Google VP Shalini Govil-Pai: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
…Never stop dreaming. Every business and team has it’s up and downs, whether times are turbulent or not. The key to surviving is knowing the value you provide and to never stop dreaming. For example, when making the first fully computer graphics animated movie, Toy Story, there were moments when we thought we would never launch the film. But we persevered because we had a dream. And now every animated movie is made via the techniques we put in place. To Infinity And Beyond!
As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Shalini Govil-Pai.
Shalini Govil-Pai is currently VP & GM of TV at Google. Her leadership has led to winning distribution strategies for streaming media including partnerships with Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max across platforms and devices.
She previously served as Senior Director at YouTube, where her work enabled creators, storytellers and citizen journalists to expand their reach and increase monetization more than 10 times.
Prior to Google, Shalini was a Technical Director at Pixar Animation, where she led the company’s efforts in creating the first entirely computer generated animated block-busters ‘Toy Story’ and ‘A Bug’s Life’.
Shalini is an industry thought leader and a frequent speaker on digital transformation. She was the keynote speaker at Google’s annual hardware event, IBC 2019 and at CES 2021. She was featured in NextTVs executive watchlist, Forbes, Vogue and the Economic Times. She writes frequently on leadership including for FastCompany: Remote work, Launching products in a pandemic and NextWeb: Intrapreneurship. Devoted to education, she is a board member of Pratham, an educational non-profit, and TechLab, an educational lab for children.
She is the author of two internationally-published books on Computer Graphics — Principles of Computer Graphics and Learning Computer Graphics.
Shalini holds a BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai from which she received the Distinguished Alumni award. She holds an MS in Computer Science from Penn State.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Growing up in Mumbai, India, home to Bollywood, I had no idea how my career would unfold. All I knew was that I loved movies. The first chance I got, I joined the cast of a Bollywood movie — a feature so epic (slight sarcasm) that it was already out of theaters by the time we went to watch it. No one ever bothered to digitize it. Though it was a bit of a disaster, I still have immense gratitude for the experience, as it awakened me to the theme of my career: my fascination with the media and storytelling.
Since my brief foray into acting, my career has taken a lot of twists and turns. I’ve worked as an engineer, a product manager, an operations expert, an evangelist for creators, and now as a general manager at a global technology company. I fully embraced new opportunities as they came, even if to some it appeared that my career was not on a linear path. Throughout it all, my love of media was the one guiding light that put everything into focus. It was this clarity of vision that enabled me to thrive at companies like Pixar, Youtube, and AndroidTV@Google.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
My acting career ending before it started, is still one of the funniest episodes that I can recall. It inspired me to pivot and push my passion using a different skill set, one that used my love of math and science.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
My father was my role model, he was always pushing the boundaries of science and technology. He owned the first Silicon graphics machine in India which he allowed me to use on the weekends. That is what inspired me to start programming and using computers to render stunning imagery, leading me to getting a BS and MS in Computer Graphics. I joined Pixar shortly thereafter to make the world’s first computer generated animated movie — Toy Story.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
I am a big believer in purpose driven businesses. It’s good for the world and for business. It enables teams to stay focused on things that are bigger than themselves. When we started GoogleTV, our vision was very simple — to help people relax while getting exposed to different cultures and viewpoints. Search is of course a core competency for Google, we’ve added in elements of curation to help push forward more diverse content including a recent feature called watch with me that allows for diverse creators to share their favorite shows that shaped them and their careers. Recently we have taken an active stance on the sustainability of our product lines.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
The most difficult time of late was when the pandemic hit and we all moved to a work-from-home environment. We had to throw every process and rule book out the door and come up with new ones in order to launch our product on time. Orchestrating a remote product launch demanded that we rethink many of our established workflows while brainstorming new processes.
What did we do? We got scrappy. We threw out the old processes and experimented. We focused on outcomes and not on doing things a certain way just because that’s how they had always been done. Our team trusted each other but this took us to the next level of trusting, empowering and relying on each other to achieve our goal. The company supported us in every way — ensuring that every team member could expense the necessary equipment they needed to make their home office more comfortable and productive while offering resources and tools to promote well-being and work-life balance. In the end, we designed, built, and successfully launched a brand-new product amid a pandemic — GoogleTV came out late in Q4 of 2020 and was instantly hailed as a leading streaming device in the market.
