Listen for the Notes that Aren’t Played

Aug 26

There is a comment I keep returning to from a conversation I had recently with Shalaka Kharche.

She is describing Indian classical music — the ragas she has studied since childhood, the harmonium, and now the sitar she is learning in Seattle. She is talking about what the practice has taught her about leadership, and she says, “It’s not just what you are playing. It is understanding what is not being played.”

In a raga, she explains, the musician learns to hear the gaps between the beats. The silence between the notes. The space where the music breathes. A beginner plays the notes they have been given. A seasoned musician listens for what is missing and finds the music there.

Rebel With a Cause

Shalaka spent two decades leading product at Amazon, GE, and Honeywell before founding CareGrid Health, an AI consulting company helping independent clinics reduce the administrative burden that suffocates both doctors and patients. She is an engineer by training, a musician at heart, and — by her own description — a rebel.

As you can imagine, the rebel part started early. Growing up in India, she was told explicitly what paths were available to women in technology. Still, she chose differently. Then she and her husband gave up their jobs, went to graduate school together, had a baby, and started over — moving from, as she put it, net negative to net positive. When she finished her first master’s degree, her infant was in her lap.

I asked her about that image. She smiled and said it wasn’t about defiance for its own sake. It was about something simpler: I cannot be put in a box. And so she kept walking through doors that weren’t supposed to be open to her because she genuinely could not see the walls others saw.

What strikes me about Shalaka’s story is that her rebellion was grounded in something deeper than just being a rebel for the sake of rebellion. It came from a systems thinker’s instinct, inherited from a father who liked to take apart VCRs to see how they worked, and a mother who taught her that every problem has inherent beauty. Engineering gave her the discipline to follow the signals. Music gave her the instinct to listen to what wasn’t being said.

Bridging Music & Engineering

When she describes her work as a product leader, she returns again and again to the music metaphor. A product team is an ensemble. The product manager is listening to every instrument at once, noticing when one is rushing, feeling when the rhythm is pulling apart, knowing when to bring the whole thing back together. This is not something you learn in a workshop, she says. It is a practice. It is built slowly, over years, through the accumulation of attention.

What she is describing — though she doesn’t use this language — is what researchers like Lisa Feldman Barrett would call interoceptive awareness extended outward: the capacity to notice subtle signals, in yourself and in others, before they become crises. It’s a type of perception that comes from presence and from awareness.

Play to the Music

The Bhagavad Gita offers a concept that Shalaka returned to at the end of our conversation. Focus on right action. Do not attach to outcomes. It is ancient wisdom that sounds, on the surface, like it might excuse passivity. But Shalaka’s life is its own argument against that reading. She has taken big risks — left stable careers, founded a company in a complex industry, committed herself to changing a healthcare system that has resisted change for decades. None of that is passive.

This is also, I realized listening to her, what the raga teaches. You learn the notes, you learn the constraints, and then acting within those constraints, you play with everything you have. You do not play to the outcome. You play to the music.

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Shalaka what mindful leadership means to her. She paused before answering and said it is about building conviction in your team that you are moving in the right direction. This is done not by telling them what to do, but by helping them understand how they fit into the larger picture. It is about speaking your mission until it becomes the way your team thinks. It is about knowing that in ambiguous spaces you cannot promise outcomes. You can only promise the quality of your attention, the clarity of your values, and the willingness to learn like a beginner every time the situation changes.

Beginner’s Mind Leaves No Room for Ego

Learning a new raga, she told me, means starting from scratch, even if you already know ten others. The musician who arrives with past songs as luggage cannot hear the new music. The new leader who arrives with certainty cannot hear their team.

I left that conversation thinking about what I listen for in my own work. As a coach, as a writer, as someone who has spent decades practicing mindful attention — am I hearing what is being played? Or are there ways for me to hear what is missing, too?

If you want to hear more from Shalaka, I encourage you to watch the conversation, check out her business CareGrid Health, and to connect with her on LinkedIn.

