Mandated Sabbatical for Leaders

Leaders should take a sabbatical once in 2 years??

Can this be institutionalized? This blog post idea came up after reading up articles about Steve Jobs health and his forced vacation from Apple leaving to his successors - Apple’s shares slumped down by 5.7% after hearing about Jobs health news. There was a lot of talk on media, internet about CEO jobs unexpected absence raising uncertainty over leadership, innovation, deal-making, Apple brand building et al. There were talks about Jobs earlier sabbatical and how it influenced Apple and how it will be influencing now; There is also a good amount of bytes spent on Apple sustaining innovation during this period and how it can bounce back etc etc. Tim Cook (COO) is currently acting as the chief-in-command for Apple and recently Scott Forstall (senior VP of iPhone software) gave a good performance in the Macworld- this really signaled the fact that Apple could continue to pull off its marketing campaigns without Jobs at least for some time.

I am not attempting to write about Apple or how it can work in Steve Jobs absence- I want to correlate this to a concept in management on whether leaders should mandatorily take a sabbatical once in 2 years or not. The open questions are:
1. Is it really healthy for the company?
2. Is it really good for the shareholders?
3. Is it feasible in the long run?
4. Is it sustainable?
5. How long should the sabbatical be?
6. Is it 1 month, 2 months or 3 months?
7. Will the incumbent organization benefit because of this sabbatical? Will the leaders bounce off with new ideas after getting rejuvenated?
8. How do we calculate ROI on this sort of thing? What should be the measure?

In my view, I think at a high level, top leaders taking a short sabbatical is certainly healthy for the organization in two ways-
1. Can strengthen the organization in leadership development & succession planning and get new perspectives- There will be mandated change and there will be a culture of change
2. Can allow the leader to think of revolutionary new ideas, new ways of making the organization achieve its objective- This is possible during a sabbatical as technically the leader is still thinking about the organization

Diving deep in to point one- Strengthen the organization in to leadership development & succession planning:

Leadership development is becoming very important due to change in demographics as the “baby boomers” are getting to retirement age. In addition to this, it has been estimated that 50% of the organizations are facing talent shortages especially in the mid-management and director-level positions. There is an acute need to respond to generational differences and organizations are trying to understand the difference between generations, motivating employees from different generations, leveraging talent of these generations.

Typically lot of organizations have a mandate for succession planning and developing leaders in the pipeline- But the statistics say otherwise! Succession Planning plays a crucial role in developing a strong leadership pipeline. This has to work at all levels and not just at the top level or only at the middle level- The culture of succession planning enables a culture of change and its necessary for all organizations to undergo this. When leaders take a sabbatical, they necessarily have to get the successor focus on all the issues, challenges that s/he was doing; This creates a degree of self-assurance for the successor and indirectly builds up the confidence for both parties. Imagine all of these wrapped in a process and a culture whereby all leaders mandatorily should take a sabbatical and come back to reassess where things stand. It is also a reflection of how well they have built teams that can withstand without the leader and also enables the leader to sit back and think of new ideas for the organization. We all know the challenges surrounding it? The challenges are different for a public listed firm, VC backed firm, privately held firm. But, hey we are still talking about the concept- At the top part of the decision tree, if the decision is YES for a sabbatical, then we drill to the next decision tree- Is it a public/private/VC? Then we get to the next level of challenges but at a high level, are we in agreement?

For the attention to detail readers, I will dive deeper in to each one of the challenges in my next blog- I do not want to digress from the core topic of mandating a sabbatical for a leader?

On Point Two- Gives time for the leader to think of new ideas!

