113: The transformational power of 'Cultural Intelligence' in driving behaviour change and actions: Ritika Wadhwa, Founder Prabhaav Global

Shownotes

The Elephant in the Room podcast was in hibernation in December and January. We are back this week with our first episode of the year with the indomitable Ritika Wadhwa. Ritika Wadhwa is a strategic advisory board member for British Transport Police, is a Fellow at the Society of Leadership Fellows, Windsor Castle, a Board Director and Trustee of the 5% club. But, above all of that she is an accomplished, kind and hugely generous person - opening up her networks to all who need it (including me). There is a beautiful story behind the name of her consultancy Prabhaav Global and also her brand colours (listen to the podcast to know more).

She is one of the many people I follow on LinkedIn and early last year I invited her to be a guest on my podcast. By the time we actually recorded the podcast episode it was October (I think) - the timing was perfect though. She had taken a proverbial leap of faith and launched her consultancy Prabhaav Global - on a mission to cultivate cultural intelligence amongst individuals and organisations. When we finally caught up we spoke about cultural intelligence, her journey to entrepreneurship, working with a global brand like ASOS, intent and impact, culture and identity, leadership and much much more……

“When I decided to call it Prabhaav Global, a lot of people were giving me their feedback to say, why make it difficult? And I said, difficult for who? Because Prabhaav speaks to me. Prabhav means impact in Hindi. And that’s what I want to do. That’s me, that’s my identity. That’s my language. And I’m done with fitting in. I’m done with trying to be someone I’m not yet again. So I said, that’s it. I’m going to call it Prabhaav Global. The colours of the company are going to be turmeric because I love yellow. It’s my favourite spice and turmeric is the spice that transforms everything that it touches, thats I want to achieve through Prabhaav Global, transformational leadership, transformational behaviours” Ritika Wadhwa

Like to know more, head to the podcast 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Episode transcript

Sudha: Good afternoon, Ritika. Wonderful to have you as a guest today on The Elephant in the Room podcast. Thank you for being here. 

Ritika: You’re most welcome. Thank you for having me, Sudha. This has been something that I have been excited to be on for a while. 

Sudha: Yeah, we’ve been planning this for some time. So to start with can you give us a quick introduction to who you are and what you do? 

Ritika: Sure. So I am Ritika Wadhwa. I am the CEO and founder of Prabhaav Global. Prabhaav means impact in Hindi and that’s what I’m here for, impact, impactful work and using the transformative power of cultural intelligence for impactful leadership.

Besides that, I also sit on the strategic advisory board of British Transport Police. I’m a leadership fellow at Windsor Castle and also a trustee at the 5 percent Club. All of this to say that really grateful to be here on this conversation with you talking about everything that we’re going to talk about and I’m excited about that.

Sudha: Brilliant. So how and when did you decide to focus on cultural intelligence? Was it, a natural pathway to the work that you were doing because I’ve seen you’ve had varied experience or did you just wander into it, you know, and you were good at it. 

Ritika: Oh, I don’t know about good. It’s definitely been a journey.

So I was born and brought up in India, let’s start from there. Born and brought up in India in a very sort of strict patriarchal society and community structure. I then moved to the UK to do my MBA and along the way, you know, until we’ve got to this point, I have worked and studied and lived in three continents.

So when COVID hit and I was sort of going from one job to the next until that point. When COVID hit, it almost felt like I know what I don’t want to do, but I don’t know what I want to do, if that makes sense. So I was very clear about the job that I was in at that point was not something that was serving me and I didn’t see it serving me for the rest of my career.

So I went on a coaching journey to really unpack who I was, what I wanted to do from life, because as an Indian woman, it’s almost as if you never ask that question, you get on with life. You get on with doing the duties as a mother, as a daughter, as a sister, as a wife, as you know, all of that.

