Fit to Lead | HRX's Pallavi Barman: "Stiffness is not good when it comes to fitness or leadership"

Pallavi Barman is the head of marketing and operations at HRX by Hrithik Roshan.

Note to readers: Fit to Lead is a series of interviews with business leaders on their approach to fitness, leadership and navigating the new normal.

To say that her career was firmly put on an upward trajectory around the time she decided to take her health and fitness seriously wouldn’t be an exaggeration. Pallavi Barman landed in Mumbai in 2010 to kickstart her career but instead suffered from the “new girl in town” syndrome.

“I didn’t know people, I was recovering from a broken relationship, work was laced with hardships and life wasn’t easy,” recalled the 37-year-old brand custodian of homegrown athleisure brand HRX.

“I buried my face in the pillow and cried a few nights. Then I thought getting fitter might help. I joined CrossFit and started kicking my borderline depression a little every day until I found some great friends through the CrossFit community and my life started changing for the good,” Barman said.

Read more: Fit to lead | Salil Murthy: "The pandemic has forced us to build new muscles"

Over the last two years, though, keeping the retail brand relevant when the world -along with all malls and shops - had shut down, became an even bigger challenge. Add to that, she had a toddler and a 6-month-old at home. In an interview, she spoke about her fitness journey and getting through the pandemic months - as a brand custodian, fitness enthusiast and a mom. Edited excerpts:

How do you achieve your health and fitness goals?

Daily 40-60 minutes of exercise is non-negotiable for me. I usually set out for a 5-6 km run followed by 20 minutes of either core work, HIIT (high intensity interval training), yoga and inversions, or weight training at home. I have also just started a cycling club at HRX and have gone on a couple of 15 km rides. Once a week, I train in parkour-calisthenics routine outdoors with my coach. On holidays, I carry my skipping rope and if the pool is accessible, then get in a few laps there.

Read more: Fitness planner | Long-distance cycling: from couch to 50K in 12 weeks - Month 1

Favourite fitness activity…

I love training outdoors with my coach. We do a skill-based combination workout that includes elements of calisthenics, body-weight training and parkour. I have been doing it for three years now, including my last pregnancy. He will ensure I am good enough to do somersaults and cartwheels with my kids when they grow up a bit.

Your toughest?

Body weight and strength training with weights… Since I do weights in an ad-hoc manner, my body doesn’t necessarily absorb the pains and aches smoothly. But post two C-sections, I am working towards rehabilitating myself slowly yet fully.

At some point I started giving myself an “hour of power” daily when I train or do some good old fashioned reading. This has helped me make peace with the new normal.

It is all colours of chaos. When the pandemic hit us, there was a flurry of activities, priorities and duties. There was no structure. It took me a while to add some design and organise this chaos.

My daughter was three-and-a-half and just starting school… online. My son was six months. I was a lactating mother and the maternity break was over. Work was confusing and elusive. I had to bounce back and take charge of my team and the work in a pandemic world where I had a huge backlog to catch up on. I had no support staff at home and online school added another level of complexity. I was a bundle of nerves. At some point I started giving myself an “hour of power” daily when I train or do some good old-fashioned reading. This has helped me make peace with the new normal and iron out things.

I speak to my team and set the others going at work while online school and breakfast go on simultaneously in the morning. I answer my e-mails and messages in the same window and squeeze in a few urgent and important calls. Post-school, I set up my meetings and somewhere between these two, I workout. Evenings are spent with kids, followed by playtime, dinner and bed. All my ideating and pondering starts once the kids are in bed.

Today, I don’t have much to complain about this “work from home” situation because it lets me be more flexible to accommodate my housekeeping activities and workouts.

Read more: Fit to lead |Gagan Banga: "Running helps me focus solely on myself, and the things I can do"

Has your fitness routine, in any way, helped you navigate the uncertainties of the current times?

The initial chaos was engulfing me and I was becoming irritable...and sensitive to sound. The constant chatter and dearth of even a few seconds of me-time was rendering me bitter.

Then I started running and training every single day. I just take off for an hour and come back with a sense of gratification for having done something for myself… this “hour of power” really helped me become a calmer person and a productive one too.

What is the one change you would encourage your teammates to make to deal with the challenges of current times?

Everyone should seek a support system; sometimes that is all you need to navigate through the toughest of circumstances, both personal and professional.

Any leadership lessons in your fitness journey…

Plenty. From the importance of discipline and virtue of patience to not looking for instant gratification, I have found great leadership lessons in my fitness journey. I learned the importance of coaches and mentors, and also picked up great virtues like endurance, performance, flexibility and how to enable myself to wield the power. Stiffness is not good when it comes to fitness or leadership, and practice helps achieve the correct form.

What impact does your image of a “fit leader” have on your team?

A leader is someone who can steer people and not someone who merely gets things done. I feel that me being a fit leader has built my credibility. My team knows I walk the talk and I don’t shy away from getting my hands dirty.

Your leadership style…

It is to enable and empower the team. My process is to aid them and help them in thinking and structuring; allow them the time to go through the process, no matter how long; develop accountability; problem-solving with and for them and creation of a solutions-oriented approach; party hard and celebrate the results and achievements with them.

Read more: Hrithik Roshan's HRX ready to launch sports, fitness equipment in times of Covid-19

What challenges and goals have you set for yourself for the next year?

I want to go back to waking up early, but my sleep continues to be disrupted because of my younger child. I am also hoping that schools reopen next year and things become a bit more like they used to be. I also want to be more disciplined with my eating.

On the work front, I want to grapple with the burgeoning direct to consumer (D2C) space and create an unique digital first offerings for the brand. We will also launch tech products to establish a deeper engagement with the consumer who endorses the world of HRX. One immediate goal is to strengthen and grow our communities in running, yoga, sports and cycling.

Read more: Fitness planner: Beginners' guide to running 10K in eight weeks - Part 1

How do you strike a work-life balance?

For pursuing my daily fitness goals, currently, I don’t have any fixed window. Sometimes it’s at 9 am, sometimes 6 pm… but all I know is I have to give myself that one hour and I hold myself accountable for it. To get that hour with myself, I work bloody hard and relentlessly the whole day.