Episode #80: Om Prakash, Chief Executive, Northrop Grumman

Om Prakash is the current CEO of Northrop Grumman Japan, a position he has been in since 2019. Prior to this he was Northrop Grumman’s Director for Corporate Strategy and had also served in the United States Air Force where he performed numerous roles including a test pilot with over 3 000 flying hours in 60 aircraft and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy before retiring with the rank of colonel. Mr. Prakash has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the US Air Force Academy as well as master’s degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and national security strategy (National War College).

In his interview with Dr. Greg Story, Mr. Prakash describes how his background in the military and involvement in many leadership transitions has helped his civilian career by being able to make decisions based on limited information. When discussing the topic of new leaders introducing change, Mr. Prakash is a supporter of author Simon Sinek’s philosophy to “start with the why” and believes that if a leader is clear, open and willing to listen to their team, they are more likely to succeed. When describing his own leadership style, Mr. Prakash says it is important for him to get to know his team as individuals and encourage them to grow to their full potential, even if that means them moving on to something bigger and better. As Mr. Prakash says, a good leader does not keep talented people under them to make their own job easier.

To help foster creativity Mr. Prakash believes incentives are needed not only at a team level but across an organisation. These incentives can take a variety of forms including financial, recognition, or as promotions depending on the recipient, organisation, and context. An incentive that may motivate one person to come forward with a creative idea may not motivate another person. To understand what motivates people, Mr. Prakash points to the need for leaders to know their people and their desires and suggests leaders can simply ask their teams what they want as incentives.

Recounting a story from when he was in Japan in the late 1990’s, Mr. Prakash recalls seeing people sending text messages and thinking it was a strange concept that would never catch on in America. He highlights the point that there are different mediums of communication preferred by different people for a variety of reasons, such as age and background, so it is important to experiment with different communications media. Similarly, he believes it is important to have team meetings not always run by himself, but have the meeting led by different members of the team as they will bring other qualities to the meeting.

When discussing the topic of work delegation, Mr. Prakash describes some important factors that good leaders need to consider when delegating work. These factors include the comfort and skill level of the people who are taking on the work, discussing the deadline and time-management including leaders expressing how much time is to be spent on a task, as well as feedback. Mr. Prakash talks about how it is important for leaders who delegate work, not to delegate any criticism that arises from the work or to withhold praise.

In his first piece of advice to newcomers to Japan, Mr. Prakash suggests not assuming that they were understood just because they received a positive response (Hai). People assuming that they were understood when they in fact were not can lead to difficult situations that can be avoided by checking for understanding. He also believes learning Japanese has been very useful to him including making friends that he probably otherwise would not have made. Lastly, Mr. Prakash acknowledges that in a business setting, people may get in to trouble if their Japanese is not proficient enough to pick up all the subtlties and nuances.