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Sairam Ramadass – Never Busy, Always Productive | Conversations with Coaches | Boxer Media

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Conversations with Coaches | Boxer Media

Sairam has been working in the IT industry for the last 26+ years. His industry experience includes manufacturing, government, finance, food, e-commerce, retail, and more. He’s a certified Agile/DevOps coach and trainer, and since 2011 he’s been helping organizations transform from a traditional to an Agile mindset.

Sairam’s enthusiasm and energy are contagious in all the best possible ways! We talk about the importance of transitioning from a “command and control” model of leadership to something much more Agile, and all the ways in which that helps modern organizations to grow and thrive.

We also touch on his work in both the private and public sectors – how they differ, how they relate, and the ways in which transformation moves through teams and departments.

Sairam was truly a joy to speak with, and I could’ve easily picked any one of a dozen things he said to use as the title for this episode. Give a listen, and get to know this excellent coach a little better.

To learn more about Sairam:

https://ajjstech.ca/

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Kevin Stafford 0:02
Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of the coffee with Coach podcast. I’m your host, Kevin and I just realized I left my microphone off to the side. We’re gonna bring that right up here. A little a little podcast production in real time. Pleasure to have you with us today. And today I have the pleasure of speaking with saram Rama Das. Did I get that right? Yes, he’s got us. Yes, excellent. serum has been working in the IT industry for the last 26 plus years. His industry experience includes manufacturing, government, finance, food, ecommerce, retail, and more. He’s a certified agile DevOps Coach and Trainer. And since 2011, he’s been helping organizations transform from a traditional to an agile mindset capital, a agile CRM, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

Sairam Ramadass 0:47
Thanks. Good. Thanks for having me here.

Kevin Stafford 0:50
Let’s let’s get started at the start, how did you become or and or realize that you were a coach? And then how did you go about going from there to beginning a coaching business?

Sairam Ramadass 1:01
It’s a really interesting story. So I always cherish leadership, I love leadership. And I always seen success of the team defines my success. But having said that, everybody gets a turn in their life. So I had a friend, I had my manager by name, Derek valen, which I met in ing. And he introduced me to Dale Carnegie, if you guys know Dale Carnegie, he also introduced me to agile in 2007. That really changed my mindset, I really moved from being a guy that tries to relay command and control to a servant leader. Right. And that’s pretty interesting transformation. That’s the shift in the mindset, that gave me an aha moment. And I just thought, I should start to do the same thing for the rest of the organizations I’ve worked with. So that’s really when I started, right. And it’s been pretty interesting. I’ve been working with the corporate world for since then, like, till 2018, I was working in the corporate world. And then in 2018, I started my own business. Right. And I started serving both private, and particularly a lot in the public sector space in the Government of Canada.

Kevin Stafford 2:17
That’s excellent. I love that transition. It’s like, and also I very much I know, it’s a very, very well known term. But I love that command and control, shifting away from that style of leadership. It’s such a, it’s, I mean, it’s such a succinct way to speak to some of the like, old problems that we’ve had in the way and the way that we think of leadership and the way that we structure our leadership. And this goes, I know, it’s obviously it’s obviously very well known in the corporate realm, but this goes all the way down to like the personal like your leadership in your daily life. As an entrepreneur, as a business person, it goes everywhere, that desire to again, command and control and shifting away from that to something that’s a little bit more agile, a little bit more nimble, flexible, adaptable, you know, and I just, I love I love those values, you represent those.

Sairam Ramadass 2:59
I understand you have to unlearn to learn the new way.

Kevin Stafford 3:03
Right. Gotta clear the decks because there’s we got a lot of bad habits in there, don’t we?

Sairam Ramadass 3:07
Yeah. Yeah, everyone, right. And I learn every day myself as I see people, right. And when I talk to someone, and I see patterns, that’s what I see. I see behaviors, right? And that is how I coach them. I see patterns and behaviors all the time. If I see different patterns, and they see that it becomes like a blame culture, then I really just jump on to say, Hey, listen, if I point on you three fingers point on me.

