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The mission of Prevent Blindness Texas is to prevent blindness and preserve sight. We are leaders and change agents in the eye health space here to empower you!
Hey, it's your eye health experts, Prevent Blindness Texas, and welcome to Eyespiring, a conversation about all things vision and life. Hi, I'm Heather Patrick, the CEO of Prevent Blindness Texas and your host of Eyespiring. Today we have Mohammad Anwar who happens to be a fellow, U of H cougar and board member with me. I can't wait to share his story. So he is President and CEO of Software and Culture Plus.
Mohammad Anwar:That's correct.
Heather Patrick:Co author of the bestselling books Love as a Business Strategy and Love as a Change Strategy, which we are gonna talk about. He's the youngest of five children and was born and raised in Saudi Arabia by Indian parents from Bangalore. He graduated from the University of Houston. Go Coogs!
Heather Patrick:With a BS in computer science and started softway at age 20 where he still serves as president and CEO. And he's got two children and a fabulous wife who is a five time Olympic champion? Alright. That
Mohammad Anwar:One time Olympic champion. Five time medalist.
Heather Patrick:Wow, that's pretty amazing. Alright, you ready to dive in?
Mohammad Anwar:Let's do it. Okay. By the way, she is a diver, so diving in is a good reference.
Heather Patrick:We're ready to dive in?
Mohammad Anwar:I also make very bad dad jokes. I'm told
Heather Patrick:Oh, that's
Mohammad Anwar:I'm told my daughter. She does not like my jokes.
Heather Patrick:They usually don't until they're older. They don't appreciate the the parent humor. Mhmm. Alright. So tell us a little bit about you.
Mohammad Anwar:Well, born and raised in Saudi Arabia like you mentioned Mhmm. To Indian parents, and I moved to The United States when I was 15 years old, I Why? Why?
Heather Patrick:Yeah. Why?
Mohammad Anwar:My dad thought it was a good idea to ship me off to a Catholic boarding school in the middle of Kansas.
Heather Patrick:Wow. Really?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. Yeah. It was a small town called Atchison, Kansas with 6,000 people. Wow. And it was a Catholic boarding school run by the Benedictine Church, and it was an all boys school, so my dad was like, that's where you're going.
Mohammad Anwar:And I loved it. It was transformative for me, and I learned a lot. I got to go to school with the local students, but also a variety of international students from all over the world. It was a great experience.
Heather Patrick:That is phenomenal. Okay so let's talk a little bit about, okay first how'd you get from there to U of H? What made you go to U of H?
Mohammad Anwar:Yep, so I had been raised in Saudi Arabia for fourteen years with my parents. My parents actually got me to leave the house at 14. I went to school in India for a year and then I got shipped off to campus. So I had been away from my family for four years. I had been living on my own in the dormitory or wherever just to go to school.
Mohammad Anwar:Mhmm. And after four years of being independent, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to get close to family again and I need to get a home cooked meal and so I decided to move to Houston to move in and I moved in with my sister who at the time was doing her residency at Baylor. And and I figured University of Houston was the school that I'm going to go to so I can be close to family. And that's how I ended up in Houston.
Heather Patrick:That's that's amazing.
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. And I've been here twenty seven years now and I consider myself adopted Texan.
Heather Patrick:Yep, so talk about how, because just even in that brief time, are multiple cultures that you've interacted with and that are part of you so talk about each one and how it shaped you and your views.
Mohammad Anwar:I definitely can attribute a lot to my upbringing and the exposure to the world and cultures and the people that I've had. So even being born in Saudi Arabia to Indian parents, you know, the interesting thing in The Middle East is just because you're born there does not mean you get citizenship of that country. So I am you don't have birthright citizenship in those countries. You are still considered Indian and you get an Indian passport and you assume the citizenship of your parents.
Heather Patrick:Interesting.
Mohammad Anwar:And so living as an expat, even though I was born there, I was treated like an expat. I'm still a foreigner living in The Middle East, in Saudi Arabia in particular, and in The Middle East there are a lot of expats. There are people from all over the world that come down to work over there. So I got my first exposure to American culture in Saudi itself, and a lot of the television shows, sports, everything I watched were from The United States. And so I grew up watching Full House, NBA, NFL, but as a kid, not having lived in America, but being exposed to the American culture.
Mohammad Anwar:And I went to an Indian school in Saudi so I got best of all worlds. I got to live in Saudi, learn to speak Arabic, understand the culture, and then grew up watching American television sitcoms. One of my favorite sitcoms was Full House. I loved that show. When Alf
Heather Patrick:I loved Alf.
Mohammad Anwar:And then I went to an Indian school, I ended up learning the Indian history, social sciences, the language. So Hindi was my second language in school, English was my first language, and then at home, my parents spoke Urdu. So I was exposed and immersed in like four different languages all at the same time growing up. So that had a lot of impact. And then of course moving to Kansas, it was not at all like those TV shows or anything that I had watched.
Heather Patrick:What was the biggest shock like immediately when you came to The United States that you thought okay I kind of know what it's like and then you get here it's like no this is nothing what I thought.
