All Change Please!

The Wipro Express has arrived at the terminus. Today, Friday 29th July is my last day. I had a very interesting and useful chat with a friend of mine in London recently. She asked me what I had learnt, both professionally and personally from my time at Wipro, and what did I want to get out of my time at EMC.

My overall conclusion as regards Wipro is that whilst I am happy to be leaving, I am convinced that it was the right decision to leave Accenture to join them. I am of the opinion that what I have learnt in my 14 months in Wipro is greater than what I would have learnt if I had stayed another eleventh year in Accenture. Some of the specific highlights that stand out are a training course on how to read financial statements of companies allowing you to understand what services might be of benefit to them; a deep exposure to the Indian subcontinent and culture which was absolutely fascinating; and the opportunity to discover what I really like at work i.e. I now understand that the ideal role for me really is that of client partner. I learnt to be more realistic in terms of being able to establish company-wide best practices, and I was also particularly impressed with some of the Wipro guys in the Credit Suisse PB account team. So, with all of these wonderful things, the obvious question to ask is why on earth did I opt to leave?

I think the answer is fairly straight forward. In addition to an extremely attractive offer from EMC, I think I was frustrated by five key things....

1. Whilst I was genuinely impressed with certain individuals in each department I worked in or had contact with (both client facing and support), the company asks people to do too much. As a result there is a widespread acceptance of sloppy mistakes both in interactions with clients and in internal back office operations e.g. poorly thought through proposal documents, consistency incorrect bonus calculations, mobile phones being cut off without warning etc. It's definitely quantity over quality.
2. The combination of frequently poor quality communication (from the highest levels all the way down to interactions between team members), and the sense of lurching from one crisis to the next rather than actually having something of a plan that has a longer time horizon than the end of the current quarter.
3. The fact that all strings were pulled in Bangalore meaning that we in the local markets closest to the clients were merely executioners of orders from India. This point basically ensured that we non-Indians in Europe would always remain “outsiders” in one way or another.
4. The overriding impression that the company is highly transactional in nature – very few people were either prepared or allowed to take a step back, see the bigger picture and take the time to invest in the (internal and external) relationships required to be successful in a different way. I don’t leave with the impression that Wipro is a people focused company.
5. I think the final nail in the Wipro coffin for me was when I recently realised that if I looked at the senior management of the firm (the levels above my direct boss), then they were not the type of leaders that inspired me, nor were they the type of leader that I want to become.

My overall conclusion is that I think the journey up the value chain for Wipro will be a long one, although I genuinely wish them the very best of luck, especially my team who are now under new leadership.

The Last Stand

For this particular computer. This is the last posting using this particular laptop before I hand it back to Wipro tomorrow in Paris (unless I wake up in the middle of the night tonight and can't contain myself). The blog will of course continue, but in the future it has more chance of being Apple Powered than Dell Driven...

It’s a Bum Job

My recent experience in a second global 100,000+ person company plus the unfolding Euro/financial crisis got me thinking. I look at some of the brilliant people across the world and I wonder how we got into such a mess – why do countries such as Germany not act more decisively, why can't the US push through a plan to raise their debt ceiling or a plan to sort out the medium term fiscal situation? One of the key conclusions that I have drawn is that at an atomic level, you can be as brilliant as you want, however in large organisations there are always multiple centres of power and decision makers. Unfortunately you can only move as quickly as the slowest one of these it seems. No doubt the most experienced people will factor this into the original decision making process (thus possibly serving to slow down the whole process even further).

This thought led me to the conclusion that being able to move a large group of people quickly really is a very rare skill. You could argue that we witnessed it during a few key weekends during the financial crisis e.g. decisions to bail out some or let other companies such as Lehman Brothers go to the wall, but I would contend that the industry was lucky enough to have a relatively small number of really key decision makers.

The other thing which struck me is that the larger the group of people you have to move, the simpler your vision and clearer your communication needs to be. Larger groups mean that you can’t have direct contact with every individual. As a result your message will inevitably be passed orally by other people on your behalf. The more complicated the message the greater the chance it will be distorted. It’s a shame then that for the Euro zone there are so many people who take it upon themselves to communicate in slightly different ways depending on their own agendas.

The final thing that struck me during this particular mental ramble was that moving people quickly and providing clear communication is already difficult enough (especially when there is no formal hierarchy to guide people's behaviour). The whole process is completely undermined if you haven’t genuinely thought through all the key ramifications and implications of your plan – now that is difficult and takes a good deal of experience. The best example of that from my own personal experience is that of the recent CEO change at Wipro. The new guy is meant to be very gifted in terms of clearly communicating a vision, and also experienced in moving large groups of people quickly. Where he seems to be stumbling now is that he has left too much underlying detail to be worked out in an off the cuff manner.