Key Takeaways

Leading in a complex system is like improvising within a raga: learn the structure, listen for what isn't being said, and respond with sensitivity rather than mechanically following a framework.
A product leader works like the director of an orchestra, listening to every player at once and noticing when one is rushing or the rhythm is pulling apart. Shalaka sees this as a skill built through years of practice, not something learned in a workshop.
AI isn't just a tool, in Shalaka's view. It's an amplifier: added to a well-designed system, it amplifies efficiency, and added to a broken one, it amplifies the problems.
Before adopting AI, teams need to understand the problem they're solving and for whom, the outcome they want, and how they'll measure the return. AI solutions also aren't one-time projects. They need to evolve as the organization's strategy changes.
Many problems that look technical are actually organizational. Shalaka has seen clinics invest in AI scheduling tools and still have the same patient no-show rates, because the real issue was communication and how the clinic operates.
Mindfulness at work is often reduced to offering a meditation app as a benefit. Shalaka argues it matters far more in how leaders lead, especially in ambiguous situations.
In ambiguous work, leaders can't promise outcomes. They can set clear values and non-negotiables, give their teams freedom within those constraints, and explain how each person fits into the larger picture.
A beginner's mind leaves no room for ego. Learning a new raga means starting from scratch even if you know ten others, and the same openness helped Shalaka move successfully between industries.

Quotes from this Conversation

"It is about not just what you're playing, but understanding what is not being played." — Shalaka Kharche
"If you bring in AI to your already broken system, it's going to amplify that." — Shalaka Kharche
"Nobody can put me in a box." — Shalaka Kharche
"Once a student, always a student." — Anu Arora

Questions this Episode Answers

How can leaders make decisions in ambiguous situations when they can't promise outcomes?
What can Indian classical music teach us about leadership?
Why do so many AI projects stall after the pilot phase?
Is a meditation app enough to make a workplace mindful?
What does a beginner's mindset look like for experienced leaders?