This is definitely a loaded statement- Does it mean that leaders don’t think of new ideas while they are working? Are they not supposed to think of it all the time? It is an utopian thought to get everything done at the same time- How can organizations create this framework whereby leaders get some time to think of fresh ideas? We all can guarantee that a “true” leader will be always thinking of continual improvement even when s/he is on vacation or a sabbatical- Its anyways leading for a positive change in the organization. You can take the sabbatical from the leader but you can NEVER take the leadership thinking from a leader. With this optimistic view, don’t we all acknowledge that this creates a framework where in leaders understand the expectations, go back to the drawing board in a leisure manner and think about it in a holistic manner. I am sure that this will happen and everyone will benefit from it tremendously. A lot of people in Silicon Valley are eagerly waiting for the next big blockbuster from Apple as they all feel that Steve Jobs will come up with some cool idea during his health break! Maybe it will happen- We never know!

In addition to this, it will also give time for the leader to think of challenging roles/areas in his current portfolio rather than walking away from it. Let me give an example- Most of the time, leaders get bored with their current portfolio and they want change (although this is never openly told but it’s always there!). The sabbatical can help leaders understand the fact that the “grass is never green on the other side”. It gets back the rigor and focus of new ideas!

What do you all feel? I know that I have consciously made it provocative in some instances but the idea is to publish my thoughts and get yours as well on this topic!

Nano Launch: Sentiments!

There is a lot of talk around Nano launch- Being in India and being a hard core Indian, we all have multiple questions on the launch:

· Is it the right time to launch when the world is in recession?
· Is this a car that India needs now?
· Is this the car that rural India is looking for?
· Is it going to be a huge success?
· How will India’s traffic scenario alter due to this?
· How will parking be in future for people who own sedan’s/luxury cars?
· What will be the modus operandi for tour/travel operator?

Some of the voices around this launch are:
1. This is great for India’s international image and we should capitalize that
2. All patriotic Indians should buy this
3. This syncs up well with CK Prahlad’s vision of “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid”
4. All two-wheeler population will acquire a new status owing to Nano- this is great for them!
5. This is a good extra car that can be had!

While this blog is not going to attempt to answer all the questions or try to say that the voices are right/wrong- this blog is just to reflect the populist sentiments around this launch and get other opinions from my blog readers on what/how they perceive this to launch to be. The reason why I selected “Nano” is simple- This is a great vision by Tata and I would like to understand from the readers what they feel/think about it.

From my perspective, I would like to say that this is a great vision translated in to execution- A great example of “Activity Based Costing/Target Based Costing”; I set up the price of my end product and work backwards to ensure that it is feasible. An awesome example of lateral thinking in manufacturing where the bonnet does not consist of the standard materials and the whole design is optimized around my target cost. This is also an example of sheer execution whereby all the roadblocks have been averted to achieve the objective. Don’t you agree?

I do have a lot of thoughts regarding Nano on how it can:
1. Bridge the status for many people
2. Allow people to convert their dreams in reality
3. Ensure safe travel
4. How a good segment of population will take a cautious approach before buying? They will wait and watch till the official verdict is on

Again, I don’t want this blog to sound like a product information log or a feature log but would like capture the sentiments of every Indian who is thinking about Nano.

What do you all feel? Please feel free to share your sentiments on comments.

Understanding Captive Centre Dynamics

We had one interesting issue that came up recently with one of our Fortune 500 account- We won this customer after a lot of homework (their Indian captive centre was not given this work!). This is typical of any large organization where they give certain set of projects to captive centres and certain set to vendors- The alignment between the headquarters and the captive centre itself is a challenge. I assume, that this US arm of our customer had given the project to us without consulting the Indian arm decision makers (as they were not present in the decision making at all)- We were completely oblivious of these things and continued our own way of delivering the project.

Our team started working on the implementation plan and they were collaborating constantly with the US arm stakeholders and things were totally fine. The US arm stakeholder wanted our team to work extensively with the Indian captive centre and we were completely fine with that arrangement as well. This project demanded understanding of the customer proprietary environment for us to configure and install the final version- This is quite natural for any vendor to ask for details related to the environment. Our project manager asked for a face-to-face session(termed as “training”) from a stakeholder who is working in the Indian captive centre- Since it involved some expenses, this Indian stakeholder sent an email asking for expense approval from the US stakeholder. The US stakeholder forwarded the same email to the Indian captive centre head of that practice- Now the whole issue started because the practice head looked at the term “training” and escalated to the US head stating that the vendor does not know what he is supposed to do.