Mohammad Anwar:So I landed in Houston and before the next day I flew to Kansas so when I landed in Houston I was like where are all the cowboys because I had watched TV shows like Dallas and Dynasty I don't know, all kinds of TV shows. And so I landed, I'm like, where are the horses? They're cowboys. So that was number one, a surprise for me, but also I was extremely, I remember vividly landing in Bush Intercontinental and then driving and I'm like, oh my gosh, there's so many trees here and I'm coming from like a desert. Right.
Mohammad Anwar:So much greenery and trees and stuff. For some reason, I had watched the movies, the West western movies, and I thought it was a desert here as well. Mhmm. So that was a big shock. And then I go to Kansas, and it's all farmland Yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:And, like, hills. And I'm like, where's the people? So that was another culture shock for me. Yeah. That was kind of the shock.
Mohammad Anwar:And then I I did study in India for a year. Mhmm. And India, moving to India, I used to go there for vacations in the summer, but I never lived there. So I moved there for one year of schooling, and at that time, it was, like, extreme population, like, people everywhere, poverty. You know, it's a third world country with a lot of poverty, a lot of a lot of sad things that I got to witness and experience because I feel privileged being born and raised in Saudi and then going to India.
Mohammad Anwar:I'm like, oh my gosh. There's people don't even have minimum, you know, needs to have shelter or food. And seeing that poverty really kinda maybe humbled me a little bit in India. And then coming to The US and seeing all of the infrastructure and the privilege and the amount of wealth we have here was another contrast for me. So yeah, I've been on all spectrums, feel like.
Heather Patrick:So who had the most influence or impact on you growing up? Was there a certain person?
Mohammad Anwar:That's a great question. I think my eldest brother is the one who had the most influence influence on me. He is thirteen years older than I am. Mhmm. And he left home to go to school similar like me.
Mohammad Anwar:Mhmm. At 14, my dad shipped him off to Florida Air Academy. Wow. It's like a military style school, but you also learn to fly while you're going to school. So he got shipped off when I was three years old or two years old, barely.
Mohammad Anwar:So I never really got to know him. And I was always fascinated by him becoming a pilot, flying planes, and, you know, I'm like three, four years old, I'm like, I grow up, I'm gonna be a pilot. Yeah. And so I I really, I think, followed his footsteps. He he used to be a gym rat, and so I'd always wanna have muscles like him and work out like him.
Mohammad Anwar:So I think he inspired me a lot. And coming to The US, you know, I basically when I moved to Houston, he he was working for TWA at the time. Wow. TWA doesn't exist anymore. So yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:I yeah. I used to follow his footsteps. I took his guidance. I told the only guidance that I don't appreciate that he told me was not to become a pilot because that was always my dream was to be a pilot like him. And at that time for some reason the pilots careers were not very good or he had just started his airline career and he was like you don't want to work in the airline and he was like go become something else and but in a way I'm also glad that I did not become a pilot because I'm doing what I'm doing today and then I eventually did go get my license.
Heather Patrick:I thought you I thought thought you were
Mohammad Anwar:was like, okay, I'm still gonna learn how to fly. Even if I don't do it as a career, I'm gonna learn how to fly. So I eventually got my license.
Heather Patrick:Yep. So you started a company at 20. What was that like? Like what did you wake up one day and say you know what I'm gonna start a company. Like how did that all unfold for you?
Mohammad Anwar:I think it was kind of that one day I woke up and I was like you know what, I just start a company? And and so what had happened was this is post 2001, and, you know, I'm looking for jobs in the job market that the .com bubble had just burst in 2000. Mhmm. So I had entered computer science because at that time, they were giving Porsche as a sign on bonus to software engineers in nineteen nineties. And you would be making, like, a 6 figure salary, getting a Porsche as your bonus, sign on bonus tattoo to to be a software engineer.
Mohammad Anwar:So that's kind of the reason my brother pushed me into going into computer science. But then when I started is when the .com Mhmm. Bubble had just burst. And after 2011, the job market, there was, like, kind of a economic downturn, and they weren't hiring a lot of software engineers. In fact, a lot of the jobs are being shipped off to India because they had laid the transatlantic fiber lines and outsourcing had just started in late nineties, early two thousands.
Mohammad Anwar:And so a lot of the software engineering jobs are going to India. And I was like, I don't wanna go to India. I don't wanna I don't wanna go to India to be a software engineer. And so I tried really hard to look for jobs, and I wasn't having a lot of success. I was in my junior year, starting to look for internships and things like that.
Mohammad Anwar:And then one day, my brother, the same one that I I looked up to I look up to, he basically was like, hey. Maybe we could just hire people in India and, you know, we get contracts here and ship it off to India just like how the rest of the world is starting to do, and you could manage that business. You should think about it. And as soon as he said it, I'm like, yep. I'm gonna do that.
Mohammad Anwar:Let's do it. And that's kind of how the
Heather Patrick:Wow. So it literally was just one day you woke up and said, I'm gonna do this.
Mohammad Anwar:That's it. That's that's what it was. I had no formal training, nothing, never knew what head or tails was to start a business or knew what it even meant. I just thought, I looked at the glamorous life of business owners and, like, that's what I want.
Heather Patrick:Yeah. How you feel about it now?
Mohammad Anwar:I had a lot of remorse, but but at the same time, I'm, yeah, it's it's also shaped who I am today. I think I'm I'm grateful for it. But looking back at it, I have no idea why I did what I did, but but here I am.