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
Never! Because I believe in what we do! We are changing the world and making an impact — whether it’s relaxing or being exposed to diverse viewpoints. And that’s a cause worth promoting.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
The most critical role of a leader is to provide the right sandbox for teams to feel empowered instead of criticizing , looking for blame or to expose weaknesses. In the end, the buck starts and stops with leaders who should never feel afraid to lay down an unpopular path for the team if they know it’s the best approach in the long run. A leader’s role is to empower their team to embrace new thinking while rally around shared goals.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
Speak the truth. We are all in this together, none of us knows what the future holds but when we work on a mission together we will figure it out — together.
What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?
As Ted Lasso says — speak human. Communicate openly, in plain english. Empathize with your teams and customers to help them understand why certain things have to happen in the manner that they do.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
Plans are made to be broken. So while it’s good to make plans, be flexible about them and pivot as you see the waves emerging and becoming tsunamis.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Be open, be honest with your teams on tough decisions that need to be made, but always empathize and know that it is the team that carries the company forward.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
- Not empathizing with their own workforce and partners — why should they stay loyal and what’s in it for them
- Clear, transparent and timely communications
- Taking feedback from all levels of the workforce and implementing those that make sense
Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
Understand your key metrics — both causality and correlated. Track the data and ensure you understand the causes for dips. The reasons for these may surprise you and there are always things you can do to move them back up.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Master Story telling
Humans thrive on stories — it’s what inspires and motivates and plays on our subconscious biases. I use stories every day to communicate to my team on what’s important and why. It helps them understand our mission and goals so they can so they can move forward with enthusiasm.
For example, my own personal story begins with how Hollywood, (yes, Star Wars!) and Bollywood movies inspired me to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer Graphics and to work in the entertainment industry. That choice led me to launch my career via Pixar, later leading me to YouTube and then to TV at Google. I did not get these opportunities easily. I had to work hard to understand the market and connect with people in these spaces — spending time to relate to their challenges and helping them understand how I could provide value. And this is the perspective I leave with my teams — believe in something, then work to make it happen.
- Be clear on expectations
The pandemic hit a few months before the launch of our product, GoogleTV. Coordinating a major product launch across multiple teams is already a feat, but doing it remotely is even more challenging. It’s critical to establish clear accountability for every component. Our team managed the launch timeline and set up regular video calls with other department heads. But beyond that, every team felt empowered to brainstorm solutions to meet the need of the moment. Clear accountability means that when issues arise, the people with the right skillsets feel empowered to solve them.
- Throw out rule books and get scrappy
The impact of COVID-19 went beyond launch logistics, extending to our day-to-day world. Google is well-known for its investment in making office life hospitable. Orchestrating a remote product launch demanded that we rethink many of our established workflows and brainstorming processes. This hurdle will sound familiar to many leaders.
So what happened? We got scrappy. We threw out the old processes and experimented. We focused on outcomes and not on doing things a certain way just because that’s how they had always been done. The company supported us in every way — ensuring that every team member could get reimbursed for the necessary equipment they needed to buy to make their home office more comfortable and productive. Google offered resources and tools to promote well-being and work-life balance. In the end, we designed, built, and successfully launched a brand-new product, GoogleTV, amid a pandemic.
- Mind (& mine) the data
Data is the lifeblood of any business. Without it you are flying blind. At all my companies, we always started any program with a clear sense of our north star — the metrics that drove all of our decisions.
- Never stop dreaming
Every business and team has it’s up and downs, whether times are turbulent or not. The key to surviving is knowing the value you provide and to never stop dreaming. For example, when making the first fully computer graphics animated movie, Toy Story, there were moments when we thought we would never launch the film. But we persevered because we had a dream. And now every animated movie is made via the techniques we put in place. To Infinity And Beyond!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
To Infinity and Beyond
I’m very perceptive and have always seen from the early on what new technology has the capability of doing and becoming — reaching infinity from nowhere, whether at Pixar where I started with only 50 people on my team to Youtube to my current role at Google TV.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Follow me
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shalinigovilpai/
https://twitter.com/shalinigovilpai
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
Google VP Shalini Govil-Pai: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
