S&T - Vivek Mahapatra
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Intro: [00:00:00] In today's business world, change is the only constant, and mastering transformation is the ultimate key to success. Welcome to Shift and Thrive. I'm your host, Natalie Nathanson.
Each week we'll bring you conversations with CEOs who delve into how they successfully drove critical change in their organization. This show is sponsored by Magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consult. And the getting it done, power of a full service B2B marketing agency.
Natalie Nathanson (2): Hi, and welcome to another special edition episode on Shift and Thrive as part of our Go-to-Market Spotlight series. If you're a CEO or business leader wondering how your go-to-market needs to evolve right now to meet today's market realities, this episode is for you, and I am very excited to introduce today's guest.
He sits at the intersection of product go-to-market and AI, with over two decades of [00:01:00] experience helping companies turn complex technology into real world customer value. Just prior to his current role, he spent 12 years at Salesforce, where he held roles spanning solution engineering, sales, product strategy, competitive intelligence, and AI product, and was part of the founding team behind Agentforce, helping to take it from zero to revenue in under a year.
With a background in both computer science and studio art, he brings the rare ability to bridge technical depth with market clarity, helping to make complex solutions easier for company, for customers to understand, trust, and adopt. He is currently
A chief product officer at LexisNexis Legal and an advisor to private equity. Vivek Mahapatra, welcome to the show
Vivek Mahapatra: Thanks, Natalie. Thank you for having me. Um, looking forward to the conversation
Natalie Nathanson (2): Thank you. Same here. And I know we were talking a bit just before we, uh, started recording that, you know, just how much, uh, uncertainty and kind of change there are in our current times. So I know we'll have a lot to get into there, [00:02:00] uh, and would love to really start with a transformation story. So can you share with me a moment that you had to navigate a major shift and what you learned from that?
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, transformation seems to be like the name of the game these days, or disruption and now transformation. Um, I used to joke, uh, when I was meeting customers that, you know, enterprise transformation is like the, the buzzword for any project that anyone kicks off. But with AI, I think everyone's gone through significant transformation.
There's a massive transformation that I worked on at our organization, and we were launching a, a huge, uh, AI product, AI-first product. Um, and I think what was kind of interesting about that is a few things. One is nobody knew the answers, and it was very, very clear that- We also didn't even know the questions to ask, if you will.
The transformation that, that I was part of, it, it was, you know, just post-COVID. I was on a team, and we were trying to figure out, like, how do [00:03:00] we get AI first quickly, but with, like, really specific use cases where customers can see the value. And so what was crazy about the transformation story, that big learning experience for me is it needed to be very Very focused, and there needed to be, like, very strict priorities.
So if something was a number one or a number two or number three priority and something else came up, you had to move one, two, and three around to figure, like, "Hey, is this fourth thing number one? Is it number two? Is it number..." If it's not, it's not in the top three priorities. Now, for better or for worse, that became more and more.
Like, it became five priorities, then 10 priorities, and then other teams got involved. But in the very beginning, what was interesting when we were launching this product is it was absolute cross-functional. There was product marketing, there was product management, there were different teams in the organization.
The CIO's office was involved in a product conversation, which was pretty interesting. Um, obviously finance, legal, because, you know, we didn't know how much to spend or what we were [00:04:00] spending and s- you know, now people talk about token maxing. You know, back then, um, th- there was a completely different way of how people were pricing.
And so what's crazy about the transformation, I think for me personally as, as I was going through this and, and learning is, you needed to be really, really comfortable telling people, "Hey, I don't know.
Here's what I think. Here's what I'm gonna do. I don't know the answers." And working in an environment that was fast-paced but where a lot of people don't know the answers can wor- can basically go one of two ways. One is you're kicked out of the team because you don't know. The other is everyone else is like, "Oh, I feel more comfortable sharing that I don't know."
And so when the humility kind of increases and everyone is working really hard all the time, I feel like there is a new energy that's created and people are more likely to collaborate because they don't feel like they're going to be removed from the conversation and this transformation. And I think a lot of times when you think about transformation, enterprise transformation, [00:05:00] it's like get on the bus or you're off the bus.
Like, there's no two options, and you don't even know where the bus is going. Most people are like, "Oh, we're gonna do an enterprise data transformation," or, "We're gonna do a, you know, whatever, new, new product," et cetera. You kind of know where it's going. Um, with this it was just you didn't know, and finding people that were comfortable Not knowing, asking the right questions, being open to pivoting and actually looking at the same problem from different lens.
So not getting too married. And there was this thing that my team and I came up with around, we called it AI product growth for a while, where you experiment like crazy, you validate a few of those ideas that you've experimented on, and then you have to scale an even smaller subset of those ideas. So if you think about, like, it's like concentric circles, like experiment on 100 ideas, maybe validate like...
or maybe not 100 ideas. Let's say 10. Then you go validate like four or five maybe, and then you pick [00:06:00] one or two to, like, try to scale. But the crazy learning with that one was when we were experimenting, because it was so cross-functional, when we got to the scale, so experiment, validate, scale. Once we got to the scale, the teams that we were working with in the experimentation phase are the ones that would need to ship that.
So if you're working with a pricing and packaging team, or you're working with the sales team or the product team or the, you know, marketing, et cetera, and you came up with a really cool idea that you were like, "Hey, I think we should try this," it wasn't on you to actually be the one that implemented it.
It was, "Hey, it's cross-functional. Let's get this team involved." And I think that was, like, a really interesting learning for me through the transformation is if you, if you invite people to join you on a journey where nobody knows the answers, but everyone's kind of aligned to try to figure it out, um, it's a lot easier.
But I will say re- in retrospect, it's a lot easier. There was nothing easy about it, but it was exciting and it was interesting and, uh, I learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes. Um, but also [00:07:00] I feel like- it's shone a light on prioritization and focus in a way that has changed how I think in product, as a leader, teams, et cetera
Natalie Nathanson (2): Yeah. I mean, there's so much there to unpack. I, I like how you're talking about kind of the level of, uh, confidence and being okay saying, "I don't know," right? It's like naming the elephant in the room, uh, oftentimes in these kind of situations, and as empowering, uh, to everyone else in the room, one, to be able to say, "I don't know either," but then to problem solve together, which I think is what you're talking about, and come up with those experiments.
And, uh, I think in another conversation you had mentioned psychological safety, right? So what that, that one line of like, "I don't know. I don't have all the answers," uh, what that would open up for an organization.
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, I, so yeah, I would say two things on that one. First off is like, I feel like most of us early in our [00:08:00] careers are taught that the way to, grow in your career and climb the, corporate ladder, et cetera, is to be the loudest voice in the room, to be the one that everyone goes to, to be the one everyone knows.
Like, "Oh, this is the person that has the answer," or, "Get this person involved." And there's a certain point at which that shifts, and it's not about being the loudest person in the room, it's actually about, creating a space, creating a room for others to speak up and to create, a space for others to ask those questions and work together, and I think that's sort of like when you, move from, an individual contributor or an IC to a, leader.
It's not always because you got a title and they were like, "Okay, here's a title. You're a leader now. You know, here's a team." Sometimes you don't even have a team and you need to be a leader. How do you do that? And I think it's like creating that space, to your point, where people feel like we're in this space together, and we're all gonna ask tough questions and we're gonna, and we're gonna make it work.
On your comment about psychological safety, it was interesting actually during this transformation, the other thing that was happening in the industry [00:09:00] was, um, basically a reorg, right? Like, there was just so many layoffs and, and, and lots of, like, teams changing and teams restructuring.
And so this, this analogy is, is one that I think I joked about with you before, and I'll share it really quickly, is, you know, uh, imagine you're a teenager or imagine there's teenagers and they throw a party, and then the parents came home early and the teenagers are cleaning up the house and they did a poor job of cleaning up the house.