Anu Arora (0:02)
Welcome to the next edition of Mindful Leadership Podcast. Today I have with me Shalaka Kharche. She is a leader who has been leading products for two decades at Amazon, GE, Honeywell, among with many other tech companies, recently she quit her job and started her own startup, and she is the CEO of that, CareGrid Health. She's also spent years studying Indian classical music. I'm delighted to have her today with us on this podcast. Welcome, Shalaka.
Shalaka Kharche (0:42)
Thank you, Anu. I'm very happy to be here.
Anu Arora (0:47)
My first question for you is this: You know, an image just before you, you know, we started the podcast. We were chatting about you and what you've done so far, and there are certain images that have stayed with me in that with that conversation, and the first image which is which is there is you getting your MBA degree with your baby in your lap. You went in and you got your MBA degree. So tell me a little bit about that. We're going to start in a very unusual place, and then we'll come back to to the other things that we spoke about.
Shalaka Kharche (1:26)
Sure, sure. So actually, it it was my first masters in engineering where I had my first baby, and then MBA was 10 years later when my daughter was for one year old.
Anu Arora (1:38)
Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah.
Shalaka Kharche (1:41)
But it was an interesting period. You know, coming from India, you know, born to very humble parents, where the values of hard work and you know study hard, work hard, and make a place in in the world following the right things. Where where something that was ingrained in me, and I've been born in a colony of where there was like top of the crops: engineers, scientists, researchers, you name it. The bar for academics was very high for all the kids of these employees in that company, right? But the expectation was clear: like we have to work hard and get our own, you know, place, find our own path, but if you think of our culture also from where we come from, as in I come from India, and I come from family which is like educated. They started with humbleness, but a lot of importance is given to education. So values of respect, obedience, and keeping people you know happy around is is always there, but there is always this from the society and environment. There's restriction for women to what they choose, right? And what choices they can make, and then what type of careers they can choose. For example, girls should not go to civil engineering, not to chemical plants. They should choose the path that the technology is going, and take the main fields like computer science and electrical engineering. So, so as I grew up in my undergrad years, I I wanted to do something different. Like I did not like this restrictions on me. I cannot. You can. Nobody can put me in a box, and I will always rebel. And so I think that was where my feeling of a little rebelness started, without knowing me, and I just chose a field that was not common in that sense, right? So that's where my uncommon journey started unintentionally to say because I didn't know what I wanted to become growing up, but I knew that I wanted to learn about systems and how things work, which was inspired by my parent, my my dad, he liked to tinker things, and I would like just look at like the VCR that was an that was open, that was a vibrant box. So how does that work, right? So understanding that, and from my mother, I learned about creativity. You know, if there's a problem, how do you see the beauty of the problem? She's she has done MA in arts, and so she was very imaginative and very creative into solving problems. So between both my parents, I had the tech and non-tech part covered, I I guess. And so after I chose, after I finished my undergrad and I got my first job, I I decided I wanted to break free and I wanted to see the world. Okay, and I know my the path to it is education. I have to educate myself and make myself self-reliant so that I can choose where I want to go in the world and I can sustain. Okay, because I want to see the world. I don't want to be in a box. So these questions kept creeping on me. Like, how do people in different places live, right? How are they making choices? What does that life look like? And so, and that's where I met my husband. I mean, we we got married, and then we both decided we wanted to do a master. And so, as as you started with the first question in the unusual way, this was an unusual path for me and my husband, which is unconventional, right? People would get married first; they get job, then get married, and then you know start their life. For us, it was the other way. We gave up our jobs, then went to school together, and then had a baby, and then again started working. So we went from negative to positive over the time. It was it was very humbling situation. The first you know different experience that I had going to a different country, living in a different place between different people, and living with a different person itself. Because you know, with our arranged marriage, we didn't really know each other, right? And fortunately, I got the family that I married into is very supportive.
Shalaka Kharche (5:59)
So, so you see that the the the fact that you caught that I had a baby while I graduated, it was because I had my family with me, all supportive. It was, and you know, it was something very different that that was, I guess, beginning of challenging the status quo at even a bigger level, like where I saw a thought like that girl in Mumbai is just thinking if I change a different field, that's rebellious enough. Yeah, here I'm. I'm seeing I'm seeing rebels all around in a way of saying. Yeah. But what it was really was it was questioning my beliefs of what we know, right? So they were the people I saw around all students. They were parents. They already had two kids. They were doing PhDs. How does that happen? Like I had not seen that world before. So, so it gave me also confidence that yes, I can do it. You know.
Anu Arora (6:55)