The practice head went to the extent of cancelling the whole contract because of a wrong usage of the word, “training” by one of our project managers. It is really frustrating and disappointing for us after having done 60% of the project to be in this state because of us not understanding the overall politics and it was a great lesson. The price of this lesson was obscenely expensive but it really taught us certain dynamics that exist between captives and the headquarter companies.

In a snapshot, whenever any consulting company is dealing with a customer that has a captive centre, it is super important to understand the priorities of the captive centre. The following steps would be useful:
1. Meet the particular captive centre head for that particular practice and if possible explain to them why you were selected in the first place. This can be a ego alleviating thing as well as building networks for future collaboration.
2. Set expectation with the US stakeholder on collaboration with the captive centre resources- Also get an introduction with the right people in India!
3. Direct your team to be extremely careful and sensitive on dealing with captive centre resources- Its important for them to collaborate but they need to be cautious
4. Make sure that you get the common goals/success criteria for the project from the US stakeholder clearly
5. Circulate the common goals/success criteria of the project to everyone so that there is no room for anyone to point something that does not align with the common goals

In my experience, this is the most bizarre way of cancelling a contract- One can cancel a contract if they feel the common goals/success criteria of the project is not met and ideally that should be basis; This was sidelined and nobody looked at the deliverables or the quality of the deliverables!

This was really disappointing for us and our mistake on hindsight was clearly:
1. Not meeting the Indian captive centre head for that particular practice
2. Not circulating the common goals/success criteria with the captive centre resources
3. Wrong usage of certain words (specifically “training”) by our project managers

"Experience" in Indian IT industry

Someone said that "experience is a comb that nature gives to us when we become bald". This quote automatically becomes true for a FEW of the middle managers/senior managers in Indian IT industry.


Every manager/leader in the Indian IT industry need to spend time on talent acquisition as that is the primary driver for this people driven industry- That is the core for delivering software projects. Given this backdrop, I spend almost 30% of my time on talent acquisition meeting a wide variety of "experienced" knowledge workers/managers!

In a week, I spend time on meeting atleast 4-5 senior people who are either shortlisted or come for the first round. Usually I learn a lot during those interviews and I am always very OPEN for a discussion as I strongly believe that interviews are an equal footing forums! I have had my best debates with some of the best people whereby we both get enlightened on some of the traditional stuff and ofcourse I love that! There have been very RARE occasions whereby flukes come in and it becomes hilarious to write a blog on them! This is one such occasion whereby I was really tempted to pen down my conversation!

So I happened to meet one of the so called highly "experienced" general manager- He had 18 years of experience in the IT industry. His resume was flawless except for his track record as in his 18 years he has JUST jumped over 13 companies! When I reviewed his resume, his track record completely struck me - I mean how can a person in a senior position do this? Nevertheless I was very OPEN and asked him to explain on this?

Let me change this in a dialogue fashion:

I : Your track record seems to show disturbing trend and in senior roles you have never stayed beyond a year? Why is that? Could you please explain?
18 years general manager- Prospective Candidate (PE): Oh that’s not a big deal! I was always head hunted from day one! Since it’s a capitalistic market, I always got an opportunity to move on and see different companies which actually helped me to learn a lot!

I: What can you really learn if you have moved on every 9-12 months?
PE: Well! That’s always the challenge. I was fortunate enough to do something within a short timeframe and complete my tasks and take new tasks in new companies.

By this time I realized that there is no point in getting in depth with this point. I decided to move on!