All in all, whether you’re Christine Lagarde, TK Kurien or Angela Merkel, the job’s not an easy one. Thankfully the one I’ve got on my hands at EMC is a good few notches down from what those guys need to do!

The Mysterious Slide and Puzzles, People & Stories

As I sat in Church at the weekend I recalled a recent Maxime event... The large plastic slide outside the house in Pau had been moved. Neither Sandie nor the au pair Marianne was responsible (and you can rest assured it wasn’t me!). The mystery of the moving slide was resolved when Maxime was put under some intensive questioning. He explained that the slide had been in the sun, so it had become hot, and as a result he had decided to take it upon himself to move it into the shade meaning that he could play without risk of burning his little botty. Logical really when you think about it.

When the tale was shared with (French) Anti Establishment Papy Francis he very quickly said that all children are born logical and it is the formal education system that beats the logic out of them (side note: maybe my failed attempt to understand Descartes as a troubled teenager wasn’t actually my fault then?). That got me thinking about the philosophy of school education and the intense curriculum that children are required to follow these days – a very important topic given that Maxime starts pre-school as a 2.5 year old in September.

What I remember from Oxford is that I only really genuinely started to understand things (rather than just being able to memorise a large number of facts for an exam), when I took the time to think things through from first principles. (You will no doubt note the recurring theme of slowing down to actually take the time to think, do and live). As a consequence I believe that one of the most valuable things I do at work is to think about things whilst not connected to my Blackberry (typically in aeroplanes), scribble things down on bits of yellow paper, and then let my sub conscious do the rest over the following two weeks before I create an appropriate PowerPoint slide for general consumption. It’s just a shame that the volume of work we needed to get through for A Levels just didn’t allow us that time to reflect and understand (especially if we wanted to combine that with chasing young girls and playing football four times a weekend).

What does it mean for Maxime (and his siblings) – I suppose it means that if there is any way I can get him to view mathematics and science subjects as a set of puzzles, and to view the humanities as a series of stories about individual people in different countries in different time periods when social norms were different to those today, then I’ll be happy. Either that or I’ll just start to bribe them with money to try and get as many A*’s as possible. I really hope it’s the former.

Yesterday’s Man

This evening I hosted my second and final Town Hall event for the Wipro team I have been leading for the last few months. The first Town Hall had focused on sharing the summary of the current state of the relationship with the client as I had understood it following an initial 6 weeks of listening to all and sundry across the globe. At that inaugural event I had promised that I would come back to them in a second such meeting and share with them the vision that I would develop for the account and the corresponding 12-18 month action plan. I was determined to share that vision and plan with them even despite the fact that I had resigned. In addition to the fact that it had now been validated by both the client and my direct boss, it also just felt like it was the right way to bring things to closure. I also hoped that sharing it with a wider audience who were directly impacted would help lock in the proposed changes.

A number of things struck me during the course of the evening and even now as I, back in my hotel, digest my final helping of my customary chocolate mousse.

Essentially Wipro is transactional company however the team on the ground clearly long for and are definitely open to something that is more relationship based. What they really need is guidance on how to do this, and I am convinced that if senior management show a little interest in the team as individuals, then the team will happily walk over broken glass to get the account to where Bangalore wants it to be.

A second thing that struck me is that I am already yesterday’s man. The turnout for the event was low and much lower than the first Town Hall. One can always blame the rain and the holidays (sounds like Ireland), but, especially in such a hierarchical company, if you’ve told them you’re leaving, then there are a lot of people who don’t manage to take that tram to come and see you. I suppose this is a natural human reaction even thought I was convinced I did have something of interest to tell them despite my imminent departure. My initial disappointment quickly turned into something more positive as I found myself feeling closer to the hardy 25 or so people that did indeed come.

The final thing that struck me is that the kind words they shared with me reassured me that I probably was on the right track, and that I have made the right choice. From one experienced team member who said he had opted to join the account because of me, to the younger guy who told me that he had bought a brand new shirt to attend my first Town Hall meeting after we had had an initial meeting in one of the client offices. All of these nice tributes were very touching and will be happy memories I’ll keep with me. I hope that the team does go on to be successful and that I will have the opportunity to see some of these guys again.

Enjoy, Reward, Learn

You will all no doubt agree that my life is a hard one when I tell you that one of the last things I needed to do in Zurich before leaving Switzerland was to have an exquisite extended lunch in a private members club with some friends. It was hugely enjoyable and we obviously talked about the catalyst for and process of changing jobs. One of my lunch companions said that he had read that whether or not people changed jobs all depended on the three key pillars of enjoyment, rewards and learning. The litmus test was to give each pillar a mark out of 100. If the sum total of those three scores was less than 210, then it was the right time to start thinking about a move. My scores for Wipro? Answers on a postcard and I’ll announce the winner in August.