And your career is there somewhere in the way for various reasons, but it’s not something that you think about too much or give it the importance that you should probably. So I gave it the importance that it deserves at that point in my life. And I went on that coaching journey, unraveled what was important to me, what my transferable skills were and what I wanted to do for the remaining part of my career, because all said and done, we are doing a job, whether that’s eight hours a day, 10 hours a day, a core part of our life is working.

So for me, the question was, how can I sit back for a second and really do what I want to do because I’m going to give this the time anyway. So in that coaching journey DEI came out, diversity, equity, inclusion came out as a passion, rightly so, because as an immigrant, as a woman of colour living in the UK, who’s been born and brought up in India, this is something that I was very passionate about.

And then I saw the job ad for Cultural Intelligence Center and I applied and got the job. The thing that called me towards cultural intelligence was the fact that here’s a framework that actually makes people accountable for behaviour change. And that’s what I was interested in. I’m interested in actions and behaviour change rather than training courses that people go into and are not accountable for that behaviour change.

And so cultural intelligence almost called me and it was meant to be and I started working for them as director of operations more than a couple of years ago, got promoted to chief operating officer while I was with them and cultural intelligence has been since then a core of what I do and how I intend to change the world.

Sudha: Wow, that sounds absolutely incredible. You’ve said that we don’t normally spend anytime thinking about where we want to go and where we are on the journey and where we’d like to go and what the next 10 years, what would I like to be doing for that period of time.

You launched your company Prabhav Global. I saw, your posts on LinkedIn and I heard from our conversations. You are very passionate about the name, about what you’re setting out to do. So you’re new to the entrepreneurial journey, but how has the journey been? And I recently also saw on LinkedIn that you won xxxxxx xxxxxxx as a client. So massive congratulations. And tell us a bit about this journey. 

Ritika: Yeah, thank you. Fascinating, right? If someone would have told me, even in March this year, that you would be setting up your own organisation, I wouldn’t have believed them.

No way. Because I’ve been on a salary for 30 years. And as much as the rest of my family is filled with entrepreneurs I never thought that I would be one of them because the job security, especially if you have a young family, it’s really important. And I thought, you know what you do your job, you get your salary, you give your best to the job you have.

And then, you know, the times that you fall sick, et cetera, et cetera, you just think the entrepreneur way sounds really risky. But this time round, it almost felt like something in the higher powers was pushing me towards that, the way things unraveled it almost felt like this is what’s meant to be at this point in time. So literally I just decided to set up the company, give it my all for as long as I can afford to and see where it goes. The underlying factor that pushed me towards being an entrepreneur was, hey, bet on yourself. It’s fine. Just believe in yourself and bet on yourself fully and wholly and see where it goes.

So I set up Prabhav and you’re right, even when I decided to call it Prabhaav Global, a lot of people were giving me their feedback to say, why make it difficult? And I said, difficult for who? Because Prabhaav speaks to me. Prabhaav means impact in Hindi. And that’s what I want to do. That’s me, that’s my identity. That’s my language. And I’m done with fitting in. I’m done with trying to be someone I’m not yet again. So I said, that’s it. I’m going to call it Prabhaav Global. The colours of the company are going to be turmeric because I love yellow. It’s my favourite spice and turmeric is the spice that transforms everything that it touches, thats I want to achieve through Prabhaav Global, transformational leadership, transformational behaviours.

And so it’s been a very fascinating journey. It’s only three and a half months. So far, and I have learned more than I’ve learned any time in my life before. Thanks to amazing people like yourself, who I have come across along the way, who have been just God sent, right. Right from some of the introductions you’ve made, Sudha to just being around for conversations. I’ve been really lucky to have people like yourself in this journey so far that doesn’t make it feel lonely, that when I’m feeling down, I know I can pick up the phone and talk to people to go, okay, oh my God, right. What do I do with this next? And people that have been on the journey a lot longer than I have, they are willing to share.

And that’s beautiful. Those people that I’ve met along in the last 3, 4 months, th