The Uniformer - Anil Kariwala And The Conscious Approach to Uniform Industry Leadership

Businesses have to evolve to do a completely different kind of thinking until now most people, most businesses, with customer first. In our organization, we took employees first. You have great employees. The customers are taken care of automatically. The Uniformer. Insights and interviews into the people and companies that drive the markets for uniforms, image apparel and public safety equipment. The Uniformer is a production of the Network Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors, the NAUMD. Welcome to the Uniformer. I am Rick Levine, Executive Director of the NAUMD, and thrilled, really thrilled to be sitting here today with my friend, Neil Carriwalla of Carriwalla Industries. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today, Neil. It's a great pleasure, like, why is Rick? So, Neil, this is your name on the company, right? This is a company you started and you hold the title of CEO. And I like to start these chats by saying, so what does it mean to be the CEO of Carriwalla Industries? And what do you actually do throughout the year? As a CEO, I am de facto a coach for my team, though I should do a lot of executive things several years ago, I took a step back and chose that I have to essentially be a coach. So throughout the year, I would say, I coach and I conceive. So connect with fine people like you with members of the uniform industry in any UMD and other organizations and conceive as conceive ideas basically identify what are the new ideas, what are the critical thinking that I can do, what is the creative thinking I can do? They are five steps of thinking, critical thinking, creative thinking, analytical thinking, design thinking and systems thinking. So I focus on one of these five thinking at one time or another. That's where conceive ideas and put it to the team to go ahead and execute that. I love that. So the three C's, is this in a neo original? It must be there in some management literature, design thinking is a very common thing these days. Yes, it's a more spoken phrase, but critical creative thinking and analytical thinking. But the three C's of coach can see connect and connect connect and connect and connect. Yeah, that I really like. Yes, I've heard about the different schools of thinking and that's very what's that where you're a black belt in organizational systems and things like that. I forget what that process is something like six sigma black belt. Yes, sigma black belt green belt and so on. Yes, it's a little reminiscent of that when you start talking about the different ways of thinking about it. But I really appreciate that answer because not that it hasn't always been this way, but it's especially this way because now we try to take the head and the heart and the body in mind with all of our stakeholders. What are our employees thinking and feeling and doing as well as what are our customers thinking and feeling and doing and where it's not as much of a conveyor belt that it seems to me that CEOs operate on these days. They need to account for all of these different thought processes to create a wonderful picture for their company. Totally resonate with you. It is we have to do businesses have to evolve to do a completely different kind of thinking until now most people, most businesses put customer first in our organization. We took employees first. The reason why a good CEO would be one who effectively is a good coach to have the team work to be the go getter team without being the stressed out go getters. So when is a conscious go getter? When is a compulsive go getter? So my role as a CEO is as a coach is to develop a bunch of conscious individuals who would not be doing something compulsively. For incentives not for targets. We don't have defined targets in the business. How do you know if you're successful? Of course, number successful is always what gets measured gets improved gets better. So we of course vote measure numbers. But we would not push someone to define to work essential on targets reaching targets. That doesn't mean that we are not an ambitious organization. Target says always associated with result and we trust the process. We focus the process. So if the process is good. It's very likely that the results would also be good. So targets invariably get met. We do non numerical targets that this much we will be able to do better. So it could be our targets could be that how many more employees we are able to provide employment to rather than how much sales we are able to have more. So there are still two sides of the same coin. So nobody's going to hire more employees with the same sales. So we would measure that how many how much more employment we are able to generate this year. What exactly? Very interesting. Wow, I really like that. And your company has always had unknown you a few years now. And you've always had a clear mission or it has always been explained to me. But like I understood your mission right away. You focus this on being a good corporate citizen. You empower women in the workplace was not just employees. You specifically are empowering women in the workplace. You run your factory on solar energy. Maybe more than one factory and solar energy. And then all these other socially responsible activities. Are you just by nature a good person? It's so much for calling me back. But say if I ask you what is the purpose of all the economic activity all of us. We do any economic activity. The sole purpose is to feel joyful to feel happy to be happy about it. Isn't it? Could there be any other reason? It was a shame. I do it because I need food and I want to provide for my family. But without food you would not be happy. So in effect is a stepping