I: You have mentioned in your resume in one of your roles that living in India was one of your achievements? Does that sound illogical?
PE: Its great that you caught it because I thought about this when I wrote the resume. Its basically a role whereby I was expected to do sales and marketing for US but I practically ended up doing the same job in India.

I: How is that considered as an achievement?
PE: Hmmm… deep pause…basically I was good at sales in India itself which my bosses did not know and then they retained me here rather than relocating me to US.

They seemed to be wise- I kept this thought to myself. Okay- again no point in digging this deep! Lets move on was my approach!

Suddenly the PE was proactive- He started off this time!!

PE: Since I have 18 years of experience I know the IT industry landscape and the metrics and everything. So I can really contribute at the executive management level leave alone senior management!

To myself, I started thinking- How can people dig their own hole?

I: Well that’s interesting- What is the average net margin in the Indian IT industry?
PE: That’s 40% (his tone was super confident)

I: Aha- so whats gross margin?
PE: Well both are same. Its 40%- I know this very well.

I: Hmmm. Okay! Hypothetically speaking if your topline is 100 crore and your bottomline is 50 crores- What is your margin? Is that NET or GROSS?
PE: That’s really complicated! Can you repeat this question?

I am like- Dude- You do not know what you are talking about? Get your basics right and then we will talk but you don’t know anything?

Immediately the PE said that he missed out CMMi implementation which was another one of his achievement.

I: Okay (with depression). Which level were you implementing? Level 5?
PE: It is Level 3. Only when you implement Level 3 you can go to Level 5.

I: Okay. How many KPAs are there in Level 3 since you were leading the effort?
PE: There are so many KPA’s in general. We have to take the relevant ones and just implement it. This is a very easy process.

This was the point that brought the end of the discussion! Period!

I was polite to him and said that we will get back shortly! Frankly I felt really sad because of the state of affairs! I had nothing to comment on as some Project Managers come in with the same degree of knowledge sometimes except for the fact that they don’t know how to do an MPP!

Alexander's Three Wishes

I received this in a simple email forward from one of my friends Vijay based out of Pune. It was so thought provoking that I felt like publishing in the blog.

Here is very instructive incident involving the life of Alexander, the great Greek king.

Alexander, after conquering many kingdoms, was returning home.On the way, he fell ill and it took him to his death bed. With death staring him in his face, Alexander realized how his conquests, his great army, his sharp sword and all his wealth were of no consequence.

He now longed to reach home to see his mother's face and bid her his last adieu. But, he had to accept the fact that his sinking health would not permit Him to reach his distant homeland.

So, the mighty conqueror lay prostrate and pale, helplessly waiting to breathe his last.

He called his generals and said, 'I will depart from this world soon, I have three wishes, please carry them out without fail.'

With tears flowing down Their cheeks, the generals agreed to abide by their king's last wishes.

'My first desire is that,' said Alexander, 'My physicians alone must carry my coffin.'

After a pause, he continued, 'Secondly, I desire that when my coffin is being carried to the grave, the path leading to the graveyard be strewn with gold, silver and precious stones which I have collected in my treasury.'

The king felt exhausted after saying this. He took a minute's rest and continued.

'My third and last wish is that both my hands be kept dangling out of my coffin.'

The people who had gathered there wondered at the king's strange wishes. But no one dare bring the question to their lips.

Alexander's favorite general kissed his hand and pressed them to his heart. 'O king, we assure you that your wishes will all be fulfilled. But tell us 'why do you make such strange wishes?'

At this Alexander took a deep breath and said: 'I would like the world to know of the three lessons I have just learnt.

I want my physicians to carry my coffin because people should realize that no doctor can really cure any body. They are powerless and cannot save a person from the clutches of death. So let not people take life for granted.

The second wish of strewing gold, silver and other riches on the way to the graveyard is to tell People that not even a fraction of gold will come with me.

I spent all my life earning riches but cannot take anything with me. Let people realize that it is a sheer waste of time to chase wealth.