Heather Patrick:So what shocked you the most being an entrepreneur? What was the most, you thought it was gonna be this way other than you thought it was gonna be glamorous. I think anyone who spends time in a CEO role, you understand it is anything but that most of the time. But what shocked you the most about owning your own business?
Mohammad Anwar:How difficult it was. Mhmm. And the responsibility to make payroll every two weeks was very, very stressful. Yep. And a lot of pressure.
Mohammad Anwar:And I I felt the pressure of not letting down our team, our employees, and make sure, you know, their livelihoods were not appended because of a stupid decision that I would have made. So having all of that pressure was very, very hard for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Heather Patrick:I think that is the part that, I mean I've been doing this for nine years and you know they always ask that question what keeps you up at night. Even when you're successful you're still always thinking about how do I keep it going right. It's that how do I get to success that's a different challenge and then how do I keep it right. And not success for me but success for the organization because you're right I mean if my decisions cost us I can't make payroll, right? It's not, it's a huge ripple effect.
Mohammad Anwar:Correct.
Heather Patrick:Yeah. And I don't think as a CEO we talk a lot about that component, right? But it really is for me, that is what keeps me up at night. How do you continue to grow and really support your team so they can pursue their dreams? Absolutely.
Heather Patrick:So what are some of the challenges as you start as a 20 year old? You launched this business, walk me through some of the challenges you experienced that really shaped then kind of your launch into your revolution, right? Or your, this epiphany that you had, because then we'll talk about kind of what that looked like for you.
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah, think the number one first challenge I had was a lot of the clients would not take me seriously because the first question they'd ask me is how old are you? Whenever I showed up in a Really? Yeah. I used to lie and I used to say I'm 25 or 26.
Heather Patrick:And did that make a difference?
Mohammad Anwar:I think it did. Really? Because I would win projects. But the fact that they would be you're awfully young to be running a company was the most common statement I would get from prospective clients that I would meet. And so I'd find myself lying, and I would do it intentionally.
Mohammad Anwar:I'd feel guilty about it at the scene. Was like, I gotta do what I gotta do. And so that was one challenge that it didn't last very long because then I think I aged pretty quickly because of stress. But that was one. And then the other challenge was just keeping my ego in check started to become an issue.
Mohammad Anwar:I found myself getting very, maybe entitled. And I started as success would come by way of the business and I would make more money, I found myself getting more arrogant, finding myself the very same people that I had started the company with. I started to see them differently, like almost like you do what I tell you to do kind of thing. So I think ego became my biggest enemy in the journey. And I found myself making really dumb mistakes because my ego would get in the way and I couldn't, like, think straight or logically or what was best for the business and the people, but I tried to serve my own ego as I got more and more successful.
Mohammad Anwar:And that led me to a point where, you know, by the time I was 30, I I had over 300 employees and I was living the American dream, driving my fancy cars, flying planes all over Texas whenever I wanted. I was like, this is it. I've arrived. And then all of a sudden, I went almost bankrupt. And I had to lay off over 100 employees.
Mohammad Anwar:And I found myself at loss of I don't even know what to do anymore. I don't even know how to keep this company running. I didn't even know if I could avoid it from shutting down. So in this deep moment of, like, contemplation, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get through this journey, which I think was self inflected
Heather Patrick:Mhmm.
Mohammad Anwar:I found myself sitting in a football game for University of Houston Cougars and witnessed a miraculous comeback victory Mhmm. Where we raised a 20 deficit. And I saw myself seeing softly through the eyes of the Houston Cougar football team, and I started to envision our own comeback. Mhmm. And I was determined to go back and fight for making sure Softway wouldn't shut down.
Mohammad Anwar:And in that moment, I had a chance to see our rookie head coach, Dom Herman at the time Mhmm. Speak to the press. And in the press conference, he he shared that he he attributed the culture of love that his team practiced as the reason for them to win that night and become a ten-zero season winning record. And he went on to expand and state that that's how you build high performing championship level teams when the players go on the field not to fight for themselves but fight for their teammates next to them. And that's how you build high performing cultures and winning teams by espousing the culture of love.
Mohammad Anwar:So in that moment, first of all, I was completely surprised to hear that response, but I couldn't help myself but ask myself, do I love my team? Do I care for my team? The vacay co chairman described, and I didn't. And so in that moment, I had to really have a hard look at myself and recognize that our our company was on the near, you know, nearly shutting down all because I had become power drunk, I had become selfish, I had become greedy, and I did not treat our people with respect and care and love. Mhmm.
Mohammad Anwar:And so they weren't putting their heart into the company, that impacted our delivery. Our clients noticed and started to fire us. And, so that day was the transformational day in which I didn't just transform, but that was the day I committed to go on a journey of transformation to where I could lead with love. And that's the journey I'm on, but that literally saved our company and that's why I'm even here today to share the story.
Heather Patrick:So if you were to go back to your 20 year old self, what one piece of advice would you give him to set him on a different path? Because at 20 you can say lead with love and you still have no idea what that means, right? So what piece of advice would you give that you think a 20 year old would understand but would have kind of put put him on a different path?