stone to being happy to be to feel good. Let's put it this way for it's about feeling good. So if you do your daily grind what one would call as a daily grind. If you do it with that feel goodness the happiness quotient as the highest value proposition for the employees and for the customers or for the suppliers or for the neighboring community. It would give you immense amount of joy just to go to work. So one thing which I always tell my team and one restaurant which I never go to my go in person is thank God is five day. Because could it be that I suffered the entire week just to enjoy the weekend. Thank God is five day. No, it's every day is a great day. So then why all the other stuff why solar energy why employee would you employ like a thousand women? About a thousand people and soul energy is again it felt what is it that we can do better for our only home. That's the only home that we have the earth and I personally am a great believer that solar energy is economically is a great economic value proposition ecology and economics must be married together. Mother nature and father profit must also be married together. So solar energy is good for mother nature but it is also father profit she is married to father profit and solar energy the payback period is just two years it makes far much more economic sense. We have 65% of our electric consumption coming from solar panels. So that's a great economic value proposition at the same time. Which is a lot of you running a thousand sewing machines. That's a lot of solar panels but the machines are becoming more and more energy efficient lines are again far more efficient. HVAC is becoming more and more efficient and if you have that with solar energy and for example for our ironing system not just solar panels. We preheat the water for for steam ironing in uniform industry. You need to have boilers that would iron clothes and that water requires obviously hundred degrees instead of room temperature. If the water is preheated by solar panels not solar photovoltaic panels not electricity but just solar water heaters which are not expensive. The energy consumption comes down by at least 80%. So why is it everyone doing this? I hope people listening to this podcast would do that. There is so much mother nature the bounty of mother nature we must solve benefit from. Why to heat up water from room temperature when the sun can do 80% of the job. In our parts of the world we have so much sun why should we completely be using electricity to heat up that much. And all those things these initiatives helped us bring in a purpose amongst our employees. Everybody felt that there is a purpose that we are doing something but we are doing something with this purposeful way with this much of consciousness that we tend to most of us we tend to especially the corporate world tends to underestimate the power of human consciousness. So there was one of a great book I was reading earlier this year book by Daniel Pink called Drive. What drives people to accomplish more and money is not a great motivating factor. I was talking with a couple of other people recently for this podcast and they talked about how much what you're describing right now relates to them bringing in the younger generation into our companies and how to recruit and retain is so much a part of what you're now speaking to which is what's the purpose young people. Someone used this word they said seriousness it was a Rosela to Angelo from Kloppman International and she talked about what for young people they're looking for a serious company somebody that is working on something that's worthwhile in this world not just I need a job. That's right that's right if the purpose is profits you will you that so the purpose is beyond profits then it becomes more joyful workplace so young the Gen Z and the X as we call them whatever you call them all the millennials. They are far less materialistic and the formal purpose driven then many of us in our previous generations yeah why do we think that is because my generation messed up the world it's another feel like we did some the world I think that's how societies and civilizations evolve building up on few things whenever whatever we did was never. When for example when plastic came in we thought of what a wonder material it is and now we know that it is no longer the wonder material is our oceans are flooded with millions and millions of tons of plastic every year yeah and now good thing is that change is beginning to happen. And we feel very good to do our small bit in that and that's what each one of our employees feels that they are doing something to make the world a better place not just for the job but making the world a slightly better place. Love it so speaking of plastics at the 2024 convention we're going to have someone coming and talking about PFAS and how as manufacturers and sellers we have to think about the accountability and liability of it all like where you know how can we really get our brains around removing toxicity from our products but that segues me into let's talk about carriwala's products because actually we started at a very high level. So I know that you just your factory produces such a variety of products I'm aware of one specialty where you have a where it protects a worker from a chainsaw which in and of itself is amazing to me right but then you also do medical scrubs which have a totally different technology specification you do regular uniforms industrial uniforms by the word regular. Just more of just a common shirts and pants let's say right it's quite a variety can you talk about the variety of the products that you're producing and how do you keep it all straight as far as keeping quality and process the where you want it. Process is