The parent's like, "Oh my God, clean up. This is horrible." Like, "This, you need to keep cleaning up." And as they're cleaning up after this party, um, the doorbell rings, and in the middle of the cleanup, the parents stop them and say, "Hey, you need to invite this guest in." And then suddenly, like, it turns into another party with the new guest, and the guest starts helping you clean up.
And so the analogy here, right, is that the teenagers are all mostly tech firms or most companies in general. Um, the parents are all the investors and stakeholders, and COVID was the first party. COVID happened. After COVID got over, people were sort of s- the res- unfortunately, like a lot of restructuring and layoffs, et cetera, started happening because the markets were kind of crazy, right?
Like, we didn't [00:10:00] know about travel and hospitality as a business, and then suddenly there were investments made in certain types of technology and QR codes and this and that and like, you know, social dis-distancing, et cetera. And so there are lots of industries and businesses that were affected. Um, but then as the cleanup started happening, like the first round around, around 2022, the doorbell rings and AI shows up, and a lot of organizations that still hadn't finished their COVID sort of restructuring, if you will, or not even restructuring.
It, it's also just, like, figuring out if the team that you've built is the right team for the future. Suddenly AI shows up and, like, a lot of that planning changed and everyone paused it and said, "Okay, stop this cleanup. There's a new party." And so now we're in the middle of that new party and there's clearly a lot of stuff happening and people are using AI as a reason or an excuse or a way to continue some of the restructuring and the layoffs, et cetera.
So in the context of that, in tech especially, knowing that first off, you're in the middle of a transformation, a lot of people don't know the answers. In the past when you said, "I don't know," you were [00:11:00] kicked off the bus. So now you're thinking, "Wait, if I say I don't know, I might lose my job.
Like, what do I do?" And so one of the things that I, I did with my team during this transformation, actually about a year and a half or two after, like, as we were working through the transformation with this product in general, um, is I started having a conversation because I noticed that there was a lot of fear of the uncertainty and a lot of fear of job security.
And so I asked the team, I said, "Hey- What happens, you know, if you get laid off? And we're like, "I don't know anything. I'm not reading the tea leaves. I'm not telling you." Just asking you, what are your obligations? What are your plans?
You know, um, is your network solid? Like, are you in touch with different people? Have you worked, unfortunately or fortunately, on your resume or your LinkedIn? Like, are you staying relevant? Are you learning, not for the sake of trying to get a job, but are you just learning to stay relevant? And the first few weeks and months of that, my team was definitely quite anxious 'cause they thought, like, he knows something and he's not tell- like, you know, we're getting prepared.
And after a while they realized, oh, this guy is just... And I, I used to call it radical transparency. I'd be like, "Look, anything I know [00:12:00] that I'm allowed to share, like, legally, et cetera, you know, obviously within the bounds of, of, of the role and HR, et cetera, I will share with you, and I will try to give you all the details possible so that...
because I'll treat you like an adult, but I will also have adult conversations about that and what it means." And so the first few rounds of this radical transparency was very uncomfortable. But what's crazy is it created the psychological safety because all conversations were on the table. Like, there was nothing taboo to ta- it was just amazing.
And, and the, and the comment or the analogy I make, it's like when you watch a horror movie, if all the lights are on, there's nothing scary 'cause there's no unknowns. There's no... You know where everything is. And so for me it was like, how do I help shine a light on the unknowns and the uncertainties that are actually the thing that people are scared of when they lose their job?
And so having that conversation openly meant that this conversation wasn't something they were happening, having outside of work or with coworkers or by the water cooler.
They were talking to me. They were talking to each other. And what was crazy is that experimentation validation, uh, scale effort that we did, [00:13:00] it made that 10 times better. And so the high-performance culture, which most people use that term when they're talking about, you know, um, rationalization of workforce, et cetera, our team was super high-performance culture because radical transparency led to psychological safety, and that created high performance.
The ideas they came up with, the work they were doing, like, ev- it was just amazing. And I felt like that was one of the huge lessons I learned in the transformation is- When you shine a light on the thing that everyone's afraid of, and you try to have really adult conversations about what everyone's kind of...
is on everyone's mind, but they're not bringing to work, it can really help create a much better work environment. And I learned so much from that experience. Um, there were projects that we got put on. There were, there were activities and events that people were like, "Can we have your team join? We wanna think differently.
We wanna try new things." You know, you create that space for people, and it's on you to make sure that they feel comfortable being who they are, and then boom, like, they're gonna be great at their work
Natalie Nathanson (2): And I'm finding, like, good leaders are having [00:14:00] these kinds of hearts to hearts with their team, whether it's kind of a first-line manager, an executive talking to the overall- the organization overall. Um, I'm seeing and just hearing from, you know, folks in my network that, uh, I'm finding a lot of the bigger companies these days, uh, are creating case studies in what not to do, that are creating a lot of that, uh, kind of fear and uncertainty and not having those honest, like, heart to hearts.
Um, and avoiding the hard communications rather than, uh, like, like you did by tackling it head on, saying, "I don't have the answers. I don't know exactly what this means for you, for, for the product or et cetera." Um, but, um, I think it creates an environment that makes it very hard to, uh, find solutions and know which questions to, to ask and, and, and all of that.
Vivek Mahapatra: I think one thing that helps, Natalie, on that, I, I've, at least for me personally has helped, and I'm, I'm doing something similar with my, my new team now, um, is trying to define what's the vision and the [00:15:00] strategy that you're working on. And, and one of the things that helped me is, or is helping me, and hopefully will be successful, we'll see, is thinking about where do you wanna be in 12 to 18 months?
Like, what's the vision for your product? Not today, not tomorrow, in 12 to 18 months. And the reality is, no matter who you are, part of that answer is, "I don't know." You just don't know. It's not possible that you will know what's gonna happen in 12 to 18 months. It's just not possible. And it just forces to have that, I don't know, versus saying, "Hey, Natalie, what do you think is gonna..." And be like, "Oh, shoot. Do I say I don't know? Am I gonna sound stupid? What if somebody else thinks they have the answer?" 12 to 18 months from now, what's the product gonna be? I don't know. Do you? No, none of us do.
But if you think, okay, what's my vision for what I'm working on in 12 to 18 months, and I know I won't know a bunch of things, that's exciting. Okay, let's try. And, and it's, it's exciting in the right environment for the right type of person to think through. It can be very unnerving if you're not ready for that conversation.
So [00:16:00] setting up the space and saying, "Hey, I want you to think about this. I don't know the answer. You don't know the answer. Nobody knows the answer. It actually helps reduce a little bit of that uncertainty. I don't think anyone can reduce 100% of the uncertainty because there's just so much unknown.
Natalie Nathanson (2): I think what that creates is a lot of this external, uh, pressure that... And I was just talking to a group of, uh, founders, uh, about this recently, like the pressure, like you feel like you need to go through a revolution in your business, and everyone wants that magical new vision, and you're- everyone's marching towards it, and you can clearly communicate it, and all the execution is rallying around that.
The reality I think a lot of companies are facing is this is more of an evolution, right? Because the technology is a moving target, so everything you're building, the, the landscape is shifting from under you. And I think in a lot of ways that reduces the pressure a bit, right? You don't need this kind of big, uh, unveiling of the new strategy.
You need to stay true to the value you bring to [00:17:00] your customers, knowing that how you deliver that will change. Uh, there will be things that you can do that weren't possible to do a few years ago that bring kinda new value and new innovations, but that that happens a bit more organically by kinda doing the right things, creating the right internal environment, and, uh, staying close to your customers, and being, and being open to new customer segments.
Vivek Mahapatra: You nailed it. I think, I- the, the joke, I-I'm trying to remember who- whose person said it to me. It's a joke somebody made, and he was like, "Look, we don't sell. Customers buy." That's it. Like, everyone thinks you sell and you're a good salesperson. Yeah, sure. That's all true, but if customers aren't buying, you're not selling anything, and customers only buy when there's a pain point that you help them with.
