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Jyothi Swaroop was brought in to bring “unreasonable velocity” to what’s already the world’s largest end-to-end EV charging company, ChargePoint. He attacked the challenge as he has done time and time again, by thinking big. “Small thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he told Entrepreneur.
Swaroop spoke with us about his career and success in finding ways to unlock explosive growth, offering his unique insights to entrepreneurs on pivoting, focusing your efforts, and ensuring that your team is never sitting around guessing, “What is my boss thinking?”
What do you mean by small thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
As chief growth officer, I don’t want people thinking in terms of 5% or 10% improvement. I want them to think in a 5x or 10x improvement frame of mind. It completely shakes up someone’s mindset when they are trying to get 10x out of a project, rather than trying to eke out 5%. If you really want to make something meaningful, you need resistance, not the path of least resistance.
How do you define “big thinking”?
Thinking big can mean different things depending on where you are in your journey. If you are a billionaire, it might mean building a new five-billion-dollar business. If you’ve just started a pool-cleaning service, it might mean aiming to add 10 new houses to your customer list by the end of the month, instead of adding only one new house. But either way, thinking big creates big results.
What have you learned from mentors that changed the way you think?
Everything I’ve learned I’ve learned from others. One of my biggest personal and professional mentors, though, is my dad. He started as a lift-machine engineer at a watch manufacturing factory and, after 34 years, retired as the CEO at that same company. It’s an incredibly inspiring story for me. One of the lessons I learned from him that changed the way I think centers on a phrase he used to say, which was, “Send the elevator down.” What that means is that it doesn’t matter what floor you’re on during your career. You need to send the elevator down so that other people can get on the same journey and rise up to your level, or even go higher if they so choose. It’s an analogy I take seriously. I’m passionate about seeing the career paths of my team members grow, and sending the elevator down to them, to make sure they can go as high as they want.
Tell us about a time you made a decision everyone around you disagreed with and what happened next.
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