the key see quality has two aspects one is external external could be pertaining to the performance let's say is linked to the raw materials you have access to the supply chain you have access to has one part of the coin one part of the value chain but the greatest part is what the process is at the end of the day in uniform industry. It is essentially sewing and sewing from point A to point B if you are able to set up linear assembly lines and but the most important ingredient that we have to keeping everything fine as you might sound slightly ascetic but we consider happiness as an ingredient as a raw material to have a better quality product. For example if you write an email also if you're in good mood is good chance that it would show on the other end at this email was written with a good mood so likewise same is with production employees they would be if they are more joyful if they are more purpose driven they would be able to do a better quality of the product no matter what the product is but then if we tell them that you are producing this tree care workers and your product would prevent a chainsaw to from cutting the leg of the person who is working on that it builds up a purpose it is not just a product same is when we put in about uniforms we tell them what is a uniform industry we told them we chose we had a choice between go to the fashion industry and the uniform industry. What I like about the uniform industry is that I have always seen when I was in the as a cadet in the Indian Navy as a student in those days the pride that I had with the uniform it was a pride purpose and most importantly let's say three piece pride purpose and the psychological safety. So the psychological safety is if you have red sapiens the book by Noah Harari it still have the tribe mentality when we are part of a tribe we feel psychological safety so when they are in uniforms it feels it creates a sense of psychological safety to the leader and you feel that okay here these many people are part of my tribe and you feel safe in that that environment and then the pride and then businesses employees varying uniforms they always have feel a greater pride and purpose so we tell them that not only you are wearing uniforms yourself but you are wearing your in a dress which is going to give these things to the to them for example when the pandemic struck we were closed only for one week because we were acquisition by the government to produce PPE yeah for the doctors and everyone felt I was at home there was no way I could go to the factory our factories are quite far away. I told to the employees that you are covid warriors and it is important we don't know how many of us would survive but it is important that we produce this so that the doctor survive no in the first week of the pandemic when the first lockdowns happen the fear was lot more than the virus itself and the second wave the fear was lot less than the virus virus was more fear was less that probably created lot more in the second wave when the first wave when we were acquisition that we must produce PPE suits for the government all the employees stood up to the challenge and they had a greater purpose and people and they were times when we had to ask people to take rest this is already is beyond eight hours is it no we are not bothered with over time our employees refuse to take over time that is not a quite of course it was a law we would do that they say that we want to produce more not for over time but we want to produce to keep our doctors safe. And did look a lot of factories that I know of that were state open because they were deemed essential or requested to to pivot to PPE they did go through waves of people getting ill though so was that a challenge that your workers were some got sick I assume right fortunately for us workers didn't get sick in our case we were fortunate. But the unintended situation that happened was whenever workers came to work from their villages there some vigilante in their villages they stopped them from entering back. So we had to make arrangements for them to stay at the factory and so on and the factories obviously not geared up but it's a wartime situation so you have to do things now it was like a wartime situation so we had to do whatever was necessary. Our general manager he himself stayed back in the factory can you just imagine the showroom of the factory there was my office became worked up showed doubled up his bedroom and so on so that was a situation but that was the level of motivation that we are doing something for a great purpose and we have to do it. Money won't not the factor for anyone amazing that's I had not heard that that you went through that during the pandemic period and was it more than masks was it other types of garments as well as well and the PPE suits and all women PPE suits we were producing it before pandemic for a German company so as a pursuit workwear company. That was the question by us requested to us to produce and we stood up to the challenge and then pandemic happened so we know how to produce it. Yeah that was good right some factories tried to pivot to products that they weren't as familiar with that that's great that you were able to jump in right away and say no we know how to do this so we keep doing that so how many countries are you mentioned Germany and I know the reason you and I are talking is because you have customers in North America how many countries is currywala working with customers in now. We have two divisions in the company one which is the majority is the uniforms and workwear and we also have given the sustainability peak that I always was and much before sustainability became a buzz word I didn't do long time ago some 25 years ago I didn't know what to do with the short