00;00;02;23 - 00;00;18;13
VO
Welcome to Dig In, the podcast brought to you by Dig Insights. Each week Jess Gaedeke chats with world class brand professionals to bring you the story behind the story of some of the most breakthrough innovations, marketing tactics, and campaigns.

00;00;18;15 - 00;00;39;04
Jess
Thank you so much for joining us today on the Dig In podcast. I am Jess Gaedeke, CRO at Dig Insights and I am joined today by another longtime friend and colleague of mine that I'm lucky to have in my stratosphere. So today I'm joined by Sudha Ranganathan, who is the director of Product and Field Marketing at LinkedIn.

00;00;39;06 - 00;00;59;10
Jess
I'm excited for multiple reasons, but one is that today we get to talk about innovation from more of the human side of things, and I'm really thrilled about that. Every time I talk to sit, I learn something and I am enthralled by the wisdom she is sharing. So I will try to keep up interviewing her. But really, I'm just going to be learning and listening just like the audience.

00;00;59;11 - 00;01;08;18
Jess
So, Sudha, thank you for being here. So thrilled to have you. I'd love for you to start by telling the listeners a little bit about who you are and about your background.

00;01;08;20 - 00;01;32;06
Sudha
And before I do that, yes, I'm equally lucky to have you in my stratosphere. Thank you for inviting me to be here for this amazing conversation. So a little bit about me. I currently work at LinkedIn. As you said earlier, I'm the director of product and field marketing for a bunch of really interesting business lines at LinkedIn. Before that, I spent about seven years in CPG of Procter and Gamble.

00;01;32;07 - 00;01;54;07
Sudha
I talk about that being where I learned everything I know about marketing, business acumen and influence today. And then in between, I did stints at a firm named after Nova, which is just where you and I met each other. And then at PayPal very briefly in the financial tech industry. So this is all to say my life and my career has spanned multiple continents.

00;01;54;10 - 00;02;17;05
Sudha
I started in Asia. I moved to North America, multiple industries. I started in CPG. I've ended up in tech now. And the two things that have stayed constant through all of those is your love of marketing, which is really how do you get people to think, feel and do what you want them to do? And another one is your passion for developing and bringing out the best in things.

00;02;17;08 - 00;02;35;28
Sudha
So how do you get people to perform at their very best to stay engaged and happy and have them keep growing and stretching themselves at work? So I'd say that is me in a nutshell. Today at LinkedIn, yesterday, at the end of a long career of 80 plus years. And the common themes are really marketing and talent development.

00;02;36;01 - 00;02;45;26
Jess
It's an excellent set of common themes and I brought to you to who you are today. So what do you love about what you do? Can you boil it down to sort of one central idea.

00;02;45;28 - 00;03;07;02
Sudha
What I do right now, because I welcome the Talent Solutions business at LinkedIn, is I help a lot of companies out there, hire really great talent and develop that talent into the highest potential. It's as simple as that might be. Specific focus is on doing that for companies that are in specific industries like such and staffing, health care, government, higher education.

00;03;07;04 - 00;03;12;10
Sudha
But in a nutshell, we help them hire great talent and develop them to the exponential.

00;03;12;12 - 00;03;34;00
Jess
Kind of a big deal. So so I love that. I know we have to dig into that. Speaking of which, let's dig in now. So our listeners, they crave inspiration from other leaders. And the best way, I believe, to inspire is to tell a story. So I love to hear your story. You've developed a really compelling framework for what you call architecting influence.

00;03;34;02 - 00;03;43;29
Jess
And I know this has been really influential to a lot of people and a lot of organizations. So I'd love to hear that story. How did it originate? What inspired this idea.

00;03;44;02 - 00;04;04;03
Sudha
To explain the story? I start by explaining that depending on the organization you work for, that is the center of decision making. So if you think of a company as concentric circles at the very center, usually there's a theme or a function that is on point to make a lot of the decisions. They have the highest power and they have the highest responsibility.

