Leading with Empathy

One who has worked for more than 28 years with Bosch India, Subhalakshmi. R, Director, Talent Management, Bosch Global Software Technologies (BGSW), Bangalore, started as a programmer and played various roles as Solution architect, Project manager, Delivery Head, Key Account manager, to reach the current leadership role.

She says that her reason to remain with Bosch for so many years, was the alignment of Bosch’s value system with her personal value system. She strongly believes that the growth of an individual is fueled by the individual’s learnability and performance aligned with the company goals.

Talking to Corporate Citizen in an exclusive interview, Subhalakshmi, talks about her successful career journey with Bosch and how the different roles she played has molded her as a wholesome empathetic leader.

Corporate Citizen: Tell us about yourself and your career at Bosch.

Subhalakshmi: I hail from Karaikudi, a small town in Tamil Naidu, which is well known for its educational institutions. One great visionary Shri. Alagappa Chettiar, was the man behind the transformation of this town into an educational hub. He approached the government and offered land for setting up educational institutions. The next that he focused on was employment for educated youth in the town. So he approached Government of India again to open a research institute in Karaikudi. Thus, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), opened an institute here, which is called as Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI). This formed the livelihood for many in Karaikudi and that is how the city grew with these institutions as a fulcrum.

My father worked for CECRI. I had the opportunity to study in Kendriya Vidyalaya which provided a solid foundation to my all-round development in the formative years. My teachers and my father’s colleagues who were into research were my inspiration to pursue pure Science with an idea to take up research. But destiny had its own plans for me. That was when Computers were fast picking up and looking at my analytical skills and logical thinking I was advised by my mentors to grab the opportunity. So after completing my graduation in Science, I took up my post-graduation in Computer Applications.

I got married and moved to Bangalore. I started my career with a software company who were into developing educational software for school children. By then, my son was born. With the support and encouragement from my family, I was able to pursue my career and passion. Subsequently, I joined Bosch, a large multinational organisation and now it is more than 28 years I have been associated with this wonderful company.

"Every second year you see a new technology emerging, new platforms and tools being released, and companies embracing the same to add value to their business. Hence, it is an absolute necessity to keep yourself updated through continuous learning to stay relevant and not become obsolete."

- Subhalakshmi R

CC: It’s been a long journey with BOSCH. What made it possible?

Firstly, I experienced a lot of alignment with the value system of Bosch and my personal value system. Second, the organisation was itself in a growth phase and I saw a lot of opportunity for me at Bosch. I leveraged these opportunities, ventured into new business areas, took bold first steps and was continuously unlearning and learning. I took up different responsibilities in varied business domains that enriched my knowledge, practical experience and leadership capabilities, which made my journey interesting and challenging.

I started my career at Bosch as a programmer and it has been a long journey to where I am currently in a senior management position. I have travelled to multiple countries from West to East across the globe and worked closely with our customers. I had the privilege to lead global teams with a multiculture background. I lived in Germany, at the Bosch headquarters for over two years. Believe me, these experiences play a major role in shaping you as a leader.

CC: How important is continuous learning, to update with latest developments, especially in the IT sector?

The reality today is that the rate of change of technology is so rapid and this has an impact in every allied domain. Even in the conventional area like manufacturing, it is not the same as how it used to be in the yester years. Automation, Robotics and AI has completely changed the face of manufacturing in a big way. For example cars, which were more mechanical at some point of time, has so much of electronics into it today-in the IT area, it is all the more prevalent. Every second year you see a new technology emerging, new platforms and tools being released, and companies embracing the same to add value to their business. Hence, it is an absolute necessity to keep yourself updated through continuous learning to stay relevant and not become obsolete.

Some examples from my own career – when I moved into the leadership role at Bosch, I enrolled for the Executive MBA, at Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B). It demanded dedicated efforts, sacrificing several weekends to complete the course successfully without compromising on the regular work. Similarly, when Bosch moved to a new ERP decades ago, we had to learn the same. I stayed for two months at Chennai, completed the training course and certification to equip myself with the technical skills. Currently, I am doing a course on AI and ML to keep myself updated.

"When you talk about overall development as a leader, it is very important that you play different roles and take up varied responsibilities. Your learning from each one of them is different and it molds you as wholesome empathetic leader."

CC: You have been working in one organisation for over 28 years. What’s your experience with gender diversity and inclusion, has it taken on greater prominence for companies in India?

Bosch as an organisation is known for its diversity and inclusion in a big way. We genuinely believe and practice the same.