pieces of the uniform fabrics. So we made that was caught in those days there were a lot of cotton uniforms in Europe now it is mostly PCs that I was caught in uniform so we made some promotional bags out of the and low and behold it became a category of business by itself so we are exporting uniforms to 14 countries but in total including the bags we are exporting now to 42 countries 42. Wow including New Zealand in the extreme east to the states and the West that's the whole planet. Thank you 42 countries that's congratulations thank you so that's a lot of logistics that's a lot of that that has its own set of challenges right this not a total a challenge because logistics the word networks of logistic companies they're doing a pretty good job or as it's just bringing the goods up to the main port Kolkata which is a very well connected port or east as well as west so you say we have to ship the goods to the US East Coast it would be traveling west from India if we have to ship the goods to the west coast from Kolkata port the goods are traveling east by a sick or over the Pacific Ocean logistics is the world has undergone a complete sea change in logistics is far much more organized and far more digital than it seems like I guess I'm remembering when for a short period I guess about a year post pandemic that logistics was a nightmare for everyone because we were everything was clogged the whole system was clogged that was the time that was a very exceptional like once in a century event but things got but everything moved still moved in those days also took longer time and at 10X the price so you feel like now we're global again everything's moving like we're all we're able to have our just in time world again yeah everything is in just in time back to just in time world indeed interesting okay and you have also been a strong advocate and practitioner of yoga I know we've talked a lot about happiness and maybe this whole happiness hug your strong my friend and I'm proud of that drug so I would like to have a drug better I would like to put in the last hot last possible I love that he's a peddler of the drug happiness but yoga we have millions of practitioners of yoga in North America yoga has you know it's it's a global way to to exercise it's a global way to dress it's an accepted world but you've taken it and you said we can use this as a metaphor and you came to talk to our network group and a UMD about this to use yoga as a metaphor for business for here's how you can think about your business processes again we're back to thinking tell us about business yoga the metaphor is the other way around is yoga the exercises is an extension of the principles of yoga yoga is is a Sanskrit word which means union so for a human being it's a union of the mind body and the consciousness whether you call it soul or you call it consciousness but it is something which is beyond the three dimensions beyond the ability of science but the ability of physics it is beyond physics it is metaphysics so it's the union of these three things so similarly for a business organization a A business needs to have the physical infrastructure which is the body of the business. The mind of the business is the people who manage the business, the governance of the business. But what is the consciousness of the business, the consciousness of the business is the collective consciousness of all the people who are working in that business. Whether those people are conscious people, whether those people are compulsive people. The opposite of consciousness in yoga is not unconscious, but the opposite is compulsive. Conscious and compulsive. Conscious people would do something on their own volition. Compulsive people would do something when they are asked to do something, when they are compelled to do something. So consciously to give an example, to consciously follow traffic rule is a conscious thing, everybody stands to benefit. For example, in India when the seed burs were introduced much later than they were introduced in America, it was like only some 20, 25 years ago. So there were some people who would put it on because the police is watching and some would put it on because it is in my interest to be saved. But then there were some people who had t-shirts with a seat belt printed on that so that the police would not catch them. So they were cross between conscious and they were maybe unconscious people. They are cross between conscious and compulsive. So business yoga is basically a philosophy of yoga is a way of life, likewise by extension business yoga is a way of life. It has eight different parts to it. It begins with yama which is a Sanskrit word again which means the thoughts. So everything begins with the thoughts. So what you think, what is, what your vision is, what your mission is. Most of us we come across vision statements or mission statements of businesses which is only either they may not have it. And if they do have it, it is only a piece on the world. But if you ask people in the organization, there is a pretty good chance that only a small fraction of people would be able to answer what the mission statement is, what the mission is. So if you don't know where you are going, you could take any road, isn't it? Likewise, that's the philosophy of yoga that you begin with the end in mind. This is the process. This is the mission. This is where we want to go. So there are eight steps in the interest of time. I would just switch to step number four which is something called pranayama which is about breathing, right? Forms of breathing. So pranayama is a form of breathing. For all of us to live, we need to breathe. But breathing cannot be the purpose of living. Likewise, for a business to live, it must be a business that is