When Tiger Tyagarajan talks about the characteristics of CEOs who will be the most successful in the new decade, it comes down to one word: curiosity. He believes inquisitiveness is the key ingredient driving innovation. As the CEO of Genpact, a professional services firm based in New York, Tyagarajan advises nearly half the companies listed on the Fortune 500, and he preaches the importance of creating a culture of continuous curiosity.
“Culture will be the single biggest separator of the winners from the losers,” he explains. “The culture of the company has to incorporate curiosity, has to incorporate risk-taking, has to incorporate no fear of failure, has to incorporate learning coming from failure. And then saying that all that matters is trying, learning and moving on.”
Tyagarjan singles out Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as a role model of the sort of successful leader he visualizes in the future. Fortune named Nadella as the magazine’s 2019 Businessperson of the Year.
“I love Satya Nadella’s statement that we are a learning company rather than a know-it-all company. We are big believers in that. We think every company has to become like that,” he says. “Humbleness is going to be way more important than saying I know it and I’m really arrogant. It’s a very different leader.”
Watch the video above for more.