Rudhir Krishtel Podcast Transcript
Rudhir Krishtel joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Rudhir Krishtel. Rudhir Krishtel is a CEO, keynote speaker, and lead executive coach at Krishtel LLC. Prior to becoming speaker and coach, Rudhir practiced law for 15 years as a law firm partner and senior in-house counsel at Apple.
His lawyer days led him to train as a teacher for yoga and mindfulness meditation, and as a professional coach and facilitator to help serve as a resource for high performing individuals and teams.
Well, good afternoon, Rudy, welcome to the show!
Rudhir Krishtel: Thank you so much for having me!
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Rudhir, I appreciate you making the time love doing these things.
I’m so, so excited to jump in and start talking a little bit about your story. So, on your first question, you had a significant career as a federal clerk, a passion, a patent
What inspired you to transition from practicing law to becoming an executive coach and consultant?
Rudhir Krishtel: I noticed after 15 years in legal practice that lawyers were incredible to be trained advocating in court or negotiating deals across the table. And so incredible at communications in a particular vertical, and yet.
When it came to having a difficult conversation down the hall about. Leadership about teams about your own well, being or range of topics, it was complicated. And so, there were conversations that we were avoiding in the workplace. We were incredibly effective on the work product, incredibly effective at servicing clients and meeting company needs, and yet challenged at times on how to connect and build with each other.
And I felt like I wanted to have a hand in improving that. I wanted to have a hand in affecting that and affecting change into the workplace.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I think that’s a big miss. We talk about all the projects and products. We have to get out the door for our customers. And I think people do it out of the fact that they just don’t want to, you know, be in the limelight of doing the wrong thing or not getting back with customers or worse.
You know, maybe being let go from the job, but. We, we always disconnect that inner piece of employees and the, the collaboration and, and communication. So I appreciate you highlighting that and deciding to go into that. I think that’s so, so important. So, legal professionals often face unique challenges.
What specific tools or strategies do you provide to help them navigate the most demanding aspects of their workplace?
Rudhir Krishtel: Again lawyers, other high performing individuals, they get to where they are by focusing on their craft, by being incredible at what they do. And then what we often miss are the people around us and the relationships around us and how we grow and invest in a team.
And so, what people often come to me seeking advice on, whether it’s for an individual or a team, is thinking about how we invest in leadership. Again, high performing individuals. That are incredible at their work and yet when it comes to growing and managing a team, it’s more complex. It’s a different ballgame.
And so, I work with individuals and teams on leadership skills, oftentimes thinking about business growth again, being amazing at your individual skill is great. Now, how do we make sure that we’re servicing more clients and expanding the business? And so, we talked a lot about business growth. And I talked to a lot of people about how we build incredible teams.
So, leadership, business growth, team building are all incredible and meaningful aspects of the work that I do.
Brian Thomas: I love that. You’re kind of like the owner’s manual to the workplace. And I think that’s so, so important. We get the fundamentals wrong a lot of times. And at the end of the day, the most complex, yet the simplest of things are right in front of our face.
And that’s, that’s our people. And we need to obviously learn leadership and learn empathy and having those EQ skills. So, I appreciate you again, jumping into the space. This is so, so important. And Revere, can you discuss a case where you’re coaching and consulting significantly transformed a high performing team?
What were the key factors that contributed to their success?
Rudhir Krishtel: Yeah, I’ll talk about teams, and I like to talk about some individuals also on the team side. Oftentimes we engage in a single conversation, or we engage in a series. In one example, we did a workshop or a conversation on managing workplace intensity.
I love that conversation because some people know what an intense workplace is like, and it’s actually okay. Some of the work that we do in the world is intense. Being an incredible lawyer, being an incredible at your company, there’s work that you’re doing that has a significant amount of importance to a lot of people.
And yet the intensity can go high. And how do you engage when it is intense? You know, what causes intensity? Why do we get reactive in the workplace when it’s really important to turn out incredible work? We investigate this conversation in this workshop and in this collective dialogue, and I’ll never forget again, a single 90-minute conversation.
