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Redemptive Values & Work Culture
In this episode, we talk with David Nott, Director of Krishi Star. He is an executive coach and a senior leader with proven success in operational delivery and strategic execution at a corporate level and startup organisations. Alongside that, David also has experience in the retail sector and team management. He has coached CEOs and directors in leadership behaviours and helps individuals achieve their goals and reach their full potential. He also has expertise in change management which includes broad level engagement.
David shares with us the five Krishi Star redemptive values which are - Learning, Compassion, Courage, Integrity, and Initiative. Through that, he shares how ‘learning’ as a redemptive value can factor in personal growth since it is about being continuously focused on oneself. David strongly believes that learning is a lifelong process for one's growth and that it should never end. He further states that Krishi Star does not only recruit people with great experience or educational background but also has different fellowship programs that train individuals to their maximum potential and through that potential, individuals can support the company.
He talks about difficulties the company faces since there is so much emphasis on the personal development of the employee and that because there is so much enunciation on values in the company, the profit is mostly overlooked, which is why everyone is held accountable for how they are maintaining these values. He also explains how these values are particularly important when they meet stakeholders, like farmers, and try not to over-promise but rather deliver what they say they will so that it doesn’t affect the farmer's livelihood whatsoever. David speaks about the various values that he came across in the past when he worked with Marks & Spencers and the John Lewis Partnership where he explains how if the company values are not aligned with yours, it becomes hard to sustain. This is why David feels it is important to understand values not only from the company’s perspective but also from the employee's perspective and that is why company assessments and interviews play a vital role in this.
He truly believes that being transparent whether you are a CEO of the company or an intern is the key to having a value-driven work culture. By having an open-door policy like using collaborative tools that give access to everyone in the company, employees can identify various projects and grow. David shares how and why the company finalised these specific five redemptive values. He explains that five is a number that people easily remember and they consciously did not want to put pressure on individuals to have to keep referring to a PDF document whenever they are asked about it. Compassion is a value that is not just applicable to others but to ourselves too. We need to be compassionate at work and say no to our colleagues when we do not have the bandwidth to attend that meeting or work on a particular project because we have our hands full already.
David also explains that values are not just to be incorporated at work but also outside work. He tells us that Krishi Star is always open for their employees to learn more and this is also monitored with the help of a graph that is read weekly. For instance, if the learning value is noticeably down it is taken into consideration, and employees are given a subsidy for learning. Learning does not necessarily mean it has to be business-related, it could also mean learning a new language or a new skill. Krishi Star also provides a budget for employees who are interested in learning. Towards the end of the conversation, David shares with us an example related to each redemptive value. David is surely inspirational and a strong influencer, we hope you find this episode transformative and uplifting and that it encourages you to be the force for good wherever you are.