Nandita Lakshmanan, the founder and CEO of PR firm The PRactice, finds work titles embarrassing. It’s why none of the business cards in her company carry a designation

Even though I am an entrepreneur who is passionate about her business and work, I don’t like my life to be overwhelmed by work, with no time for me or my family. I get up at about six every morning as my 11-year-old son Aryaman has a pretty early start to school, and I like to spend time with him at breakfast. He takes about 15 minutes to get ready and those 15 minutes are very precious to me because that is the only quiet time I get for myself in the whole day. I like to enjoy it with a cup of tea. I see him off to the bus stand at 7.20am and then it’s time to feed my son’s Golden Retriever Krypto and spend some time with him. I also have to do pilates at a neighbourhood studio for 45 minutes before I have a very heavy breakfast and head to work. So it may seem that my mornings are pretty packed to an outsider but I feel an easy rhythm to it all. I like to drive to work myself because it gives me the time to keep my mind away from work and listen to some music. Otherwise, your hands are always busy responding to an e-mail or a text. It takes me anywhere between 15 to 45 minutes to get to work. When I reach office, sometimes there are immediate meetings lined up with clients or my team mates or else, I catch up on my e-mails. My favourite work of the day anyway is to interact with my teams in our three offices and listen to what they are doing. The larger the team, the better. We have a unique structure in our organisation because we don’t have any official headquarters. If the headquarters are by virtue of where the CEO sits, you could say it is in Bengaluru. But otherwise, we have a vertical structure with offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. While our consumer head sits in Delhi, our technology head sits in Bengaluru. We all work seamlessly through phone calls and Skype across these offices and the respective heads meet face to face once a quarter for business review meetings. Even though I am using the words “heads” and “CEO”, we don’t really carry these designations on our business cards because I don’t like hierarchy. Well, internally we do use them sometimes because this generation likes to have titles and because it is required of us as a part of a formal corporate structure. But I personally believe that a hierarchical structure could kill an organisation. Such structures create boundaries about what role each person in the organisation has. As a manager, if I start looking at my team members’ roles and what they should be doing according to those roles instead of looking at their talent and potential, I would be shutting down some great opportunities. And, as a team member, if I believe in hierarchy and constantly submit to the demands of my manager without understanding or responding to the needs of my clients because I am supposedly ‘junior’, it would create boundaries. I often tell my team that a person is only constrained by their own boundaries. So I really admire those who go beyond their roles and job profiles and not restrict themselves. At The PRactice, I make sure we only get self-starters; people who don’t have to be hand-held. In today’s corporate world, people sometimes go ra-ra about things that are basic expectations of people. For instance, if a press conference goes well, people would make a rockstar out of the person responsible. You are a PR professional. That is your job! If you, however, manage to get great press after a tough news conference attended by the entire beat of telecom journalists, then it’s worth going ga-ga over. So, it’s important to learn to differentiate between what is expected of you and what you’ve done exceptionally well. Having said that, I believe it is important to acknowledge when a colleague does great work. We are a team of about 100-odd people and many of them are people with two to three years of experience. I’ve learnt that age and experience play very little role in this industry. The confidence to convince a client about a certain idea or a thought process along with taking initiative to get a job done is infinitely more important. What I have observed about several great leaders I have had the opportunity to work with is that they know when it is the right time to let experts decide what’s best. No matter how high on the corporate ladder you get, there will be some people in the organisation who are more adept at something than you are. As a good leader, it’s important to acknowledge that you do not have all the answers. This recognition will always keep you open to ideas from people within the organisation and you will listen to them. I love working with clients that do not have a hierarchical structure. Any client that encourages our team to be a part of their team is a delight to work with. Normally, we spend about two to three weeks to prepare our pitch for a client. We never take a pitch lightly. When we get a brief, we first figure out which of us will work on the business if we get it. Once that is decided, all those who will, get involved in the process of building the pitch, even if they’ve never been a part of client servicing or brainstorming before. By assigning everyone an important segment of the work and constantly highlighting how important that certain task is for delivering the complete service, we build the team’s confidence and motivation. Even after more than a decade in the industry, it really annoys me when people ask questions about what a PR professional does or when they narrow down its definition to media relations and this includes clients as well as competition. As you go up the managerial ladder in business, you tend to focus on the big picture; building the strategy etc. But I have realised that focusing on execution even if you’re the most senior-level person in the organisation is important. One should be willing to roll up her sleeves and do everything. Most of my time is also spent on strategising and planning with clients but I also make sure I am on top of things everyday. I have a memory of an elephant. I don’t depend on to-do lists or even pen and paper to remember what I need to do. Thankfully, I don’t even have to rely on phone apps to drive my work. The only things I use actively on my phone are the calendar and answering e-mails. I feel very uncomfortable if an e-mail or call goes unanswered. I have to answer every single e-mail I get on that very day and answering doesn’t mean simply responding with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ but a more detailed response where I know what the next plan of action is going to be. This habit has kept me really efficient at work as well, and as a result, I have tried to drill it within the organisation as well. There isn’t a lot of direct communication that goes from me to the rest of the teams but responsiveness is one thing I am very particular about. Do not leave anything for tomorrow. When you answer an e-mail, don’t just say you will revert, mention the exact date you will revert by. I don’t like having our clients chase my team members for anything. One of the perks that I have allowed myself as the owner of this company is to be able to pick up my son from the bus stand when he’s back from school and walk him home, and be home when he’s home. It is a practise that I have opted for. So I leave office at about 4pm as my son arrives at 4.30pm and I complete the rest of my work at home. I tell him I am doing my homework when he’s doing his. I also learn semi-classical music, two to three classes a week. I love my time with myself and my son and I do like to make that distinction between personal and professional life very clearly. I think I am a tough boss but I am a fair boss too. I don’t believe in having a fun atmosphere in the office. Fun in the frivolous or cool and casual way, that is. You could have a lot of fun even when you’re engaged in work. I believe in building a healthy workplace instead where the focus is on meritocracy, recognising talent, giving people the right exposure and an environment which is not marred by office politics or hierarchy. We are not dependent on our work colleagues to make life interesting for us. So, I encourage my team members to have a life outside work. If they are working from 9am to 6pm, they are being productive and they shouldn’t be working beyond eight to nine hours in the office, unless there is that one-off client or job that requires a quick turnaround. It’s essential to expand your horizons beyond work. Since I am at home by 4.30pm or so, I go to bed by 11pm at the latest. Sometimes, it could even be as early as 8pm or 9pm. I don’t believe in keeping full-time help at home. Doing the usual house chores keeps me away from work and I enjoy that. I cannot have work overwhelm my personal space. I need my space and time and thankfully, I am fortunate enough to run a business that hasn’t given me a sleepless night.