Viknesh:  Fear of failure is very prominent, especially in this age. Because now you have social media. Everybody puts up their success stories only. They don't put their trials or tribulations. It gives off that facade that everybody's succeeding, and the moment you have challenges, a lot of my students tend to think, why is everybody succeeding and I'm failing? 

Chuen Chuen: Welcome to agile leaders conversations. This is a podcast where we invite human center professionals and leaders to share what it means to lead in today's workplaces. From their personal stories, find out the greatest learning that guides them through disruption and forge a better way forward. Their insights will maximize your leadership potential and unlock possibilities for better future. My name is your tension. I'm the author of leaders. 

People love. A guide for agile leaders to creating great workplaces and happy employees. I'm delighted to have you listen in today.

 My guest is Dr. Viknesh Andiappan, associate professor and associate director school of research at Swinburne university of technology Sarawak campus. 

His specialization centers on developing mathematical models to design and optimize net zero energy systems and supply chains. 

Dr. Andiappan was also the recipient of the Dean's PhD research scholarship in 2013. In 2020, he was awarded the IBAE young researcher of the year award for his research contributions. 

Welcome to the show, Dr. Viknesh. It's so good to see you. It's a pleasure to have you here. So, tell us about yourself, your name, what you do and why you do what you 

Viknesh: do. 

Hi, I'm Viknesh, you can call me Vic in short. I'm an associate professor in chemical engineering at Swinburne University of Technology, the Strava campus. What I do is I'm involved in teaching chemical engineering to undergraduate students.

I also support postgraduate students for like for example, masters and PhD students for their research projects. I also do my own research as well. And apart from that, I'm also involved in administrative work. So you can see a few dimensions of work all with different levels of potential leadership to talk about in today's conversation.

My research area is on developing decision making tools for industry people to perform energy transition, to look into doing it in a more seamless transition. 

Chuen Chuen: It sounds very exciting and very relevant as well. Net zero, decarbonization, decision making. There's talk in the market that many organizations are still greenwashing, right? They are just doing things just to meet the numbers. But what does it mean for people to change their attitude? 

When you talk about research, that's something that I can relate as well because I'm also embarking on my doctorate program, and there are certain things I'm very interested in and I'm going to ask you about it later. 

So when you think about a leader people will love who's the first person that comes to your mind? 

Viknesh: I don't have a particular person or personality to say, but more of a characteristic of a person. I would say based on my experience and also learning from different people that I worked under, I would say people love somebody who's adaptive and someone who's empathetic.

I think that's key. Because over the years we've seen that, okay, managers and leaders can lead. It's just a matter of how they lead. Of course, somehow you can reach the output. But sometimes the means of reaching the output is also important because, there's a quote about, if you want to go fast, you go alone, but if you want to go far, you go together.

So I think that is one key point. Being a leader is very important for us to look at. You know how you can motivate people to go together with you and at the same time be empathetic because people come from different backgrounds and they are having different starting points.

So the way they look at work is very different and motivation is different. So for me, a leader that people would love is somebody that's empathetic towards them and is able to use that to motivate people to go up into achieving the goals that we set. 

Chuen Chuen: In your area of responsibility, you work with diverse audience, right? So can you share an example where being adaptable and empathetic makes a difference? I love what you're saying when you say it's not just the output. It is the process to get to the output that makes a difference. 

Viknesh: On that point, I would say I'm a very much a process person because for me, it's not about just achieving the output. It's about the way we get there. I think that's important because that sets apart, sustainability, something that you can do for long term. If you just look at output, yeah, you can achieve the output, but when you see a transition down the road. You don't know whether you can get the same output or you don't know whether it can sustain itself long term, the whole entire process .But if you work on the process it's very important because you instill something that people follow that culture, and they keep going on.

So now going back to the core part of your question. I work with different people. Like I mentioned, there's three main dimensions here that I look at. Teaching administration and also research. 

When it comes to teaching, I deal with a lot of different students who come from different backgrounds. Some have different starting points, different family backgrounds, different way of looking at a particular course content. So I need to be attentive to those kind of things. And when it comes to motivating students to get work done or to get milestones achieved, what is important for me to look at is how I can motivate them and each student is different. Which is why being adaptive is very critical. You can't just do one size fit all kind of approach same goes for research.

