Grooming an intern into a CXO

Planet's biggest innovations emerged out of stretch goals. John Doerr, in his book "Measure what matters" explains the importance of stretch goals while setting OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). I would be discussing a HR Leadership stretch goal in this article. How do we groom our interns into leaders? Can we build a company with young talent? Do you really need a lot of experienced folks? Can you go lean and agile with a young team?

Well, half the young population would have given up on reading the article after seeing the jargon in the first paragraph. This is well explained by Carol Dweck's research. She says that people with a fixed mindset believe that they are what they are, but people with a growth mindset try to learn new things- the way they respond to the unknown is quite different. Somebody with a growth mindset would have just googled the terms and tried to make sense of the content by putting the pieces together. So not all freshers can be groomed, we may require individuals with learnability, a growth mindset, and humility.

We also encounter youngsters who lack self-esteem and it comes out on the outside as aggression or attitude. They feel judged and they misunderstand the intent of our communication, this can be become draining as one has to make several attempts to win the trust of such individuals. Conversational intelligence, self-esteem are two concepts that come in handy when you hire talent for roles involving innovation - so we identify individuals with compassion, humility, and collaboration, rather than attitude/ego issues.

Conventional wisdom is that freshers ain't good enough to lead. However, if we were to rule the majority (maybe >95%) of them who either have learnability or humility or collaboration, we do find a lot of freshers who are ready for leadership roles. A good friend of mine called me up and asked how my startup was going. I told him that I hired 20 interns for my curriculum development team and we expedited our curriculum development process in a lean and agile fashion. He asked - how did you lead them - I said we have a Leadership development initiative, measurement framework, and solid documentation.

The story goes this way. DeepThought EduTech bootstrapped with part-time advisors, part-time interns, and a couple of full-timers and has succeeded to crowdfund the angel round, is now looking for proper business expansion. After lockdown, many companies gave up, our investor was caught in a financial challenge, we couldn't get the second installment of funding. We didn't stop our operations, we rather innovated our execution and found ways to engage with interns and part-timers. A lot of people do look down upon startups, it was probably worse in 2014 when I took startup fulltime( I founded Sciensation in 2011).

One guy tells me that you have 30 students after 9years, I am a racehorse, I don't want to be slow like your startup. We do encounter immature freshers who do not understand business logic or the R&D efforts which go into disruptive innovation. But as a company, can you ignore those 95 individuals and look at those 5 individuals who give you everything to make your idea win. I am lucky to have found 20+ young interns who celebrate every little success of the startup because they see me as a mentor, so they could get on their journey too, someday, without having to work for a corporate company. So the big question is how?

I think it is about coaching, mentoring, and grooming. It is a gradual process in which lots of little insight packets are exchanged. But it starts with the intern having the will to think like a CXO- to get the best version of oneself. This is like playing street cricket with kids who are way older than you- gets you to think ahead of your peers. So it becomes important to pick the ones with the will, we usually end up hiring 1 out of 10000 applicants at times. I am sharing a few such anecdotes which could be shared.

1- Learnability: How does an intern respond to a problem statement? Say a coder is given a code to write, does he/she google and find resources which can help in executing the problem, or does he/she say "I don't know"? It is a well-known practice in software company recruitment. What if we do this elsewhere? I asked an accounts intern to give me to backtrack cash flows required to yield a certain valuation, most of them just gave up. Some gave motivational speeches with no subject rigor. Two takeaways here- can you self-learn, and can you bring in subject depth (instead of superfluous motivation)?

2- Aesthetics: Does the intern work like an artist or like a technician? A CXO usually appreciates the aesthetic value of a function. It is very qualitative and there is a sense of beauty in good decisions. A CXO can spot a good decision when he/she sees one, much like how you appreciate a good aroma or a lush green garden. Can an intern listen to interviews, read books written by thought leaders, pay attention to their conviction, so they get to see aesthetics of the discipline, through the eyes of the thought leader?

3- Spontaneity: If one has self-esteem, curiosity, and collaborative intent, then one sees value in thinking out aloud, to engage in creative collaboration with like-minded yet diverse individuals. The opposite of spontaneity would be two extremes- one being a closed mindset where one doesn't speak and the other being an impulsive extreme- where one doesn't act before thinking. It takes some maturity or pure innocence to be spontaneous, you have a good chance of finding both kinds of interns, if you are looking out, keenly.

4- Non-judgmental observation: This is another quality that requires either a lot of maturity or just pure innocence. Can you observe phenomenon around you? Do you have a concept of a phenomenon? Can you see patterns around you? CXOs can see industry trends and new opportunities by connecting the dots- it is synthesis at work.

5- Systems Awareness: Do you confine your thinking to the specific problem on hand? Would you rather see the systemic change required to cut off such problems? For example if your workers make a mistake repeatedly, do you see a need for training or a need for a revised selection process? Can you respond to challenges/opportunities through systems? Can you see through the other organizations and decode their systems?

I started up at 19, one doesn't need years and years of experience to be a CXO. One just needs the self-esteem, learnability and ambition required to endure a purposeful and perseverant pursuit. This is just the beginning of a revolution. I hope this articles catalyzes the synthesis of a possibility within the minds of both youngsters and leaders, so the conventional myth of youngsters being followers is replaced by seeing the unicorn talents as CXOs? You can pay 20lakhs p.a. and get a CXO, but the value you get from an intern who functions like a CXO only triggers a virtuous cycle. Such youngsters are priceless!

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Tarun, Founder, DeepThought EduTech ventures, is a Mathematician by training, started teaching at 16, Sciensation at 19. He is interested in human capital development. Sciensation interns have it to world's best organizations and universities like INSEAD, ISB, KPMG, PwC. Tarun was able to bootstrap and research an idea with an army of interns.