'Hire for attitude, not ability': Balasubramanian Sankaranarayanan, President & CEO, Thryve Digital

What was the problem you were grappling with?

When I decided to take on the challenge of setting up Thryve Digital, there wasn’t any industry reference point for us to learn from and improve on. Ours was a greenfield setup with no ready-to-use templates to kick-start things. These were the challenges that came my way. 

Through my 30+ years in the IT services industry, I’ve seen most organisations grapple with challenges in the areas of product engineering and domain expertise, both from a talent availability as well as an innovation capability perspective. And it was up to me to solve that.  I also needed to figure out how to make organisational pivots happen.

Who did you approach for advice and why?

I was fortunate to have worked with a set of tremendous leaders and they have become a trusted network of advisors and mentors I can depend on­—sort of a virtual, personal “Board of advisors”—with leaders like Sukumar Rajagopal (Tiny Magiq), Mohan Narayanan (Kubos), Larry Kleinman (Highmark Health), Mick Malec (enGen), and Corwin Harper (Ochsner Health). Over the years I have learnt a lot from our conversations and just by seeing them deal with various situations and organisational pivots. 

What was the advice you received?

The three pieces of advice that have stood out for me are: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, “People are key. Hire for attitude, not for ability”, and “Focus on the ‘why’;  the ‘how’ and ‘what’ will work themselves out.” 

How effective was it in resolving your problem?

Each of the nuggets of wisdom have played a huge part in how I’ve navigated the challenges in building out Thryve as a differentiated organisation.