Mohammad Anwar:You know that's a great question. I haven't really reflected on it but what's coming to my mind right now is just treat people with respect and value them like how I, at 20, was expecting others to treat me and value me. And and, yeah, maybe maybe that would be my best advice is I think what happened was thinking about it, reflecting on my childhood and the way I was raised in a foreign country and experiencing the workplace from the lens of my father and seeing him come back from work every day and he would complain about the politics in the workplace, about all of the challenges in the workplace and sometimes it was very dehumanizing for him and I think I really didn't learn the lessons that my dad was sharing.
Mohammad Anwar:And I just think I think I decided that, oh, that's just how the workplace is and that's how you need to be. And I think I started to espouse the characteristics and behaviors that the corporate world expects, even though I never worked for anybody.
Mohammad Anwar:I had worked for myself. I think I started to mimic a lot of the leadership behaviors that I thought would lead me to success, which was I have to have a command and control and I have to hold people accountable from a punitive lens and basically, you know, judge them all the time. And that's how you get high performance. And I think I started to mimic that. And I really didn't learn from my father's experiences at the workplace that that was not what I needed to let happen in my own company, but I kind of fell trapped for it.
Heather Patrick:So you have this epiphany, thank you Tom Herman. That was a great season.
Mohammad Anwar:It was.
Heather Patrick:And you realize love is a part of how we can operate and build great teams but love is not part usually of what we talk about in even in the nonprofit sector even though we are anchored in social impact. So talk about how you started to bring that word into your business and then share it with so many people because I would imagine it was a little scary, right? Because this is something very out of the norm. Think now we talk more about it but even now I think there are very few companies who have love as an anchor driving their business.
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. So I did the big mistake of sharing it before I started to practice it and so what happened was I watched the game Saturday, saw the press conference on Monday, and on Friday, I kept a company all hands meeting with our India and US offices. And I told them I love you all. And everybody was like, what just happened? You should have seen the eye rolls.
Mohammad Anwar:You should have seen the people. They're like, this is the same guy that just laid off my friends and coworkers a month ago, and here he's saying I love you all. So I obviously did a big mistake because people were, like, very skeptical. Mhmm. And people thought this is just a flavor of the month because I witnessed this miraculous comeback victory.
Mohammad Anwar:And then I was given feedback right after that by one of my coauthors that, hey, Moe, I don't I don't think you need to come and tell people you you love them after what just happened in our company. It's not I don't think it's gonna be received very well.
Heather Patrick:Mhmm.
Mohammad Anwar:So I decided in the moment, okay, you know, he's right. I need to not talk. I need to walk the talk before I can talk the walk. So I went on a journey about a about a year and a half, I never brought up that concept or shared with anybody and I decided I needed to just reflect on my own behaviors and I needed to learn about what it means to lead with love and so I learned more about servant leadership And I realized that that leadership style espoused that culture of leading with love. Mhmm.
Mohammad Anwar:And so I went on this journey where I literally wanted to serve our team no matter what would happen. So if that meant I would bring coffee every morning or donuts or I would share my food at lunchtime to to put the needs of others before myself Mhmm. Down to I wouldn't be the last person to leave the office because I didn't wanna leave before anybody before the last person left. And then if our team had to stay back and work late, I would make sure to go pick up dinner for them and serve them. And so I tried to find anything and everything I could do to serve our team down to the point because we were going through a lot of financial struggles.
Mohammad Anwar:I stopped taking a salary for eight months just so that others could have their paychecks. Mhmm. I sold my Porsche, put the money back in the company. I sold my house that was fully paid off so I could fund the bridge for the company. So I started to do all of these things without people knowing I was doing these things.
Mohammad Anwar:Obviously, they noticed, but I wouldn't declare it. I would just go do it because I realized I needed to walk the talk. And then eventually, I I think people saw the difference, saw the change. They saw they lovingly started to refer to me as Mo two point o because I was an upgraded version. The Mo one point o was a bad version.
Mohammad Anwar:And they started to come beside me and support me and forgive me, have grace for me. It doesn't mean I don't have Mo one point o moments even today. Yeah. I am backward compatible. And at times, do have my they call it moments lovingly again, or Moe's having a moment.
Mohammad Anwar:And but the the good news is that they have grace. They understand me. They forgive me. They give me feedback. They hold me accountable.
Mohammad Anwar:But then they're right there beside me to make sure I don't feel lonely in this journey. So it's been transformative and now I can see the whole organization is trying to walk, to talk, and they've come beside me and we're trying to now spread this to the world so that we can share our lived experiences and be a living example of where love can be a business strategy to achieve success.
Heather Patrick:So there are so many companies that invest in culture and still don't get it right. Right? What do you think is the major barrier to building a culture that drives success but also I would say trust, right? Trust ultimately is I think what defines how teams move forward, right? How do you, why do you think people get it so wrong instead of so right?
Mohammad Anwar:Because I think most of the time leaders of the different organizations want change but don't want to change. And so they, we as leaders, including myself, lack the self awareness that the culture that we're desiring to change was actually the culture we allowed to have. And we either created that culture ourselves and now when we're asking for a culture to change we like putting up big campaigns and putting these fancy words on our walls, calling them values but we really don't recognize that we have to walk the talk and that requires a lot of self awareness and recognition by leaders that we have an outsized influence on the culture we either create it or destroy it.
Mohammad Anwar:And I think a lot of organizations struggle with their culture journeys because they have good intent but they don't have the self awareness of how they show up in this culture change journey and how they have an outsized influence in it and the minute leaders start to build that self awareness and have more self awareness, they are more successful in creating the right cultures.