Kevin Stafford 3:36
I love that. Let’s, uh, let’s move. Let’s move into the president, let’s talk about who I’ve been. I’ve been playing with different ways to ask this question. But I think I’ve settled on one that I really like, it kind of captures the whole breadth of of what we’re trying to get out with the question, Who do you coach? And how do you coach them? The WHO being like, like, who you focus on whether it’s, you know, like you said, used to be in the corporate realm, you’ve moved into the public sector with some of your coaching. So things like that. And then also the how being are you primarily one on one? Do you do a lot of team coaching or like mastermind style coaching? Do you do any keynote speaking all of the above,

Sairam Ramadass 4:10
it’s actually all of the above right? One on one, I do group coaching. I also do two big trainings, right? One and Agile and Scrum as a practitioner, right. And I also do Agile leadership training, which is one of the best one I do the Agile leadership training. I train anyone in both managers and executives. If you look into the Government of Canada as an example, I do a lot of training to the director General’s and assistant deputy ministers on agile leadership. Right, it brings an interesting transformation, because this goes back to the point that initially said, really driving them towards getting them to understand command and control is not the way to achieve results. So your destination is important, but your journey is on As important as your destination.

Kevin Stafford 5:03
And in fact, it’s hard to separate them once you see them for what they are. They’re a part of the same continuum, so to speak.

Sairam Ramadass 5:08
Right? And I also tell them, how do you really define success? Success, success is not something just to get the destination. Success is something when you go through that journey. And you everybody reached safe through a journey to the destination, and still being happy and wanting to work.

Kevin Stafford 5:30
Yeah, oh, yeah, that’s such a great, I love the way that you position that because it’s such a, I find that to be like, really, at the heart of where a lot of coaches are so helpful and so strong, is that they don’t just necessarily give you the answers. They give you better questions to ask. And the question isn’t necessarily, do you want to be successful? It’s like, or like, how do I go about being successful? Let’s try a better question. What does success look like? For you? Let’s talk about that. And then I love that process of getting to the better question, because then that, that illuminates the understanding of so much about what it is you’re trying to do. In your business, in your in your profession, that it’s just it’s it’s has such a tremendous effect on your ability to move forward.

Sairam Ramadass 6:10
And, you know, when you’re comfortable success, I, the first thing that comes to my mind is outcome and value. Right? What is the outcome that you really want to get? When I work with the Government of Canada, the first thing I always ask them is, what value are you going to generate to the Canadian citizens? Right, if I focus on the value, then I’m really focused on the goals that I really want to achieve.

Kevin Stafford 6:36
You it’s very easy to lose your way on the on the journey, isn’t it? You get distracted, I imagine. It’s it’s a it’s a very particular issue in the public sector, working with government where it’s very easy to get bogged down or distracted by all manner of things like your bureaucratic goals. Like structural goals, like just middle management, like all these different tiers, I actually kind of wanted to ask you about this, because I haven’t talked with many people who’ve worked so significantly with both the public and the private sector. What What, if any, have you found to be some of the similarities or differences between working as a coach in the public in the private sector with governments and corporations?

Sairam Ramadass 7:15
Its, its corporations. You know, one of the major thing I see is, once the top down leaders see the value, right, they can, they have more leverage to drive down the change within the organization. Okay. But when it comes to public sector, there is a lot of different like you said, bureaucracy constraint, but I have been very lucky to have few leaders, for example, one of the person that I really worked very close with by named Michelle server, right, he hired me as when I say, hired as a consultant, as a coach to work with a team. Then he saw the potential of me training his team members. And that really triggered him. He’s a real visionary that really triggered him to train the rest of the department. So in the last three years, I’ve trained almost 500 people within the organization within the government of Canada. Right, that includes more than 100 Different director generals and directors on specifically on the leadership.

Kevin Stafford 8:15
I love that. I love that I love the I know this is a bit of a not a dirty word, but like how contagious that is, in a good way. The good kind of contagious?

Sairam Ramadass 8:26
Absolutely, yes. Right. So for the rest of the year, my training calendar is fully booked. Right? That’s how, how crazy it is. That’s awesome. One thing I see is, you know, coating is something that it just beyond giving training, right? That is not you know, that you do actively, as you go to any meeting as an example. You go to a meeting, you listen to someone they’re saying, and you’re sometimes you’re giving advice, sometimes you’re asking them a question to get to the right decision. I always tell people, people are scared to even ask a question. I said, there is nothing wrong in asking a question as long as you do not hurt people.