And about my third wish of having my hands dangling out of the coffin,

I wish people to know that I came empty handed into this world and
empty handed I go out of this world.'

With these words, the king closed his eyes. Soon he let death conquer him and breathed his last.

Have a Blessed Day !!

The Blame Game- Top Management is always the enemy!

Everytime as middle managers we wear multiple hats viz., handling customers, handling subordinates, streamlining processes, handling bosses and handling super bosses!! The whole idea of this blog stems from the fact that at some point of time managers would be frustrated at the whole idea of executive management(corporate) giving them some directions that are totally tangential to what they do on a daily basis. Managers also feel that executive management has got no clue on the practical implementation angle and they just make all decisions top-down. They feel that corporate does not understand the daily challenges that they face and corporate feels that managers need to be guided all the time. There is definitely some wisdom here looking at both angles and this is the first step when a manager transforms himself to become a leader!

Corporate is not the enemy even though it can too often seem that way with unreasonable demands or out-of-touch expectations. It's just that corporate has a job to do, and sometimes it actually knows some things that managers don't know. Corporate is not trying to micromanage but trying to balance middle management needs with the needs of other parts of the organization! Naturally it's trying to manage short-term results and long-term investments. It's trying to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts, a worthy cause underneath it all. This perspective usually gets lost with the middle management in both ways- Either the middle management thinks that the corporate is the enemy or they think they just need to listen to what corporate states and do exactly what they are told to do. Obviously both these states are detrimental to the growth of the organization and the growth of the management team!

I have seen a lot of middle managers complain that the corporate has got no perspective on the day to day realities and I do empathize with them for sure. For example: We are currently being audited for KPMG on CMMi and ofcourse the corporate goal is to have all project managers follow processes for all customers. But project managers face the challenge of implementing this with a customer who does not give a damn about processes!! This is a case in point whereby the project managers will be pulled by the corporate for non-implementation. There are many ways to solve this problem but blaming the corporate for pulling on this is not going to solve the problem!.

But even if the corporate's intentions are good- beware! You as a leader must relentlessly shield your team from its interference. To do otherwise is a fast track to losing your team's confidence and respect. Every time you groan that "Executive Officer A says that we need to have 100% billing for this customer" or complain that "Executive Officer B is forcing me to get rid of person Z because he's so bad at his customer presentation/packaging skills and attitude", you make yourself look like a puppet whose strings are being pulled by the corporate. In fact, you actually make yourself a puppet. It is very easy for managers to look at their team and scream about the corporate; And this is exactly what they should NOT do. Ever, ever, ever. That's a total career suicide for the manager and not much better for the team. Very soon, instead of looking to you for direction, your people will be looking around you, searching for signs from the "real boss".

It really happened with me once whereby I was reviewing the resource utilization with my business manager and as usual I asked him to reallocate 4 resources to another new project as the current project was coming to close. Immediately the business manager agreed for the same as he felt that he was just obeying corporate's instructions!! Unfortunately the current project that is coming to close can be extended through a maintenance contract with the same team and there is a potential repeat business because of the same team. Ideally this perspective should have been given by the business manager; instead of that the reallocation just happened because the corporate asked for it. Tomorrow if there is a question on the repeat business it will be easy to wash the hands and say, "hey they asked for it and they got it".

As a manager you should never even give a perception to your team members that you cannot fight for them! Once you give that perception it is very easy for the team to observe and understand the dynamics. As I always say, "everyone observes you while you are at work" and there is no hiding from the fact that your team always evaluates you every second. So any complaining like this will immediately change their perception of you as a leader!

The perspective on this very simple- Sometimes there are optimal/rational decisions imposed to the management team and sometimes there are sub-optimal/irrational decisions imposed to the management team! The key is to find the balance in these decisions and create your own communication plan that can address and align both the interests!

