'Workplace isn't a socialising ground.' Former HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri thinks people spend too much time chitchatting in office (2024)

Life with veteran banker and former Managing Director and CEO of HDFC Bank Aditya Puri, is like a carnival. At least according to his wife Anita "Smiley" Puri. In a freewheeling chat with ET Panache, the couple talk about finding balance between work, life and love.

“It wasn’t that I was against her writing it or anything,” Aditya Puri, the former Managing Director and CEO of HDFC Bank tells ETPanache about his book 'Adityanama', authored by his wife of four decades, Anita "Smiley'' Puri. “ I just said we have led a very private life and we should just let it be. But she would not give up. Plus, we were getting into 40-plus years of marriage, I knew just how far I could go,” Puri quips light-heartedly, while his wife chuckles by his side.

Puri is quick to add that his friends called him a “brave” and “gutsy” man for agreeing to let his wife write a book about him. “They said your wife must love you a lot. My wife won’t write two pages about me. Jokes apart, it was really a labour of love,” he adds. Anita says the reason she wanted to write the book was because she knew a completely different side to her husband that she wanted others to see. “It is very boring when he is not here. He is ticking all the time. He’s a different person in the bank and he’s different at home. He likes no stress, he loves jokes, music, fun,” she tells ET Panache of her husband.

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Aditya Puri and Anita 'Smiley' Puri talk about finding balance between work, life and love.

Find your balance
Puri says the book is reflective of his nature and that he loves to balance out his work with an equal amount of downtime. This has always been the case with him he shares and has helped him steer clear of the path of becoming unidimensional. “ I have seen some people in various organisations that I have worked with and I think, if you work late every night you’re going to be a dull boy,” he says.

A great way Puri keeps perspective and balance is by recollecting former Coca Cola CEO Bryan Dyson’s famous ‘five balls’ speech: Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends and spirit - and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back.

“You lose your job, you can get another one,” reflects Puri, who says that while it’s important to work hard, you need to keep a focus on other areas as well and to use your time in the workplace well. “Frankly, I always thought that 9 am to 5:30 pm was already too much time, if I didn’t have to maintain office discipline I would have left earlier. If you focus and set yourself a deadline, you will leave. Nowadays I feel people do too much chit chat and treat the office like a socialising ground. That’s not how it is supposed to be,” he shares.

Agencies

Aditya Puri said being in office from 9 am to 5:30 pm was too much time, but he stayed as he had to have to maintain office discipline.

Qualities for a good leader
What makes for a good workplace is open communication, passion for the job and compassion as well. According to Puri, being a leader with a good emotional quotient has always been a priority for him. “You can have passion but you have to have compassion as well. The team should not only believe in you, they should feel safe with you, and know that you will take care of them. And then they will take care of you and the organisation,” he says.

Puri says that he is just the public face of all the combined efforts. “If you don’t have that compassion, if you don't show that you care for them, I can tell you that they will be very nice to your face but they are not going to return that compassion or empathy,” he advises. And one thing he says a leader should never do, is take credit for everything. Puri says, “If it becomes one man as the leader, then that’s what you are: you are a one man band. If you want to play like an orchestra, then the orchestra has to play with you.”

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