I especially like kind of the world that I'm in right now because there's a very, very interesting set of problems that we're trying to solve for in the, in the legal environment, and there's some amazing core technologies and, and, you know, things that we do, and there's obviously a lot of disruption in the space.
But that's also exciting because there are a lot of different ways to capture value and create [00:18:00] value. But because there's, like, a pretty good conversation and relationship with the customer, we're able to do that. And you, you nailed it. Like, stay close to your customer. Now, I've definitely worked with, with folks and, and even some of the advisory work I've done, but, like, they will just come up with this crazy idea of something that they want to build for a customer, and it's like, okay, cool.
You know, 12 to 18-month vision, it's open. Tell me more about how you're gonna get there and, and why would a customer try? And maybe the answer is, yeah, go ahead and do that.
It's cool to have those open conversations and feel like it's constant, the evolution. I just think that rate at which change is happening, right? Like, people have one-year or three-year roadmaps. I don't know anyone in any organization, technology or otherwise, that has a three-year roadmap or even a one-year roadmap.
You may have, like, some idea, but, like, an actual roadmap is just disrupting, like, constantly. So yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting time.
Natalie Nathanson: Hey, this is Natalie, your Shift and Thrive host. [00:19:00] After chatting with lots of CEOs, one thing is crystal clear. Leveling up your company means having a killer Go-to-market strategy. That's what my crew at Magnitude Consulting does every day. If you're trying to step up your marketing game, whether it's strategizing, accelerating your pipeline, expanding into new markets, or getting into AI and automation, let's talk.
No pitch, no pressure. Just good conversation. Visit shift and thrive podcast.com/natalie to schedule a time. Can't wait to connect.
Natalie Nathanson (2): I wanna talk a little bit about the balance of, uh, listening to your customers to develop what they say they want versus leading customers, because you might be looking at things a bit differently or understand what's possible with the technology that your customers might not be thinking about.
So given all of your, you know, product experience, how do you think about that in, in our current environment?
Vivek Mahapatra: Oh, absolutely. I think, uh, if you build trust with your customers, they're more willing to talk to you about their full day. The reason I'm saying that is [00:20:00] some products and services are built for, like, just a point in time, for a thing that you do.
Um, depending on how much your customers love you or how much they love your product or how close you are to your customers, you can understand more about the rest of their day and more about like, oh, there are other areas where they would love to have an interface back to this product.
And, and I think with the product and the technology these days, especially with AI and voice, et cetera, there's so many cool ways to integrate your work in a more seamless way so that AI can help or agents can help you even while you're not focused on a specific problem. And I think, um- The dialogue with customers, and there's some things that we're working on, so I'm, I wanna be mindful about what I share, but, like, the dialogue, the open dialogue with the customers and the learning and sort of being transparent about the fact that, "Hey, there are things we don't [00:21:00] know.
There's things we do for your business that are amazing, and there are things that we think we could do for your business, or there are things that we really believe we could do better or, you know, maybe better than a competitor or better than any other product you have, or there isn't a product for this, and let's have that conversation.
Let's sort of, like, open a two-way dialogue." In a B2C environment, it's a lot harder to get very spec- you get a lot of patterns, bell curves, et cetera, statistics, and you kind of know where your customers are, et cetera, PLG companies. There's, there's a lot... completely different conversation. But in B2B, you can actually have a really good bridge between you and the customer, and if you understand more about their day, you can create better, more sticky and meaningful and valuable products for them that they're happier to use.
Because ultimately, you want to solve a problem for them in their day that either makes them more productive, makes them more money, saves them some money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's, that's how I, I think about it, and that's how my team thinks about it, and that's... Honestly, like, we spend a lot of time listening to customers.[00:22:00]
Um, and if there's something that we're working on that is not obvious, like, "Oh, why would, why would you do this?" It's a great opportunity to, like, figure out how to communicate that to the customer. And then many, most of the time people are like, "Oh my God, that's... How do we not think about this? It's so obvious that, that you would be used for this."
Natalie Nathanson (2): You're making me think of a, a friend of mine, old MBA classmate that's, uh, been chief product officer at a number of robotics companies, and he does the kind of the day in the customer mapping. And that's been the unlock for him at, I think, at least three or four companies where he's been. Um, and it sounds, you know, a bit obvious once you, once you go through that, but it's not at the time, right?
And, um, I think it can ... A, a bit similar to the conversation we were having around the, the employees and the psychological safety, and it's okay saying, "I don't know." It's, at the end of the day, whether it's employees or at a B2B customer relationships, they are relationships, and it's a partnership, and you get more out of it, you know, the more you [00:23:00] share and are open to kind of asking the right questions and, you know, evolving accordingly.
Vivek Mahapatra: I have a lot of whiteboards in, in my office, and I will literally draw, like, timeline and arrows and be like, "Okay, so they did this, and then what happened?
Where do they go? What do they do?" And so I think just, like, for me, visually mapping it out helps me a lot to look at opportunity spaces, opportunity gaps, et cetera, or, like, integration, partnerships. Just the whole life cycle, if you just put the customer right at the center and you watch their day. I think about it like understand their day.
That's it, right? The personas. Ex- A lot of times the people that you sell to are not always the highest users of your application either, the people that use your product the most. So, like, you know, the buyer is different than the user, et cetera. So you have to, like, understand that. So working closely with, you know, UX and product and engineering and the customers.
It's, it's a very exciting time, I will say, to be in product. I can't... I, I, yeah, it is absolutely the most exciting time for me in my career to be where I am right now
Natalie Nathanson (2): Yeah. You just touched on something interesting, right? That [00:24:00] the, the buyer is not necessarily the user, and I was gonna a- going to ask you, um, right, how do you go through this product, this process as a product leader, right? Is it purely through conversations? How do you figure out who are the right people in the organization to talk to?
So kind of talk us through, uh, kind of the, the approach that you take to make sure you're kind of getting the right inputs in, in the right way.
Vivek Mahapatra: So I, I kind of alluded a little bit to, like, product and user experience and engineering and, you know, salespeople and customer service, and different companies call them different things, right?
I just joined the organization at LexisNexis Legal. It's a very exciting time. Really, really cool team. I really love the culture here. I'm getting to know a lot of different people and getting to understand where each person plugs into different parts of the customer journey, but everyone does plug into a part of the customer journey, which is great.
And I think for me as a, generally speaking, in my experience in product through that 20-plus years in, in, um, tech and product is- there was a very different way to understand how a customer went through their day-to-day and the process of user [00:25:00] experience and, and sort of, um, uh, HCI, human-centered design, human-centered interaction, human-computer interaction, sorry.
And so for me, what I try to do is understand whichever organization I'm in, whichever team I'm in, who are the different customer-facing teams? What is the data that we have access to about customer interactions or telemetry or whatever that is? And then how do we really understand, like, the ecosystem of what the customer is trying to get done?
If you think about the personas at different companies and organizations, a larger organization may have many, many different teams. A smaller organization may have one team that does all of it, right? I've, I've worked with, with teams before where literally, like, the UX and the engineer were the same person.
Or the PM and the eng-engineer is the same person, and the UX person and the customer success person was the same. So there was, like, two or three people playing four or five roles. But those roles exist to understand different parts, whether it's data, whether it's behaviors, whether it's sales patterns or the ecosystem.
And so I, [00:26:00] again, as a whiteboard, like, I will literally, like, draw this out for myself. I'll draw a circle and be like, "Okay, this is you. This is your team. This is our customers, and this is the ecosystem." Like, very simple four things. Like, okay, so what are you working on?
What is your team working on, or what are the teams you're working on, and how does that affect the customer, and how does it... part of the ecosystem? So I, I'm a big fan of just oversimplifying everything because I feel like then it's easier to actually find and connect dots and, "Oh, the problem is here."
Like, okay, cool, let's go there. And if there are gaps-- So I was working on something recently, and we realized that the inputs we were getting for this one specific work stream, there were three teams working on it, and each of the teams was presenting to me separately.
