At BrilliantRead Media, our aim is to bring to our community some of the unique and compelling stories from the start-up ecosystem. As part of this endeavour, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur – Nikhil Bir Singh Cheema for an exclusive interview with us. He is the Founder of Olive Green Consulting. Prior to plunging into entrepreneurship, he worked for around 12 yrs in the corporate world and held senior leadership roles with companies like Hindustan Times, Viacom18 and later with RBL Bank. Let’s learn more about his exciting journey as an entrepreneur, his background and his advice for our growing community:
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:
Talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur, please
After spending 12 years in the Corporate World, I was feeling rather unfulfilled. Sure, the money was great and the job was fun, but I felt that I wasn’t being me. There was a lot that I could do but couldn’t in my day job as a Professional. And, most of all, I wasn’t creating impact. This is critical for me. If I can’t create impact in something then it’s not an option for me.
So, I started Olive Green Consulting – to build great cultures where individual happiness is translated Into organisation growth, to build and nurture young people today into tomorrow’s leaders for organisations and society and, to work with today’s leaders to create awareness and help them grow from a profit and short-term mindset to a long-term mindset where people and planet go hand in hand with profit.”
We are inspired by the Armed Forces, mainly due to my own experience of growing up in the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. Of course, the Armed Forces is the founder and genesis of a lot of management thought and practice today, not least in the HR domain. Olive Green is a Management (not HR) Consulting firm. The problems we solve daily require us to be Psychologists first and Business professionals second, even though most of us have served in HR departments on the other side. And, this is our other USP. We solve problems through the behavioural and social sciences. A lot of us come from the backgrounds of Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology and Mythology. Using this expertise, we work with organizations and individuals to make them a better version tomorrow of who they are today. So we could be working with different sets of people on different days. Corporates on Monday, B-Schools on Tuesday, NGO’s on Wednesday and so on….we now aspire to work with Athletes on Saturday and the Government of India (Police, Armed Forces, IAS etc.) on Sunday
Why entrepreneurship over a corporate career?
In my entire career I have been helping organizations develop and manage their talent and foster the right culture, which was very limited to the organization itself. Hence, I wanted to expand and help more and more groups of individuals, communities, and organizations, to grow and flourish in a progressive environment.
With entrepreneurship, I feel more fulfilled and connected to my inner self. As an Entrepreneur, my mind is always going places.”
It’s about doing business and creating impact, right? This doesn’t have to be done only in the domain of HR, then. We’ve now evolved in to other businesses like Personal Branding, Wellness, Providing experiences and the Future of Work. Tomorrow we have plans to get into Education, Retail & Finishing Schools. The possibilities of Entrepreneurship are limitless. Every day is a new day, the constant struggle, how to innovate and pivot, the dreaming, the results we achieve, the closeness of working with organisations and individuals and seeing them change and grow, the constant balancing act between pragmatism and idealism….all of this is one, big adrenaline rush.
How is your product different from traditional products? Tell us more about your product and your startup’s journey this far?
Our USP is ‘How’ we do business, our mindset of serving. We don’t just have our skin in the game, we have our soul.
I have a big media background. Therefore, I believe content is king. Our content is cool, new age, learner-centric and engaging. It even looks and smells fun. We are hardcore believers in the model of Experiential Learning. So we could do something like a standard assessment-development centre but do it outdoors. Or we could do a leadership development program and throw in a social leadership assignment.
And, finally, there’s a ton of stuff we offer which is differentiated. We are a one stop shop for our Clients. This is our one, big, main service. When a client comes to us, we should be able to take care of all their needs end to end. Therefore we offer the full menu of HR services and some management consulting services. There are few organisations in the market which do this. Within this menu, there are certain dishes like gamified on-boarding, online campus recruitment, outdoor assessment centres, group development labs, social development assignments, technical competency modelling, hiring and training doctors and nurses and HR outsourcing for start-ups and SMEs, which few others offer.
I must also mention that we are not just a B2B firm but also B2C. So our products get further differentiated. From coaching for start-up founders, counselling for TV and Film professionals, Counselling and personality development for students, providing travel-based experiences like boot camps, summer camps, international trips and train journeys to groom and develop young people into our leaders of tomorrow and working with athletes to maximise their potential… we’ve just got started and are creating further impact here.
Today we have 16 Consultants in 4 cities – Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai – across 3 Businesses – Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development & Human Resources. We have served over 30-odd clients across various sectors in the past 3 years, Pan India & abroad.
We are at a stage now where we are doing hi-quality work but at a fair (not obnoxious) price. Our Brand Promise to our Clients is ‘Skill, Scale and Speed’. And, we live this maxim every day.
Please share with us some of the challenges you faced in your journey;
We firmly believe in the concept of being anti-fragile, that some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, disorder, stressors, risk, and uncertainty. Today’s crisis is one such shock. But we are not fretting about the loss of business and what not. Instead, we are spending all our energy on figuring out how we can gain from this disorder. What Demonetisation did for Paytm…we are fully engaged in making this our Demon-Paytm moment.