self-sustaining. It must be a profitable business. Even if it is not for profit business, then also it must be able to generate surplus over the expenses. It's not called profit, but still the business must be self-sustaining. But profit again cannot be the purpose of the business. Profit is a byproduct of the main purpose. The main purpose is solving a problem, creating a value and then capturing some part of that value. So what you capture, you create a value, what you capture is the sales of the business and what you eventually are able to save from that is just your profit. That enables you to reinvest and expand that business. So likewise, for breathing, we would want to breathe in as cool and as fresh air as possible. Like we in India, we would go to Himalayas to have better quality also and to breathe better. Likewise, a business's profit must be pureer profit, better profit. A pureer and better profit would be one where the business is socially compliant, environmentally compliant. If a business is operating out of sweatshops to save money, garment factories are known for that in some countries without being any of my neighboring countries, I don't mean any disrespect. I think actually it happens in every country. Yes, the emerging countries whose economies may be aren't as mature as other countries might be more susceptible to a sweatshop environment. Even here in the United States, we notoriously had sweatshops in New York for a very long time. So yeah, that if the workplace, the workplace is a better place, is a more joyful place, then the profits would be still be like like greater oxygen, better air. They would come more. Initially, they might take some time. For example, if you want to take, enjoy the fresh air of the Himalayas, you have to travel them. That would take time. That would take some effort. Likewise, for cleaner profits, it takes some more effort. I call that conscious capitalism. I'm a great fan of capitalism. I don't want to touch socialism with a barge pole also. So conscious capitalism is something that would improve the quality of profits and then the quality of all the people who are associated with our business. So all the eight steps of the business, the last step is something called samadhi, which means how you are able to self-actualize. So basically, we have four needs as human beings. The physical needs need for food, shelter, clothing, which is almost everyone gets that. The second need is social need. Social need, the need to recognize and be the need to love and be loved. And the third is mental needs, the need to fulfill mental faculties, the need to learn. And also the need to teach. You would love to all of us. You would hardly come across anyone who doesn't like to teach something to someone else. And at the top of that, spiritual needs. So many people confuse spiritual needs with religious needs, but they are very different from each other. Spiritual need is what you would feel, what the spirit could feel good. That's what yoga is all about, the union of the spirit, the unconsciousness or the soul, with the mind and the body. So I would like to pedal the drug of business, yoga also. It really goes back to what you said at the start of our talk, which is just the happiness quotient, right? Which is, you're using different metaphors, you're using different thinking methods in order to still arrive at that happiness quotient, no matter how you divide it up or think about it. And there's this whole approach of work, life, balance of, and that you have work and you have play and you have love, right? And there's this intersection between the three of them. And that's where the most happiness, perhaps, can be found. And I love that you, the ways that you express it. I take the work-life balance expression with a pinch of salt and I'll say, why? I don't personally believe in the concept of work-life balance. Have you heard of sleep-life balance? Sleep-life balance? No, you never heard of it. No, food life, how about food-life balance? Never. So that's an integral part of life. So work is an integral part of life. It is all about life. So if the moment we think it to be an external part of life, probably we would need to have a balance. But if it is an integral part of life, you don't need to have a balance. So all you need to identify what, as you were mentioning about those three diagrams, it's actually the Japanese call it ikigai. It's what is the four say, draw a wind diagram where what you love to do, what you're good at, what the world needs and what most importantly, the world can pay you for. If the four things combined together, that small place is your ikigai. That's what raises your happiness quotient. If it raises your happiness quotient, you would be healthy. If the mind is healthy, the body is automatically healthy. Businesses would be healthier, businesses, more profitable businesses. If the employees are healthy and happy, it's a no-brainer that they would be able to perform far better than an organization where every time somebody else is getting fired for not meeting the targets. If someone is falling the process, results would come, the targets would be achieved. And we have consistently been achieving the non-financial targets every time. So my target is next year we would be should be adding up to 200 more employees. We are in the process of building up a factory and the dream is to employ 1500 more people. So that the factory is under, we are in that design stage. We should be ready by the end of next year. And the happiness that I can feel the joy of, wow, there would be 1500 more women who would be joining the fold and I would be getting on board my ship. And I take pride as the captain of the ship. I love that. Is the new factory close to the current factory