Make Mental Equine Note

Last weekend was dominated by a big show jumping competition in Blaye near Bordeaux in France. It was also the first weekend since the twins were born that Sandie and I managed to get away just the two of us. The jumping went OK – Friday was a write-off with a shameful five faults, but Saturday and Sunday were much better with only one bar down in what is always a very tricky competition. So whilst there was no silverware being brought home, at least pride was salvaged by the time we picked up the tribe from various sets of grandparents on Sunday afternoon.

The major equine learning from the weekend was that I need to focus on jumping the bars rather than trying to be beautiful; efficiency rather than elegance is the key. Both Sandie and Michel came to the same conclusion independently. However when Michel told me that as I was waiting to go into the arena on Friday, I was so convinced that Sandie had “planted” the idea in his head that I instinctively decided to ignore it. 20 points later I was ruing that particular decision especially when both Sandie and Michel later confirmed that they had indeed not plotted jointly in any way beforehand. Using the inside leg to keep the hindquarters in line with the shoulders when coming round corners, not closing my fingers over the bars, and really attacking the obstacles especially when there is an uphill slope to be contended with, are other more technical lessons also learned.

Apart from Friday’s round, the whole weekend was a big success. It was good to have some time together with Sandie and she certainly enjoyed having the time to speak to our equine friends without having to interrupt every conversation with, “Maxime get down from there, Maxime don’t hit your sister, Maxime stop poking the dog with that stick, Maxime don’t eat the horse dung, Maxime stop drinking out of Pich’s water bucket etc”. Now I think it’s time for a break for the grandparents.....

Hesiod's Five Ages of Man? More like the Three Ages of Michael Fish.

The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Greek mythology. Two classical authors in particular offer accounts of the successive ages of mankind, which tend to progress from an original, long-gone age in which humans enjoyed a nearly divine existence to the current age of the writer, in which humans are beset by innumerable pains and evils. In the two accounts that survive from ancient Greece and Rome, this degradation of the human condition over time is indicated symbolically with metals of successively decreasing value. See the following link for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_Man

My version of the ages of man is somewhat simpler. As I was travelling back from Pau to Biarritz today with our Au Pair Marianne, it struck me that being in your early 30s is really quite different from being in your early 20s. Rather than her unnerving ability to pick up song lyrics and knowing the names of bands I’ve never even heard of, nothing summed it up better than our conversation about the weather. My theory is that the first age of man really does not care about the weather – it just doesn’t enter their consciousness (Maxime and Marianne), the second age of man is particularly interested to see the weather forecast (Sandie), and the third age of man (Dad) muses that, “we are not weather makers but mere weather takers”. As for me? I fear I am rapidly racing towards middle age.

Failed IT Project? Buy a Horse

During the aforementioned conversation with Michel in Gradingnan, the other conclusion that we quickly drew was that sport at any decent level quickly becomes more about what you feel, rather than just the simple execution of a series of physical actions. Furthermore the best teachers are those who can even describe to you in a language you understand what you should be feeling (not just doing) at any particular moment. No matter how much I would like to make it into a clearly repeatable process for which a clear methodology could be written, riding is a lot to do with reacting to what you are feeling, which also includes sensing what your horse is thinking and feeling as well. Obviously these human/equine feelings change every minute of every day. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why so many IT projects fail....too much process and not enough horses. More about that when I get to EMC....

Self Indoctrinated Dog

Many people know that all my best (average and positively bad) ideas start life as a scribble on a scrap of, often yellow, paper. One idea for a blog posting that I have been carrying around in the pocket of various different suits over the last two months, (scraps of paper are typically migrated at the end of each week from one pair of trousers to another), came from a conversation with my riding coach Michel who has been teaching people to ride horses for over 30 years.

Michel’s view was that after a certain point you can’t teach any dog any trick, new or old. What you really need to do is to get people to discover their own potential. This immediately reminded me of the initially painful experience of having to teach myself politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford as a 19 year old, leading me to concur with Michel’s view. I suppose the real challenge in today’s world is that whilst infinitely more effective, this herding and gentle nudging of cats to educate themselves typically takes a lot longer than telling people what to do.