When it comes to research, when we do work, we don't just sit in our ivory tower and do research and leave it there, we deal with stakeholders. Like myself, I supervise PhD students, undergraduate students in their final year research projects as well. So we have various levels of understanding of the work. It's not just only about motivating them, it's about bringing them to the level that you need them to be, so that they can perform the work. And when you recognize that, it is from there you bring them up, and it's very important to identify that because a lot of leaders tend to fail in doing that. They think that everybody's the same or Hey, it's my way or the highway. They have different set of expectations. So we need to manage and adapt accordingly and then use that information. This is how we can approach it. 

 Maybe you can sieve through the noise, all this other feedback that they gave us. What you actually can see is that okay this is important information for us to use to get work done. 

Chuen Chuen: Many good nuggets, right? Doing research is like leadership as well. We don't sit in our ivory tower. We have to learn to work with the stakeholders. And I love the demonstration and the understanding of the teaching skills, which is so important for everybody. Not just in the academic field, right? Because many times, when I speak with coachees, they also struggle with this issue. They see everyone as the same. They just expect them to be somewhere, but they lack the know how of how to get people to get to that place. So I love where you said you had to assess first, which level or where is this person? And then give the right constructive feedback, guidance or wisdom to push them forward to that expected level. 

Yeah, 

Viknesh: exactly. And in fact, you work with people, you have to be constantly learning about them. It's not only learning about the job, it's about learning about them. So with my students, with my undergrad students, my PhD students, even with my colleagues as well, I'm trying to learn how they work, so that I can understand what is the language which I can use to speak to them to get it done. You're trying to understand and learn about people as you go along. So it is that process. 

Chuen Chuen: Are there questions that you typically ask or specific things you look out for to help you understand and learn about other people?

Viknesh: Okay, maybe not so much questions, but I think like you said, intuition is very important because after years of experience, you more or less have an idea. We need to be very careful. We don't want to generalize or make assumptions about people. But at least you know that oh this person is someone of this kind of mould .Or if this person is somewhat in that kind of mode.

And then what I do is that when I have discussions with people over topics, I get a sense of how they think. 

I'll use my example with colleagues. So when you speak to colleagues, you can have an idea how they perceive and look at things in terms of the big picture. But some people look at things that only at their radius. But some people have the capability of looking at things in a big picture. I'm not saying one is right and one is wrong. They have unique perspectives. It's just that the method of engaging with them is going to be very different.

A person who sees things only in that radius. I normally will go and talk about things related to that because that's what motivates them.

And then on the flip side, I've also seen staff and colleagues that look at big picture. They are more interested in big picture. Oh, we should go in this direction. We should look into that. Maybe we should do this.

So when I talk to them and I'm trying to get them to help me out with things. I will say, Oh, this one, is probably beneficial from a larger scale of things. The university is going in this direction, I think it's good for us to look into contributing in this area, so the level of engagement is a bit different because of that.

So I would say, it's a lengthier process. I don't necessarily ask questions. It's more getting a feel out of conversations and, their direction in terms of discussion. 

Chuen Chuen: So listening, the language, the kind of things that a person speaks about and how this person feels like as well. I think that's the gut feel, the intuition. It's about sensing who this person is and how do you need to show up to engage this person? 

Viknesh: Yeah, completely agree. And in fact, it's not an easy process. I'm not here to say that, oh, it's all fun and games and it's all rosy here. No, it can be challenging because sometimes people are complicated.

It's fair to say that you will have some challenges, but at least look at it from a perspective of learning. Not just learning, but more like being analytical. 

You're always learning and analyzing and seeing how to go about things. That way you can remove yourself from the equation. 

That's 

Chuen Chuen: where the agility is, the constantly learning. And I think it also applies to all relationships that we are in. If you want a relationship to be lifelong, it's truly understanding and learning about each other for the whole life, right? 

Viknesh: Completely agree. In fact, I think direction is sustainability, right? If you want things to be sustainable, you have to learn and understand how things work. So if you understand how things work, then you will know how to make things more sustainable in the long run. 

