“The arc of your day is the arc of your life” – Lulu Raghavan, Managing Director of Landor & Fitch India

We were privileged to host Ms Lulu Raghavan at BITSoM for our first ever offline leadership talk. From her schooling, liberal arts education abroad and MBA in India, to her first job and how she fell in love with branding — the conversation covered it all. She also spoke about her interests and passions outside of her work, such as parenting, food blogging, yoga, and vacations.

Here are the takeaways from a riveting conversation:

1. Be mindful of your career choices. At the beginning of her career journey, Mr Sumit Roy (Founder, Univbrands) asked her whether she wanted to be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond — the question left an impact on her back then, and now, on us.

2. Value diversity within your team. Defend your ideas, but also know when to let go, without letting your ego take over.

3. In everything you do, ensure that you are relevant. If you can do this, differentiation will be taken care of.

4. Have the inner drive and desire to create an impact. Consciously make meaningful contributions every day — your efforts might seem invisible, but over time, they will accumulate and grow like a Bamboo plant.

5. Creating and enhancing your personal brand is vital. To do that, control your tendency to self-sabotage. Build confidence and overcome the inner chatter about what others think of you.

6. On the best way to understand Indian consumers, Ms Raghavan stressed the importance of fieldwork. This will help you understand the unspoken needs, aspirations, and anxiety of the consumer. The authors she recommended on the subject are Santosh Desai, Dhiraj Sinha, and Rama Bijapurkar.

7. Whether it’s an interview or internship, it is critical to be prepared — to do your homework and read up about the context. Along with that, one should be aware of when to contribute and when not to. Instead of being over-energetic and proposing ten ideas, develop one or two thoughtful ones and present those. Be ready to volunteer whenever the opportunity arrives, go that extra mile, and the sky is the limit.

8. There are four qualities necessary for a leader: having a moral compass, self-awareness, being able to collaborate with a host of different players, and understanding how you can make an impact on the world.

9. To become a leader of tomorrow, Ms Raghavan recommends developing four skills: Communications, Storytelling, Visual Thinking and Emotional Intelligence, which will help an individual articulate and convey their ideas/strategy effectively. To work on your creativity, she recommended “The Accidental Creative”, by Todd Henry.

10. Learn the art of giving feedback. This will help you create an impact on the people you care about and help them grow.

11. “Emotion is the magic potion”, says Riva, Ms Raghavan’s daughter in her newsletter. At the end of the day, it’s all about forming connections with the people with whom you work and interact.