An Interview of Mr. Sanjay Rishi, the president of USHA Consulting(USHA International Ltd.)

Q.1. Can you tell us something about your job role or job as a consultant?

Ans. Let me give you a perspective of what we do my child. When I was younger, my education was strongly influenced by industrial revolution means skill building i.e., how an instrument or machine works, everything should be measured. But human sciences says that when a person experiences something then that experience has learning as well as unlearning. Unlearning is more important because the learning that made me reach here will not make me reach far. Let me give you an example, suppose I am sports person and I am a regional level player. If I want to reach at national level then I have to sacrifice some of my skills and thoughts to gain something new. So consulting is also influenced this perspective. Consulting is just like adult learning which was also influenced by that industrial revolution so a trainer mind set was developed, trainer centered learning was there, that  is why classes and auditoriums are not audience centered, they are centered to the person who is delivering the matter.

I was very much affected by my upbringing as my father was in army so I studied in 14 different schools for my 16 year’s education. I went to Sikkim, U.P, Shimla, etc. places. I have studied in almost all mediums. So what I learned is that experience is the important part of a person’s life.

In consulting we don’t take anything as an isolated event. It’s not just the issue of leadership, organization structure also matters i.e., whether your organization is supporting you or not, whether you have a correct market understanding, strategies, technologies and policies or not, whether you are working in a right geographies or not. So in consulting we don’t take it stand alone, we look at the holistic solution. Essentially, we look at the business strategies and people strategies to support that business strategy. So we make the people strategies and according to it we make teams and work on developing their skills and leadership qualities.

Q.2. As you have worked with people of different age group, so how do you convince them or deal with them?

Ans. We never convince them. Our work is participant and learner centered . We do the  learner need analysis for example if you are a learner and you are studying physics so you know that what is interesting about physics or boring about it. So we design our work according to the learner’s need. For example, I am working for UNICEF. We have worked with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, etc., they are the part of same organization but every team is unique. Two teams cannot have same policies however some themes are common.

Q.3. How does USHA consulting focus on diagnostic and custom assessment?

Ans. In diagnostic one thing that we do confidential one-to-one people talk, in which we extract your views your ideas and theme and make a schematic analysis without revealing your name.

Second we have a purgatory tool which is the high performance team. In this we get 32 questions and according to those questions we get the data and plot it.

Third thing is we have FGDs (Focus Group Discussions), in this we work in groups and uses sketches, drawings and stories. So we don’t ask any person to tell the problems about any organization, we ask the person to sketch the perspective of that organization and interprets the symbols in that sketch. According to a great psychologist symbols tell us about our sub conscious mind and art, cinema and dance tells us about our culture.

Q.4. Sir, there are many young graduates who want to be in this profession, what advice do you want to give them?

Ans. You can buy resources, competence, can get investors also but the unique thing is your thinking and your voice. My request is that every person should work according to his interest and be completely determined towards it. They should work on their imagination and interest so that they will not regret after 10 years.

Q.5.What should be the strategies for relationship management and developing business?

Ans. For this, go and meet the people who are best in their fields, listen to them. I met a well known painter Sobha Singh in Palampur. In his portraits the eyes of the person are so beautiful. I asked him about this then he told me that a human has eyes as the highest part of the body that is why eyes should be beautiful. So I get a new thinking from him.

Bhindranwale, a terrorist of Punjab who had attacked on Golden temple in 1984 said that history only has violence so what other can be painted.

Q.6.Sir as you said that you were also the part of cinema, painting and drawing, and also a corporate leader so how do you manage all these things or what is your main interest?

Ans. Everything comes from a story. Your thoughts give the direction to leadership. If you have effective thinking then people will listen you gathering around you. So, story matters that is your thinking matters.

Reporters:

Manvi Gupta

Yash Kain

Photographer:

Upendra