00;04;04;05 - 00;04;24;24
Sudha
And then when you go outwards from that concentric circle, you get two functions that have less and less decision making power, but have more and more influence over that decision. And I say this because I started my career in CPG, and at the very outset it was clear that marketing had all of the decision making power. What you call brand managers in CPG, managed to be PNL.

00;04;24;27 - 00;04;53;22
Sudha
They're responsible for revenue growth and this is at the center of the concentric circles and the function that I was in, which is consumer market knowledge. But basically it's market research, consumer insights. ABG sits in just a circle that is a little bit outside of marketing, meaning we don't make a lot of those decisions, but we have access to consumer insight, market intelligence and competitive intelligence that directly influences those decisions.

00;04;53;24 - 00;05;21;26
Sudha
And it became very evident very quickly that for us to be really good at our job as marketing, such as we didn't just need to excel at the craft of market research, we need excel at the art and craft of influencing our stakeholders in marketing to make different decisions based on the intelligence that we were bringing there. And that's really where the difference between successful, insightful and and average insightful.

00;05;21;29 - 00;05;42;23
Sudha
So early in my career, this notion of influence is really important and in fact influences more than half of your job. What is deeply cemented in my psyche. And then as I left BMG and I move to LinkedIn later in my career, I noticed that no matter what the industry, what the company researchers are still grappling with how to architect influence with their marketing partners.

00;05;42;25 - 00;06;11;09
Sudha
Now this problem of influence becomes multiplied manifold of technology because the center of decision making is usually either product of sales or a combination of the two. So marketing now sits in a circle that's a little bit outside. And so market research that's even farther out from the decision making. And it just became so, so obvious. And the importance of influence is compounded and the difficulty of influencing successfully is also compounded when you work in market research, in technology.

00;06;11;11 - 00;06;38;21
Sudha
So that is the genesis of why I felt like we need to talk about influence more because it's just such an important skill and because get that much further away from decision making. But it also became clear to me that you can talk about why it should be done and what it is all you want, but unless you can quantify the how you do this and do a step by step framework, young researchers in particular, the folks that are really junior, their roles are going to have a really hard time putting it into action.

00;06;38;24 - 00;07;00;13
Sudha
And so that's kind of the story behind how I came up with what I call the Architecting influence framework. And ever since then, I've noticed that it's not just use for the market research as it's also used for the product marketers because they are trying to influence product and sales. And ever since then, I've now done it into a framework that I have facilitated in workshops that the Product Marketing Alliance talked about it in the podcast, etc..

00;07;00;13 - 00;07;03;28
Sudha
But that's kind of the story of how that brain child came to be.

00;07;04;00 - 00;07;31;01
Jess
Yeah, and so many of our listeners are in insights and I'm sure that they grapple with that very challenge. So I'm wondering, could you tell us more as either you were developing that framework or even in your career as an insights professional, what are some of those barriers that you would face? Like it's you've got you've got this data, you've got this information, but trying to bring it to bear and bring it to the right stakeholders so they use it in the right way.

00;07;31;03 - 00;07;37;08
Jess
What are some of the most common challenges outside of the concentric circle issue, which is is a very clear issue?

00;07;37;10 - 00;08;05;04
Sudha
What's the one of the biggest challenges is when building insights, we can get somewhat obsessed with the shininess of the intelligence we are uncovering from our customers. And because we're so close to it, we want to package it all up really beautifully and we want to turn it into a story that we can tell our stakeholders. And just like with any marketing, where you get very attached to your product or brand and you want to sell it to your audience, we forget that.

00;08;05;07 - 00;08;27;28
Sudha
We need to start with where does our audience right now? So the number one step that I use in my architecting inference framework is what I call the audience understanding. So map out who your audience is. Who is the decision maker? Who are the allies of the influencers that they listen to that they are going to make the decision based on advice from?