So I was like, "Hey, can we all be on the same meeting?" And they were like, "Yeah, why not?" And so we all got in the same meeting, and suddenly we all were learning from each other, and the inputs helped each other. But because of how previously on a different product they had managed their time, they just didn't think to be on [00:27:00] the same team, like, on the same call because it was, like, not relevant at the time.
But I feel like now with AI and as fast as, you know, with mobile technologies, internet, AI- There's a lot of overlap just in so many things. Um, so some of what I try to do is force teams that may not be talking to each other to talk to each other. Not force, but create opportunities and environments where, back to the thing I said earlier about creating a room or a space, like I just like to try to bring different groups together and be like, "Hey, do you want to collaborate on this?"
Natalie Nathanson (2): This is great, and I could keep going down this path of conversation, uh, for, for hours. But I know we're, we're almost at the end of our time. Uh, and I'd love to ask you, uh, a question that I like to ask every guest, and that is what is the best piece of advice, uh, you've been given that is still shaping you today?
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, this is, uh, I was thinking about this actually quite a bit. Um, a friend, mentor of mine, uh, once said to me... I was in a really interesting time. I was in a team, and it was not working out [00:28:00] very well. I'd made a lot of mistakes. It was, it was not no one's fault. I definitely made a lot of mistakes, and it was definitely a lot of it was my fault, but I was definitely struggling.
And I remember just sort of trying to figure out what to do. Like, do I power through, like, I've learned a lot and continue this, or do I try something new? Like, what was the answer? And, uh, one of the things he asked me, he said, "You know, for most of my decisions, I call them rocking chair decisions." Like, I ask myself when I'm going through something really, like, tough, what's my rocking chair decision?
As in, when I'm 85 years old and I look back, what will I remember? What will I take away? What will I think about? And it's a very meta question because that forced me then to be like, "Okay, how much of this is even gonna matter when I'm 85 years old?" Right? Am I gonna look back and be like, "Oh, that one team I worked on, it was so bad"?
Or am I gonna be thinking about other things, my kids or my wife or my family, my parents, my in-laws, like, you know, whoever, right? And so it forced me to kind of create a lot of perspective on the problem [00:29:00] statement and put myself at a distance. So I had to look at myself from, like, many, many years from now. And that is something that I-- like, versions of that have impacted how I make decisions. Um, I've lived and grown up all over. Like, born in India, grew up in Thailand. I've lived in New York, San Francisco, Chicago. You and I talked about this before, France, Singapore, et cetera. And so there's a lot of movement and a lot of new personalities and new ways of working and learning, and constantly, um...
I'm always an outsider wherever I go because I-- like, I've never lived in Raleigh. I just moved here. I've literally never lived in North Carolina in my life, and I'm here now. My kids are gonna go to school here, my, my wife and I. Like, I was traveling a lot for work in the last few years, and now we're all here in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Like, what? And so we're always sort of like new or learning, and in those moments, as things are tough or different or you feel out of [00:30:00] place, et cetera, this perspective of like, "Hey, eighty-five years from now," right? Like, so one of the things when I got this job was like, "Huh, eighty-five years from now, I'll probably look back and be like, 'That was awesome.
I loved Raleigh because it was a good family friendly blah, blah, blah.'" Versus some of the other things that I was looking at before this opportunity came up were much more like the startup land in New York or San Francisco or like, "Let's go, go, go." And it was a rocking chair decision. I was like, "Huh, when I'm eighty-five, am I gonna be excited that I did another crazy fast growth environment or that I, like, worked in an environment like this where I am right now?"
It's, like, very family-focused, amazing culture. Definitely, like, busy and, and fast, but not like a, you know, crazy startup AI frontier lab kind of thing. And so that was a rocking chair. So a lot of decisions I make are marked by that, like, rocking chair decision. When I'm not sure what to do or I'm stuck, I just kind of like zoom out and look back and say, "Huh, okay.
What should I do?" [00:31:00] Thinking about the next X number of years and s- trying my best to see, like, what could happen.
Natalie Nathanson (2): Yeah, yeah. I love that advice. It resonates with me. I also, uh, try to, uh, do that kind of retro from my deathbed, which decision will I regret, uh, making or, or not making? And I think that, uh, permeates both, uh, business and, uh, personal life.
Vivek Mahapatra: Funny you said the deathbed thing because I remember I was joking with, with, his name's Dave, um, and I was like, "You know?" And he said, "No, I didn't say your deathbed." I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Rocking chair, 85 years old, your grandkids are here. Like, like, you're still very much alive, and you're gonna tell them a story, and you're gonna remember something.
Like, you're not about to die, da, da." And I remember having this conversation with him because, 'cause I was like, "Oh, I don't want it on my tombstone." He's like, "No, I'm not even talking about... Not your tombstone, not your deathbed. I'm saying you're 85. You got another 10 years ahead of you. Who knows? Maybe five years, whatever.
What are you doing? You're, you're in a rocking chair. Where are you sitting? What do you, what, what do you wish you were doing? Who are you with?" And, uh, it was funny because you brought up the deathbed because that's exactly what I said, and he's like, "No, no, no, no. Different type." And I was like, "Oh." And, uh, it's just shifted.
[00:32:00] The timing of the advice that I got was perfect, and it, I, it took a long time to actually make the changes and so on and so forth, et cetera, but, like, it was really, um... It made a lot of difference, yeah. 'Cause I, I really value, like, family, and I really value, you know, being with my wife and kids and being able to see our, our sets of parents and stuff, and, like, travel the world and see things.
And so how do you look at life from 85 versus I'm a product person in an AI world and then product, product, product, customer, customer, customer, disruption, startup, do, do, do, do, do. It's like, ooh, step back.
Natalie Nathanson (2): Right. Very easy to get wrapped up in whatever we're on at the moment and not have that zoom out perspective. And I do love the, the rocking chair, so maybe I'll try that one
on This has been great. So I loved the conversation. And can you, uh, let listeners know how they can get in touch if they wanna reach out?
Vivek Mahapatra: Oh yeah, for sure. Uh, probably easiest just to add me on LinkedIn, um, and shoot me... And I will say that if you do add me on LinkedIn because you listened to this podcast, like indicate that, 'cause I think for better or for worse, there's a lot of like agents and, [00:33:00] and, and bots and so on, and I get added by random folks that I'm like, "Wait, what?"
I, I... So context would be amazing. Um, if you have any, if you have any feedback or anything that resonated or didn't resonate, or you want to challenge me on anything I mentioned, uh, you know, Link- LinkedIn's probably the easiest
Natalie Nathanson (2): Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Well, I loved this conversation. I loved the t- talking and learning from you about how you think about kind of identifying those, those customer needs for product evolution, uh, the kind of business environment that we're in today, and how to kind of work best as a leader, uh, creating the right kind of environment for our teams.
Uh, so thank you so much for everything that you shared
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, no, and thank you for the opportunity, Natalie, and thank you to anyone that's listened. Um, you know, I'm always learning. I'm always trying to figure out, uh, what's, what's the best right way to build teams, develop myself, et cetera. So I appreciate you inviting me on the podcast. I appreciate all the listeners tuning in and, you know, looking forward to hearing more and, and learning
Natalie Nathanson (2): [00:34:00] Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thanks again, Vivek, and thank you to everybody that's listening. If today's conversation sparked something new for you, and I'm sure that it did, please pass this along to another leader in your network because these really are the types of conversations that help all of us scale smarter, build stronger, and navigate the times that we're living in.
So thanks again, Vivek, and this has been another wonderful conversation on Shift and Thrive. I'll see you all next time
Outro: that's a wrap for this week's episode. For show notes and more visit Shift and thrive podcast.com. A special thank you to our sponsor, magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consultancy and the getting it done Power of a full service marketing agency to help B2B companies fuel their growth.
For more information on magnitude and to get your complimentary transformation readiness assessment, visit magnitude consulting.com/. Get ready. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next [00:35:00] week.