And you were then, and to just come in and say, you can't put me in the box. I'm a rebel. Yeah, you did it again and again. The first one was okay. Just because I'm having a baby doesn't mean that I can't go and you know educate myself. The second one was probably another pivotal moment. But I I know there is an another one there where you quit your job and you said I am going to do this startup. Yeah, you want to talk a little bit about how did that come about, which is very recent now. You know, fast forward many years later.
Shalaka Kharche (7:34)
And it's it's also it is accumulative of the experiences that I have, and to say that you know I should have started by saying you know my my my theory of life is that life the way I see it is it's it's a bundle of experiences that we come across and and the decisions we choose to make intentionally or unintentionally. Okay, so so so it is. It is kind of these experiences that bubbled up together. So, what happened is in one of my. So, I worked in healthcare company as one of my job experiences that came through after, you know, after I did my MBA actually. So, so one major move, so one major change of mindset I had was through my MBA at that time, and where I challenged, I I learned about business leadership from Berkeley and my my cohort. It was amazing mindset change. It also challenged how I respond under pressure, and you know it was lot of uncovering about what I wanted, how I felt, what where I wanted to be, and when I worked in the healthcare company, it just it was just like a no brainer for me. So when I started working with the healthcare company, it was the wonderful experience. Like I got exposed to clinicians, hospitals. I could see the systems. I talked to all these medical professionals who were who we were calling in, so that we can take advice and then build our technology accordingly. Which was interesting to see because underlying all the system was very pressurized, right? And as if I put my product manager hat, I would say that you know these technological decisions to make the processes these are not the jobs to be done for doctors. Like they are very trained, very exceptional medical professionals, right? Who have dedicated their life to to serve patients, and are going through immense operational pressures, right? That is not the way they want to live their life themselves, and if you. Studies like there are research out there that say like doctors in big hospitals they spend at least 70% of their time in just administrative tasks, and they all...
Anu Arora (10:09)
And they don't like doing it. Yeah.
Shalaka Kharche (10:11)
Exactly. They don't like doing that in the first place, but still they do because they have a passion to help people. Yeah, and the way our healthcare systems and insurances are set up is that they burden they burden the patients and the doctors in there that that causes them to go through these administrative tasks, right? So that's the main problem here, right? So when when it's not your jobs to be done, you're still made to do that, right? And what what happens is these administrative costs today are twice what it what the clinics spend on patients, and that has been the reason where the independent clinics are shutting down. So it's not a technology problem, you know. It's an it's also an organization problem. It's how the operations are structured, and then with the advent of AI and technology, we have a way to lessen that burden. And so that that was a passion coming up. Like we have experienced this firsthand. That when we are when we visit doctor, we see the doctors rushing through, and as patients, we want our doctors to fully focus on us, our patients, our loved ones who are in the system, and we feel the weight of the system from outside. You know, if you just think from the outside lens, what does a good smooth running operation a clinic looks like to you, like you would say a good clinic is the one where information is accessible. You know the the systems flows smoothly. There is no problem in reports. The advice a doctor gives is good, right? There is no second opinion you need. You're not questioning the question, the advice of the doctor. The doctor is not like not looking at you and prescribing. He's saying like, I know what this is. Go ahead, right? So that is a lot of...
Anu Arora (12:07)
They're spending time with you. They listen to your concerns. They're able to address it. They're not in a hurry to do the paperwork.
Shalaka Kharche (12:16)
Yes. So that is why we thought like you know this is the space that we are so passionate about solving for, and we want to solve a problem that makes a difference for people directly. We have one life, we have one body, right? And we have limited number of doctors. So I felt that this is the place I want to innovate right now, and so that's why I found CareGrid and brought on board my two co-founders, who are one is a one is a medical practitioner and also a board advisor with like more than 30 years of experience, and then the other co-founder is a technical co-founder with exceptional software and AI skills who also had an exit of his two companies before, and with my business thinking and product knowledge. So all three of us, like you know, you can think of what you can get with a bigger consulting company. You are getting it from us like right away, and we are like much cheaper. But our our success, our KPI success is when the clinics are successful. So that is what CareGrid is about. You know, it is about helping the clinics to grow, help them with business growth and AI consulting for the independent clinics, specialty clinics, to begin with. So, if if if it's a if you are a clinician who already have a clinic and you want to see more revenue, you want to have peace of mind in your life, or you you want to start a new clinic, you know. Reach out to me. I would love to help you out. And our success is tied to your success.
Anu Arora (13:47)
Wow! Very cool. Very cool. Where's the rebel in you leading you to? What's the what's coming up now? Yeah.
Shalaka Kharche (13:57)