It is very common to have corporate interfere with your team thereby giving a perception to middle management that they are micro-managing, hurting speed and morale etc. Obviously the suggestion is to not become a corporate apologist, trying to sell every edict to your people as if it were ice cream. By all means, push back hard on behalf of your business. Challenge nonsense expectations. Negotiate for resources. But keep that process behind closed doors, and when it is over, whether you have made gains or not, own corporate's final decision as your own. Take it to your people as your plan.

Remember Executive Officer A's idea of having 100% billing with a particular customer? Say he won't budge, even after you've made the case that it's stupid in your business high-demand environment. At that point, you need to buck up and move on. Get with your team and figure out a way to deliver the plan of having 100% billable resources by creating a bench that can take care of transitions/replacements!

As for poor resource Z, whom executive officer B wants fired- that's another case for the middle managers to own. If resouce Z is a solid contributor, instead of pulling the trigger while blaming executive officer B, quietly work your tail off to improve his packaging skills and attitude. In other words, make it your job to manage the interface between corporate and your team. And when corporate makes that interface thorny, don't share your pain- absorb it. If that sounds a bit unnatural, that's because it is. It is perfectly human for managers to want to blame "up there" for how hard it is "down here". But real leaders can't do that. And they don't.

Prakash Gurumoorthy

PS: I have taken some ideas from an interview of Jack Welch to write this blog as I felt this is appropriate for any middle managers!

Software Project Management

Software Project Management is a very well researched area and given the backdrop of globalization and IT revolution that has happened with India there has been a lot of studies as well as practice that has been made in this space. So I am not going to write about the same old story here.

Well for the beginners- Software Project Management is all about managing the customers, managing the technical developers/leads, and managing the necessary software development lifecycle (SDLC) processes to ensure that a particular project is immensely successful! At the end of the day, there are 3 objectives that a project manager should satisfy:

1. Customers should be extremely thrilled with the execution of the project
2. Developers/Tech Leads should have had a good challenging time in executing the project
3. Process expectations for a project viz. Reliability, Risk Mitigation, Setting expectations, Scability and so on and so forth

This seems very simple when anyone reads about it and almost 60-70% of software projects worldover fail to meet expectations interms of effort, schedule and cost.

Why is that so? When things are so clear and when we all know that these are the areas that can make a project fail- Why is it so difficult to ensure 100% reliability?

Here is where Project Managers play a significant role in my mind and there are 2 aspects to this role.

There is a SCIENTIFIC aspect to project management and there is a ARTISTIC aspect to project management. The scientific part is reasonably simple:

1. One needs to have clear specifications
2. One needs to create a good project plan that can be tracked
3. One needs to get the right technical people
4. One needs to ensure that all the relevant processes are followed

There are still a few more to this scientific part that I have omitted as part of this blog is not to teach project management but to draw out perspectives on why projects fail and what can project managers do about it!!

The ARTISTIC aspect of project management is something that we all need to address as well:
What do you mean by artistic aspect: Things like:

1. Do we know the one single most thing that can make this project fail? Are we able to sniff that beforehand?
2. Do we have adequate relationship with the customer as well as the developers so that you can address conflict effectively? Believe me- this is the toughest part!

These involve a lot of intuition and instinct- This is what differentiates a successful project manager and an unsuccessful one!

Given the backdrop that we need to balance both scientific and artistic aspects of project management- How we do hone these skills and ensure that everyone possesses it?

Unfortunately there are no DO and DONT's for enhancing the artistic aspects of project management- Its like common sense! Either you have it or you dont have it!

But one thing can be honed- Project Managers can first identify that this is an issue and if they are able to consciously address it; they will be able to transcend the scientific boundaries that they have created and think more holistically.

This area is really tricky and it is the same as THINKING- I will write about this in my next blog.

I have seen numerous projects as a project manager, account manager, engagement manager, transition manager, program manager at Photon and I sincerely believe that project management as a discipline needs to be improved still!

Till then,
Prakash

www.photoninfotech.com