At the organisation level, there is a clear direction to embrace gender diversity and inclusion, and to enable this we have established forums like POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment), GRC (Grievance Redressal Committee) etc. We care for the inclusion of LGBTQ community and there are several special measures taken for the differently abled associates in every possible way. Any associate right from the top to the last contracted employee can freely report his/her concern to this committee, which is immediately investigated, addressed and appropriate actions are taken within a stipulated time while maintaining complete confidentiality.

At Bosch, the HR goes out of the way to enable gender diversity. We celebrate diversity & inclusion week and there are several events planned to increase the awareness within the associates & sensitise them.

What we have noticed is that when we recruit from the universities, we have a very good gender mix, approximately 60-70 per cent of them joining us are women. Unfortunately, as we move up the pyramid, we see these numbers

declining and at the top is minimal. The reason for this being, at the first line management and middle management, several women drop out and this has been a big concern for us. Most of the times, it has been due to conflicting priorities between their responsibilities at home and office, and they struggling to balance and manage both. So, HR has come up with several special initiatives that can support the women in this phase of life, so that they can effectively manage both office and home. To name a few of them – in addition to maternity leave, the associate can avail child raising leave. There is a creche facility made available near the office, where they can leave their child and visit them frequently. If they have a need, they can go on a sabbatical and then get back to work. There is a special programme from HR called ‘Back-to-Work’. If the associate has taken a small break for whatever reason and has lost touch with the latest in their technology or domain, they can still join us back and we support them with trainings to bridge the skill gap and update their knowledge. By this, they become more confident to enter into the project teams and perform on par with others. There are conscious efforts taken from the organisation side, to help them, support them and enable them.

At the working level, there is a lot of efforts put by the leaders in Bosch to support diversity and inclusion. There are regular team events to promote a healthy working environment. Right from the start they are made to work in a collaborative manner without gender bias. This helps them to gain confidence and voice their opinions freely. In due course, the team learns to respect the ideas that are brought to the table. While having a discussion, they are able to objectively look at the view point expressed by the associate without associating it with the person behind. They develop empathy, are able to appreciate the strengths of their colleagues, complement each other, and express gratitude for the support received.

CC: As a woman did you face any major challenges in your career journey and how did you overcome them?

Challenges are always there and will continue to be there, and this is true for all of us, both in personal and professional life. But sometimes, the nature of challenges that a woman faces may be slightly different from a man and I also had to face some of them. What I strongly believe is that the grit, determination and positivity that you demonstrate as a person to overcome these challenges matters, it will help you to tactfully manage them and emerge successful.

Like any other women, I also faced difficulties in managing things at home and office when my kid was young. However, I took support from the other family members to manage this phase. It is important that we are open to leverage the support system available around us.

In the professional set up, you need to create an aura for yourself and make your presence felt by the value add that you bring on to the table. When you are in a discussion forum, if you are able to contribute valuable ideas then your voice is heard. When you stand up, take ownership for certain topics and lead from the front, you are noticed and will be respected. It is important to develop the capability to zoom out and see the big picture and zoom in to the details seamlessly. Lastly in this everchanging technology era, it is important that we embrace continuous learning and keep ourselves abreast with the emerging topics.

The other major learning for me was to leverage the mentors within the organisation. They understand your potential, open up the blind spots, help you to realise your full potential. When you talk about overall development as a leader, it is very important that you play different roles and take up varied responsibilities. Your learning from each one of them is different and it molds you as wholesome empathetic leader. So, when these opportunities pop up, we should grab them with both the hands, and then be passionate to pump in that extra effort, time, zeal, energy and commitment. Leadership coaching also helps in a big way.

CC: As you are having MoUs with management institutes, we want to know how SAP and PLM can help management students?

BGSW has a strong connect with management institutes. We provide internship opportunities for the management students. Some of them take up management courses with premier management institutes after a couple of years of work experience. We have a Junior Management Programme (JMP) where we take such associates and groom them to leadership positions. This would be a two year programme, with four stations each for a duration of six months, where they are exposed to different domains and are given the opportunity to work in different countries with diverse teams.

On the other hand, we have young graduates who take up MBA after their under-graduation. We recommend them to learn an ERP (e.g SAP) and get themselves certified in parallel to their regular course. In their course, they learn these processes and when they are trained on how to implement it using a tool like SAP, they are fully equipped to be productive in the industry, when they step out of the academic institution.

"In the professional setup, you need to work in a team environment, complement each other, leverage each other’s strengths, accept your vulnerabilities, get along with the rest of the team and contribute the maximum."