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Intro: [00:00:00] In today's business world, change is the only constant, and mastering transformation is the ultimate key to success. Welcome to Shift and Thrive. I'm your host, Natalie Nathanson.
Each week we'll bring you conversations with CEOs who delve into how they successfully drove critical change in their organization. This show is sponsored by Magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consult. And the getting it done, power of a full service B2B marketing agency.
Natalie Nathanson (2): Hi, and welcome to another special edition episode on Shift and Thrive as part of our Go-to-Market Spotlight series. If you're a CEO or business leader wondering how your go-to-market needs to evolve right now to meet today's market realities, this episode is for you, and I am very excited to introduce today's guest.
He sits at the intersection of product go-to-market and AI, with over two decades of [00:01:00] experience helping companies turn complex technology into real world customer value. Just prior to his current role, he spent 12 years at Salesforce, where he held roles spanning solution engineering, sales, product strategy, competitive intelligence, and AI product, and was part of the founding team behind Agentforce, helping to take it from zero to revenue in under a year.
With a background in both computer science and studio art, he brings the rare ability to bridge technical depth with market clarity, helping to make complex solutions easier for company, for customers to understand, trust, and adopt. He is currently
A chief product officer at LexisNexis Legal and an advisor to private equity. Vivek Mahapatra, welcome to the show
Vivek Mahapatra: Thanks, Natalie. Thank you for having me. Um, looking forward to the conversation
Natalie Nathanson (2): Thank you. Same here. And I know we were talking a bit just before we, uh, started recording that, you know, just how much, uh, uncertainty and kind of change there are in our current times. So I know we'll have a lot to get into there, [00:02:00] uh, and would love to really start with a transformation story. So can you share with me a moment that you had to navigate a major shift and what you learned from that?
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, transformation seems to be like the name of the game these days, or disruption and now transformation. Um, I used to joke, uh, when I was meeting customers that, you know, enterprise transformation is like the, the buzzword for any project that anyone kicks off. But with AI, I think everyone's gone through significant transformation.
There's a massive transformation that I worked on at our organization, and we were launching a, a huge, uh, AI product, AI-first product. Um, and I think what was kind of interesting about that is a few things. One is nobody knew the answers, and it was very, very clear that- We also didn't even know the questions to ask, if you will.
The transformation that, that I was part of, it, it was, you know, just post-COVID. I was on a team, and we were trying to figure out, like, how do [00:03:00] we get AI first quickly, but with, like, really specific use cases where customers can see the value. And so what was crazy about the transformation story, that big learning experience for me is it needed to be very Very focused, and there needed to be, like, very strict priorities.
So if something was a number one or a number two or number three priority and something else came up, you had to move one, two, and three around to figure, like, "Hey, is this fourth thing number one? Is it number two? Is it number..." If it's not, it's not in the top three priorities. Now, for better or for worse, that became more and more.
Like, it became five priorities, then 10 priorities, and then other teams got involved. But in the very beginning, what was interesting when we were launching this product is it was absolute cross-functional. There was product marketing, there was product management, there were different teams in the organization.
The CIO's office was involved in a product conversation, which was pretty interesting. Um, obviously finance, legal, because, you know, we didn't know how much to spend or what we were [00:04:00] spending and s- you know, now people talk about token maxing. You know, back then, um, th- there was a completely different way of how people were pricing.
And so what's crazy about the transformation, I think for me personally as, as I was going through this and, and learning is, you needed to be really, really comfortable telling people, "Hey, I don't know.
Here's what I think. Here's what I'm gonna do. I don't know the answers." And working in an environment that was fast-paced but where a lot of people don't know the answers can wor- can basically go one of two ways. One is you're kicked out of the team because you don't know. The other is everyone else is like, "Oh, I feel more comfortable sharing that I don't know."
And so when the humility kind of increases and everyone is working really hard all the time, I feel like there is a new energy that's created and people are more likely to collaborate because they don't feel like they're going to be removed from the conversation and this transformation. And I think a lot of times when you think about transformation, enterprise transformation, [00:05:00] it's like get on the bus or you're off the bus.
Like, there's no two options, and you don't even know where the bus is going. Most people are like, "Oh, we're gonna do an enterprise data transformation," or, "We're gonna do a, you know, whatever, new, new product," et cetera. You kind of know where it's going. Um, with this it was just you didn't know, and finding people that were comfortable Not knowing, asking the right questions, being open to pivoting and actually looking at the same problem from different lens.
So not getting too married. And there was this thing that my team and I came up with around, we called it AI product growth for a while, where you experiment like crazy, you validate a few of those ideas that you've experimented on, and then you have to scale an even smaller subset of those ideas. So if you think about, like, it's like concentric circles, like experiment on 100 ideas, maybe validate like...
or maybe not 100 ideas. Let's say 10. Then you go validate like four or five maybe, and then you pick [00:06:00] one or two to, like, try to scale. But the crazy learning with that one was when we were experimenting, because it was so cross-functional, when we got to the scale, so experiment, validate, scale. Once we got to the scale, the teams that we were working with in the experimentation phase are the ones that would need to ship that.
So if you're working with a pricing and packaging team, or you're working with the sales team or the product team or the, you know, marketing, et cetera, and you came up with a really cool idea that you were like, "Hey, I think we should try this," it wasn't on you to actually be the one that implemented it.
It was, "Hey, it's cross-functional. Let's get this team involved." And I think that was, like, a really interesting learning for me through the transformation is if you, if you invite people to join you on a journey where nobody knows the answers, but everyone's kind of aligned to try to figure it out, um, it's a lot easier.
But I will say re- in retrospect, it's a lot easier. There was nothing easy about it, but it was exciting and it was interesting and, uh, I learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes. Um, but also [00:07:00] I feel like- it's shone a light on prioritization and focus in a way that has changed how I think in product, as a leader, teams, et cetera
Natalie Nathanson (2): Yeah. I mean, there's so much there to unpack. I, I like how you're talking about kind of the level of, uh, confidence and being okay saying, "I don't know," right? It's like naming the elephant in the room, uh, oftentimes in these kind of situations, and as empowering, uh, to everyone else in the room, one, to be able to say, "I don't know either," but then to problem solve together, which I think is what you're talking about, and come up with those experiments.
And, uh, I think in another conversation you had mentioned psychological safety, right? So what that, that one line of like, "I don't know. I don't have all the answers," uh, what that would open up for an organization.
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, I, so yeah, I would say two things on that one. First off is like, I feel like most of us early in our [00:08:00] careers are taught that the way to, grow in your career and climb the, corporate ladder, et cetera, is to be the loudest voice in the room, to be the one that everyone goes to, to be the one everyone knows.
Like, "Oh, this is the person that has the answer," or, "Get this person involved." And there's a certain point at which that shifts, and it's not about being the loudest person in the room, it's actually about, creating a space, creating a room for others to speak up and to create, a space for others to ask those questions and work together, and I think that's sort of like when you, move from, an individual contributor or an IC to a, leader.
It's not always because you got a title and they were like, "Okay, here's a title. You're a leader now. You know, here's a team." Sometimes you don't even have a team and you need to be a leader. How do you do that? And I think it's like creating that space, to your point, where people feel like we're in this space together, and we're all gonna ask tough questions and we're gonna, and we're gonna make it work.
On your comment about psychological safety, it was interesting actually during this transformation, the other thing that was happening in the industry [00:09:00] was, um, basically a reorg, right? Like, there was just so many layoffs and, and, and lots of, like, teams changing and teams restructuring.
And so this, this analogy is, is one that I think I joked about with you before, and I'll share it really quickly, is, you know, uh, imagine you're a teenager or imagine there's teenagers and they throw a party, and then the parents came home early and the teenagers are cleaning up the house and they did a poor job of cleaning up the house.
