Team Cultures and Collaboration Amidst Chaos

Wade Erickson (00:13):

Welcome all to another episode of Tech Leaders Unplugged. We're going to get unplugged today with Anand Safi. He is the director of engineering data platforms and AI solutions at Zia an insurance platform. And we'll get to hear all about the platform and how Anand's focused on culture and, and, and influence culture and the various companies and businesses that he's worked with. Thanks Anand for joining us today, sharing some of your expertise around positive cultures and work environments for you know, the employees that we try to shape and, and retain. So introduce yourself a little bit and a little bit about Zenia, and then we'll get into the topic.

Anand Safi (01:01):

Thank you so much, Wade, for just the warm welcome. I would love to start by saying this is, this is really exciting topic, kind of given the times. And before we get into it a little bit about myself. So I, I currently as, as Wade pointed out, lead the data engineering pillar for zenia. I've been with this organization for a little, kind of close to six months, but in, in my career overall, I've had a lot of kind of experience in software engineering, mobile engineering, and data engineering over the past decade. So I had my bachelor's and master's in computer science. And from there continued to work in the, in industry across variety of different org sizes at different kind of I would say industries and focused on first as an individual contributor, trying to just get into the technical abilities and, and just make sure that I'm able to deliver technical value, slowly move towards the management kind of road and have been in this management slash leadership kind of track for the past seven years or so in, in various roles team sizes leading divisions. And today just leading a team of data engineering athletes. We're a group of chan. We are growing quite a bit and almost kind of doubling in, in size say for the next 12 to 18 months. A little bit about Zenya as, as the current organization that I'm working for. It's, it's in the insurance domain. So it's an insurance tech company building end-to-end solutions for the insurance ecosystem. As, as we like to call ourselves, actually, we are trying to be the change maker in the insurance ecosystem by being the guards of the, of the industry. So we are not trying to pinpoint a particular kind of, say, problem space or just trying to roll out a particular solution. We are rethinking kind of the end-to-end flow of, of the insurance lifecycle for carriers, consumers and, and kind of our partners as well, because things have changed so, so much kind of over the last decade. And, and insurance and insurance tech is, is one industry, which is, which is really kind of sitting on the on the edge of, I would say, breakthrough in, in terms of the potential it has with, with all this generative ai and data driven solutions. The amount of data that flows through insurance systems, the amount of, I would say opportunity it presents for, for the carriers and the customers to benefit from something that is more kind of insightful, beneficial for their own needs and, and a little bit more customized and tailored towards the needs of the modern consumer is, is really important. So that's kind of what Zenia is focused on, rethinking multiple kind of stages and insurance life cycle, right from lead generation to finally kind of just a claim processing and even beyond in terms of renewals. And, and just say more I would say future applications. There's a custom solution or we think happening at each stage. So I'll pause there, Wade, and happy to go in deep, deep on any of those aspects.

Wade Erickson (04:13):

Well, yeah, thanks for that background and setting the stage for our topic today, really. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, team cultures, especially, you know, maybe some of the aspects of this whole remote working that's come our way in the last few years that obviously has impacted how we gather and, you know, can share in culture, cultural experiences within the company. And then you know, a collaboration, obviously using tools like we have right here you know, and, and some of the impacts you've seen with the organization, you've been, so let's go ahead and jump right into the topic.

Anand Safi (04:52):