Chuen Chuen: So there's one topic Dr. Viknesh, I'm very interested about, which is fear of failure. As you supervise the PhD students, what do you think is the level of fear of failure in the people that you interact with? 

Viknesh:  I think fear of failure is a 

very prominent 

thing, 

especially in this age. ,Because now you have social media. Everybody puts up their success stories only. They don't put their trials or tribulations. It gives off that facade that everybody's succeeding, and the moment you have challenges, a lot of my students tend to think, why is everybody succeeding and I'm failing? 

I would say that there's more reluctance to experience failure because of this. Because it's a race, especially when you see what's happening in social media. A lot of people are only posting success stories. 

So what I usually do with my PhD students or even with my undergrad students is, Number one as a leader it's important for us to assure them that hey, failure is part of the process. You don't just learn by just learning and you immediately apply something and you get it done and get it right the first time. I think that is definitely not true at all. You learn by failure. Of course, people teach you something. You learn from that. You watch something. You learn from that, but another key teacher is failure, and that is something that we instill at the very beginning.

So for a PhD student, usually when they first start their program or when they first start their, their research, of course, that fears like at the highest of heights, right? So usually I would tell students, I'll tell my students, I'll say, Hey, look, Okay. Failure is a part of it. If you found something which you never thought of or you realized that, oh, you missed something, don't consider it a failure.

People don't know that people only look at the end product and go, Oh, it's a successful research work. So this gives out an idea that oh, why am I failing? And things like that. So I would tell students that going through failure is actually very important because it gives you a lot of lessons. That's one. 

Another thing is what I do talk with my students is sometimes it's best for us to have some coping mechanisms.

One of the coping mechanisms is, if you're worried about failure, then maybe the best is always to plan. You plan, and then work towards it so that you minimize the impact of failure. You can always do that. Because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, just put it that way.

One key example I can give is that one of my PhD students, when we were trying to come up with ideas on where to go in the direction of the work, what I told the student was, you can always do something that's already been done, because in research, innovation and novelty is very important.

So when people start work, especially PhD students, they have something called imposter syndrome. We all have it. We all always question ourselves and our ability and our achievements. So when a student typically starts a PhD, the first thing they will look at is this is my topic. I want to do this, but it seems like everybody has done it already. So what's so new about my work? This is very common. So what I would tell the student is usually. Hey, why don't you just do what people have done before? The good thing behind that is you will learn how they did it. What's the strengths and weaknesses, and then you know where to pivot to improve things. So that eliminates failure a little bit or the feeling of failure rather. The feeling of that fear of failure. So this is just some things I can share about how I would manage with students like that. The fear of failure.

Chuen Chuen: A lot of reframing. A lot thinking about failure as part of the process. It's natural. It doesn't mean that you are not good enough, right? And you may not be good enough at this point in time, but it doesn't mean that you will never be good enough. The problem is with social media and with academic journals, publications, we never ever document failure. We hardly document failure, right? So that gives a very unrealistic sense of the reality. So have to have them to understand failure.

Failure is a teacher and it is part of the process of any process. And number two is having the right mechanisms. Taking the right approach to minimize failure. You are very consistent because you say I'm a very process person. Yes. It is a process that minimizes failure. 

Viknesh: Exactly. And on a side note, because of this realization the academic world has slowly started pivoting towards accepting this.

 We see a few journals now cropping up where their main focus of submissions is documenting failure.

I would say I would like to see more of this coming up. Because at least when students go into the space, when they pick up all these things, you can definitely see, oh, there's failures documented. It's interesting. So it's not all success and a bed of roses all the time. 

Chuen Chuen: Okay, in academic domain, while generally failures are still not accepted, right? What can the professors do to lower fear of failure in their undergraduate students or their research students? 

Viknesh: I guess it goes back to the point on framing and framing is not just about hey I talked to you about the fear of failure. It's not just only at that point. It's about activities the way we do things. Yeah actions speak louder than words. Because we can always sit down and talk to the student. Don't worry about failure. That's it .Just probably stays there. Maybe some students get it immediately and they know what to do with it. But maybe others don't. So that's where our actions need to speak louder than words. 