The parent's like, "Oh my God, clean up. This is horrible." Like, "This, you need to keep cleaning up." And as they're cleaning up after this party, um, the doorbell rings, and in the middle of the cleanup, the parents stop them and say, "Hey, you need to invite this guest in." And then suddenly, like, it turns into another party with the new guest, and the guest starts helping you clean up.
And so the analogy here, right, is that the teenagers are all mostly tech firms or most companies in general. Um, the parents are all the investors and stakeholders, and COVID was the first party. COVID happened. After COVID got over, people were sort of s- the res- unfortunately, like a lot of restructuring and layoffs, et cetera, started happening because the markets were kind of crazy, right?
Like, we didn't [00:10:00] know about travel and hospitality as a business, and then suddenly there were investments made in certain types of technology and QR codes and this and that and like, you know, social dis-distancing, et cetera. And so there are lots of industries and businesses that were affected. Um, but then as the cleanup started happening, like the first round around, around 2022, the doorbell rings and AI shows up, and a lot of organizations that still hadn't finished their COVID sort of restructuring, if you will, or not even restructuring.
It, it's also just, like, figuring out if the team that you've built is the right team for the future. Suddenly AI shows up and, like, a lot of that planning changed and everyone paused it and said, "Okay, stop this cleanup. There's a new party." And so now we're in the middle of that new party and there's clearly a lot of stuff happening and people are using AI as a reason or an excuse or a way to continue some of the restructuring and the layoffs, et cetera.
So in the context of that, in tech especially, knowing that first off, you're in the middle of a transformation, a lot of people don't know the answers. In the past when you said, "I don't know," you were [00:11:00] kicked off the bus. So now you're thinking, "Wait, if I say I don't know, I might lose my job.
Like, what do I do?" And so one of the things that I, I did with my team during this transformation, actually about a year and a half or two after, like, as we were working through the transformation with this product in general, um, is I started having a conversation because I noticed that there was a lot of fear of the uncertainty and a lot of fear of job security.
And so I asked the team, I said, "Hey- What happens, you know, if you get laid off? And we're like, "I don't know anything. I'm not reading the tea leaves. I'm not telling you." Just asking you, what are your obligations? What are your plans?
You know, um, is your network solid? Like, are you in touch with different people? Have you worked, unfortunately or fortunately, on your resume or your LinkedIn? Like, are you staying relevant? Are you learning, not for the sake of trying to get a job, but are you just learning to stay relevant? And the first few weeks and months of that, my team was definitely quite anxious 'cause they thought, like, he knows something and he's not tell- like, you know, we're getting prepared.
And after a while they realized, oh, this guy is just... And I, I used to call it radical transparency. I'd be like, "Look, anything I know [00:12:00] that I'm allowed to share, like, legally, et cetera, you know, obviously within the bounds of, of, of the role and HR, et cetera, I will share with you, and I will try to give you all the details possible so that...
because I'll treat you like an adult, but I will also have adult conversations about that and what it means." And so the first few rounds of this radical transparency was very uncomfortable. But what's crazy is it created the psychological safety because all conversations were on the table. Like, there was nothing taboo to ta- it was just amazing.
And, and the, and the comment or the analogy I make, it's like when you watch a horror movie, if all the lights are on, there's nothing scary 'cause there's no unknowns. There's no... You know where everything is. And so for me it was like, how do I help shine a light on the unknowns and the uncertainties that are actually the thing that people are scared of when they lose their job?
And so having that conversation openly meant that this conversation wasn't something they were happening, having outside of work or with coworkers or by the water cooler.
They were talking to me. They were talking to each other. And what was crazy is that experimentation validation, uh, scale effort that we did, [00:13:00] it made that 10 times better. And so the high-performance culture, which most people use that term when they're talking about, you know, um, rationalization of workforce, et cetera, our team was super high-performance culture because radical transparency led to psychological safety, and that created high performance.
The ideas they came up with, the work they were doing, like, ev- it was just amazing. And I felt like that was one of the huge lessons I learned in the transformation is- When you shine a light on the thing that everyone's afraid of, and you try to have really adult conversations about what everyone's kind of...
is on everyone's mind, but they're not bringing to work, it can really help create a much better work environment. And I learned so much from that experience. Um, there were projects that we got put on. There were, there were activities and events that people were like, "Can we have your team join? We wanna think differently.
We wanna try new things." You know, you create that space for people, and it's on you to make sure that they feel comfortable being who they are, and then boom, like, they're gonna be great at their work
Natalie Nathanson (2): And I'm finding, like, good leaders are having [00:14:00] these kinds of hearts to hearts with their team, whether it's kind of a first-line manager, an executive talking to the overall- the organization overall. Um, I'm seeing and just hearing from, you know, folks in my network that, uh, I'm finding a lot of the bigger companies these days, uh, are creating case studies in what not to do, that are creating a lot of that, uh, kind of fear and uncertainty and not having those honest, like, heart to hearts.
Um, and avoiding the hard communications rather than, uh, like, like you did by tackling it head on, saying, "I don't have the answers. I don't know exactly what this means for you, for, for the product or et cetera." Um, but, um, I think it creates an environment that makes it very hard to, uh, find solutions and know which questions to, to ask and, and, and all of that.
Vivek Mahapatra: I think one thing that helps, Natalie, on that, I, I've, at least for me personally has helped, and I'm, I'm doing something similar with my, my new team now, um, is trying to define what's the vision and the [00:15:00] strategy that you're working on. And, and one of the things that helped me is, or is helping me, and hopefully will be successful, we'll see, is thinking about where do you wanna be in 12 to 18 months?
Like, what's the vision for your product? Not today, not tomorrow, in 12 to 18 months. And the reality is, no matter who you are, part of that answer is, "I don't know." You just don't know. It's not possible that you will know what's gonna happen in 12 to 18 months. It's just not possible. And it just forces to have that, I don't know, versus saying, "Hey, Natalie, what do you think is gonna..." And be like, "Oh, shoot. Do I say I don't know? Am I gonna sound stupid? What if somebody else thinks they have the answer?" 12 to 18 months from now, what's the product gonna be? I don't know. Do you? No, none of us do.
But if you think, okay, what's my vision for what I'm working on in 12 to 18 months, and I know I won't know a bunch of things, that's exciting. Okay, let's try. And, and it's, it's exciting in the right environment for the right type of person to think through. It can be very unnerving if you're not ready for that conversation.
So [00:16:00] setting up the space and saying, "Hey, I want you to think about this. I don't know the answer. You don't know the answer. Nobody knows the answer. It actually helps reduce a little bit of that uncertainty. I don't think anyone can reduce 100% of the uncertainty because there's just so much unknown.
Natalie Nathanson (2): I think what that creates is a lot of this external, uh, pressure that... And I was just talking to a group of, uh, founders, uh, about this recently, like the pressure, like you feel like you need to go through a revolution in your business, and everyone wants that magical new vision, and you're- everyone's marching towards it, and you can clearly communicate it, and all the execution is rallying around that.
The reality I think a lot of companies are facing is this is more of an evolution, right? Because the technology is a moving target, so everything you're building, the, the landscape is shifting from under you. And I think in a lot of ways that reduces the pressure a bit, right? You don't need this kind of big, uh, unveiling of the new strategy.
You need to stay true to the value you bring to [00:17:00] your customers, knowing that how you deliver that will change. Uh, there will be things that you can do that weren't possible to do a few years ago that bring kinda new value and new innovations, but that that happens a bit more organically by kinda doing the right things, creating the right internal environment, and, uh, staying close to your customers, and being, and being open to new customer segments.
Vivek Mahapatra: You nailed it. I think, I- the, the joke, I-I'm trying to remember who- whose person said it to me. It's a joke somebody made, and he was like, "Look, we don't sell. Customers buy." That's it. Like, everyone thinks you sell and you're a good salesperson. Yeah, sure. That's all true, but if customers aren't buying, you're not selling anything, and customers only buy when there's a pain point that you help them with.