Heather Patrick:So as you went through this journey, it started as a software company, but as the years have gone by, I know you've evolved.
Mohammad Anwar:Yes.
Heather Patrick:Right? So when you hear or you work with organizations that come to you and say, we need some, a lifting culture. What do you look at? Like what do you assess? Yeah.
Heather Patrick:And then how do you work with them to move in the direction that they wanna move?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah, the first step that we assess is the desire and the commitment from the leadership. Because if the leadership is not committed to this journey, then our we can put the best culture program available to that organization, and we might not see the organization move move or or realize realize the the returns returns on on it. It. And And then then the second step is we actually do an assessment. It's assessment which we call culture counter, and it measures not the touchy feely part, but actual lived experiences, behavioral the experiences that the organization is having, the members of the organization that are having.
Mohammad Anwar:So we have a three pronged perspective that we captured from the survey, is how am I showing up, how are my teammates showing up, and how is my boss showing up in scenarios. And so we give real workplace scenarios and we ask them to rate on a Likert scale how they experience the the how do they show up in that scenario? Say, like, example, conflicts. How do you show up in that scenario? How does your teammates show up in your scenario?
Mohammad Anwar:And how your boss show up in the scenario? So we do a 30 question assessment with scenarios with a three pronged perspective, and then we interpolate the data to show their cultural experiences in the world. And we can break it up by firmographic and or demographic and say share, like, down to which department is having a a different experience from, say, another peer department. And we can basically do slice and dice the data to become more strategic in their culture program.
Heather Patrick:And so what has that what is there a common theme or denominator on leaders that aren't successful in changing the culture? Have you noticed, are there certain qualities or trends that happen of a Ginger and saying, you know what, no, this is not, like I can already tell.
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah.
Heather Patrick:Or is it just really, it's kind of just all over the place?
Mohammad Anwar:I think the ones that struggle the most are the ones that are in denial and think they have already arrived. And those are the leaders and organization that I struggle with. They're they're the nice, nasty cultures where they, on the outside, are like, we are loving. We I'm we care. I care about everyone, but and they're living in this world where they think they're extremely nice.
Mohammad Anwar:And they're I call them toxically positive. And they live in their ivory towers, their rose colored glasses, and and they think how they're experiencing the company is how everyone in the company is experiencing the culture. And those leaders are the hardest for me to work with because I cannot break through to them easily because they are in this they've manifested this own perception of themselves being these amazing, loving leaders. And I'm like, oh my gosh, how do I cut through? Yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:My best my best leaders to work with are the ones that are skeptics of love. They are so skeptical the minute they see our book or hear me, they're like, who the hell are you? And then by the end of our conversations, when we convince them that we're talking about love in the context of a sports team and high performance, they're all game. All on board. And then they go on their journey, especially when they start to share my stories of how I've led our own company down to almost near disaster and my behavior, especially when they read that refrigerator email that I sent to the whole company, they're like, oh, you're just like me.
Mohammad Anwar:And then I got them. And then after that, they come beside me in the journey of transformation, and they build trust and they're able to really get committed and get behind those cultures. Those are my best leaders. Believe it or not, if a leader is skeptical, I will take them over a leader who is toxically positive.
Heather Patrick:Mhmm. So how do you help them understand or move to a place where ultimately part of performance is accountability?
Mohammad Anwar:Mhmm.
Heather Patrick:Right? It's how you implement that, right? How you execute that. So how do you balance compassion and love with accountability?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. So I think accountability for us has been trained into our mindset from schooling to see it as a punitive outcome. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm.
Mohammad Anwar:But really in the cultures of love, accountability is not punitive. Accountability is care. Mhmm. That doesn't mean we don't have harm and, you know, stuff. It is about naming the harm, acknowledging the harm that this behavior or action has caused or decision has caused.
Mohammad Anwar:And but but we name it, acknowledge it, but out of care, we help learn from it together with the people versus being purely punitive. So accountability is different in a culture of love where we call it almost like tough love, where we're able to come in and share with the people, give them feedback, honest feedback. We don't try to harmony harmonize any wrongdoing, but we acknowledge it. We own it. We talk about it.
Mohammad Anwar:We learn from it. But we also do it out of care because we know that we love each other and we're here to help each other not put each other down. And we want to grow together so that type of accountability is going to help us become better and grow together so the intent is very clear and the trust is there. So we're able to look at accountability as a good thing, not as a negative thing.
Heather Patrick:So what do you think as you've been doing this work, and interestingly too I think as the workforce has changed over the last at least five to ten years, what do you think is most misunderstood about leadership?
Mohammad Anwar:I think what is misunderstood most about leadership is that we equate a title to being a leader. And we don't really recognize the behaviors that are needed to become a leader. And so the best way to test this is if you ever see a person with a position or a title, they get respect the minute. But the minute they get fired or laid off or their jobs change, that respect does not carry forward with the person, but it's left after their titles are stripped from them.
Mohammad Anwar:That is the biggest problem with leadership today is we think leadership is a title or a position that gives you that authority versus it needs to be referent in nature where it is genuinely influential and based on true relationship and the person's behaviors that no matter which title, which position they could be even in the front lines and they would be more of a leader than a person holding that title.
