Today we welcome Deepak Seth, a Technology, Innovation and Digital Transformation expert, a deep thinker and a futurist who has handled diverse and progressively increasing responsibilities at leading consulting organizations and with several Fortune 500 companies.
With a background in engineering and management he went back to Post Graduate “school” recently to further hone his knowledge with the latest developments in Data Science, AI and ML. He is a prolific writer and speaker and has authored numerous blog posts, papers, articles, webcast, podcasts and is also actively engaged with the Start-Up ecosystem (that’s how our paths crossed for the first time).
He currently works in the area of TAPSS (Trading Architecture Platform Strategy and Support) with a leading financial services company – Charles Schwab.
Question 1: First Job: What was your first job, and how did it help you build your career?
My basic undergraduate degree was in industrial engineering. Many people used to say industrial engineering is all common sense, and we used to say, ‘Hey! Common sense is not so common.’ So afterwards, I additionally earned postgraduate qualifications in management. These were from the Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Management.
But, unlike most people who went straight into cushy corporate jobs, I journeyed to the hinterlands of India to join the Family Products Division of what was then Glaxo India Limited. My task was improving the productivity of their operations, but I wore many hats. Part of my role even included riding the milk truck to collect milk (this was a dairy products-based unit). While there, I kicked off an employee suggestions program in order to try and find ways to improve productivity. If any value was derived from the suggestions, those employees were given a share of the resulting profits. This wound up becoming highly successful, and I got an award from the chairman of the company, as, at the time, this was the most popular employee engagement and suggestion program in Glaxo’s history.
That first role was truly foundational when looking across the rest of my career, as I got to experience a huge learning opportunity in driving and engaging people to deliver common objectives. A lot of what I’ve done after, delivering projects and innovations for companies like Xerox, Charles Schwab, or Accenture, has not been about myself, but about harnessing the power of many different people to complete our objectives. It’s all about the team and making sure you’re creating the right environment so that each member can deliver their best results.
Question 2: Leadership: What is the most important leadership skill that you have learned over your career, that has a positive impact, and can you explain with an example?
One thing I’ve learned, which has served me in good stead, is the ability to create the vision, while aligning the stakeholders to deliver key objectives against that vision. Oftentimes, technical roles can force a lot of focus on narrow tasks: e.g. we are upgrading to the next version, or we are installing this software, etc. But people are more engaged when they know they’re not just laying the bricks, but are instead building a cathedral.
This is a very important part of what any leader does, and sometimes, creating that vision means drawing from your own personal experiences. An interesting example that I’ve often used is my experience of tandem skydiving. It really relates closely to the way a project gets executed as a company. Everyone starts out with a lot of fear and uncertainty, but then every subsequent stage of the experience can be linked to the experience of executing a project. This creates some really powerful imagery and messaging.
So that’s the grand vision of building the cathedral, but then you have to go down to the next level of granularity. One thing which I have observed in projects over the years is that failure happens at the seams. So, failure happens at the point where two systems, two individuals, or two processes are interfacing with one another.
The US has one of the greatest track teams in the world, whether it’s the 100M or 400M. But we always seem to miss winning the gold medal in the relays. Why? The teams will frequently drop the baton. So in terms of execution, I always try to reinforce that when moving things from one team to another, or one process to another, the baton has to fully change hands. Your work is not done when you have run your piece, but when the other guy picks things up and runs with them.
This all sounds very basic, but what I have found is that often teams don’t pick up the baton (and don’t say anything), or they have the baton, and it’s dropping, (and they don’t say anything), etc. Small things add up and creating a whole mindset around this has been a very powerful execution tool.
You start with the planning, and then you take it all the way through execution. And you build muscle memory so that it becomes almost second nature that you must communicate. So, it’s a planning thing as well as a communication thing.
Question 3: Prediction: Do you have a prediction around the core technology and core changes that are happening in the industry that we should all spend more time learning about?
I saw the AI bus coming a few years ago. In fact, I went back to school and did some postgraduate qualifications in AI because I didn’t want to be caught off guard when this thing came down the pipe. So, there are two parts to the question:
- AI is the biggest thing right now. In the short term we will see intermediaries help companies figure out how to implement generative AI, what to do with it, etc. This could be the big consulting companies, or it could be smaller players who do some prompt engineering stuff. In the medium term we will see some government regulations. Traffic lights, controls, equity, and other aspects will come into play, and companies, institutions, and governments will get a better handle on it. But, I’m most excited about the long term which will be the human and AI interface. We’re seeing things like neural implants and that make impaired humans work effectively (via interaction with AI), but there is room for so much more. We have a lot of redundant capacity in our brains which is unutilized or underutilized (we use less than 5% of the supercomputer in our skulls), and there could be a future where we will leverage human intelligence in conjunction with artificial intelligence. Think of the immense potential that could be unleashed if we were able to harness our brain and link it with AI – definitely far reaching stuff.
- AI is the flavor of today and generative AI is the special flavor of today. But bigger than that, I think, is the general discussion around disruption. How can companies be prepared for disruption? Most of the disruptions are not going to be super slow. Companies that figure things out now and get prepared will be able to ride the bus, while others will be left by the wayside. The underlying technology beyond all of these AI developments has been around for years, but the hardware has finally caught up. In a big corporation, it takes some time for everyone to wrap their heads around things. So leaders will need to build internal momentum, identify and prove early use cases, run POCs and establish case studies even if someone else is already doing it. Every company has their own unique set of requirements. Privacy and controls springs to mind – there is a lot of variability across sectors.
Bonus: Is there a certain principle or rule that you live by that you’d like to share as a takeaway for our audience today?
I’ll give you two. The first one is 100% DO IT! This came from one of my bosses at Bausch & Lomb. Focus on 100% Delivery, 100% Ownership, 100% Integrity, and 100% Teamwork. We all used to carry a card that said: ‘100% DO IT! ’
The other one is something from Charles Schwab, and it comes from Mr. Schwab himself: Seeing through the client’s eyes. Whatever we do, we like to frame it in terms of the impact it will have on the client. Always put the client first, No matter what.
This all ties back to what I was saying earlier about creating the vision and the cathedral. We must frame whatever we do in terms of the value we’re delivering for our clients. So when we start looking at everything that way, it becomes a very powerful way of operating.
Deepak Seth is a Technology, Innovation and Digital Transformation expert, a deep thinker and a futurist who has handled diverse and progressively increasing responsibilities at leading consulting organizations and with several Fortune 500 companies.
With a background in engineering and management he went back to Post Graduate “school” recently to further hone his knowledge with the latest developments in Data Science, AI and ML. He is a prolific writer and speaker and has authored numerous blog posts, papers, articles, webcast, podcasts and is also actively engaged with the Start-Up ecosystem (that’s how our paths crossed for the first time).
He currently works in the area of TAPSS (Trading Architecture Platform Strategy and Support) with a leading financial services company – Charles Schwab.
Deepak has been a passionate advocate at Fortune 500 and leading consulting companies for innovation and adoption of emerging/ nascent/disruptive technologies into the enterprise to develop new opportunities and applications. In line with this he is currently actively engaged with Generative AI initiatives and publishes a very popular newsletter DEEPakAI: AI Demystified on LinkedIn.