I especially like kind of the world that I'm in right now because there's a very, very interesting set of problems that we're trying to solve for in the, in the legal environment, and there's some amazing core technologies and, and, you know, things that we do, and there's obviously a lot of disruption in the space.
But that's also exciting because there are a lot of different ways to capture value and create [00:18:00] value. But because there's, like, a pretty good conversation and relationship with the customer, we're able to do that. And you, you nailed it. Like, stay close to your customer. Now, I've definitely worked with, with folks and, and even some of the advisory work I've done, but, like, they will just come up with this crazy idea of something that they want to build for a customer, and it's like, okay, cool.
You know, 12 to 18-month vision, it's open. Tell me more about how you're gonna get there and, and why would a customer try? And maybe the answer is, yeah, go ahead and do that.
It's cool to have those open conversations and feel like it's constant, the evolution. I just think that rate at which change is happening, right? Like, people have one-year or three-year roadmaps. I don't know anyone in any organization, technology or otherwise, that has a three-year roadmap or even a one-year roadmap.
You may have, like, some idea, but, like, an actual roadmap is just disrupting, like, constantly. So yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting time.
Natalie Nathanson: Hey, this is Natalie, your Shift and Thrive host. [00:19:00] After chatting with lots of CEOs, one thing is crystal clear. Leveling up your company means having a killer Go-to-market strategy. That's what my crew at Magnitude Consulting does every day. If you're trying to step up your marketing game, whether it's strategizing, accelerating your pipeline, expanding into new markets, or getting into AI and automation, let's talk.
No pitch, no pressure. Just good conversation. Visit shift and thrive podcast.com/natalie to schedule a time. Can't wait to connect.
Natalie Nathanson (2): I wanna talk a little bit about the balance of, uh, listening to your customers to develop what they say they want versus leading customers, because you might be looking at things a bit differently or understand what's possible with the technology that your customers might not be thinking about.
So given all of your, you know, product experience, how do you think about that in, in our current environment?
Vivek Mahapatra: Oh, absolutely. I think, uh, if you build trust with your customers, they're more willing to talk to you about their full day. The reason I'm saying that is [00:20:00] some products and services are built for, like, just a point in time, for a thing that you do.
Um, depending on how much your customers love you or how much they love your product or how close you are to your customers, you can understand more about the rest of their day and more about like, oh, there are other areas where they would love to have an interface back to this product.
And, and I think with the product and the technology these days, especially with AI and voice, et cetera, there's so many cool ways to integrate your work in a more seamless way so that AI can help or agents can help you even while you're not focused on a specific problem. And I think, um- The dialogue with customers, and there's some things that we're working on, so I'm, I wanna be mindful about what I share, but, like, the dialogue, the open dialogue with the customers and the learning and sort of being transparent about the fact that, "Hey, there are things we don't [00:21:00] know.
There's things we do for your business that are amazing, and there are things that we think we could do for your business, or there are things that we really believe we could do better or, you know, maybe better than a competitor or better than any other product you have, or there isn't a product for this, and let's have that conversation.
Let's sort of, like, open a two-way dialogue." In a B2C environment, it's a lot harder to get very spec- you get a lot of patterns, bell curves, et cetera, statistics, and you kind of know where your customers are, et cetera, PLG companies. There's, there's a lot... completely different conversation. But in B2B, you can actually have a really good bridge between you and the customer, and if you understand more about their day, you can create better, more sticky and meaningful and valuable products for them that they're happier to use.
Because ultimately, you want to solve a problem for them in their day that either makes them more productive, makes them more money, saves them some money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's, that's how I, I think about it, and that's how my team thinks about it, and that's... Honestly, like, we spend a lot of time listening to customers.[00:22:00]
Um, and if there's something that we're working on that is not obvious, like, "Oh, why would, why would you do this?" It's a great opportunity to, like, figure out how to communicate that to the customer. And then many, most of the time people are like, "Oh my God, that's... How do we not think about this? It's so obvious that, that you would be used for this."
Natalie Nathanson (2): You're making me think of a, a friend of mine, old MBA classmate that's, uh, been chief product officer at a number of robotics companies, and he does the kind of the day in the customer mapping. And that's been the unlock for him at, I think, at least three or four companies where he's been. Um, and it sounds, you know, a bit obvious once you, once you go through that, but it's not at the time, right?
And, um, I think it can ... A, a bit similar to the conversation we were having around the, the employees and the psychological safety, and it's okay saying, "I don't know." It's, at the end of the day, whether it's employees or at a B2B customer relationships, they are relationships, and it's a partnership, and you get more out of it, you know, the more you [00:23:00] share and are open to kind of asking the right questions and, you know, evolving accordingly.
Vivek Mahapatra: I have a lot of whiteboards in, in my office, and I will literally draw, like, timeline and arrows and be like, "Okay, so they did this, and then what happened?
Where do they go? What do they do?" And so I think just, like, for me, visually mapping it out helps me a lot to look at opportunity spaces, opportunity gaps, et cetera, or, like, integration, partnerships. Just the whole life cycle, if you just put the customer right at the center and you watch their day. I think about it like understand their day.
That's it, right? The personas. Ex- A lot of times the people that you sell to are not always the highest users of your application either, the people that use your product the most. So, like, you know, the buyer is different than the user, et cetera. So you have to, like, understand that. So working closely with, you know, UX and product and engineering and the customers.
It's, it's a very exciting time, I will say, to be in product. I can't... I, I, yeah, it is absolutely the most exciting time for me in my career to be where I am right now
Natalie Nathanson (2): Yeah. You just touched on something interesting, right? That [00:24:00] the, the buyer is not necessarily the user, and I was gonna a- going to ask you, um, right, how do you go through this product, this process as a product leader, right? Is it purely through conversations? How do you figure out who are the right people in the organization to talk to?
So kind of talk us through, uh, kind of the, the approach that you take to make sure you're kind of getting the right inputs in, in the right way.
Vivek Mahapatra: So I, I kind of alluded a little bit to, like, product and user experience and engineering and, you know, salespeople and customer service, and different companies call them different things, right?
I just joined the organization at LexisNexis Legal. It's a very exciting time. Really, really cool team. I really love the culture here. I'm getting to know a lot of different people and getting to understand where each person plugs into different parts of the customer journey, but everyone does plug into a part of the customer journey, which is great.
And I think for me as a, generally speaking, in my experience in product through that 20-plus years in, in, um, tech and product is- there was a very different way to understand how a customer went through their day-to-day and the process of user [00:25:00] experience and, and sort of, um, uh, HCI, human-centered design, human-centered interaction, human-computer interaction, sorry.
And so for me, what I try to do is understand whichever organization I'm in, whichever team I'm in, who are the different customer-facing teams? What is the data that we have access to about customer interactions or telemetry or whatever that is? And then how do we really understand, like, the ecosystem of what the customer is trying to get done?
If you think about the personas at different companies and organizations, a larger organization may have many, many different teams. A smaller organization may have one team that does all of it, right? I've, I've worked with, with teams before where literally, like, the UX and the engineer were the same person.
Or the PM and the eng-engineer is the same person, and the UX person and the customer success person was the same. So there was, like, two or three people playing four or five roles. But those roles exist to understand different parts, whether it's data, whether it's behaviors, whether it's sales patterns or the ecosystem.
And so I, [00:26:00] again, as a whiteboard, like, I will literally, like, draw this out for myself. I'll draw a circle and be like, "Okay, this is you. This is your team. This is our customers, and this is the ecosystem." Like, very simple four things. Like, okay, so what are you working on?
What is your team working on, or what are the teams you're working on, and how does that affect the customer, and how does it... part of the ecosystem? So I, I'm a big fan of just oversimplifying everything because I feel like then it's easier to actually find and connect dots and, "Oh, the problem is here."
Like, okay, cool, let's go there. And if there are gaps-- So I was working on something recently, and we realized that the inputs we were getting for this one specific work stream, there were three teams working on it, and each of the teams was presenting to me separately.