Mohammad Anwar:I think that's the misconception of leadership today.
Heather Patrick:Yeah, that's good. So in looking back, what were two or three red flags for you that the culture was falling apart at soft way, right, but you just glazed over them?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah, there are lots of signs. But I think the number one sign that I even see in other organizations today is at that highest level of leadership in the organization, like say the CEO or the president or executive director and they have their direct reports, they show up to their workplace not to work as a team, but rather to work for themselves. And so I used to have this challenge where my direct reports showed up to work not to necessarily do good work but make sure that my teammates next to them their teammates next to them got in trouble with me so they look good. And so their their way of looking good was making sure someone else looks bad.
Heather Patrick:Yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:And whenever I would have my c suite meetings, my direct reports never showed up as a team, but rather showed up to just report to me.
Mohammad Anwar:And so they never worked with each other. They had they operated in their silos. They hated working with each other. They did finger pointing, blamed the other department. In fact, we used call it divisions.
Mohammad Anwar:Why do we need to have divisions in our own team? And they would lead their own divisions and all they cared about was my team is not at fault. Your team is at fault. And I'm like freaking it. They're all our team.
Mohammad Anwar:This is my company. They're everybody. This is our team. Why are we constantly talking about each other's team members as your team and their team and my team? And I'm sitting here like, oh my gosh.
Mohammad Anwar:Our company is in a disarray because these leaders are out there to protect themselves, in silos, blame each other, and make sure the only way they look good is by blaming someone else on their own team instead of fighting with the competition out there fighting with each other. And those are the signs. And I still see that.
Heather Patrick:That's powerful.
Mohammad Anwar:It's in the workplace how disunited leadership teams are.
Mohammad Anwar:So you fixed that by demonstrating love and building trust, right? And so now how do you evaluate success across your organization outside of growth or financial? Like what, So now what are the green flags for you?
Mohammad Anwar:How people make other people feel is a big measurement for people's culture values that they bring to the table, how they treat each other, how they hold each other accountable. That for me internally is very important. Externally, it's impact. So before it used to be revenue dollars and metrics that were very artificial, but were also in conflict with how we needed to show up with each other. They were like opposing forces.
Mohammad Anwar:Here we are saying you need to operate as a team, but what I valued was individual performance. So, like, even today's performance, you know, systems in corporate the corporate world is really, really messed up. They they have ranking systems where they rank you against your peers, but then we should work together. We are united. We collaborate.
Mohammad Anwar:But then I get assessed for my individual performance and I'm assessed against my peers. So it's very much a conflictual process and it is people are confused. People don't know if the words on the wall actually mean anything because they're being rated separately from what they actually are being asked to behave like. So that's a big problem.
Heather Patrick:So how do you I mean, a little healthy competition drives rate, so how do you balance that? How do you balance, because ultimately you can only be responsible for your performance, But as part of your performance, working with your team, that's part of your performance, right? But how do you balance that? How do you motivate people, right? And still maintain the incentive to work as a team?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah, So I think that's where our corporate workplaces have got it wrong, is that we're creating internal competition instead of competition with the external forces. So the idea is if we help our teams start thinking about our competitors, who are we trying to compete with on the outside is far more important than internal competition, and rather let's come together to beat our competition on the outside.
Mohammad Anwar:So if we can get leadership teams on the inside to recognize that their genuine competition isn't the person next to you. The other company leadership teams that are outside. That's who we should be competing with.
Mohammad Anwar:So let's use that as a rallying cry to come together to become high performing. And now that doesn't mean we don't expect high performance of each other. Now we're able to expect higher performance of each other because we have a common enemy. If you wanna use that language like more.
Heather Patrick:Right.
Mohammad Anwar:But the idea is nothing is more powerful than aligning us together to compete against our outside competitor. And if we can then do that and from a place of love, then we will hold each other accountable to higher standards. Because now it's not about you looking bad in front of me, now it's about I want you to level up we can be better together.
Heather Patrick:You don't wanna be the weakest link.
Mohammad Anwar:Correct.
Heather Patrick:Right? You want to build as strong as possible so you can build, you can beat that that group over there.
Mohammad Anwar:Exactly. We know we can't do it by ourselves Yep. Either. So that's the mind shift that we need to have. So performance management should be assessed with that regard as well and see how are we doing, what are we doing to help each other, support each other, how are we holding each other accountable to higher standards is fair game in performance management.
Heather Patrick:I like that. That's really good. So it's all great to talk about change, but my experience has been that most of the time, when people believe there is a change needed, they resist change once it starts to happen. Yeah. Right?
Heather Patrick:How do you, how do you get past that? How do you help move that needle? Where do you get the buy in? How do you make that happen?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. There's a big narrative out there that says, explain the why and people will come alongside you. And I think that while there is a place to share the why, what really is needed is acknowledge the grief and the loss that the people are having in times of change. Cause when you tell people to go on a journey of change, their resistance is not that they don't agree with the change. They see the rationale, they see the business sense, they see the need to why they need to change or why we need to go on a change an organization.
Mohammad Anwar:But what gets missed is the feeling of loss and grieving what they were used to, what they were comfortable with, their identity. If it's an art structure change and saying, now you should go to this department and you'll have this title, it is an identity change for them. And also a lot of the times when we create change, we almost fail to acknowledge and honor the past. The way we approach change as leaders is a lot of times like, yeah, everything we've been doing so far has been wrong. So now we should do this.