 Look at it as a success. It's an oxymoron, failure is a success,.

Chuen Chuen: Yeah. Failure is one step closer to success. You're spot on when you say it is a behavior. It's not just a reframing. It is what we do and how we respond every time to a failure. Do we frown? Do we get angry? Do we start criticizing them or start asking all the why questions like, why did you do this? Why do you think of that?

Those are not helpful at all. Instead, respond with a learning lens.

Viknesh: Yeah. And this has to be done in strategic ways because I think it's important to highlight that it's not going to work all the time. Because in real life, there's deadlines. So if you apply this process alone, when you come to your deadline, you have nothing to show. But just things to learn all the time. 

There must be a balance learning from the failures, but at the same time, learning quickly. Pivoting quickly and coming up with something. So I think this is where I want to make that clear distinction. That balance is really important.

Chuen Chuen: Learning quickly. We cannot be encouraging failure so much that people are not careful in their work anymore. They don't make good judgment or considered decisions, right? 

 Exactly. 

Viknesh: And what's more important is that I think we all must remind ourselves that we cannot be too hard on ourselves.

We must give our very best, but if our very best doesn't meet certain requirements or targets, we should not, beat ourselves up because of it. It's very important to, accept who you are and what you've done and be appreciative of what you've achieved.

Don't be so hard on yourself. We have the natural tendency to always look for perfection. The perfectionism can be good, but it can be a double edged sword.

Chuen Chuen: Can be crippling sometimes. Because of my research interest, I'm looking a lot in the fear of failure. So it is connected to perfectionism.

When you have high fear of failure, you likely also have imposter syndrome. Okay. So before we started recording, you spoke about even you yourself suffer from imposter syndrome from time to time. Can you tell us about that? 

Viknesh: Exactly. I would say that this has happened to me in various capacities.

The easiest thing I can talk about is research. Because I develop decision making models I can apply to different industries. But the thing is, sometimes when you pick up journal papers, you're like, oh, seems like someone has already got this idea, which I already had, then you start to think, okay sometimes this can happen when you finish the project.

You're about to write the paper and just about preparing it to submit to a journal, you realize there's another paper that has this already. Then of course, that imposter syndrome starts kicking in. But of course, over years, I realized that there are many ways to look at research.

What I would do is usually do a quick comparison. I'll try to highlight what are the strengths, what are the weaknesses. And then what are the things that gives us an opportunity to make our uniqueness stand out even further. So if I see a paper that has something similar to what we've done, what I will do is I will try to see, is there really something unique about my paper that is different from theirs, then it's about articulation, isn't it? 

But students sometimes when they see it, the first thing they do is they panic. Somebody has done my work. Oh, no, I can't publish this anymore. I can't put this anywhere. No, there is an opportunity. It's just that because everybody does research differently. They look at different things, so there's very low chance that someone is doing exactly what's in your head. It's impossible. So we need to identify that.

What I do is I tell myself, Hey, it's perfectly normal. You are afraid because this is important. It has an impact on you or in your life. That's why you have this fear. So nowadays what I do is I don't put too much pressure on myself being perfect in roles like that. 

Over the years, I've realized that that fear is normal. So what I'm doing now and what I've done in the past is I tried to go into it in the baby steps. I have to tell myself, look, I'm not going to be perfect in the role, and my boss is going to have to deal with it, and he or she has to have that realistic expectations too. I'm not going to be perfect in the role, but I'm going to grow into it .That's why I mentioned the point earlier. You cannot be too hard on yourself. If you're too hard on yourself, then when failure kicks in, it hits you really hard, but if you go with the idea that, I'm not really enthusiastic. I'm fearful of this, but you know what I'm just going to go in three baby steps, slowly learn. I'm going to make mistakes. And that changes the way of you looking at opportunity. I'm going to learn something along the way, but you know what? I'm just going to do what I can. 

Chuen Chuen: Yeah. Some lightness, right? I think it's the lightness. As you speak about it, it can be very heavy when something comes crushing down on you. It might just be a small thing, like a frown from somebody and you feel like, Oh my God, I'm a total failure. Or you deal with it with a bit more lightness. Okay. It's perfectly normal to feel fearful because this is, of course, is something super important.