So I was like, "Hey, can we all be on the same meeting?" And they were like, "Yeah, why not?" And so we all got in the same meeting, and suddenly we all were learning from each other, and the inputs helped each other. But because of how previously on a different product they had managed their time, they just didn't think to be on [00:27:00] the same team, like, on the same call because it was, like, not relevant at the time.
But I feel like now with AI and as fast as, you know, with mobile technologies, internet, AI- There's a lot of overlap just in so many things. Um, so some of what I try to do is force teams that may not be talking to each other to talk to each other. Not force, but create opportunities and environments where, back to the thing I said earlier about creating a room or a space, like I just like to try to bring different groups together and be like, "Hey, do you want to collaborate on this?"
Natalie Nathanson (2): This is great, and I could keep going down this path of conversation, uh, for, for hours. But I know we're, we're almost at the end of our time. Uh, and I'd love to ask you, uh, a question that I like to ask every guest, and that is what is the best piece of advice, uh, you've been given that is still shaping you today?
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, this is, uh, I was thinking about this actually quite a bit. Um, a friend, mentor of mine, uh, once said to me... I was in a really interesting time. I was in a team, and it was not working out [00:28:00] very well. I'd made a lot of mistakes. It was, it was not no one's fault. I definitely made a lot of mistakes, and it was definitely a lot of it was my fault, but I was definitely struggling.
And I remember just sort of trying to figure out what to do. Like, do I power through, like, I've learned a lot and continue this, or do I try something new? Like, what was the answer? And, uh, one of the things he asked me, he said, "You know, for most of my decisions, I call them rocking chair decisions." Like, I ask myself when I'm going through something really, like, tough, what's my rocking chair decision?
As in, when I'm 85 years old and I look back, what will I remember? What will I take away? What will I think about? And it's a very meta question because that forced me then to be like, "Okay, how much of this is even gonna matter when I'm 85 years old?" Right? Am I gonna look back and be like, "Oh, that one team I worked on, it was so bad"?
Or am I gonna be thinking about other things, my kids or my wife or my family, my parents, my in-laws, like, you know, whoever, right? And so it forced me to kind of create a lot of perspective on the problem [00:29:00] statement and put myself at a distance. So I had to look at myself from, like, many, many years from now. And that is something that I-- like, versions of that have impacted how I make decisions. Um, I've lived and grown up all over. Like, born in India, grew up in Thailand. I've lived in New York, San Francisco, Chicago. You and I talked about this before, France, Singapore, et cetera. And so there's a lot of movement and a lot of new personalities and new ways of working and learning, and constantly, um...
I'm always an outsider wherever I go because I-- like, I've never lived in Raleigh. I just moved here. I've literally never lived in North Carolina in my life, and I'm here now. My kids are gonna go to school here, my, my wife and I. Like, I was traveling a lot for work in the last few years, and now we're all here in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Like, what? And so we're always sort of like new or learning, and in those moments, as things are tough or different or you feel out of [00:30:00] place, et cetera, this perspective of like, "Hey, eighty-five years from now," right? Like, so one of the things when I got this job was like, "Huh, eighty-five years from now, I'll probably look back and be like, 'That was awesome.
I loved Raleigh because it was a good family friendly blah, blah, blah.'" Versus some of the other things that I was looking at before this opportunity came up were much more like the startup land in New York or San Francisco or like, "Let's go, go, go." And it was a rocking chair decision. I was like, "Huh, when I'm eighty-five, am I gonna be excited that I did another crazy fast growth environment or that I, like, worked in an environment like this where I am right now?"
It's, like, very family-focused, amazing culture. Definitely, like, busy and, and fast, but not like a, you know, crazy startup AI frontier lab kind of thing. And so that was a rocking chair. So a lot of decisions I make are marked by that, like, rocking chair decision. When I'm not sure what to do or I'm stuck, I just kind of like zoom out and look back and say, "Huh, okay.
What should I do?" [00:31:00] Thinking about the next X number of years and s- trying my best to see, like, what could happen.
Natalie Nathanson (2): Yeah, yeah. I love that advice. It resonates with me. I also, uh, try to, uh, do that kind of retro from my deathbed, which decision will I regret, uh, making or, or not making? And I think that, uh, permeates both, uh, business and, uh, personal life.
Vivek Mahapatra: Funny you said the deathbed thing because I remember I was joking with, with, his name's Dave, um, and I was like, "You know?" And he said, "No, I didn't say your deathbed." I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Rocking chair, 85 years old, your grandkids are here. Like, like, you're still very much alive, and you're gonna tell them a story, and you're gonna remember something.
Like, you're not about to die, da, da." And I remember having this conversation with him because, 'cause I was like, "Oh, I don't want it on my tombstone." He's like, "No, I'm not even talking about... Not your tombstone, not your deathbed. I'm saying you're 85. You got another 10 years ahead of you. Who knows? Maybe five years, whatever.
What are you doing? You're, you're in a rocking chair. Where are you sitting? What do you, what, what do you wish you were doing? Who are you with?" And, uh, it was funny because you brought up the deathbed because that's exactly what I said, and he's like, "No, no, no, no. Different type." And I was like, "Oh." And, uh, it's just shifted.
[00:32:00] The timing of the advice that I got was perfect, and it, I, it took a long time to actually make the changes and so on and so forth, et cetera, but, like, it was really, um... It made a lot of difference, yeah. 'Cause I, I really value, like, family, and I really value, you know, being with my wife and kids and being able to see our, our sets of parents and stuff, and, like, travel the world and see things.
And so how do you look at life from 85 versus I'm a product person in an AI world and then product, product, product, customer, customer, customer, disruption, startup, do, do, do, do, do. It's like, ooh, step back.
Natalie Nathanson (2): Right. Very easy to get wrapped up in whatever we're on at the moment and not have that zoom out perspective. And I do love the, the rocking chair, so maybe I'll try that one
on This has been great. So I loved the conversation. And can you, uh, let listeners know how they can get in touch if they wanna reach out?
Vivek Mahapatra: Oh yeah, for sure. Uh, probably easiest just to add me on LinkedIn, um, and shoot me... And I will say that if you do add me on LinkedIn because you listened to this podcast, like indicate that, 'cause I think for better or for worse, there's a lot of like agents and, [00:33:00] and, and bots and so on, and I get added by random folks that I'm like, "Wait, what?"
I, I... So context would be amazing. Um, if you have any, if you have any feedback or anything that resonated or didn't resonate, or you want to challenge me on anything I mentioned, uh, you know, Link- LinkedIn's probably the easiest
Natalie Nathanson (2): Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. Well, I loved this conversation. I loved the t- talking and learning from you about how you think about kind of identifying those, those customer needs for product evolution, uh, the kind of business environment that we're in today, and how to kind of work best as a leader, uh, creating the right kind of environment for our teams.
Uh, so thank you so much for everything that you shared
Vivek Mahapatra: Yeah, no, and thank you for the opportunity, Natalie, and thank you to anyone that's listened. Um, you know, I'm always learning. I'm always trying to figure out, uh, what's, what's the best right way to build teams, develop myself, et cetera. So I appreciate you inviting me on the podcast. I appreciate all the listeners tuning in and, you know, looking forward to hearing more and, and learning
Natalie Nathanson (2): [00:34:00] Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thanks again, Vivek, and thank you to everybody that's listening. If today's conversation sparked something new for you, and I'm sure that it did, please pass this along to another leader in your network because these really are the types of conversations that help all of us scale smarter, build stronger, and navigate the times that we're living in.
So thanks again, Vivek, and this has been another wonderful conversation on Shift and Thrive. I'll see you all next time
Outro: that's a wrap for this week's episode. For show notes and more visit Shift and thrive podcast.com. A special thank you to our sponsor, magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consultancy and the getting it done Power of a full service marketing agency to help B2B companies fuel their growth.
For more information on magnitude and to get your complimentary transformation readiness assessment, visit magnitude consulting.com/. Get ready. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next [00:35:00] week.