or did you choose a different region of Calcutta? Because for now, just a few kilometers away from there. Yeah. Two factories both are apart from each other and that was part of a strategic as a business continuity plan. Let it be if there is some calamity or something if factories are away from each other. But this one would still be slightly away from the existing factory. So this will be your third. That would be our third factory. That's a lot of capacity. That would be a lot of capacity and our happy employees are bringing in all the orders to fulfill the capacity. I'm absolutely positive about it. That's your NAMD. NAMD has such highly conscious uniform companies who wish to work with other conscious uniform manufacturers. I'm glad to hear you say that. That's been your experience. Certainly when I came on board as executive director, we did not have a core values statement. So one of the first things I worked on with a few board members is I said, I want to know what it is we stand for. What are our core values? And then I can make sure that the programs and services that we're providing or encouraging our members to connect with each other in ways that go with those core values. And one of them, thankfully, is that the core values uniform companies are good corporate citizens. Exactly. That's what you'll be thinking about. Yeah. It begins with a thought. That's right. You have to say it. I forget what famous person said it, but maybe it was even Shakespeare who said to name it is to give it life. Absolutely. It is. To name it, to give it life. So if you name something, then we would know this is then they work as a directive principle in a way. Core values and mission statement works like that. Like a bit of a lighthouse. Keep an eye on the lighthouse. Something I relate to. Yeah. And militarily, we have some wars happening around the world, which is unfortunate at the moment. But so where do you see? I don't know. Do you have a, you're such an optimistic person and I think I am too, right? So I would love it if we could all adopt many of the, the approaches that you take to your stakeholder, capitalism to your conscious capitalism. I would love to see all of that. To we believe that more and more companies will head this direction or given like in our country, the dysfunction of our leadership in government does not give us hope that we are moving towards a more cooperative, loving world. I think things are not as bad as this scene. I have to code from one of the most optimist book that I have read and I recommend all the members of any UMD or anyone who is in uniform industry, anyone out there. There is book called Factfulness by a Swedish author called Hans Gosling. Factfulness. It's a great book and the author, he gives data to backup. I think even might, even though it might seem that there is a lot of unrest, there is indeed no disrespect to people losing lives. But if we think of it from the previous times, they are far more, we, the human beings respect human rights far much more than what it used to be. We are not a perfect society, but sometimes as to feel how warm it is inside, you must feel what, how cold it is outside. Probably. So I do feel some bit of unfortunate events are happening elsewhere in the world. But we still are very blessed that most of us are able to live a much better life than our ancestors have lived and not too far ancestors. Just think of it what it was 50 years ago and things of it what it was 100 years ago and 150 years ago, if you think it in slaps of 50 years. So we have good politicians, they have good intentions probably, but some of them are crazy. That makes the importance of the good ones to be slightly more perceived, but that would take us into a political conversation. Let's not do that. But solely as a metaphor, I see what you're saying that yes, you have these pockets still of, and they tend to be loud, right? So therefore they're heard because we all, we sell more news by quoting the loud people. But I really like the thought and I believe I've subscribed to that as well that if you say we're 8 billion people now, so the percentage of the percentage of famine, the percentage of people who don't have anywhere to live, who can't eat, who have no jobs, it's like it's all like you're saying, it's all getting back to. Absolutely. Yeah, very interesting. So I know we talked a little bit about this earlier as well, but I like to end these podcasts by asking this question of would you recommend the uniform industry on Neil to chill? Children, nieces, nephews, people graduating from college. What is it about the work where industry or the uniform industry that would you recommend to young people? Absolutely. I think uniform industry is one such great industry, which gives you the bright focus and the psychological safety, the three piece as I was speaking about. You would feel like once you get in, you can't get into say a fashion industry. I've met many business people who have come in from fashion industry into uniforms and they never want to go back to fashion industry. Not that, not just because there is no change of colors and fashion, uniform industry is becoming very fashionable. Fashionable, yes. But without the pitfalls associated with pure fashion industry, no disrespect to the fashion industry, but uniform industry has so much of purpose into it that young people, if they join in, once they come in, they would be able to feel what it makes you feel when you sell, right? Nice. Love it. Wow. Niel, I knew it would be a spiritual discussion to speak with you today and it did not just a point. I really appreciate your thought leadership on so many topics related to what we do. Indeed, it had been a pleasure and honor to speak to you again, Eric. (upbeat music)