Mohammad Anwar:And so you're not even acknowledging that, hey, people, we honor your past. We honor what you've done thus far. And we appreciate it. And we genuinely know what you've done to get us this far, now it's time to go to on this other path. So honoring the past, giving the space to grieve, understanding their loss, loss of identity, loss of comfort, loss of familiarity, all of that has to be acknowledged to bring people along in a journey of change.
Mohammad Anwar:And that's when you lead change with love and not come down and say thou shalt do this or you have another job you can go find. Or if you don't do this with those threats, that is leading change with fear And fear does not help people come along in the side of change. They might do it out of force, but along the way you lose a lot of the other characteristics that you expect people to come with, which is the innovative thinking. The side of the brain shuts down in times of fear so they might just come beside you like robots but doesn't mean you'll realize the value in the change journey you're expecting them to bring.
Heather Patrick:That is really brilliant and really insightful because you're right And I mean, I've done this work for a long time and even in my own leadership, I don't know that I have said, I understand your loss. Like I get it. Yeah. That is really brilliant.
Mohammad Anwar:Thank you.
Heather Patrick:All right, so there's my takeaway. Need to go assess how I'm managing change.
Mohammad Anwar:There you go.
Heather Patrick:So let's switch gears a little bit. Because now you're walking into this new world of AI, right? And so and you have a philosophy there too wrapped around love. So talk a little bit about that and the evolution of Softway into working with AI and how you've anchored it in love and what you really wanna do around that.
Mohammad Anwar:So as you know, I started off as a software company and then eventually through my journey we started to offer culture services and we got to travel the world and train. We've trained now over 8,000 leaders on how to lead with love from 22 different cities and 11 countries. Yeah. We've traveled the globe and we've had over 60 different nationalities go through it. And along the way we realized that we had a new purpose and calling, which was to bring humanity back to the workplace through love. But then
Heather Patrick:So what does that mean to you?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah, what does that mean to
Heather Patrick:Yeah, so what does that mean? So if I'm, you know, I'm the average listener and you know, I'm going about my day and I hear you say that, what does that really mean? How do we bring humanity back to the workplace and what does that mean to you?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah, so what I believe and observe from my own organization and other companies is that people don't show up with their true self in the workplace. They kind of leave their humanity at the door entering the workplace. They don't believe they can be vulnerable, honest, and themselves. And the workplace has kind of sucked the humanity out of us humans. We're expected to operate like robots, keep our emotions outside, save your tissues for your issues.
Mohammad Anwar:Don't bring it to the workplace. We're sure to do the Don't take it personally. Keep your emotions aside. Mhmm. It's a fallacy because the performance of an organization is impacted if you are not able to be your true self.
Mohammad Anwar:Mhmm. If you're not if you're coming into a workplace with fear, you're not going to be able to bring your best version of yourself for the best outcomes of the business. And so when we say bring back humanity to the workplace, we believe that a lot of organizations like myself, when we started, we started with us embracing each other's humanity. And as I got bigger and as I got successful, I started to lose my own humanity. I started to expect other people to just show up to work, do their job, collect their paychecks, and I don't wanna know about your life.
Mohammad Anwar:I don't wanna know what challenges you're having. Mhmm. Just do your work and go. So I kind of lost my own humanity and took the humanity out of my work
Heather Patrick:to easier to operate that way. Right?
Mohammad Anwar:It's easier to operate
Heather Patrick:that In theory.
Mohammad Anwar:In theory. It's comfortable. Right. Right. And and eventually, I recognized that that was actually hurting the long term prospect of her business.
Mohammad Anwar:And when I was allowed to be human, which is I was the one who was refusing myself to be human when I was able to come and say, you know what, I don't know what the hell I'm doing or I need help or I'm sorry. And I began to be more vulnerable and open and sharing my state of mind, my emotions, my feelings, and brought my humanness to the organization. People stopped seeing me as a CEO and started seeing me as Mohammad, the individual. And I think that allowed me to not feel lonely at the workplace anymore down to I now I'm not dreading to go into the workplace. I'm not having Sunday anxiety.
Mohammad Anwar:I'm able to be human, and I know my team will accept me for who I am, and they know that they will be accepted for who they are. And that has actually led us to be extremely successful. So I believe that we are trying too hard to separate our personal selves from the work selves, and the reality is that's very taxing because we're at the end of the day just one individual. Why are we trying to be two versions of the same person? Yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:And if we are allowed to bring our humanity to the workplace, it can be a competitive advantage for us to achieve our goals and outcomes.
Heather Patrick:Yeah. And so now as you're in this AI world, how critical is it with that, right, to ensure that our our humanity stays?
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. So what's been happening is there's a big narrative out there propagated by the media and unfortunately real life experiences where AI is seen as a human replacement technology. And I I actually struggled with that because when I started to play with AI in 2023, I start to have sleepless nights because I recognize that my whole business is near jeopardy of existence yet again. Obsolescence is near me because my whole business is about building software Mhmm. With engineers.
Mohammad Anwar:I have hundreds of engineers who code every day. Now AI can code better than my senior engineers, longer than my engineers can, faster than my engineers can for $20 a month. And I'm like, holy crap. My whole business is in jeopardy right now.