00;08;28;01 - 00;08;58;21
Sudha
And then understand what their psychological state is. What I mean by that is you are trying to influence a specific decision. You want them to do something different than what they're doing today. Try and understand what is the psychological gap between this new recommendation you're about to make and where they have spaces Right now, The larger that psychological gap, the more priming and rewiring you're going to have to do with the people that surround them before you actually get to that final meeting where you're trying to make your recommendation.

00;08;58;23 - 00;09;23;03
Sudha
So number one barrier, not knowing who are audiences, are not thinking about who are audiences. Number two, barrier not being crisp on what is the exact decision we are trying to influence this audience to make differently. Number three barrier not realizing that decisions are often made based on the heart and the gut, not just based on the head.

00;09;23;05 - 00;09;41;15
Sudha
And so anchoring ourselves very deeply and what's the data I want to share versus asking what's the emotional psychological gap between what they believe and what I want them to believe? And then I would say by the end of before it is I don't think we put as much time and effort into the pre wiring and the priming as we should.

00;09;41;17 - 00;10;01;25
Sudha
I'd say that in the average life cycle of recommendations, we spend 90% of our time perfecting the deck that contains the recommendation and 10% of our time trying to land the recommendation when in fact we should we should be spending about 50% of our time trying to preview that recommendation through the system, trying to get inputs from people to refine and make it better.

00;10;01;27 - 00;10;14;14
Sudha
Basically making your baby everybody else's babies so everybody feels skin in the game. That way, when you get to that final meeting, it's really just tick tick the box exercise. That's pretty much everyone is already on board.

00;10;14;16 - 00;10;39;05
Jess
Seeing all of those kind of barriers throughout my career as an insights professional, but one that really rings true to me. You know, that I've got background with with package design research, and I don't know, I think there's nothing more emotional than when people are assessing art. And because you either like it or you don't and you have opinions and there's nothing scientific about it in a lot of ways, and there's always an internal favorite by the senior stakeholder.

00;10;39;06 - 00;11;03;07
Jess
There just always, always is. So those were the ones that I found We had to do the most pre wiring, as you as you're talking about. And and making sure that they, you know, they could accept the decision when it or that that the data that would help them make the decision. But I think that's one that's that has always happened in probably in your time in P&G you saw that or an EF ANOVA right like design decisions are just fraught with.

00;11;03;10 - 00;11;25;15
Sudha
They really are and Jess, you're making such a great find it reminded me not just of designs that leaders got attached to, but also concept concept ideas on paper. Leaders on these have and and don't be afraid and you're either too scared to ask them so you avoid it or you're brave enough to confront it and understand what it is so you can address it head on.

00;11;25;18 - 00;11;38;09
Sudha
And in fact, you know, sometimes this vice decision is to realize they've already made up their mind and no amount of these let me change it. So why bother spending all that time energy doing the research? You could be solving a different business problem with that energy.

00;11;38;11 - 00;11;52;05
Jess
Yeah, I think that's very true. So this architecting influence framework, How did you know when it was a success? You've shared it with quite a few people and when did you know it was really ringing true?

00;11;52;08 - 00;12;11;02
Sudha
So I started this when I was at LinkedIn and the market research team and we were talking about, Hey, how how do we do this? And I said, Hey, why don't I try and come up with some content to help with this, Right? And when I put it down on paper, two things became very clear. That is, how do you make a Project land really influential?

00;12;11;04 - 00;12;30;17
Sudha
So how do you make recommendations as influential as possible? And then there was this other slice of it, which is how do you become influential as a person and professional so they can do different things, like because the second is more of an ongoing exercise of building your reputation and skillset with influence, and the former is on a project by project basis.

00;12;30;20 - 00;12;54;07
Sudha
I remember the first time that we landed back with people and their response was very much like, Oh I, I have always known this is what it took, but no one's ever descended into a really simple framework when I could literally goal featured as a check the box exercise. And if I do all of these things, I know I will have set myself up for influence success.

