FIP 87: Audience Stories – Ravi Shankar from AcceleratED

Today, we speak with Ravi Shankar of AcceleratED on how Finding Impact has helped the company as it doubles its operations during its growth phase, for which learning from others’ mistakes has been critical. On this episode: Ravi noted that there had been multiple podcast episodes that have been helpful to his company. An episode that was particularly helpful to Ravi was Episode 78 with Raghu Krishnaswamy. Ravi took away Raghu’s focus on “casting” and building a diverse culture within a team. Some tricks that AcceleratED borrowed from the episode include: Hiring: The company is now taking a “casting” approach to hiring and employing a portfolio approach to human capital management. Retainment: Thinking through the employee life cycle and applying user center design aspects to it. Culture: Connecting with people on a personal level, not just a professional level. They have created a “Hobby Hour” to share interests from outside the office. Ravi noted that when any company is very small, it is easy to develop a culture but can often result in people becoming copies of each other or suffering from group think. Now, AcceleratED is building an internal culture guide to share both successes and vulnerabilities. Ravi was struck by the irony that AcceleratED itself is a behavior change-focused organization, but it is only now that they are incorporating some of the behavior change elements from the business model back into the operations of the company. Links to Resources: AcceleratED AcceleratED on Medium Connect with Ravi: Ravi on LinkedIn