Heather Patrick:Yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:I had a lot of time to think about it, then I also started to play with AI more and more and more and learn the mechanics of AI. And I recognized late last year by going to my own journey that AI is actually not here to replace humanity, it's actually here to make us more human again. Mhmm. Because what I found for myself is that I'm able to offload a lot of my robotic manual tasks to AI and now I'm able to spend more time talking to people, socializing with them.
Heather Patrick:Building relationships.
Mohammad Anwar:Building relationships, having one on ones that I always used to put off because I had a lot of other emails and work to take care of. And I also realized that AI is modeled after humanity. It is modeled to mimic humans and it's actually doing a much better job at humanity than us humans are. We've become more like robots and machines are becoming more like humans. And I saw an opportunity that we can actually use AI as a strategy to bring back humanity to the workplace instead of it replacing humanity.
Mohammad Anwar:So that's we call that philosophy and framework the humane first framework.
Heather Patrick:I love that. Okay. So we're gonna do lightning round questions.
Mohammad Anwar:Let's do it.
Heather Patrick:Alright. What's the best leadership advice you've ever received?
Mohammad Anwar:To look for the good in others while you look for your own weakness.
Heather Patrick:Oh, that's good. Yes. So a failure that became a blessing outside of Softway almost closing, what else?
Mohammad Anwar:Failure that became a blessing outside of Softway. It's a good one. I have failed a lot. So I would think oh, I don't know that I have, like, one unique moment, but I genuinely have experienced failing fast has helped me fail cheap. Interesting.
Mohammad Anwar:Saved a lot of money by failing fast.
Heather Patrick:Interesting because it's been such a huge failure that you it was undeniable and you know you had to change?
Mohammad Anwar:No. I failed so fast that I didn't waste money
Heather Patrick:Oh, gotcha.
Mohammad Anwar:In the same thing, thinking I was going to succeed. Okay. So I got to pull my money and put it into something else. So I've had that happen to me many, many different times. I built some products that failed so miserably that I saved money not investing anymore into it so things like that.
Mohammad Anwar:So fail fast, fail cheap.
Heather Patrick:Okay. A daily habit you can't live without?
Mohammad Anwar:Working out.
Heather Patrick:It's still every day?
Mohammad Anwar:I try to work out like six days a week. Wow. I need I need my time to love myself Mhmm. By working out and lifting weights or playing sports or just doing even biking. Stationary bike will help me.
Mohammad Anwar:Just clear my head, center myself. I also use it as a time to reflect. Mhmm. So I my my coauthors and everybody make fun of me because I listen to the most awkward playlist while working out. I listen to Enya, and they don't they don't understand it, but I'm like, results matter.
Mohammad Anwar:Yeah. And so I it actually is a time where I'm working on my physical health, but I'm also introspecting on how the day went. Did I treat people the way I want to? Have I hurt anybody that I need to apologize? How could I have shown up differently?
Mohammad Anwar:So I'm able to, like, kind of collect my thoughts while I'm working out.
Heather Patrick:Yeah.
Mohammad Anwar:And that way after that I'm able to be present for my family.
Heather Patrick:Oh that's amazing. What's the one thing you're still learning?
Mohammad Anwar:I am still learning to unlearn. So Oh, tell me more how does that we talk about learning all the time, but, you know, read more books, watch more TED talks, and keep absorbing and keep learning. But what I'm recognizing is that a lot of us leaders have learned a lot of behaviors and things that we believe are facts and truths. And we have a hard time unlearning those behaviors. We may relearn new ways of thinking, new ways of doing work.
Mohammad Anwar:And so unlearning is the highest form of learning but many leaders don't even appreciate the point of unlearning. What I believe to be true might not be true anymore. What I, what has served me in my behaviors might not serve me anymore. So how do I unlearn those, that knowledge or unlearn those behaviors is what I'm learning to do.
Heather Patrick:Yeah, that's very powerful. I tell this story often but it's because there was such a pivotal moment for me. We were in couples counseling and the counselor said to me, what has served you well for the first forty years it's not what's going to make you successful for the next forty years. And it took me a long time to really understand what that meant but once I did, right, it's exactly that. The things I had learned to cope or survive or thrive and dysfunction or whatever the case may be got me to a certain point where I was successful, right, but it wasn't what was going to be fulfilling for the next part of my life.
Heather Patrick:And so that has been revolutionary for me. Okay, so what's the one if our audience remembers nothing else, what's the one thing you want them to take away besides go kooks?
Mohammad Anwar:I'd say the power of love. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's the ultimate strategy for us humans to be successful in our workplace, in our personal lives, in society, in the world. I think we should not, you know, undermine or not value the power of love. There's quite a bit of unlocking potential that can happen if you recognize how the power of love can help us humans do good for the world and each other.
Heather Patrick:I love that, that is fantastic. So thank you so much for sharing some of your insight. It has been great to talk to you today.
Mohammad Anwar:Thank you for having me.
Heather Patrick:Happy, happy to have you on. As always, we are always looking for volunteers. Come join the PBT family, reach out to us, ask how you can get involved. Of course we are always looking for donors and support too. But we are really this year moving into some big things.
Heather Patrick:And so we would love to have our listeners get more involved. And we always end with tell us what your vision is. Thanks and have a great day.