00;12;54;09 - 00;13;15;24
Sudha
So that early feedback was really useful in understanding that it really resonated. I got a lot of feedback that it still felt very of me teaching and people not being able to apply. And so over time, in the last few years, I've turned it into more of a workshop style exercise where we take each each phase of the framework and we break it down into an application exercise.

00;13;15;27 - 00;13;35;02
Sudha
And either we do Q&A and discussion or things break out at the table and they try and apply it to real world situation. And then I got feedback that that is incredibly useful because it's one thing to learn and download what you're seeing, but it's another thing then to be able to talk back and ask questions and talk about the real challenges of making some of these things happen.

00;13;35;05 - 00;13;55;01
Sudha
So over time I feel like I've learned a lot and have refined the framework from more of a beach based module to modify a cohort based learning workshop. And along the way all of that feedback which basically says, Hey, I think this is going to set me up for success and suddenly able to see why my recommendation didn't land previously and now I know what to do differently.

00;13;55;04 - 00;14;01;01
Sudha
That has been the feedback I needed to understand that it resonates and it's having an impact.

00;14;01;07 - 00;14;24;17
Jess
That incredible impact, because you think about taking, you know, insights and I'm focusing on insights professionals, but insights professionals that are great at their craft. But have not yet been given that opportunity to sort of supercharge and become, you know, the star that's just so incredible that you're helping them along that that journey. So good for you. And so I guess what would you say is your biggest takeaway from that experience.

00;14;24;24 - 00;14;45;19
Sudha
And realizing that what started as a framework for market research, as I have now, I have now realized it works for any function that does not sit at the very center of that circle, because to get that job done, they need to know how to influence the person sitting at the center of the circle. And so I've now recently applied it over the last three years to product marketing.

00;14;45;19 - 00;15;03;27
Sudha
And it just has so much more broad applicability because if you think about it, most functions are not decision making functions, they are influence functions. So that's been my biggest lesson as it started in market research, but it has applicability to any function that sits in a role of influence without decision making.

00;15;03;29 - 00;15;26;15
Jess
Yeah, well, that's incredible. And like I've told you, I would definitely like to sit in on one of those workshops and and hope to be the beneficiary of your wisdom, but that's fantastic. So I'd love to turn to your role as a leader in the industry because you are one. You are someone that is a thought leader and you're always sharing very thought provoking content and ideas.

00;15;26;17 - 00;15;39;04
Jess
So I'd love to hear what is one of your most passionate or maybe it's controversial. I don't know opinion about the state of leadership right now.

00;15;39;07 - 00;16;02;24
Sudha
Do buy the down and be something that's simple to remember. I remember realizing from mid-way through my career that LinkedIn, you know, that it really it's the manager of the people manager that makes somebody it's the employee experience. And I mean, we know that. We know that at intellectual level. But I feel like this is the first time I've felt it at the really instinctual gut level.

00;16;02;26 - 00;16;23;01
Sudha
It is visceral. What kind of impact the great manager could have on you and how different it was than what an actual great manager left you feeling like. I then also started to realize managing is not an art, it's a skill A lot of people think people are born great leaders are. They made great leaders. You know, people work to be great leaders.

00;16;23;03 - 00;16;45;20
Sudha
And so that then got me thinking, well, okay, so it is a skill set. How can I codify it into a really simple framework? Because there's just so much out there on how to be a great manager that got even started. I can't even remember all of it until earlier this year. I started to simplify all of that imbecility to a framework that I now call the Forging Manager.

00;16;45;23 - 00;17;03;24
Sudha
And I'm talking about the stream because one of the G's in that I think is a really controversial one. And so I've got to just building my way to that part of the story. The Forges are really the way I see it is the forging manager heads that people do these four things. They help them grow. So that's GLW.

00;17;03;26 - 00;17;29;07
Sudha
They help them grow, that's gr0w, they help them get things done and they help them go their own way. And that fourth G helping people go their own way. I think that is the most powerful and hence the most controversial of all of those concepts. So if I were to just jump into each of those a little bit, right, happy people, glue is all about setting the foundations for psychological safety.

