Why does Anand Mahindra think the work-life balance debate is moving in the “wrong direction”?
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00:00How long can you stare at your wife? How long can the wife stare at your husband?
00:03My wife is wonderful. I love staring at her.
00:06Ask me what's the quality of my work. Don't ask me how many hours I work.
00:19How much time in a day do you spend on social media?
00:22You know, I'm often asked this question that I'm asked about,
00:25do you have an office that manages it? If anyone's read my tweets,
00:29if you think my office can write like that, then I've got a fabulous team
00:33who lives inside my head. You know, I don't know why people even ask that.
00:37So then you say, how much time do you have? And every time I'll get in my timeline,
00:44this kind of thing keeps coming up. I want to tell people I'm on,
00:48and I've been asked this, I'm on X on social media, not because I'm lonely.
00:52I have, my wife is wonderful. I love staring at her. I spend more time.
01:06So I'm not, I'm not here to make friends. I'm here because people don't understand.
01:12It is an amazing business tool. How in one platform, I get feedback from 11 million people.
01:20But the young have their own understanding of how they want to lead their lives.
01:25And that is leading to a lot of debate as well. You may be aware about work-life balance and
01:30there are prescriptions on 70 hour work weeks, 90 hour work weeks. How do you address something
01:36like that? You know, what is your idea of this balance and how much is too much?
01:41You know, I said, as an audience, this question has to come up today.
01:46Someone has to ask me this question. So I, I'll tell you, I have a very,
01:51I have huge respect for Mr. Narayan Murthy and others. So let me not, let me not get this wrong.
01:59But I have to say something. I think this debate is in the wrong direction.
02:06Because this debate is about the quantity of work.
02:10My point is we have to focus on the quality of work, not on the quantity of work.
02:16So it's not, it's not about 48, 40 hours. It's not about 70 hours. It's not about 90 hours.
02:23What output are you doing? Even if it's 10 hours, you can change the world in 10 hours.
02:29I have always believed that you have to have leaders and people in your company who make
02:38wise decisions, wise choices. So the question is, which kind of mind makes the right choices
02:46and right decisions? And I think a mind that is exposed to holistic thinking, that is open to
02:53inputs from around the world. That is, that's why I'm such a votary of liberal arts.
02:59I think even if you're an engineer, even if you're an MBA, you must study art, you must study
03:04culture. Why am I making shareholders pay for that? Because I think you make better decisions
03:10when you have a whole brain. When you are informed about arts, culture, that's when you make a good
03:15decision. If you don't, if you're not spending time at home, if you're not spending time with
03:20friends, if you're not reading, if you're not, if you don't have time to reflect, how will you
03:25bring the right inputs into making a decision? And I think there's something to be said for both
03:29the arguments. I mean, you don't become a Narayan Murthy with a nine to five work schedule, right?
03:36Sometimes you have to push. We grew up learning things like no pain, no gain. And yet I think
03:41everybody has their own threshold and they decide what they, you're very successful. If I could ask
03:47you, how many hours a week do you work? You know, this is what I want to avoid, Palki. I don't want
03:56it to be about the time. I don't want it to be about quantity. Ask me what's the quality of my work.
04:01Don't ask me how many hours I work.