Posts Tagged ‘Management lessons’

“Who will cry when you die?”

Posted: February 2, 2009 in Uncategorized
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My dear friend (and I’d rather call him friend than ex-boss!), Simar referred to the book by this title, few times. I never managed to read the book, but the title intrigued me, and stayed with me.

Events of Saturday brought back this phrase to my mind. As I walked the four floors of the offices of Compare Infobase Ltd., to shake hands with most of the team members, to bid goodbye to them, on my last day at work there, I was touched by several very emotional reactions.

Some young members of the team, at least 2 levels down in the reporting hierarchy, with whom I had brief interactions over time, were verbal enough to tell me, “Sir, you can’t leave us. What will we do without you? Who will teach us?”. No, I was not a “teacher”, I was the Chief Operating Officer. But I guess, I might have managed to share some knowledge over time.

I spotted many a moist eyes, as I walked around and met managers, programmers, team leaders. There were genuine feelings of loss that they were going through, and I sensed many voices choke, as they shook their hands with me.

A couple of direct reportees – senior managers – got quite emotional. And to top it all, my friend / boss /CEO, Simar, could not completely hold back his feelings.

I was overwhelmed by the many flattering words, combined with examples, that my colleagues shared at the farewell. Also appreciated, not just the gift that they gave me, but also the large farewell card, signed with special messages by my many colleagues there. A few insisted on coming down till the car, as I left for the airport.

Very touching. Quite embarrassing also – especially, the car-drop part!

As I looked back on the day’s events on my way to the airport, I thought of this book title, “Who will cry when you die?”.

Do we leave some mark where we go? Are we touching lives? Do our actions and words inspire others, and make a change in their being?

As entrepreneurs, modesty and humility is in our being. Because we have a long agenda, and there’s always things to do. So even the intermediate victories are enjoyed momentarily, before we move on, to the next agenda. We don’t make much of it.

Likewise, as experienced persons, we have a lot in our heads, and we share bits and pieces of it, casually, in interacting with our teams and colleagues. Okay, sometimes we impart specific knowledge in training sessions and the like. But more often, it’s the casual interactions, which we may ourselves not make much ado about, but for the recipient, who is still in the early days of her career, that small bit is very valuable!

As I thought about the reactions that I got on Saturday, I realized that it was in spite of having been:

  • responsible for bringing in structured reporting, which put far more accountability on everyone; ordinarily, it should have not been a popular thing to do!
  • a strong voice to change the culture from being ‘accommodative to low performers’ (by giving them opportunities in other areas, etc.) to being a proponent of ‘if there is a clear question on performance, there is no room for the person’ theory,
  • unfortunately, at the helm of affairs and at the forefront, during the period when we needed to do few rounds of layoffs; it’s never pleasant, but what had to be done, had to be done.

There were other factors too, which were clearly steering some people away from a comfort zone. So I was glad that in spite of all these, there was appreciation and admiration of my efforts and my tenure there.

I was feeling equally bad to move on, especially after seeing this reaction. If circumstances were a little different, I would have continued and tried to lead the company to even greater heights.Well, that was not to be…

For now, I cherish the farewell. I appreciate the emotions of the team.

But most of all, I recognize the impact that my experience, my sincere involvement with the team, my bits of training, my knowledge, can make. It’s something to recognize, and to utilize well, for the benefit of any organization that I am associated with, now and in future!!

Recent Management Learnings!

Posted: December 14, 2008 in Business, Leadership, Management
Tags: ,
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A summary of few recent management learnings, unfortunately out of experience!

  1. An IIT tag does not assure a good manager or a good technologist or a good leader. Sad but true.
  2. An IIM tag does not assure a good manager or a good leader or a good business head. Sadder but true again.
  3. A good project manager does not necessarily graduate to becoming a good business head. Its truly shocking how clueless about business realities, cost heads, urgency on revenues, urgency on cash flow management, even a good project manager can be!
  4. A good sales and marketing person does not necessarily become a good business head. Here too, there may be an understanding of how to go and get new business. But managing P&L, managing a larger team, managing timelines.. all of these can be alien concepts to the person. Unbelievable, right? But it happens! Ask me!
  5. Boom times have generated some slick talkers, who are otherwise shallow in capabilities, to have added a lot of corporate tags on their CVs. Can you believe that one such person who had worked in some heavyweight corporations in India and outside India, and headed business development efforts in these organizations, could not put together a page of formal correspondence, lacked email etiquette, did not know how to create a decent spreadsheet?!
  6. Can someone with 20+ years of experience, including a few years in the Internet business, someone with management education background, not know how to use Excel? How in the world are you expected to evaluate this? Would you subject senior management candidates to such fundamental testing?? Okay, by the way, the Excel part was the ‘tip of the iceberg’ in the larger problem statement!
  7. That niceties are not guaranteed in this world, so don’t expect them. Someone with 5+ years of association, being treated as extended family, part of the innermost circle, can also walk out with 3 days notice and not feel an inch of guilt in doing so! That is the state of affairs of the day.

So there are the problems. Do I have any solutions? Any real answers? I guess, no easy ones.

Apart from the fact that I now appreciate the words of a couple of VCs. One of them had said that between the time that they meet an entrepreneur to the point when they actually make the investment, could be as long as a year’s time. And the other one had said that they would meet an entrepreneur, in formal and informal settings at least 15-20 times, before they take a call on investment.

I am seeing that hiring senior management is almost as critical for a company, as an investment is for a VC. Much as we are pressed with our growth ambitions and schedules, and which tempt us to go for a candidate over a few interactions, that is really not a good thing to do. The potential gain that we could get in getting a senior manager into the company sooner, is far offset by the risk of hiring a wrong person. The damage that a decision of that kind can do, takes up so much time and money for the company, to recover, not to speak of the opportunity cost that is lost! A senior hiring MUST go through long and extended interactions, whether the candidate likes it or not. That is the only way. Formally and informally, figure out if the person is really the one you want to take up a critical responsibility in your organization.