00;17;29;09 - 00;17;54;16
Sudha
It's showing care and support, and then it's about both pinpointing and amplifying the implicit skills that that person has and building them into explicit skills language so people understand exactly what their invisible superpowers are that they themselves take for granted. So that's kind of glow grow is I think maybe there's some controversy in Guru as well because it could be a difficult one for managers to do.

00;17;54;18 - 00;18;24;03
Sudha
Though Foundation of Guru is providing constructive feedback, being willing to have those difficult conversations with your employees on what they need to do differently. I think up above that is what I call the willingness to create productive stretch. So putting people in that zone between their comfort zone and the danger zone at the very outside and let them let them play around them and then struggle just a little bit because that's how we build muscle, grit, resilience and to resist the urge to jump in too quickly and save that.

00;18;24;05 - 00;18;44;14
Sudha
And then I take that the the third element of the guru is that about the sessions? How do you have that? You look at your conversation so you can figure out what you people really want. The third one that I talked about is getting stung, and this is where you not just know how to set boundaries, priorities and unblock barriers for your people to get that worked out.

00;18;44;14 - 00;19;10;14
Sudha
You also know the difference between when to coach and to teach and when to get alongside your people in the trenches and actually do the work. And the fourth one, which I think is the most controversial, is the willingness to let your people go their own way in their current control. That could look like giving them the flexibility they need and giving them the autonomy they need to get work done their own way so long as there's alignment on the outcome.

00;19;10;16 - 00;19;31;16
Sudha
But the most controversial part of this is being willing to understand when your people have reached their full potential on your team and are no longer being challenged, and when it is time for them to be moving on to something on a different theme and for you to initiate that conversation instead of willing waiting for them to realize that that's what's happening.

00;19;31;18 - 00;19;56;22
Sudha
Because I find that we can either be inspired by those who want to hold on to our people and hug David, or we can be diamond magnets who can generously let our people move on to their next play wherever it is right for them, wherever they will continue to grow. And I feel like wisdom lies in the ability to detach and let them move on when the time is right for them, not when the time is right for you.

00;19;56;24 - 00;20;09;09
Sudha
I also just want to be clear and borrowing these terms from Liz Wiseman spoke multipliers. So credit where credit is due. But that to me is the most controversial part of the forging framework and of leadership in general.

00;20;09;11 - 00;20;29;04
Jess
It's so hard to do. And that's why it's controversial, right? Because especially when you do maybe recruit these people in and you spend time developing them and, you know, caring for their their future and in turn, they just give you such a rewarding experience working with them. And it's it's hard to let them go, right? It's really hard.

00;20;29;06 - 00;20;46;12
Jess
But it is the selfless thing to do. And I love the term magnet because what I like to think about that is that when you let them go and they, you know, you give them opportunity to shine in a different team or sometimes a different company, maybe they'll come back to you at some point or you'll come back to them.

00;20;46;12 - 00;20;56;18
Jess
And I've seen that time and time in my career. I've been so grateful for that. But but I just I think it is controversial because it is difficult to do.

00;20;56;21 - 00;21;27;13
Sudha
It's so true. I've also noticed that magnetism plays out in another paid forward kind of way, which is that when you are the sort of manager that consistently puts people's interests above your own, what gets around as it does about both good and terrible managers, when one gets it out, even if that same person is not coming back to join your team in the future, there's going to be other people that are lining up to work for you because they know what a great experience they will have and they know you will not get unduly attached to them at the expense of their growth.

00;21;27;15 - 00;21;35;16
Sudha
So it works in really lovely, mysterious and karmic ways, so to speak. But it does work and I have seen that in action.

00;21;35;19 - 00;21;59;06
Jess
Yeah, I'll share one quick anecdote here. It was during my time at Nielsen and when I made the difficult choice to leave there, it was a, you know, a very thoughtful and drawn out process in a good way because I wanted to make sure everyone felt comfortable with it. But at the very end, one of the most senior leaders in that company who I hadn't interacted with very much, but he kind of sent me a note on my last day and said, Hey, just the porch light will always be on for you.