CC: As the Covid pandemic hit us, many organisations had to adopt remote working models like work-from-home, flexi-time work, or a hybrid model. How did Bosch adopt to this new trend of working?

Before the pandemic hit us, most of us in the industry had the mindset that work has to be executed out of the work place at office and office is a place away from home. But, the pandemic completely changed this perception. Each room in our house turned into either a work place or a study area depending on the need. And this broke all the earlier perceptions and we saw the new normal emerging.

Two years was a long period wherein two things happened — one, the associates got used to working from home and they also saw some benefits in it. May be they were able to establish a better balance between demands at home and office. A lot of time that was spent commuting to office was saved and they could do something productive during that time. There was also a big change at the organisation side and in the view of the clients. The earlier belief that you have to be at office to be productive and contributing was trashed. The productivity was high and customers were quiet happy with the Now coming to why certification on SAP—there are large corporations running with SAP as the backbone ERP. SAP as a company is also continuously re-inventing its product to meet the business demands. So, for a young graduate, it provides a huge potential and opens up a plethora of opportunities. Like this there are several other topics (e.g Artificial Intelligence) as well where there are huge requirement for skilled technologists. And each of this has got its own future. We could look at many such topics for the students.

CC: How is SAP different from other large technology solutions?

There are large players in the market in this space (e.g SAP, Oracle, Microsoft etc.) and each of them have their own products. For example, if you take Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a topic, we have an offering from SAP, one from Microsoft and the other from Salesforce. Most of the times these are competing products in the market, having market share depending on how well they are accepted by the users.

CC: While selecting new recruits, what skills you look for in them?

I comprehensively refer to it as “5C”. The first and foremost is the Core technical competence. The Confidence that you exhibit, your ability to Collaborate with others, aptitude for Continuous Learning and the Commitment that you demonstrate. The crown of all this would be your ability to perform as a team player. As an individual you may be a great intellect and very brilliant, but you just can’t deliver everything on your own. In the professional setup, you need to work in a team environment, complement each other, leverage each other’s strengths, accept your vulnerabilities, get along with the rest of the team and contribute the maximum. When we get a good team like this, then the output is multifold.

Some of the soft qualities that we look for are Positive attitude, Good communication, Proactiveness, Integrity and Authenticity.

"There are large corporations running with SAP as the backbone ERP. SAP as a company is also continuously re-inventing its product to meet the business demands. So, for a young graduate, it provides a huge potential and opens up a plethora of opportunities."

CC: What would you like to share with the young women aspiring to grow into leaders of tomorrow?

For women aspiring to grow into leaders, we need to be aware that there are lot of opportunities available, we need to look around and grab them. It is up to us how we move forward. If you are dedicated, you have the passion and commitment, energy and enthusiasm and willing to go that extra mile, nobody can stop you. There will be some hurdles and difficulties, but we should not lose hope or give up. Take them as learnings, make course corrections, seek expert advice, learn from others and march forward. There is a lot of support available around you. So, look around and do not hesitate to leverage these support systems.

Family and career are like two eyes; we cannot compromise one for the other. Family is very important. Ultimately if you are just successful in your career and zero in your personal life, I don’t consider it as a great achievement. There have been enough examples of super successful women in our own country, who have done well in their career, as well as balanced their personal lives. Take some of them as the role model, learn what they did differently, listen to some of their stories, you will get motivated and also get ideas to manage your challenges. When you feel a little dejected or low, talk to a mentor, talk to a life coach, they will help you come out of that momentary situation you are in. Never give up.

CC: Can you tell us about your company’s Fit-for-Future strategy.

Fit-for-Future is a strategic change initiative at BGSW to stay relevant and grow. With the purpose of “Win more for Bosch”, the programme is a binding movement focusing on strengthening our brand, global presence and creating a cool work-place

for our associates. The programme has multiple tracks like Talent, Culture, Process focusing on Competitiveness, Excellence, Global Delivery, Customer Centricity and Cool company.

When we look at it from an associate point of view, we care for building their technology and domain competence so that they stay relevant. We also sponsor several programmes for the upkeeping of their physical fitness. To name a few, we have a sport arena where there are several indoor and outdoor sports facilities. Any associates can book a time slot and use these. There are self-interest clubs functioning within the organisation for Cycling, Trekking, Running, Hiking etc. Of late, big emphasis is being laid on mental health. On this front, we have in-house counselors, any associate can reach out to them if they feel the need. There are programmes being conducted on meditation, yoga, mental health etc. We organise guest lectures from professionals to provide inputs on overall health, and preventive measures that the associates can practice to lead a healthy life.