And once I acknowledge the emotions that goes with it, then you switch back to what is the process for you to minimize the failure, do things right. For example, dealing with stakeholders, building trust, getting to know people, foster goodwill, articulate clearly, follow up, things like that.

These are things that will help minimize your failure. So I love that for the helping research students and in your own leadership journey, you have a mechanism to help yourself, to support yourself. And that for all listeners is very important. The world is being disrupted at an exponential rate, right?

And it means that we need to learn new skills even quicker. And with that. With learning, right? Failure is part of the equation, which means that we will fail a lot more in this lifetime compared to say, 30, 40 years ago. So that mindset and having the right mechanism to support ourselves is very important if we want to protect our well being. 

Viknesh: Yeah, and this fits into that overall direction, which you are pursuing yourself the agility point of view. Agility is very critical because of the fact that now things are changing exponentially.

 This might be a controversial example. One point I can say is that having a conversation with people you trust about the fear of failure is also very important. 

Viknesh: I have this fear of failure at that point of I made a small boo-boo in the class. I should have done something to overcome that. But when I speak to one of my colleagues, and get their perspective about what they went through in the past.

So my colleague actually shared with me her experience on what she went through and her failures. And then I was thinking to myself, Whoa, that is bigger than what I went through. And the controversial point is this, if a person that can make such a bigger booboo like that, and still have their job, what are you so worried about?

That's the perspective I have nowadays, and I've been having this for some time. So whenever I make an error or make a mistake, I just learn from it. The key is being professional about your mistakes. Admit that. And be professional about handling it afterwards. 

Chuen Chuen: Our perception of what is worse when it comes to anybody who has high fear of failure, we actually amplify the mistakes. So I think this mindset counters that amplification that we naturally lead.

We fall into this pit and beat ourselves up nonstop. And that behavior in class that you described, it is demonstration of how we can be very gracious and professional when we are being corrected instead of becoming defensive and feeling attacked. 

Viknesh: Oh yeah, this is a very important point.

It's being gracious. And that's something that I realized and people respect you more because of that. Especially as a leader, you realize you missed something out. Hey, yeah, you have a good point. I didn't see it that way. Hey, thanks for looking at that part. We missed that out completely. Really sorry about that. Just say sorry or you can use your own way of apologizing.

I think that's a good idea. Let's look into that. Yeah, that's a very good point. Even to my students as well. I make it clear. I'm human. I make mistakes, so if you do notice something that looks a little bit odd, point it out. Don't keep quiet. Just point it out.

Chuen Chuen: Did I tell you I was a teacher before? 

Yeah, you did. 

So back in the days when I was teaching a similar thing happened, I made a mistake in class. It was at a time where I had three kids under five years old. So I've been sleeping like one, two hours. It's very bad for a memory. So I made a mistake in class. And one of the students then pointed out one of the mistakes and I said, Oh my gosh. But my mind is just not working. And I said, okay, I can't solve this now. Let me get back to you tomorrow. And the student actually said. Huh, teacher, you're supposed to know everything. I said, yeah, I know I'm supposed to know everything, but would you rather that I lie to you and convince you that this incorrect answer is correct or come back to you tomorrow with the right one?

Exactly. 

Yeah. So this is a good one. I think this is a very good conversation that all workplaces must have. It is okay to fail. It is okay to be pointed out. We should thank them for having our backs and make it okay. So that safety to fail becomes very important.

Yeah. And 

Viknesh: on this point, this is another thing which I've learned, which I think it's a very important thing to to distinguish here as leaders regardless of which field you are, you must always acknowledge the fact that, those who work in your team that you are leading, or your colleagues or your staff.

It is very important to know that they are always doing the work on the ground. They are the ones really getting their hands dirty with the day to day operations. They know what works and what doesn't. They know where the holes are. They know where things are working. So you need to listen to them.

And this is a good example from a teaching point of view, we can relate very clearly. 

