, “Oh, Mr. Kathuria, sorry the plane will be half an hour late. Aren’t you happy, we fed you this lunch.” I say, “Excuse me. I just want my little bag of peanuts.” I don’t want the fancy lunch. Let’s just take off with the Coke and hand me the bag of peanuts.
Rob Kosberg:
Ravi, that’s good stuff. I want to shift gears a little bit because this could get away from us. I’m having a good time and I’m learning a lot. You’ve written these books. Obviously, if someone is a CEO of a company, they need to get the cohesive company. Sounds what you’ve done is masterful. Congratulations on that. Tell me why you wrote your books to make an impact on people, to help. You also wrote your books to do something for your business. Tell me how your books have helped you to gain authority, bring on new consulting clients, et cetera. Give me some examples of that, if you could.
Ravi Kathuria:
I have a great example to share. I wrote my book How Cohesive is your Company, because it’s a management process that I implemented in companies. My problem was when I would ask the CSF, just gone through the management process, “Can you describe it to another CEO? “They go, “He’s very good. He’s really nice. He’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.” But I say, “What did he do?” And they would not know, “He was really good, and he’s been there for months and our company is making a lot of money.” “But what did he do?” They could not get it. So, I said I need to write the book to explain the process. Also, when I met prospects, they said, “What are you going to come and do? Whatever you’re saying, we can do. I got my couple of guys here.” I said, “No. You’re not understanding.” I got tired of having to explain that. I said, “Let me write the book and then when a prospect would call, I would say, “Read the book and then call me.” So that happened. So, this is a beautiful example. I had a prospect and he came to one of the events I was holding and organizing. He bought the book and he went away. Then a week later he called me, and he said, and we’re just having a phone conversation because he called me on the phone. He says, “Ravi, I have been CEO for 20 years. I’ve been trying to do what you’re talking about for 20 years. It’s all in your book. It’s right here.” I said, “Yes. I can fully understand that.” I closed that deal on that phone call. It was amazing to me that he said, “Yes, I’m hiring you.” I didn’t have to go and do a pitch for him. Until that point, it was the fastest deal I had ever closed. Otherwise, you have to have nine meetings with the CEO convincing them of everything. Here it was. He read the book. He got what I was trying to say because the book really is an implementation of the process. He needed that implemented. He understood. He could see I could do it. What else was there to talk about, but for me to show up and start doing it? How beautiful is that? I thank the book.
Rob Kosberg:
Well, you wrote it. It’s been out. It’s been out for nine years, a long time. This is going to be difficult. Maybe no one has ever asked this of you, or you haven’t even thought about it, but could you put an amount of what this book has been worth in consulting contracts and new deals for your business? Any idea?
Ravi Kathuria:
I talked about the character, Trent Wertheimer. I’ve had CEOs call me or when I go to see them, they tell me, “Ravi, I am making the mistakes, Trent made.” As a customer, think about the value of that statement. Previously when I was going to go to see a CEO, the CEO would tell me, “Ravi, our company is great. We have some problems that are only unique to us.” And I’ll go, “Yeah, of course. They’re only unique to you.” You see that the chasms between getting a CEO who is so confident, wrongly so, in their capabilities to the point where the CEO says, “I need somebody from the outside to come help me.” Worse is somebody who has read the book and is now calling you and saying, “Ravi, I’m making the mistakes, Trent, is making.” I don’t have to sell it at that point. I just have to shut up and wait for the CEO to make the next statement and say, “How can I get you in here?” So, in short, I won’t give you a dollar figure, but let me say this; after having written the book and getting CEOs to read it, my engagements were not short engagements. They became long engagements, multi-year engagements because these companies recognize, these CEOs recognize. And not only that, when I went to those companies, I was respected. I’m respected because they have read the book. Previously, when I was going into engagements, I had to sort of prove myself every day. Your audiences listening, they should write a book. It establishes you as the expert, especially if the book is good. If your ideas are not good, writing a book is not going to help you. I am sorry, but if your ideas are good, writing the book fortifies that. Somebody’s reading it. Now your level of respect in the organization is much higher.
Rob Kosberg:
So wonderful. Ravi, that’s a great segue. We’ve been going for a little while. I love the stuff you’ve shared. Congratulations on how well your books have done for the reader and for the writer, both. Where can people learn a little bit more about you? Let’s give them some links. Where can they either, maybe learn about how you could help them as a consultant, or your books, or whatever?
Ravi Kathuria:
Yes. I have two websites. My management consulting executive coaching website is called Cohegic. It comes from strategic cohesion. You can go to cohegic.com, C-O-H-E-G-I-C.com. That’s all about business. Then just a quick plug for my near and dear, ‘Happy Soul. Hungry Mind.’ If you’re beginning to wonder about life, because ‘Happy Soul. Hungry Mind’ again is a conversation between an entrepreneur who’s facing life’s challenges and is really struggling with his startup and his mentor and all he’s looking for is peace in life. That website is happysoulhungrymind.com. Call me if you’re looking to drive clarity and cohesion in your organization. At least go read the book and then call me and say, “I’m making the same mistake Trent is,” and then we have nothing to talk further. Let’s keep this simple.
Rob Kosberg:
Ravi. Love it, Ravi. Love your personality. Love your joy. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today, my friend. Great to have you here.
Ravi Kathuria:
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Kosberg. Thank you, Rob. I appreciate it.