So this is my rebel, right? So see, I want to change system. I have seen this is such a problem with the healthcare systems today. I mean, and it's different in different countries. It's it's given now. You see, there are a lot of health apps like the watch we wear, right? There are gaps in the systems. Like you think that oh, if I if I know my stats, I will be able to reduce weight. I will be able to do this, but those things are not reaching doctors. There is a fundamental gap in how the technology is used, right? That the rebel in me kind of says like I am about questioning the status quo, like how system works. Like the engineering me has taught me to look at the systems. Like we are taught to look at the signals and not assume anything, right? We would follow the signals and question what is wrong in the system. We will not say, oh, it may be this or it is as it is. That's not an answer we can get through, right? So, so that helps me to look into systems and question those, and I, I truly. Like for me, for my for my kid, for my family, friends, I want to see a healthcare system that actually solves for the patients, not for the hospitals or the insurance companies, right? So that is, I think you could say that is our rebellion to kind of change the healthcare system wherever we can.
Anu Arora (15:18)
Yeah, yeah. So there is something else which you also have within you, which is you said the engineer in me, the rebel in you, and there is also a musician in you.
Shalaka Kharche (15:31)
Yes.
Anu Arora (15:32)
You are trained in Indian classical music for many years. Do you do you still practice it?
Shalaka Kharche (15:40)
Yes, and so music is has been a part of my life forever. Like I've been learning singing since I was a kid, and I just love that how it makes me feel. Let me put it that way, you know. So you know, then the part about music is so I learned vocals, Indian classical music, which is I feel like it's the most complex and intricate form of music to learn for a logical person. That is like you know complex systems all coming together, kind of a feeling, analogous to that. And so I started learning vocals, and then I learned harmonium, which is like well, not a piano played with a one hand, with bellows. And I'm been learning sitar now in Seattle, and that has been a constant part of my life. There was a year where I had to stop music because I was moving countries and I was figuring out new life and new way of working, and I didn't know, you know, I didn't have an instrument with me, but I didn't know where to find teacher and everything. Like it was such a chaos that one year I went without learning music, and it it made me very uncomfortable. I can, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so so the the thing about music is, and it's it's a it's a very passion topic. Now you like hit it, okay? So...
Anu Arora (17:05)
That's okay. Go ahead. I was going to say how how is it how has it played in your life, and you are answering that question.
Shalaka Kharche (17:14)
Yeah. So so music. I feel you know now that I've learned a lot of parts. So in all honesty, I am a full-time student of music. I am not a professional musician kind of a stage. I am going to be learning music all my life. That's how I see myself. I'm a student of music always. In in music, we have this concept called ragas, where basically there are different ragas that are formed by different notes, like we say, sa re ga ma pa, I would say just five notes, seven notes, how much ever notes they are, and it's it's kind of a system which is created to give a creative, what do you say, creative constraints in the system, right? So you have to use those notes. You have a way of ascending and descending for a particular raga, which is kind of signature. You have to work within that constraint, right? And it's very analogous to life, right? You have systems, you have constraint, and you need the freedom to think and move through it. I mean, you see the when you see music, right? There are couple of things that the music teaches you. So one most important thing that that I I think I learned only because it was music. It was outside the work, and I learned music is is the the ability to listen. What I mean is, you see you have these system, you have constraints given, right, and I can give you a framework to play a song and you will play it, but you will start as a playing mechanically. Okay, these are the notes to play, I am playing these notes, it's very dry, right? And in the music it is about not just what you're playing, but understanding what is not being played. Like where are the gaps when you're playing beats? What is the distance between the beats? We play notes between the gaps between the beats and between the fraction of the beats. So it's math in there, of course, but it has emotions attached in a way that are very different. Like mechanically, you would play, but you have to be hearing it. You have to feel the music. Like you have to understand it. Like you almost go in a trance when you are playing it, right? And that music that comes out emotionally is is wonderful music. So what that tells us is I can listen when how the rhythm is going. I can learn and improvise within that. And when I'm playing in an ensemble with different musicians, different instrument players, we have to listen to each other while we are playing. Right as. So we have to keep up the rhythm. If one goes higher in speed, we all have to go higher in speed. Then how do you bring them back? That's also an art. So that takes teamwork, collaboration, and it's you know it's like a director is like an orchestrator, a director of orchestra is how we we call it, right? That's how the product manager role is. How I saw, like there are different people with different functions. They are the different notes, and we have to figure out how to play those notes together to form a beautiful music, which is a product and the service that we build, and how it makes people feel is the impact that we bring in to to our audiences, so music has lots to teach about. Mainly, mostly about what is not said, the hesitation, the the little change. You know, when and it it is not something that can be learned in a workshop. It is a practice that you build over time, and it's only the it's the only hard way to learn that. And I'm not saying that you have to learn only music to understand the ability to listen and be empathetic, but you know whatever you whatever is your hobby, you have to go deep in with passion, and that the passion is another aspect of leadership that I also learn from music. I would say, because only when I feel connected to something that I'm doing is is something that comes out. The outcome is is really good, and then I can express that. I can tell people, you know, bring them tell.
