Dr Medha Tadpatrikar, a serial entrepreneur is a Director of Mantraa Research & Consultants Pvt Ltd, Phoenix General Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd and Rudra Environmental Solutions (India) Ltd..
She being Marketing Expert having an experience of Sixteen Years into Marketing, Research & Training with renowned Indian and European Companies. She has strong hold over areas such as Branding, Promotions, Market Research, Quantitative & Qualitative Analysis, Product Positioning & Repositioning, Brand Equity, Brand Audit etc.
Excerpts From The Vision Board Interview With Dr. Medha Tadpatrikar
Impact of Storytelling on Plastic Awareness
Actually, you know it’s not only my story or shirish’s story, there are so many things. Now just take an example of plastic, the first thing everybody says is band plastic, plastic is bad, is it, is it really bad. Look at your glasses, look at your mobile, it’s all plastic, it’s part of our life. It is a brilliant product, it is in our cars, mobiles, and medical devices; the retail revolution has come because of plastic, and because of that millions of people have got jobs. Now saying something is bad, it’s much more easy than looking at it how much we are using and our habits. So these are the two things that are very important. So like you said our narrative needs to change, so when we go and tell people the first thing we say it’s a brilliant product, l et’s not band the product. So it is remembering that the moment it becomes waste, that’s when the problem starts. Somewhere I think Indians are brilliant recyclers, look at our mothers, you know I remember my grandma they used to give old clothes and get pan or something or my mother that if I have a t-shirt, if she couldn’t give it to somebody, it used to become a pocha you know cleaning the my bicycle or a two-wheeler.So we have always been used to not throwing, we’re not a throw away Society we are becoming one. But if something breaks we first thing do is can I get it repaired, you know that’s our mentality. So the only thing is because plastic is so cost effective, it’s cheap, it is versatile, we don’t respect it. Because we see things as , there is no weight we just throw it without thinking. So we need to give it a respect, at the same time we have to say that my waste is my responsibility and for that our narrative for the younger generation needs to change it. So we need to create lot of stories and there are so many stories around us you know people are making tiles out of it, people are making shirts, roads, & so many things are happening. So instead of me seeing plastic as a waste, we see plastic as a raw material.
Role of Stakeholders in Plastic Awareness.
It’s not only the system, it’s all of us. Because you know the policy can have where you can be fine, you can be given something, even jail. But it’s us as well, so either we are part of it. So I believe all stakeholders, it’s not only the policy but people, recycler, Brands, local governments; everybody has to be part of it. I’ll give you a simple example, you know there is a 2014 government GR, that plastic waste should be used in roads, now not many people know about it, not many governments know about it, so that knowledge is not there. And also we don’t demand it, that I want to know if somebody’s doing a bitumen road that to make sure that there is a plastic in it. As a Citizens it’s our right to also to ask questions, so I believe that it just and it recently government of India has band lot of single-use plastic. Saying that we are still going out and buying those you know because it’s cheap, it’s cost effective. So people are going to you know because it’s you know easier like, plates more easy you don’t need to wash something you can eat from plastic plate and then just throw it somewhere and you think yeah at least I don’t have to worry about it. So I think all of us it’s not only the you know the government has to do it, has to be conveyed to the people and we also have to abide by it. So it’s a whole, I think the system has to work as well.
Role of Self-Awareness and Art of Listening in a Leader's Life
Yes, also along with that admitting that we don’t know everything and asking questions. I’ve seen lot of time people are afraid to ask questions and people are afraid to say hey I don’t know. While me and Shirish, I think are we are still in a stage where if we don’t know we’ll say, hey can you just explain because we don’t know this, can you tell us more. We now see our journey where we still get people from industry coming to us and saying you know can you find a solution for our waste and then you know we try to know, do find it or you know do various experiments and I think that has set us apart simply because we are inquisitive, we are not afraid to say that you know we don’t know, I think we love to learn, it could be means if you don’t know something, I have no shame in picking up a phone and asking even a 20 year old hey how do this. you do this because I think that’s why you know I think we are human beings are born to learn we want to evolve and the only way we can evolve is by understanding, asking questions, and learning. I think the only day I think I will stop learning is the day I die and I hope somebody learns from that as well.