So I told them, you are the one sitting and doing it day to day. I'm sitting from a different perspective. I'm looking at it top down. You are looking at it bottom up. We have to connect at some point, so when I look at it from top down, I only can see things in a certain way. So it's up to you to tell me, Dr. Vik, actually, your idea is fine, but we have X, Y, Z we need to think about. I realize this will create problems later. Good! I want to hear that. Because that way, I won't look stupid when I propose this idea to people, so we cover all grounds. And we need to listen to people who are looking at the work day to day.

I realized a lot of leaders don't. They just want to get the job done which I think doesn't work all the time because you really need to listen. Then only you can bring people together, rather than going alone.

Chuen Chuen: Agree.  Don't think about them as subordinates. Think about them as experts. What if you are a leader leading a team of experts? How will you engage with them?

Of course you want to listen to them more because their experience, their opinions are solid, right? We must listen to their expert advice. 

Yes, exactly. 

Viknesh: Yeah. And on that point, balance is still important. I always emphasize balance in everything in life because you cannot be extreme on one end, because doesn't work. Nothing where you do things on an extreme fits everything else that we do, right?

So same goes for this as well. We have to have that balance between listening to our staff and our colleagues. And at the same time, because you're in a leadership role, You need to bring people together. You need to go in that direction. What I've seen is two extremes. I've seen people who listen to stuff completely by the end of the project period, nothing gets done. Because everybody has differing opinions. And they contradict each other. So it's up to you as the leader to collate things together and move forward. 

One example is that person A might be fully on board and it might give you feedback which is favorable to the direction. Person B might say, oh, there's X, Y, Z reason that we cannot do this. But you need to think as a leader. Can we address those challenges? So that we can bring that person together as well. 

Okay, I understand the reasons you've given. Let's move on. You're not going to achieve anything from 

Chuen Chuen: that. 

Chuen Chuen: Yes. It's not just lip service where I say, Yeah, I've heard you, but I'm still going to decide this way anyway. Exactly. And on the flip side, it's not being confused. It's not leaning towards popular decisions. It is articulating what needs to be done and then be able to persuade other people to take a certain path, right? So it's a balance. 

I think you will like my first book. I spoke about the balance, like bottom up top down is one of the paradoxes in this book. And then task versus people. When you talk about the output versus the approach to get to the output. I'll do a small plug for my book.

About the Gen Z, the young people, the effects of COVID on them, right? Can you give us some insights into what is happening to this generation and how we can support them as they enter the workforce?

Viknesh: Yeah, during COVID, students have been isolated in their respective homes. They've been learning content virtually. When it comes to students learning, it's not just about coming to class and just learning the content, there's another element of learning from peers. Probably it's a small contribution, but I think the impact is very big and I think this is the same even for those working in the corporate line as well.

When you're learning it's not just about learning on the job it's about also learning from peers, right? That element is a very critical part of learning. And that is one thing that was taken away from them during the time of the lockdowns.

So, us as educators, we have to identify this is an issue. And then what we have to do is we have to come up with ways to lead them into a more seamless transition. Like for example, what I normally do is I make it a very important point to make jokes in class, so that we laugh at each other. I always try my best to lighten the mood in the class so that everybody laughs at each other and together, because I think humor and laughter is one important characteristic to show everybody, hey, that we are human. 

Yeah. So when students go into the working world, especially corporates who are going to hire graduates of this generation. So in the next one to two years, those who are graduating now are those from the lockdowns, so I think that empathy from corporate companies and firms and industry.

It's going to be very critical. You need to understand that it's not that they are like that because they are doing it on purpose. It's because of this situation which happened, which we could only do our very best.

Chuen Chuen: Sure. So in this regard, when the young people who are affected by the COVID lockdown joins the workforce, what's a simple action you think their leaders can do every day to make a difference in the long run?

Viknesh: What's important is, you cannot assume that they match the personalities of everybody else in the organization. I think that's very important. You can't just assume they're like that. 

Secondly, I think taking time to do ice breaking, getting them transition into the team, get them to get familiar with people. That human touch is very important. This is some of the ways I can suggest. Not just have an introductory meeting and say, hello, this is person A who just graduated and he joined us as a junior staff. And that's it. No, that's not a transition. 

It has to be a little bit more, have a lunch together, talk about things not related to work a little bit. This might help, so that they feel more like they belong there. And they don't feel like, reluctant to ask questions if they're stuck. Being more welcoming is very critical. 