Awesome. Yeah, thank you for again, introducing the topic. And this is, this is when we were going kind of back and forth on, on what to talk about this, this naturally drifted just my interest in terms of, it's a, it's a very real situation that not only leaders, but every, I would say individual in whatever capacity in your organization runs into actually, right? It, it's just there is so much going on in, in terms of the organizations of today or, or just the wider, I would say events in the world that it's difficult to stay on track and just kind of rationalize on how do you make kind of sustainable progress or how do you feel successful or content in, in whatever you're trying to accomplish, actually. So this, this phrase of topic, right, team cultures and collaborations am amid chaos. I, I would like to break, break this down into say three, three sections, right? Starting right at the end on chaos, actually moving on to kind of culture, and then we'll talk a little bit about communication and collaboration techniques and then put a leadership spin at the end. So I, I want to take the liberty and with, with kind of chaos as determined and just want to normalize it, saying chaos is is not bad when we look at it kind of from a particular lens. Just just bear with me for a minute there, right? It, it's, it's very natural for us to gravitate towards this as, as a term that is, that is just causing unrest or, or just kind of causes a little bit of just stress in terms of, okay, seems like we are in turmoil, seems like everything is upside down. How do you get out of the situation? But when I, when I look kind of just at, at any situation, whether in an org or kind of just outside change is, is just constant if it is kind of geared towards the right goals and, and, and strategy, right? So when I say it, it's chaotic. It's just because we are challenging the norms and the structures of, say, yesterday or, or just kind of up until now to further just shape the, the future where we are headed actually in terms of a team, organization or whatever the goals you're trying to achieve. So for me, chaos is just not about kind of challenges. It's, it's just about trying to tame the unpredictability actually that is going to come. And also it's, it's just because the, the, the rules of yesterday are, are, are going to be difficult to kind of apply in today's context as well. Actually a little bit. So just in, in terms of your, your introduction, right? Just in this area of remote work, just, just imagine how remote work caused chaos to an entire, I would say ecosystem, right? It, it, it was just something that really a few companies attempted or, or was a luxury for a few people just became a norm overnight actually in some sense. And, and that was chaotic, but we, we did, I think overall, well there are, there are companies, there are reports, there are studies which say maybe that is a good choice for organizations actually. So I think out of that chaotic episode in, in some sense at least from a work culture and, and work dynamic standpoint, we did do now have at least a couple of solid survey of working strategies for, for teams and organizations that can thrive on the remote culture. There is certainly an option while there are others who are adopting, kind of going back to a little bit more return to office hybrid approach, for example. So that, that's kind of how I feel chaos at, at kind of very high level in terms of, I'm, I'm trying to downplay chaos a little bit in terms of challenging and, and kind of unpredictability and trying to drive towards something that we can predict and, and kind of control a little bit more in terms of outcome perspective actually trying to go to the next phase actually, in terms of the importance of culture when I said all the kind of things related to chaos in, in order to kind of work in our favor, in some sense, I think culture is, is is that catalyst that would make it happen actually, right? So that's just in my opinion, right, that is really, really critical that we have that nailed down as a team. Right, and there are multiple levels in, in terms of culture, right? And many organizations approach team culture, in my opinion, from a very monolith standpoint that there is, there's an org mission statement, and then there are three or four values that are drafted or like, these are things that we live by and it ends there. We then don't hear about kind of them often being talked about being celebrated or there's a disconnect fundamentally between these values that are documented at kind of the highest level of leadership or at the org level and the teams that are kind of pulling their weight day to day, actually. So what I I like to see is we as, as leaders and, and we as kind of even individuals and in any organization, need to really make that kind of effort to connect these values to our day-to-day, actually, right? Celebrate those values. You, you see there are, depending on the mode of communication, there are either teams doing kind of shout outs, awards, like celebratory notes actually, or just showcasing their, their colleagues and peers. It's, it's more beyond the individual in terms of, okay, what did this individual do to kind of demonstrate this particular set value, actually. So I think culture overall, where I see is a lot of I is, is a lot of trustworthiness and, and recognition at multiple levels, actually. In order to definitely, I would say close the loop on, on the work that everyone puts in, in my personal opinion, I think recognition and, and, and reward in some sense is, is definitely necessary so that the individuals can kind of connect to the, the wider goals of the organization, right? They, they can definitely understand that the work they're doing is meaningful, has a real impact on what we are trying to achieve. And in such a way, actually, I think cult using culture as a Compass can, can really kind of guide decisions, actions, interactions, right? Trying to make sure everyone has a voice or everyone's ideas is heard, trying to make sure that we are not talking or interrupting someone or like, while you're trying to kind of synthesize their thoughts and present their idea there, there's very small kind of things right at, at from a meeting that you're sitting in to kind of a, a all hands presentation that you're doing that showcases the value and, and the culture of an organization, right? It, it's, it's built on trust. And, and I think that is going to be a factor when we talk about the chaotic environment, when there's uncertainty, there's kind of lack of confidence. The, the amount of transparency and open communication lines that you can set up actually and the shared goals that's going to that's going to kind of make that, that morale boost or that's going to kind of get people that extra kind of needed confidence in, in, in testing times and everything is going well. Every, everyone feels like just, okay, settle. They, they feel they're making strides, but culture is, is is a gift, actually. Like the right culture is a gift when things often don't go well, which is, which is more common just because of the strategic shifts, either in the workforce or just in the wider say ecosystem on, on how companies are either looking at profitability or trying to kind of make a space in the industry or trying to just further their, their mission. So that's my blurb on, on, I would say, how to use kind of culture as a vehicle for navigating chaos a little bit actually