Like many budding entrepreneurs, we’ve had our fair share of struggles. Me learning how to do sales ( as HR, I sat behind a desk for 12 years), learning about finance, compliance, legal, business, jugaad, the ways of the market, getting people to do work…I’ve had many successes and perhaps even more failures.
We’ve changed our Recruitment team twice, got it right the third time. Lost a lot of business and clients and market share in the process. Couldn’t collect money in time from clients which left us starving at the end of the month, made some promises as sales which our delivery teams couldn’t live up to, lost our cool at some clients when they did not treat us right only to get kicked in the behind later…I could go on.
But we learnt fast. And we always had the right intent in mind even though we did not always make the right decision. As long as our heart’s in the right place, it’s all good, I believe. There’s a line I love – The opposite of success is not failure. It’s the failure to learn.”
We are human beings and we are bound to fail a million times in life. If you can get up, brush the dust off and keep walking…now, that’s true character. We are young and not afraid to make mistakes. We have full faith in who we are and what we bring to the table. So we just go out there and get it done.
Some things we did do right. There’s a saying, ‘Don’t place all your eggs in one basket’. We laughed when we expanded our business into the full range of HR services. People told us that we have to specialise and have a limited, core offering. Today, when our L&D business is down, it’s Talent Acquisition, our new business, which is punching away big time.
A year ago, we consciously expanded into healthcare, pharma and life sciences. Then not many large or medium consulting firms were operating in this space. Today, it’s our largest business by volume and one of the few sectors in the economy that’s doing well. And, forget the money, we are fighting the Covid War on the front lines which is just the kind of impact I want to create in my life and the reason why I became an Entrepreneur.
What is your Business Mantra: Money or Emotions?
I would like to quote from the movie 3 Idiots which says,
“Pursue excellence and the success will follow.”
So we believe in fostering the right methodology to achieve what we dream off and success & money will flow in naturally. Money is critical and absolutely necessary but it’s a by-product of impact. We focus on the latter.
I read an interview with Deepak Parekh, Chairman-HDFC, recently. One line stuck with me – Create life worth, not net worth. It’s a beautiful line and captures my own outlook. It’s emotions and relationships all the way for me. Money will follow.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Again, by nurturing relationships. So, I spend a lot of time with friends, family, ex-colleagues, clients…just chatting up, connecting, building, experiencing, learning…being human. Music, movies, books and sports are very dear to me so I spend a lot of time pursuing these passions. Then, there’s my immediate circle of parents, in-laws, closest friends, wife and daughter and doing as many things as I can with them. I also need a lot of ‘me time’ so I ensure I spend time with myself every week. This is critical for me so that I can give all of me to everyone else for the rest of the week.
I mean I can go on and on but I believe work is part of life. I play multiple roles of a father, husband, son, entrepreneur, friend, mentor, professional, etc. So I water each plant adequately, regularly. Again, it’s all about creating life worth, right?
What has worked well for you so far?
Our mindset is to be anti-fragile. So we are always looking to gain, pivot, innovate…even in the toughest of situations, like today. We believe in ourselves, we always have the right intent, we are dreamers and want to create a better world for our children, we want to fight in the trenches with our clients…
Everything else that I’ve spoken about earlier – our strategy, drive, tactics, decisions, speed, skill-set etc – all of that will happen as long as we have the right people on the bus, in Olive Green. And outside, as our Partners.
I’m a firm believer in hiring the right talent and creating an environment for them to fulfill their potential. At Olive Green, we bet on people, not just strategy.
At a strategic level, we’ve done some things right. We’ve increased our team by bringing in specialists to monetize the market. We’re also constantly working towards achieving a better balance between our human-led and tech-led services. For our Learning & Development & HR verticals, a great pool of Pan-India trainers, customized content and curated programs have won applause from our clientele. And, for the Talent acquisition vertical, we ramped up our game overnight and got into contract staffing, particularly in the Healthcare and IT sectors, to counter the impact of Covid-19.
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
The key to success is being yourself, fully and always. And, being inner directed – achieving happiness and meaning from within. Gandhiji said ‘Be the change you want to see’ which, put differently, is ‘Self is the instrument of change’. This is our motto at Olive Green.
Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, what are the leadership traits that are necessary for success?
I think I’ve already mentioned quite a bit above. But if I was to add just a little bit more, it would be being non-judgemental, listening actively to other people, being empathetic and walking the talk. We need more compassion and sensitivity in our society today. And, leaders need to practice what they preach. Else, it’s just being plain hypocritical and you’re not kidding anyone but yourself. And, finally, it’s ok to showcase the human side of yourself. Not just be all about the work and business.
We would love to know your advice for all those starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?
Again, be yourself and be inner-directed. Create life worth and not net worth, please. Net worth and an excessive focus on profit and cashing out for yourself is not only selfish but also detrimental in the long-term, for everyone. Covid 19 is a harsh, but necessary, reminder to all of us about the pitfalls of excessive consumerism, materialism, individualism, narcissism and the modern notion of ‘development’. Please work for the society and country that made you. Please work for this planet which has always provided for you. And, lastly, please be patient. I see an excessive impatience in many Entrepreneurs today.
The Buddha said, “Suffering arises from craving.”
So whatever it is you’re craving, it will come. As long as you are patient!
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