You know, we call in leadership like you have to keep talking about your vision until it becomes a second nature of the team in terms of how they think about it. So it's it's it's lots to do about you know with with music. Frameworks are always there to kind of get a head start, which is good. It's not to say frameworks are bad, but they are constraints. But you need to be looking. You need to need to cultivate an ability to look beyond, question beyond what is not said, and therefore I say like the processes, the frameworks. You know, they they are not the only thing you should look at, but you know you should learn the ability. Have a beginner's mind, and when you learn a new raga, you cannot say that. Oh, I because I know 10 other ragas, I can play this. It never happens. You have to learn like a beginner. You chuck your ego out of the door, and start with the basics. Now that is very important.
Anu Arora (22:41)
Student again, like you say, you are always a student. Once a student, always a student. Learning, you know, new raga is going back to the basics again.
Shalaka Kharche (22:51)
And that has actually helped me to when I move different industries. It was the passion of what problem I'm trying to solve that moved me between these opportunities as they came in front of me, but I think the reason I succeeded was because I already had this line of questioning, you know, ability to see new industries with a new mind that actually helped me to get through these areas to begin with.
Anu Arora (23:20)
See, lot in there to unpack. Really, when I hear you talk about music, it's not only that it has shaped your leadership philosophy. It's also helped you have that beginner's mindset. It's also helped you maybe look at change as more as opportunity for for growth. Opportunity to do something new versus oh, I need to be worried about everything around me is changing.
Shalaka Kharche (23:52)
Yes.
Anu Arora (23:53)
And that brings us to the AI, the world world of AI. Everybody's talking about AI. I have been asking this question to everyone whom I've been bringing in the last few months on my podcast. Is you know the fear of AI is increasing. You know overall there's a general sense of fear of change, of course, that's there, but also fear of what it'll do in the future is also there, and fear of what happened to me as a result of that is also there. So, how do you view this? All this big, massive shift that is happening with AI, and where do you stand in terms of future? If you have any views about that.
Shalaka Kharche (24:48)
Yes, that's a very good question and a very important one, especially because we are the AI was there for long before. You know, we learned neural networks and deep learning models for years, but right now, what the the shift that has happened is it has become more accessible, and so now the people who were not technical are able to use it and build things, and so that that speed you know the the speed at which AI has grown is so fast it is not equivalent to the speed that we are able to understand and catch up with it, and so there is a natural anxiety into hey, what is this? What does this mean? And we are learning it along the way. Now, what's happening is, first of all, what I see the the challenge I see, okay, I'll I'll tell you about that. Is that you know when we say AI, people immediately start thinking, what AI tool do you use? And there are a lot of you know a lot of articles, a lot of podcasts where people show, hey, I'll show you how to build this. I'll show you how to build that. We made million dollars and all that. You see the statistics, okay? 50. The Gartner. This is Gartner's report, latest Gartner's report that says that 50% of the AI models that were abandoned right after their pilot phase, which is higher than the 30% that they reported the last year, so and why this is happening is because you know it's it's great. I would say number one, it's great that people are have now the ability to build what they want, but the underlying thing is there are two things in there, right? One is, are you asking what problem are you solving for whom? Right. So what happens? And the second is okay. You when the AI agents are built, many times they are considered as one-time project. So and we know, right? We we have a roadmap. We change the roadmap as as we evolve the company, but then how should you see the agents and the AI solutions that you are deploying? As your organization changes, your strategy changes, right? And your agents also need to change. Is your agent scalable? You can't just deploy and say I'm done. I got money. That's great. You got money, but it is not sustainable, right? So you need to think of how you would improve AI and scale it with the company. And the most important thing here is to think about what is that outcome you want to drive with the solution that you're building with AI. And the thing to say that AI is a tool is is not something that I am in terms with, right? So AI, I feel it's it's it's like it's not a product, and it is a way to it's it's a it's like an amplifier, okay? So and it all depends on how your systems are designed to begin with, your operational workflows, your systems, right? If you bring in AI to a awesomely well-designed system, it's going to amplify the efficiency. You're going to see nice throughput going on, right? But if you bring in AI to your already broken system, it's going to amplify that, break it, and then you're going to