in order to break down kind of how do you have, have a little bit more kind of tangible approach to defining a team culture. That's where I think for, for me, the power of collaboration comes, comes into play actually, right? So culture cannot be done in, in vacuum, right? Each team cannot have, like, okay, they can certainly have their own ways of working, but I think we, the shared values and the beliefs that we kind of just make progress overall, that's, that's in, in my opinion, culture. So in order to kind of make sure that while we respect each team's choices and approach individually, how do we still collaborate between these kind of differences and, and in a unified manner kind of progress against our goals, and that's culture. So for me, that is, I would say a couple of things to, to cover there. First is, I, I already said like communication is, is key, right? So trying to make sure that we are communicating effectively is, is, is really, really critical. And again, a, a very common pitfall when we say communicating it, it means people just are, are referring to speaking or delivering, but I'm, I'm actually wanting to judge upon the listening part actually. So trying to listen, the voice of our, say customer trying to listen, the voice of the people on the front lines who are trying to kind of just deliver on those set roadmaps, actually trying to listen on what the team is telling you from, say, a burnout or just kind of improving your, your process or trying to listen on what's working well and not trying to change everything in there like that, that kind of space that, that you create and, and kind of value opinions is going to be really, really important. This, this is not where our top down, I would say one set. Let's not question kind of approach my, my thrive in my personal opinion. That's, that's kind of my, my take here. Once you have that i idea set, or once you start having that, I would say feedback cycle in place, the, the next phase is to empower those individuals actually, whether it's, it's your team leadership, whether these are kind of people on the front lines or whether it's it's you as a leader, actually trying to, I would say, encourage folks to act upon those ideas and trying to create that space that we, that they can experiment and, and kind of say either adopt or dismiss any, any sort of idea will help you iterate quickly, actually. So that, that's, that's kind of important in terms of when you talk about strong collaboration practices is just trying to create enough tangible milestones to touch upon something, whether an idea or an outcome quickly, and then the reasonable timeframe, and then have some, I would say, guardrails or success criteria in place. Did this work, okay, what's the next phase? Did this not, let's not beat the horse kind of again and again, let's move on to the next thing rather than trying to make it work for, for kind of a long period of time. So that's, that's kind of the piece around once you have that communication I would say framework in place, trying to empower and encourage individuals to, to take on kind of actions is important. And then last is around kind of the collaboration piece is a little bit around just there are gazillion collaboration tools out there. So I would say there's definitely kind of a, an an exhaustive list, but I, I think you can make tools work toward advantage, right? Where you see there are opportunities to streamline some, some certain kind of say processes or, or just ways, ways to function. Use those to your advantage, right? Try to look at kind of async communications lines rather than having everyone show up for a 30 minute call, which, which is kind of redundant in some place, actually in some sense. So like Slack, others just some AI tools as well. There's integrations in terms of alerting and observability framework depending on the projects you're working on. So you can have less manual upkeep and, and have kind of your people focusing on more strategic things actually. So that's kind of on how I, I look at fostering collaboration in, in that regards. And trying to wrap up a little bit in terms of this kind of going back to chaos actually, how do you demonstrate and, and kind of have leadership focus in, in these testing times? I think it is a, a, a good, a good combination of just a few, few different things, actually. First is, as a leader, especially when, when times are chaotic, you should be able to own your decisions in, in some sense actually, in terms of navigating decisions, right? Decision paralysis or trying to do too much at once, even is, is a little bit kind of, I would say not ideal. So trying to, if you need to make a tough call or if you need to kind of just look at another outcome, it's about being transparent about the risks actually and rallying to the team right on, on what we're set out to achieve. You might, I'm, I'm not saying just, just share, share everything at all. Cause there's definitely things that are half baked and things change, but be transparent on, on kind of what we are trying to achieve and why we might need to make certain choices actually at the same time look out for, for your teams supporting their, their kind of mental wellbeing. It's, it's very subjective on, on how any sort of psychiatric event, right, rather constructive or even a positive restructuring in your opinion, might kind of be interpreted by, by the teams who are at the individual level actually. So trying to have those regular check-ins trying to kind of be available actually either yourself or, or your kind of leadership team definitely makes, makes everyone feel valued and, and understood, actually. So leading my example on those couple of, I would say items is, is really important. And I think in, in overall, it's, it's just building that kind of resilience and emotional integrity in terms of, these are cycles, right? They will, they will definitely come and go, like roller coasters actually each, each I would say event can appear as, as, as kind of just gigantic versus the past. But I think if you have that kind of a, a, a set framework and, and a general culture based approach on how we kind of just attack these, these situations and kind of embrace continuous learning, there's a lot of potential to still thrive as, as organizations, as teams and, and, and be wildly successful, right? And this is not all I would say nice to hear, difficult to, to implement. There, there are organizations who have, who have withstood the test of time, many different kind of conditions, economic downturns, all sorts of things. And they have kind of stood the test of time and, and really done well, actually. So I think there's definitely some, some merit. I've certainly applied some of these things in my personal kind of roles and situations when we had to either pivot a big strategy, ended up signing a big customer and a strategic shift, or losing a big customer and, and losing that contract dollar or say reduction in forces, reorgs trying to be in hyper growth mode and, and kind of just double my team size in three months. How do we onboard new people? All those, so chaos can or unrest is, is just in a good lens or in a constructive lens, depending on how you see it. But having, having some of these practices and, and a kind of well thought out approach can certainly help. So I'll pause there. I think I, I, I've tried to synthesize a few of my thoughts across all, all the three key areas and I'll hand it back to you, Wade.