The other thing I read recently which made me re-think about Michel’s point (and the reason why this particular scrap of yellow paper actually made it into a blog posting), was the following article in the Economist... http://www.economist.com/node/18894910. It talks about the invisible sieve on the internet. As Larry Page, the chief executive of Google, once put it, “the ultimate search engine would understand exactly what you mean, and give back exactly what you want.” Another example of internet personalization is Facebook which shows you updates from the friends you interact with the most, filtering out people with whom you have less in common. One person commented that “My sense of unease crystallised when I noticed that my conservative friends had disappeared from my Facebook page”. The result is a “filter bubble”, which is defined as “a unique universe of information for each of us”, meaning that we are less likely to encounter information online that challenges our existing views or sparks serendipitous connections. “A world constructed from the familiar is a world in which there’s nothing to learn”. This has been termed “invisible autopropaganda, indoctrinating us with our own ideas”.

So if teachers can’t teach us, if nobody ever has any time in this world of the immediate, and if the only tricks we teach ourselves are ones we already know, where is this going to lead us…………. Maybe I should now come down from the clouds and go back to this utterly dull conference call.

Hand Over the Lake

Last Friday Wipro have requested that I now only speak to internal not client people. One can obviously question the wisdom of that, but the upshot is that my main focus is completing the hand over and transfer of knowledge to the gentlemen who are going to take over my role. I have decided to perform this activity from my regular hotel in Zurich. As I sit here eating breakfast in the glorious morning sunshine with a view over the Zurichsee, I get the feeling that was a wise decision.

We started the knowledge transfer last night. I explained the situation of the relationship as I inherited it a few months ago, and my vision for the account which I had recently validated with the client. The vision is based on a number of flagship programmes of work and some underlying building blocks. One of the questions that was asked of me last night was, what were the principles that underpinned the whole vision? I thought it was a good question and it took me a couple of minutes to think it through. In conclusion I think the two key pillars, which I hadn’t consciously thought about whilst developing the vision, are a focus on people (both internally and also relationships with the client), and the fact the people don’t like surprises in their professional lives. On reflection, making people feel that they are understood as individuals, and giving people predictability and consistency, are probably the reasons why the vision was so readily accepted by the client.

Sir Cliff and then a bit of Slapstick

Talking of the wrong job, I suspect it’s about time that I told you about my impending job change (although I doubt it will bring me a Porsche Carrera any time soon). I am set to leave Wipro in two weeks time, and I’ll be munching the grass of a new American pasture in September at EMC. I’ll be a director in their consulting business which they are trying to (re)build in Europe under the guidance of an ex-Accenture (American) partner. As much as I really enjoy the role that I have currently at Credit Suisse, the wider company and I don’t see eye to eye on a few key points. That plus the appeal of working for a woman with exactly the same name as my wife, and also with the likes of young Neville Wall, has proved just too great a temptation. Neville has also promised that I can be Laurel as we buy a WV camper van and start doing a “Big Data in the Cloud” tour of Europe. For the eagle eyed among you, you’ll notice that I’ve managed to arrange it such that I have a student-esque 6 week break.....we’re all going on a, Summer holiday...tra la la la la, let’s just hope I don’t fracture my arm in three places like last Summer.

Pepper for a Porsche

I was in the Netherlands for much of last week. During that time I spent quite a bit of time with a discreet, quiet, introverted and extremely tall, Dutch farmer. We went out for early morning runs together during the course of the week. He explained to me how, since the age of 19 when his father died (he was now 39), he ran his own family business which was a pepper farm in Rotterdam near the Netherlands. With each run he told me a bit more – it turned out that he actually had 27,000 square metres of peppers growing and that during peak periods in the year he was delivering 24 tonnes of peppers a day to Dutch supermarkets (roughly 100,000 peppers a day). He was actually learning German that week because he was in the process of setting up a new pepper farm in Leipzig which was going to be 100,000 square metres large. Each day after our run and breakfast we had to take the bus from the hotel to the training centre. On the last day he said that rather than taking the bus we should take his car because he had to drive off home at the end of the day. I suppose I shouldn’t really have been surprised that the silver Porsche Carrera that had been taking centre stage outside the front door of the hotel all week was his. It just went to confirm that I really am in the wrong job!

Ich werde schlafen

I'm back in the Netherlands to learn a bit more German - very "logisch" I know. I am particularly tired after another day of dative and accusative cases and perfect past and future tenses. Maybe a good night's sleep will help alleviate the heavy Hun haze hanging over my hotel tonight. That said, spare a thought for Maxime, Gaston and Capucine who all have suspected Spitze Blattern (chicken pox). However the fact that I have just received official confirmation of their receipt of Irish nationality (no easy process when you're born in France!), will no doubt give them the required strength to keep calm and carry on.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Whereas I thought I was making progress last Thursday, this weekend's equestrian events felt like two steps back. 2 faults in the first class, eliminated in the second and 3 faults in the final round today. Humpf. Not exactly the ideal preparation before the biggest competition of the year in Blaye in two weeks time. I think I'll be going in for some extra horse homework next weekend.