6 months later, I got an email from a team member. And they said, I’m not exactly sure what you did, but a lot has changed in the last 6 months since you came in and spoke with us. The way that we are with each other, the investment that leaders are making in this team and how we respond and react to situations has changed.
And although we’re better and more effective at what we do, the temperature has come down. And I think that’s what’s meaningful is that we make an investment in your team. We’re actually better to each other, better to our customers and ultimately even better to ourselves. And if we can accomplish all of those things while continuing to turn out incredible work for clients and customers.
I think that’s a fascinating result and a really meaningful one on the team side. We work with a particular firm right now and we’re in the middle of it and we engage in a leadership discussion every six weeks. And so we meet with this firm and there’s a different topic every six weeks with the entire group.
And we’re starting to see a meaningful shift. We’re actually working with them in the group. We’re also doing some one-on-one coaching as a part of that. And you’re starting to notice. How dynamics and the team dynamics change people more invested in having the difficult conversations, people being a bit more comfortable giving each other feedback and understanding what it means to lead no matter your title or position.
Oftentimes in hierarchical workplaces, you think leadership is at the top, but everyone has leadership potential, and everyone can lead with respect to what’s on their table and what they’re responsible for. And so, we have these conversations. The tangible results are the team dynamics change the nature of the stress shifts.
And ultimately, we do a much better job. I feel like on serving clients and meeting customer demand.
Brian Thomas: That’s really again, just a. Testament to the work that you’re doing, you know, I, I like the individual example you shared. Of course, that just inspires you to do more the next time. Right? But the fact that you can, you talked about that culture of really everybody’s a leader and power.
Everybody kind of, to me, if you look at it this way, it’s like spreading the workload or spreading the weight. Maybe, as you know, as a team, you can do a lot more than you can do individually. So, I appreciate you embracing that culture, sharing it with people. You just can’t wait for the people at the top to make decisions.
I really like that. So, I appreciate that and last question of the day. Looking ahead, what trends or changes do you foresee in the legal industry and how can professionals prepare for these developments to ensure continued growth and well being
Rudhir Krishtel: a couple of things that are changing? Obviously, with more automated processing through AI and automations through a range of our Technological advancements, but then also in how we’ve settled into a bit more of a hybrid workplace.
I can’t say that it’s perfect yet. And yet whatever we’re doing now is certainly different than what we were doing 56 years ago. More important than anything are relationships. And how we connect with our teams, our clients and our customers. And so, we’re certainly going to get more support technologically in the way that we work and how we work is going to evolve.
We’re also much more comfortable at home or on a screen. That means we have to invest more in connections with the people around us. The people that we work with, the people that we work for, the clients and customers that we bring on increasing and expanding and deepening those relationships.
Are something that the computers can’t do, at least not yet. And so, we want to stay ahead. Oftentimes people call these soft skills, but the soft skills are hard. They’re not what we focused on in the last many years to build our expertise. And now we have to turn to relationships and connecting with people, building trust.
Making sure that we have open, honest communication with our clients and our colleagues, and oftentimes we avoid that difficult conversation. We avoid the meaningful dialogue that it takes to move somebody from just liking you to trusting you. We want to be a trusted advisor, and that means investing in the relationship.
And right now, I think we’re a bit too comfortable. We’re not taking that flight. We’re not meeting for lunch. We’re not reaching out and asking for what we want. And I feel like that is a part of our future is deepening into our humanity. If there are computers that are taking over and streamlining some aspects of our practice and our processes, then deepening and expanding our humanity is really the advantage.
And that’s where I’m focused.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And again, at the end of the day, the people are truly what makes the world go around. And there’s so many things you’ve highlighted that soft skill. And I know we all call it that, but you, you make a great point. The soft skills are hard work. It’s not what you think it is.
You know, we go to school to learn all these things and maybe engineering or to be a lawyer, et cetera. But the soft skills truly are hard, and they’re not generally taught. So, I appreciate the work that you’re doing and what you’ve shared this evening. So, I really appreciate you jumping on today.
And I look forward to speaking with you again real soon.
Rudhir Krishtel: Thanks so much, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Rudhir Krishtel Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
