Dr. Naga Siddharth Seetharaman is the Chief Human Resources Officer at UrbanPiper, with a deep focus on unlocking organizational, individual, and team performance to create significant value for shareholders. With over a decade of experience as a CHRO, Dr. Siddharth collaborates closely with Founders, CEOs, and CXOs, designing systems that harness the collective potential of their teams and constituents.
Dr. Siddharth has researched and emphasized the concept of discretionary effort, aiming to transform employee engagement into a deeper, more willing contribution to the company’s success. His work in performance coaching has led him to train hundreds of managers, equipping them with the skills to become effective performance coaches. Additionally, he has crafted productized services tailored for startups, helping them prioritize human capital from the outset to minimize future challenges.
Dr. Siddharth’s approach is centered around understanding the “diamond line” of a business—the core element essential for its success—and designing organizations that align with this critical factor. His expertise in identifying and leveraging these key levers ensures that the organizations he works with are well-positioned to achieve sustained growth and success.
Diamond line – nothing else matters
- Agree that is a bit of a clickbait. It’s like this. Every business has a core element that is at the core of that business.
- Cost, on time performance, fuel hedging, aircraft lease-back, employee alignment and IT systems : are those elements for a low cost airline to succeed. The Diamond line however, is minimum time that the aircraft spends on the ground. The more it is in the air, the more the company makes money.
- Understanding the diamond line of a business is critical to designing the organization to succeed. Take food retail for instance. The levers might be buying, merchandising, planogramming, customer walk through paths, etc. The crux in an Indian context is the face-ups, stock refills and the employee on the ground who is nudging the customer to buy a little more. How do we get that employee to do that better? If that happens, everything else is worthwhile. If that doesn’t happen, nothing else matters (well, everything else will be less impactful, and face much higher head winds to get results).
- An astute Human Capital expert needs to appreciate this. Identify the diamond line. As long as that exists, the mine, the machinery and the entire ecosystem makes sense. If that line doesn’t exist, nothing else really matters.