Wade Erickson (20:51):

Great. Great. So quick summary as I'm hearing I think a lot of folks where you use chaos, I think others will call it turbulence, right? So think of a plane, we're flying through it, you can't go around it. You can try to get above it, you can try to get below it. Sometimes you just got to go through it, right? And so the culture and some of the policies and process and procedures and things that the company tries to shape how we are going to respond to not only work items and changes that come in, which will be processed, but really kind of drive how, you know, things are going to get intense, things are going to get tough, especially as you're trying to wrap up a project and you're on crunch time and stuff. You know, how do we engage? Do we, you know, how do we behave with each other? I mean, some folks come from very different family experiences or cultural experiences where you know you know, anger and anxiety can, you know, be elevated and it's, that's acceptable. Other cultures, that's not acceptable. You know, you, you control those emotional states and stuff. So as, as many have said is that if you don't shape your culture, the shape culture will definitely be shaped one way or another. You cannot acco any place that people come together to have a task. You know, it, it, it's part of our humanity to shape an agreed set of norms and how we're going to interact to make things efficient. So and then of course, communication, you have to make that clear, otherwise people will just come in with assumptions, right? So those have to be sometimes explicitly shared the expectations and the norms of those the, to drive and create that culture. So that's kind of my summary. Did that, did I get that right?

Anand Safi (22:40):

You absolutely nailed it in, in, in terms of just as you, as you said right there, there are going to be various situations and, and the culture can also be subjective, right? We have a culture of fear, we have a culture of collaboration and, and just valuing each other. So thank you for kind of expanding on the culture piece, right? Depending on, on the, on people's backgrounds and, and kind of varying degrees of reception and comfort with, with situations. So that is important. And I think one of my, one of my leaders recently just put it wonderfully in, in terms of chaos, is it's, it's, it's like a sports car, right? You, you cannot kind of chase it or, or say get in front of it. It's just how you learn to drive it actually and control it. So it's, it's a little bit kind of that an analogy and, and that, that did kind of resonate with me.

Wade Erickson (23:32):

Great. So got a quick question. So as a director, you know, you, you have data, you have platforms, and now of course everybody's talking about AI and machine learning at the very executive levels all the way down. You know, how have you leveraged culture? cause obviously this is bringing in a lot of fear, this ai, is it going to replace my job? Is it going to do that? How has maybe, you know, culture and the continuous learning aspect to say, Hey, new things are going to, I mean, in tech, you know, our, our tech changes every two or three years for us. So I think, you know, unlike maybe something like construction or something, you know, that has maybe five to 10 years of distance between major changes, but you know, we're, it seems like we're always chasing to try to keep up in it. So tell me a little bit about how you've done that, especially within the AI and machine learning piece, how you've taken culture and continuous learning and help to kind of calm the calm, using the culture to calm things and people can get back on track and still, you know, leverage these great technologies without, you know, worrying about their job.