00;21;59;08 - 00;22;15;00
Jess
And I thought that was such a cool way to make me feel like, you know, I had a place to come that was a, you know, a welcoming and sort of safe place to come back to. And so I have stolen that statement and used it with quite a few people, and and I still stay in touch with those people.

00;22;15;00 - 00;22;33;12
Jess
So I think that that's a very passionate and good, passionate point of view to have. And so if you think about, you know, your hot take on the future of the talent or the workforce consideration with sort of your your feelings on where things will go, what will we see in the future that we don't see today?

00;22;33;14 - 00;23;03;24
Sudha
Well, there's a short term and then there's a long term future. You know, in the short term future, I think the talent is going to get its revenge on employers for just how terribly they are behaving right now when they have so much power in a hiring market. I'm seeing friends who are out there looking for new gigs that are being ghosted, that are getting just the vaguest of feedback that are being put through rounds and rounds of interviews, only to be told at the end that that experience is not a good fit.

00;23;03;24 - 00;23;20;23
Sudha
Which, hey, did you not know that looking at the email about two months ago? So I feel like employers are feeling really empowered right now to do this because they do have a lot of power because talent is in high supply and jobs are in low supply, that that pendulum is going to swing at some point and down.

00;23;20;23 - 00;23;42;14
Sudha
It is going to go to where there are great leaders and great employers and people are going to remember who treated them. How so? I think that's the short term is the pendulum will swing back, that it will get that revenge to say it very dramatically in the long term. I remember I remember seeing this on another podcast recently.

00;23;42;16 - 00;24;15;07
Sudha
I think even today, as corporate America, we are very head driven. We make a lot of decisions from our head. We look at the numbers, we're very rational and we we both deemphasize and I think a Harsha what use your disrespect. People who use their feelings really strongly in the workplace, but the impact of the word have a really strong role to play because the other candidate in the coal mine of how our people are feeling before that shows up in your culture surveys.

00;24;15;10 - 00;24;34;07
Sudha
And I think that I hope that in the mid to long term we will have a greater appreciation for people who don't just lead from their head, but who know how to be well, to integrate their heart and their guts and does into their decision making. So just a greater appreciation for feelings and and as a consequence, for social emotional intelligence.

00;24;34;09 - 00;24;38;18
Sudha
I think we're starting to see that with our children now. I hope we start to see it in the light of that.

00;24;38;19 - 00;24;43;22
Jess
And yeah, maybe the leaders will catch up with their children. That sounds like a good plan.

00;24;43;24 - 00;24;44;22
Sudha
Yeah.

00;24;44;24 - 00;25;01;15
Jess
Okay. Well, now we're going to turn to the final dig. This is all about you as a person. I know. This is the part that stresses you out, and it shouldn't, because you really don't have to worry about it. But here we're kind of going back to some of the more questions we ask of people that are leading innovation.

00;25;01;15 - 00;25;07;11
Jess
And and you were one of those, too. So what is the last product or service that you bought on impulse?

00;25;07;14 - 00;25;28;15
Sudha
It was a little bracelet that I bought off a street vendor. And the general theme of anything I buy on an impulse is things that have to do with beauty or experience in my life. So a scented candle, a bracelet and a little roll on perfumed oil. These are things that I would not buy rationally, but I only buy them on impulse.

00;25;28;17 - 00;25;41;17
Jess
Sure. Yeah. Well, it's good. It's. It's all about building into your experience. I like that a lot. What does a category or brand or a certain product that you could rationalize any price point for? It's just that important in your life.

00;25;41;19 - 00;25;59;00
Sudha
Mm hmm. I talked really long and hard about this one. Just because you did send me these questions ahead of time, which I so appreciate. I wasn't able to come up with anything that personally I would for myself pay any price point for. But I will tell you, the thing that really stuck out for me in it is my parents are very old.