Kevin Stafford 9:09
Well said well said Right. Yeah. And that’s it’s really, it’s so much something I find so inaccurate that I find to be very, very present. And most of the coaches I speak with is a certain lowercase agile, certain lowercase agility where it’s everyone, every coach understands that it’s important to not just to come in with a prescription or with a whole bunch of answers, but to come in with questions and to come in with patience and to be listening. And it’s not about necessarily coming in with the answers. And then kind of walking people through it. It’s about saying the right thing at the right time, saying what someone needs to hear guiding them in the direction you need to go in. Yeah.

Sairam Ramadass 9:44
I mean, it’s very interesting. You said listening, you know, you want to want to add one more thing. It’s active listening,

Kevin Stafford 9:49
correct? Yes, absolutely.

Sairam Ramadass 9:52
One thing I really do to be successful is most of the times when you go to different trainings, they talk But what is agile? What is leadership? What is Scrum. But most of the people are hungry to know the how. So there is a concept in Japanese term called Shu Hari. Right, Shu, Hari Shu means you just if you go into karate, right, you just follow the master. Whatever the master says the sensei says you just follow the master. Right? As you grow into it, you move from the shoe to the heart state. The heart state is where you try your own tricks. Can I do this way? Can I do that way? And when you go to the RE, you are the master.

Kevin Stafford 10:38
I like that. I like that it’s very, I once again, the Japanese language comes to the rescue, because that’s that’s a very elegant way to represent that that concept. I love that. Yeah.

Sairam Ramadass 10:49
You got to read it, tell them we have in the beginning, right? So you get engagement through that, that so people started like you, they think, okay, I can ask this person, you build credibility. Right? So I always use the word credibility bank, it’s like a bank, you can only use so much. If you don’t replenish it, you lose it.

Kevin Stafford 11:12
That’s a good way to think of it.

Sairam Ramadass 11:14
So what it is, is like, I have to continuously learn and continuously adapt. So I have to preach what I have to do what I preach. If I don’t follow that, I’m going to win the losing end.

Kevin Stafford 11:26
Yeah, you’re the best representative of your coaching principles and practices, people see it, and you know, and see it new, and they’ll have your help in seeing it in themselves, they’ll be able to see it in themselves and begin to take action. Right, exactly. It’s lovely, lovely. Um, and this time has been flying. I feel like I could do this for a while your enthusiasm is just it’s very, it’s very infectious. By the way. It’s like, I’ve got a beautiful, a great smile. And it’s just like, I feel like, I feel more optimistic than usual. And I’m usually a pretty optimistic guy, it’s still feel a very good energy. So And I imagine that that comes through in all your coaching too.

Sairam Ramadass 11:57
I think I think like I told yesterday, people call me You know, I have an infection of really bringing in a positive energy.

Kevin Stafford 12:04
Really, really do. Before we go, where can people two things? Where can people find out more about you? And then where can people connect with and engage with you like whether you have a website where you like to interact with people, or if you have a preferred social media platform, like you’re really active on LinkedIn or Twitter. So yeah, where can people find out more about you and connect with you?

Sairam Ramadass 12:23
I am fully actively involved in LinkedIn, I have a profile. I also have my company. It’s called yeh, J J. S, te ch HS kik.com or.ca. And you can connect me through that. And in LinkedIn, I have given my contact details as well. Absolutely, I can reach anytime. Yeah,

Kevin Stafford 12:44
I noticed I noticed that you had your your your your email and your number there and your LinkedIn and I was like, Hey, is that’s I love that. Again, you’re practicing what you preach. You’re available. You’re you’re available and adaptable is like hey, I want to talk now. You want to talk later. You want to do email. You want to do phone you want to do direct message. Yeah, I’m ready.

Sairam Ramadass 13:02
Are you busy? I said I’m never busy. The reason I say that is there is a difference between being busy versus being productive. Mm hmm.

Kevin Stafford 13:14
Well said and honestly kind of the perfect note to end things on. Don’t be busy, productive. I love it. I might title that the podcast might I’m gonna make that the title of the episode. There we go. We’ll say Erin, thank you so much for being here today and chatting with me. I really I appreciate it. And I’m grateful for it. I’m I’m I’m buoyed by your presence, your enthusiasm and all the work you do. So thank you.

Sairam Ramadass 13:38
Thank you very much.

Kevin Stafford 13:38
Thank you, teacher and thank you to the big to the audience and we will talk to you again soon. Absolutely

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