You need to know how to do this yourself. It doesn't translate much at this stage. You know why? Because those times are different from now. Things have evolved so much and it's evolving rapidly, just like how you pointed out. And that is something that seniors need to acknowledge. Don't just push the juniors away. As a leader, you must understand. You are also the contact point if anything goes wrong. You are the one responsible. Just think of it this way. If your project doesn't go according to plan, who's the boss going to first ask? You're the leader of the team, right? So you are responsible for everyone. 

Chuen Chuen: Yeah. Don't blame others. 

Viknesh: Exactly. So in that sense, if you have a staff that is new, who's unclear about things, make sure that they are clear and have that channel open.

If you're not clear about something, knock on my door. If I'm too busy, I will find time for you. That itself can make a difference. Yeah, that itself can make a difference. And for all you know, the person won't even come and ask you. But the fact that you kept that open gives a lot of respect. People respect the leader already. Oh, okay. If anything, he has my back. 

Chuen Chuen: Yes. This word keep coming out in my mind, feel safe. They need to feel safe and they need to feel that they belong. Don't jump to the output at the speed of light. Focus on the process, the means to get to the output is ensuring that people feel that they are part of the team, that this is a place where I can learn, grow, develop.

It's okay to make mistakes here. Because how will we know what to do if we don't have anything in our heads.

So the many years ago I attended the National Institute of Education in Singapore at the NIE. There's this lecturer, he's a mathematic. I used to be a mathematics teacher, and he said, when the students leave your class, you need to make sure they have something in their head to help them do the homework.

If they cannot do the homework, it means that you have not put something in their head. So it's the same for people joining the workforce. If they are unable to do the job. Then the leaders have not put something in their head to help them be independent. Yeah, that's very important. 

Viknesh: Another important point on this is that I think what leaders need to understand is that if you're from a different generation, your generation is motivated by work. Motivated to do work for different reasons compared to the next generation. I think that's very important, even for myself dealing with students, because I deal with students a lot and I deal with students of different generations.

So sometimes. I also need to take some time to readjust, and of course, sometimes when I talk to my colleagues and all that, we joke around, ah, this generation, the way they look at things is different and things like that. But the reality is we accept that. And I think leaders need to understand that.

I'll give a simple example. I read this somewhere, which I think is a very eloquent way of putting things. I'm not going to name the exact generation, but I'm just going to say a given generation, they are motivated to do work because they need work to survive. They need work to have a paycheck, to bring money to the table.

But maybe the younger generation, their motivation to do work is to have something to belong to. To have an impact in society. So their motivation is very different from another generation's motivation. So when you try to lead a generation which is not yours, you need to understand that context. So that when you speak to them, the language has to be different, so if someone who wants to feel like they belong or wants to create impact, they are not keen about doing unnecessary small kind of work. They want to do work which they can get their hands really dirty and at the same time do something meaningful. 

Chuen Chuen: Yes yeah, that's a perfect way to wrap up this conversation. You've been very consistent, because you talk about the need to be adaptive, empathetic, to understand others so that we can lead better, right?

And this is exactly what leaders, they need a lot of help in this, like even basic skills like listening. Do we have the curiosity to understand, to learn about people and want to empathize with them? 

Viknesh: Yeah, the only way you can learn about listening and to listen better is maybe something has to happen in your life that you realize that it's important to listen. For me, the reason why I realized why it's so important is because I experienced it myself.

I've worked under leaders who don't listen at all. And I've also worked with leaders who do listen, and I know the difference. So because I've been through it, I've learned the lessons from good leaders. I've learned the lessons from bad leaders and I don't want to repeat those things, so that's my personal experience. So I learned it from my personal experience. 

Chuen Chuen: That's great. For all listeners, one phrase for you. All human beings have three desires- to be seen, heard, and understood. And if you can meet these needs. You'll be much more successful in building these relationships and then getting to the goal.

 It's been a pleasure to have you on this show, Dr. Viknesh. I hope to visit Sarawak someday, and see you in person. 

Viknesh: Sure. Whenever you come over, just let me know. I'll show you around as well.