Anand Safi (24:38):

Yeah, I think that use case was perfectly on, on the chaos and the culture piece. Chaos, as in, it's, it's a very unpredictable I would say field or, or just problem space, actually. There is just a, a lot of open-ended solutioning or discussions, and it's very difficult to apply it in, into, I would say a really organizational context and, and do right by it actually. So this is where kind of culture comes into play in, in regards to how do we have a culture of looking at something from an open mind and just experimenting with it enough and, and kind of discovery phase that whether or not this can be a value add to us, right? And I say value add, which is a very critical word in terms of we are not looking to kind of say, have, use AI and ML and, and just down, down play just entire kind of roles or responsibilities or, or just kind of change the world actually, right? We are looking at, there are efficiency gaps and there are ways that we, we know kind of as leaders that we can fine tune some of these systems processes and, and really generate more value while keeping the workforce more engaged on, on something that they enjoy doing, right? Nobody, for example, likes writing long kind of notes for about a call or, or note or like, say, doing a lot of manual upkeep around, say generating data insights or producing a report. So where can we use AI driven solutions or, or just like say gen AI stuff to put the data in and have the ai automate some of these processes so that we can reduce kind of the time to deliver and have the I would say cut our employees focused on, on something that they enjoy doing and create that culture of learning and further growth on some other skillset versus just that same repetitive task again.

Wade Erickson (26:41):

Great. So you know, as we're wrapping up, I always like to kind of bring this back to, you know, kind of some of your personal experiences in life and such. So from your, you know, experience, it looks like you started working, you know, went to college first round in India shifted into roles at big companies in the United States, New York, eBay, all these kind of big experiences. And then now you've shifted up into Canada. So you've got three different really cultural aspects to your experience at work as well as company size. So startups versus, you know, big companies. Tell me how those experiences have shaped your perspectives on this culture and, and how it is important to kind of build, 'cause many people come into these organizations all with different experiences, both geography and work experience. Tell me how you've kind of taken that experience and helped to shape how you like to perpetuate a a positive culture.

Anand Safi (27:40):

Yeah, I think those have been really fundamental to, to what I, I would say and past kind of my, my leadership style or, or how I approach situations. Those have been the building blocks and, and the reason being is that they were certainly very diverse and kind of on either extremes in, in, in some cases actually. So that's why I was able to see both sides of the coin in, in some regard, right? When there were organizations which were really huge, right? Like 20, 30,000 plus workforce where if I needed to make a change, there were kind of a lot of kind of process and then bureaucracy I had to go by in order to get that approval, repeat myself over and over. And it was just a culture of, I, I'm not saying that it was kind of just in, in a negative lens, it was just a culture of being overly cautious because the, the amount of, I would say spread is, is is such huge given the employee size or the amount of things that are in play, it's, it's very easy for someone to slip through kind of just a, a, a, a little issue in the system or, or things go unnoticed and that could cause hay walk, actually. So that's why it's just trying to have that culture of just being a little bit more diligent than usual and trying to approach situations with the right approvals and right kind of thought process in place while there were experiences or kind of when I was working in startups in New York City, actually, it was definitely still being cautious, but as long as you, you felt that you had reasonable control over the idea and then you knew how to undo something in, in kind of a fair beat amount of time if you attempted something, you were given kind of that autonomy and to run with it actually, right? As long as you, you demonstrated some of that mastery. So I think that was also different culture that you could be nimble than kind of iterate fast versus just trying to jump through the probable kind of hoops and, and, and processes to launch something in, in six months versus six hours actually in, in some cases.

Wade Erickson (29:42):

Great. Great. So, well, I think we've kind of completed the time that we have. So before we, you know, wrap up and close out the show, I wanted to introduce next week's show. We have Shauna. So next Wednesday we have Shauna Del Hiro, chief Information and Technology Officer at Sportsman Warehouse, and we'll talk next week with her in, in about the retail space and technology over there. And so join us next week, same time and look for the posts on LinkedIn and, and on the website tech leaders unplugs for any of additional information about next week. So thank you very much for joining us today and sharing a a little bit about your experience and shaping culture to help manage these turbulent times that we're still in, I think, and I think more are to come, but either way, trying to get work done is always has different you know, when we're doing complex things in it, we always have unknown experiences that are going to come our way and how, how we use culture to respect each other shape the efficiencies and the motivation and all those kind of things are, are critical. And just because we don't sit next to each other doesn't mean we can't use that as a glue, really, to bring people together and execute. So, thanks again for your time and appreciate you for sharing the experiences with our community here.

Anand Safi (31:18):

Thank you, Wade. The pleasure is all, all mine. Really enjoyed chatting with you.

Wade Erickson (31:22):

All right, have a good day.

Anand Safi (31:24):

Thanks.