put a lot of money to then put bandages to fix that. So the most important problem is to understand your systems. What are you trying to achieve there, and then see how you leverage AI for your outcomes. Like that is where I see what is missing in that shift that's happening is people are confusing or not thinking about the problem. If you think about the problem, then you can use AI. And the second is it's very easy to copy paste. Okay, somebody build this. I'm going to build this. Great, right? Of course, like a non-technical person is probably not understanding the AI. But I know there are people who are doing the due diligence to understand the security, the governance of AI that goes in. Right? It's very important. Like one of my clients I was working with, you know, they are very new in the using of AI space. They know they can use AI, but don't know. So they ask for advice. Hey, tell us how to do and like you know what can we do?
Shalaka Kharche (29:33)
And so they all have a tool. They are. I mean, some have Claude, some have some other tools, and and most of them use the first line like like a chat, great. They they are trying to learn, but then you know the understanding of how your tokens are being utilized. You know where are you spending money? How is your investment showing up? How are you measuring that? That is something I think I am seeing common across, even in healthcare. More so in healthcare, I would say, like 80% of the healthcare projects, as as as one of the researchers even at MIT said that they fail after the initial phase, and 95% in the enterprise AI, they don't know what's the ROI coming out. So the education of how this AI investment is leading to the ROI, it is some. It's it's a knowledge that I don't think most people have, and that is like you know those are the gaps in in how we are moving towards. There are people who know this well, or rather, know it better than everybody else, which is great. But but I I would urge everyone to think of the problem you are trying to solve. What is the outcome you are trying to achieve? What is the ROI you are going to get, and how are you going to keep maintaining and building the responsible AI for your systems.
Anu Arora (31:01)
You know what was coming up for me? So I, when I started my career in the tech industry, my first job was in QA, and we used to call this by that you build quality by design, which means that you, when you design the product, you think of you know, is it global? Is it scalable? Is does it have unit tests built into it so that it doesn't you know break, you know, by the time it's built it's not breaking apart. So all the things you would take into account while building the product, and I think it's the same way. I just came up with this thing, I don't think it's out there yet. AI by design, which means that as you are building the product in parallel, you are looking at if you know I am going to build it in a for all these different things. You know, does it have the right quality? Is it globalized? Is does is it scalable? Does it have the right, you know, security, privacy? Then I have to build it along with.
Shalaka Kharche (32:08)
Yeah, I like how you term the AI by design. The reason is that when you look at systems, and I look at systems like like that's my default. Okay, I'm going to look at when you ask me a problem, I'm going to look at your systems. There's no other way, right? I have to understand what you are doing end to end to then recommend, like you know, if that is exactly what you need, I'll tell you. But if that's a symptom and not the cause, then I will call that out. But one important things when you said the design, it was like where you place AI, and not just AI, like where you are placing your solution, it's it's also important to see that journey. For example, in clinics, I see like oh there are a lot of AI scheduling tools now out there, right, and also revenue management tools. So these now clinics doctors, you know, they they invest in AI scheduling tools and and think that okay, their scheduling is going to get simplified, but then it does not. They they later on see that this has come up in our explorations that we talk to doctors that you know. Oh, then they see that okay, the the no-show of patients has not gone gone down. It's still as it is because it's not a technology problem at that time, it is it is like leadership problem. It's a system problem. It's organization problem. See how does that fit? How is that communication? You know, it's is it solving communication? Is it solving the you know the that piece of the journey is very important.
Anu Arora (33:37)
What's the outcome? Like you said, what's the problem you're solving? What's the outcome you desire? How are you using this? So we're going to move to another aspect because, just in interest of time, is on mindful leadership because I know that a lot of your own leadership has been defined by your variety of experiences you've had. The rebel in you who kept taking risks when people said you probably can't. Also, it's also been defined by your deep interest in music and being a student of music throughout your life, except that one year gap you had. Now, what do you think about mindful leadership? How do you define it, and how do you bring into play for yourself?
Shalaka Kharche (34:24)
