Jinny Uppal, author of "IN/Action: Rethinking the Path to Results"

We are back for another great interview in our Entelechy Series   In today’s episode, we chat with Jinny Uppal, an award-winning author, business leader, and team builder.  She has over 20+ year track record of driving transformational growth in Fortune 500 telecom, e-commerce, and retail businesses including companies like Khol, Bed Bath & Beyond, Macy’s, IBM, etc

Jinny’s recent book titled IN/Action: Rethinking the path to results, where she helps you leverage the power of a thoughtful pause to discover newer paths to great results while exploring the downside of the prevalent cultural bias toward unnecessary and counter-productive action. The book captures insights into the benefits of reflective thinking and thoughtful pauses while presenting a less stressful and more efficient way of achieving more by “doing” less. 

Jinny got inspired to write this book after she found herself without a conventional job in 2020, she had always worked in a highly structured environment where action-oriented people were valued, and not being in this kind of space really distressed her. At that low point of her life, Jinny self-analyzed and realized her career had a couple of pivots. Every time she was about to start a new career, she had come from a moment of downtime. This period of non-action made her realize that what really drives great progress is inaction.

Jinny gives a few pointers on how to help inaction give you results:

Strategic inaction implies a choice. If you're thinking long-term, it's being here for the long game. It's not about doing this today for the sake of doing it. It’s doing this because you want to live to see another day.

 If you're working in a very complex and dynamic environment, very often the thing to do is wait for better information to come along or wait for things to sort themselves out. So you are not interfering with the flow of what's happening. People who are very action-oriented, are almost overacting at this point.  You don't need to because you're wasting your own mental bandwidth, physical time, and doing things that are not needed.

 In the book, she stresses it's all about taking thoughtful pauses, long enough for creative ideas to come through. Letting intuition make room for creation to come through you, as opposed to you chasing the idea. 

As a leader, you can’t mandate your people to change but if you live this way yourself as a leader and people see the consequences, the change in your behavior they will do what you are doing.

When it comes to team collaboration, the pause experienced enhances communication. The power of verbal silence in conversations, negotiations, in team meetings. There's a science to prove that something as simple as a thoughtful pause of a few seconds in a meeting just leads to better outcomes for a team meeting.

In conclusion, the first steps you can start doing are building restorative habits and giving yourself intermittent breaks throughout the day. Very few people truly control their schedules. You can't take a day off or days off at once, but instead, develop a habit of taking 10-minute breaks once a day, or a couple of times a week and do nothing, allowing your mind to declutter. 

You can connect with Jinny on the following platforms 

Jinny’s Website: jinnyupal.com

LinkedIn: jinnyupal

Book: IN/ACTION: Rethinking the path into results

Jinny Uppal

Jinny Uppal is a technology and business strategist and senior leader with a 20+ year career growing and transforming Fortune 500 telecom, ecommerce and retail businesses. She is currently a Speaker, Investor, Consultant and Board Advisor. In her new book, IN/ACTION: Rethinking the Path to Results, Jinny Uppal explores the downside of the prevalent cultural bias for action even when it’s unnecessary or counter-productive. Capturing insights into the benefits of reflective thinking and strategic inaction, author Jinny Uppal presents a less stressful and more efficient way of achieving more by “doing” less. Uppal grew up in Mumbai and is an alumnus of Florida International University and Harvard Business School. She has been a practitioner of Vedic and Buddhist meditation and breathwork since 2008.

Jinny's Website

@jinnyuppal on Instagram

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