00;25;59;04 - 00;26;14;05
Sudha
They live in India and I want them to come here often and to have a relationship with my son. They want to come here more often, but you know, they just really worn out by years of a very hard life. And so I try to, for the last few years of the time, to be a business class, for them to fly a business class.

00;26;14;08 - 00;26;29;13
Sudha
And I guess on the airline of their choice, that gets them directly from their home to mine, I will pay any price of things to bring them here comfortably because I want them to be able to look forward to that trip and to not dread the discomfort of an 18 hour long flight.

00;26;29;15 - 00;26;53;11
Jess
Wow. Now see, And that speaks to the emotional need that you have. And so I think that that's a great example. I know you come up with a good one. See, you're good at this part. This one. I cannot wait to hear your point of view on. As you know, brands have different personalities. So is there a brand that you would really love to date, that you'd love to court you and then a brand that you'd really love to marry.

00;26;53;14 - 00;27;11;20
Sudha
Let's say, one of the same. So before I jump to the answer, when I first came to the US, my then boyfriend, now husband, took me to a grocery store and I walked to the store and I was just struck by what a lovely experience it was. It felt cozy, it felt homey and not too overwhelming and large.

00;27;11;22 - 00;27;32;23
Sudha
It also felt really bespoke, like everything was from local stores and just the sheer number of hummus varieties on the shelf blew my mind. And I remember thinking, Gosh, now when I go back to Singapore, which is where I lived at the time, this is what I'm going to miss the most. And even now that I've lived here for about 11 years, that's how I feel about the store and Trader Joe's.

00;27;32;25 - 00;27;55;12
Sudha
Trader Joe's is one of my happiest places and I feel like if I ever move back to Asia, that's the one thing that I would miss about the United States more than anything else. Trader Joe's is fun, quirky, but also sensible, reliable. And I think it's all of those lovely qualities that I would appreciate in someone that I would want watching me and meeting me, hopefully.

00;27;55;12 - 00;27;58;06
Sudha
So that's plans for us. Trader Joe's.

00;27;58;08 - 00;28;16;02
Jess
I love it. There are so many ways you depicted that brand through that, right? Was the way it made you feel It was cozy. But then the hummus assortment, I just I love it. And that's a yeah, that's, that's a great brand to have as both a boyfriend and a husband. So so finally, we'd love to know what what keeps you inspired at work?

00;28;16;02 - 00;28;19;28
Jess
It must be hundreds of things, but what are some that you could boil it down to.

00;28;20;00 - 00;28;39;27
Sudha
When you see people grow up? You know, when you see someone transform and reach what beyond what you thought was their highest potential? It is just so delightful to be part of that journey as well. When I see people, especially on my team who started somewhere and, you know, their confidence was shaken or they weren't quite sure if they could do this.

00;28;40;03 - 00;28;59;01
Sudha
And then you see them like a year later when you put them in the right role, that just shining, they're just blazing trails all over the place and suddenly you're looking at them and going, Oh my God, do you realize you've become basically the best version of yourself in this last year? To me, that is the most inspiring thing to see because it gives you faith that people can evolve.

00;28;59;01 - 00;29;10;21
Sudha
It proves durable plasticity recipe is real and you can see it live and in action. So I guess, yeah, seeing people grow and accept that as potential is what inspires me the most.

00;29;10;23 - 00;29;33;29
Jess
That's excellent. So you are by definition a talent magnet. So congratulations for that. This has just been a wonderful conversation. I, like I said, I always learn a lot when we talk and you give me new things to think about, new things to kind of muddle on. And I really appreciate it. And it's been inspiring to hear about the framework you've developed and in some of your your points of view on the future of the industry.

00;29;33;29 - 00;29;37;11
Jess
So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with our listeners here on Digg.

00;29;37;11 - 00;29;40;03
Sudha
And thank you for having me. Tess. It's been a pleasure.

00;29;40;05 - 00;29;41;05
Jess
We'll see you next time.

00;29;41;07 - 00;29;48;18
VO
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