That's a very very interesting question. The reason because you know, as we we look at the workplace, right? When we talk about mindfulness at workplace, the first thing that came to my mind when you asked me that question was a meditation app that the first thing that I had heard at my workplace. So when you you know in a workplace when we think of mindfulness, it's very many times confused with meditation, and at least that's where you started, right? Hey, if I give you meditation app, do it 10. 10 minutes a day, and you're done. And then the company takes the KPIs into how many people are engaging with the app, and then call it like, yeah, yeah, we have benefits given to employees for their mind, for their mindfulness, or you know, keeping them calm and stuff like that. But nobody is answering like this. This is taken as these benefits are taken as, hey, this is something separate as a benefit, as a co-curricular activity. It's voluntary. You, it's option given to the employees. You take it or leave it, right? But I don't think companies have seen how this should be actually incorporated to again the outcomes, right? What does that mean for you? Like, why have you put in meditation app? How are you measuring that? That actually the employees are benefiting out of it. You know, most of the times it the KPIs are like, of of course, you did you bring the revenue? You do how you work? I don't care, right? So I think that's a gap, and and when we talk about mindfulness, you know, it's it's it's not just about you know meditation app, done, but...
Anu Arora (36:12)
Yeah, and I am also interested in how do you lead mindfully. So as a leader, how do you stay in the present? And in fact, you were answering that question throughout. You were saying that I became a better listener. I could see it was in between the notes, you know, looking at subtleties, the human experiences, the empathy which came with that, the the struggles which other people were experiencing, and so the way I describe mindful leadership and my podcast is more about how do leaders lead in a way that they are more present with the other person connected and also present in the current moment.
Shalaka Kharche (36:57)
Yes, and also there's there's you know there are like three aspects of leadership, at least. I mean there are many, but but it it it comes back to when you say mindful leadership. It's it's also about like what are the qualities of leader that you are practicing, right? So one of the things that I learned from leading people at big companies, like bringing up a product is like, hey, you have to work with everybody in the company, bring them on the same page, right? And it's it's a difficult part. What works there is, is is that leadership is not about you know giving teams chunks of work to do and done, but it is about like you know, building the conviction in the team that we are going in the right direction, and we have the ability to achieve it, right? So it's about and the willingness to talk about your mission until it becomes part of how people think. So it's all about how you think, how people think and how you can help people think, like you know that's that's a part of big part of being mindful, right? The the other thing I wanted to say is that you know many times this I mean like not necessarily to say about mindfulness, but the expectation of this big. In an ambiguous space, this mindfulness comes a lot into ambiguous spaces, right? And I have I have worked in products that are completely ambiguous. Like it starts with a new space, right? And many times the expectation is that when you're going in an ambiguous space, when you say, "Hey, this is the direction," the expectation is that, "Hey, this is the outcome." Like this is, we cannot. You cannot promise the outcomes. As in, you are think about the outcomes, the direction that you are going. It's not exactly. You have to figure things out in that constraints, right? So that is what going in an ambiguous space means. Like you have to embrace ambiguity, know that you don't know anything, and have the values, the principles, the non-negotiables, right? The quality, as you had said before, you know you have to define those, and between those constraints, you have to give the team freedom enough that they can respond to the situations that are coming coming across them when they are thinking of the product in the ambiguous spaces and what they are building. So I think that's a bigger part of the leadership that I I experience, and it's it it has to be like you have to be bought in your own idea. You have to be passionate about the problem you are solving in order to convince others that this is in fact the problem we are solving, and they will start speaking the same mission, the same language, and that is how you know I it helped me to kind of get in the healthcare to build that platform that I did, and it was not a one person thing, right? It is a team effort.
Anu Arora (40:11)
Everybody coming together there and bringing the best forward.
Shalaka Kharche (40:15)
You need to tell. You need to explain to the teams like how they fit in that larger picture, how they can contribute, and because that then they can feel connected, right? Okay, this is what I can contribute to. This is what I do. That makes this work.
Anu Arora (40:30)
They see.
Shalaka Kharche (40:33)
Yeah, if you want to move needle in healthcare, you want to accelerate it. How how is your contribution going to help that? And I think that is a bigger part of getting people on board. If if you show that it's like a win-win situation, right? I like a yin and yang. Hey, yeah, I it's it's my responsibility to get this through. But hey, it's your equal responsibility. We are working together, and there is like you also feel passionate. You also should feel excited about working on that, right? If the problem doesn't resonate with you, then don't work.
Anu Arora (41:06)
Yeah, no, that makes sense. So, in the end, in the next 30 seconds, what's the message you want to leave my audience with?
Shalaka Kharche (41:16)
I would say embrace ambiguity, chuck your ego out, have the beginner mindset, question the status quo, and be student always. That is how you'll navigate this ambiguity coming to us in the in the age of AI, and it will allow you to just find the problems. Just focus on finding the problems and solving it. It's a quote from Bhagavad Gita that we all know of, and I'll just translate it to say that you know, just follow the right actions that you have to do. Don't worry about the outcomes; they will follow.
Anu Arora (41:51)
Wow, very cool! That's such a great note to end on. Thank you, Shalaka, for your time and wisdom. I really appreciate you having on the show, thank you.
Shalaka Kharche (42:01)
Thank you, Anu. It's it's wonderful to be on your show, and thank you for calling me on.
Anu Arora (42:06)
Thank you.