Connecting with Nandika Madgavkar

How have relationships influenced your professional development and leadership style?

Perhaps the answer to that question lies in my inherent nature of being a curious person and one who is constantly willing to learn with the goal of self-improvement. Self-awareness and being open to change is the first step towards leveraging the life experiences of those within one’s orbit to eventually make a positive impact on one’s professional development and leadership style. I had the good fortune to attend Doug Conant’s Blueprint Boot Camp and the deep work required of me to identify my leadership style was very revealing. I found myself reflecting on my relationships, going back to my parents and family structure, and how that has influenced and played out within the work environment with my colleagues and my wider network. The constant interplay of collaboration, conflict and the give-and-take influences the way I approach my relationship with my peers, my direct reports and my managers which in turn influences my leadership style and what I strive for next in my professional development journey.

Do you have any tips for maintaining and building strong relationships?

I believe that strong relationships are built through humanizing the initial interaction and all subsequent touchpoints. What do I mean by that? Start with a curious mindset about the person you are engaging with. This desire to get to really know the person leads to deep and rich conversations and ultimately strong relationships. Find out what makes them tick as a person, not just as a professional. Maintaining relationships, to be honest, is the hard part. It requires perseverance. These touchpoints don’t have to be elaborate plans but could be a quick text message to say hello, reaching out to set up a coffee or drinks if you happen to be in the same city, sharing useful information – articles, blogs, research – through emails, a quick Zoom chat without a set agenda. These are just some of the ways in which I keep in touch with my network.

How have you intentionally built inclusiveness into your circles?

Being an immigrant to the U.S. at a tumultuous time in its history, Sept. 11, 2001, I quickly learned what it felt like to be an outsider. My family and I had just moved from Toronto, Canada and when I started my job search, I realized how alone and alienated I was. While many friends made personal connections to their network, it was a time of grief for the country against “foreigners” and I fit that category. It was during this time that I realized that if I am to break through and get through to the decision maker, I would have to lean into my journalistic skills which are all about curiosity about the other, asking lots of questions, making people feel comfortable with who I am, and being vulnerable to them. Vulnerability and honesty about what I was willing to do to get my foot in the door was a very important lesson.

At that time, I had about 8-years of work experience in the social and community development space but to the hiring manager all that experience, even the experience in Canada, was “foreign.” I will never forget the first person who decided to take a chance on me. Her name is Judith Binney. She was a senior executive in the HR department at Citigroup. She was very honest with me and said the best she could offer me was $10/hour three days a week. I would start by helping her build out Citi’s global volunteer program and if things worked out, she would do what she could to hire me full time. I took the gamble, set my pride aside, and joined her team. Within six months, she offered me a full-time position as Assistant Vice President and from there I started my journey in the community development space.

America is truly a meritocracy though one does have to battle deep-rooted, bureaucratic HR practices every so often. If COVID-19 has taught us one thing, as we learned through work with the Ford Foundation on a report, Frontline Worker Well-Being in a Time of Crisis , what we are all looking for is a sense of purpose and dignity through work. Among the 230 companies in our coalition at Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), we have seen significant improvements in the employee experience.

Since that first position till today, I have not looked back. My managers have been fabulous, pushing me to constantly improve and better myself both professionally and personally. Building that inclusivity through vulnerability has been the biggest lesson that I take away from my time in corporate America. We are all at the end of the day human-beings with human fears and hopes and we should not let titles and positions come in the way of that humanity.

What community or communities are you proud to be a part of?

Communities are the bedrock of connectedness. For me there are three primary communities:

1. My professional community – these are colleagues and co-workers who share a common value system with me, are passionate about the difference they are making in their communities and around the world, are “gurus” in their sphere and from whom I can learn a lot. An example would be Sandy Nessing , Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer at American Electric Power (AEP). I got to know Sandy through my work on CECP’s CEO Investor Forum . Sandy is the Chief Sustainability Officer at American Electric Company and when I first met her, she was getting her CEO ready to share AEP’s Long-Term Plan strategy. At CECP, we believe that building material ESG into your business practices is to future-proof the success of your company, and Sandy did not need any convincing! She knows the field inside out, has amazing insights into how a company can operationalize its ESG strategy into business practices and is always ready to share her knowledge and experiences in bringing a company along on that journey.
2. My community of teachers – these are men and women who I would reach out to for advice and mentoring. They could be younger or older than I, but they bring to the table life experiences that I can benefit from. A good example is Shamina Singh , Founder and President of the Center for Inclusive Growth and Executive Vice President of Corporate Sustainability, MasterCard. She was my manager at Citigroup for several years and the first manager in the U.S. to push me outside my comfort zone, to help me find my voice and realize my worth as a contributing member of the workforce. She always made herself available. We butted heads regularly, but I consider her my mentor and my “call-a-friend” helpline.
3. My personal community – this is my innermost circle of family and friends, and I don’t find a lot of them on LinkedIn which is very interesting to me. They are the ones who have been there for me through the ups and the downs, who show up before I even know I need them to show up and they are not necessarily people I grew up with or even went to college with. These are, mostly women, who I have connected deeply with later in life. Priya Singh , Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Associate Dean, Stanford Medical is one such person. Priya is smart as a whip, intellectually curious, and has the amazing ability to connect with people from all walks of life. She is my sounding board and guide on many different issues related to both my personal and professional life – often it is beneficial to have someone who knows the 3-D version of you!

I am so grateful for the generosity and care of so many, many others that to name some and not all would be a travesty so I will leave them with this from my favorite philosopher Rumi, “Your acts of kindness are iridescent wings of divine love, which linger and continue to uplift others, long after your sharing.” Thank You!

Who’s a Connector that’s made a difference in your life??

In most recent times, the person who comes to mind is Linda Descano , Executive Vice President, Rad Havas US. Linda is smart, sophisticated, strategic and impact driven. I have known her for a long time, we were colleagues at Citigroup, and over the years as we have made our separate ways, our paths have somehow crossed and with every crossing, our connectedness grows deeper. She is so generous not only with her time related to work but also sharing tips on travel or strategies to develop one’s deepest interests. She has been there for me personally and professionally and is always looking for those win-win collaborations that advance the purpose-driven work we do together.

Susan McPherson is a serial connector, seasoned communicator and founder and CEO of?McPherson Strategies , a communications consultancy focused on the intersection of brands and social impact. She is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships.

Follow Susan on?LinkedIn ,?Twitter ?and?Instagram ?and order her new book,?The Lost Art of Connecting , also available on Kindle and Audiobook.