And Vijay Says…

So it’s my birthday – and my mind is oscillating furiously between being too old and not growing up fast enough . It’s a strange feeling !

the boat that my 9 year old daughter made for my birthday

On one hand – I do feel rather old . I work in a company where vast majority of people I run into are smart, good looking twenty somethings. At a company party, in my first week there , I heard a woman colleague lamenting that she can’t keep up with the young crowd . So I asked her how old she was – and her answer was 29 ! I nearly broke down in tears ( and under my breath said something like – “shoot me dead now – actually poke me in both eyes before you shoot me, and drop kick me as I fall” 🙂

And yet – talking to several friends my age and older who continue to work at large companies , and not all of them are thrilled with their status quo but for their own reasons they can’t move out – I feel like the young guy with free
spirit 🙂

Ok that was a stretch – practically no one equates me with free spirit , but hey it’s my blog and I am going to take some blogger’s license here .

When I finished my MBA – I had a clear plan for retiring at 35. 35 came and went and I am nowhere close to retirement – which made it rather depressing , but I wrote it off as my MBA naïveté . Now I am firmly convinced that I don’t ever want to retire – I think I will go nuts and will drive my family nuts if I do . What I need is periodic vacations – and I am slowly getting better at taking time off work . It’s one of my goals for when I grow up . The guy I need to thank the most for finally taking time off from work is my mate Dennis Howlett . He told me many times – with and without beer in our hands – how time off work helped him, and it kind of worked out that way for me too .

I used to take pride in my programming abilities – and looking back today, I had no right to be . I can still code in C , ABAP and a little bit in java . And over last few years, I figured out JavaScript and Hana – but clearly I am nowhere as good as I thought . Bad news – I doubt I can get a programmer job anymore to pay bills . I better forget that security net and focus on improving skills I need for my current job . There was a time when I could write 500 lines of code in a stretch with no syntax or compilation errors – and I used to take that for granted . Can’t do it any more – and it hurts !

On the bright side – what didn’t kill me made me stronger . All those hours spent tackling programming stuff is coming in very handy when I learn MongoDB – given my natural way of understanding something new is by comparing and contrasting with stuff I know from past . There is some light at the end of the tunnel after all .

Looking back – I am most thankful to some fascinating leaders I got to work for who paid it forward to let me be successful in my career . And I am incredibly proud of the people who came after me who I could help along their way . I know they will go places – and I would be proud to work for them one day . If I am ever successful in my life to deserve a good legacy – I want to be remembered as a guy who helped create a few more leaders in this world . I could do a lot better on that front than I have done in the past – and I intend to do just that going forward .

Last but not least – if there is one true regret above all others , it is that I didn’t spend enough time with my family and our dogs . I can’t go back in time and fix that retrospectively – but I hope to make up for it, and then some, from now on .

Definitely need to lose some weight too – but then , some promises seem to be meant for following year – on a rolling one year basis 🙂

IBM is a good case study for balancing out everyone singing the “transformation is cool” tune . Transformation is utterly painful – almost directly proportional to the size of the company .

So IBM announced its Q1 results and no surprises there – HW business is not in good health , and software and services are not exactly stellar either .
But that is the top line story . Bottom line – or specifically EPS, is a different story . EPS continues to grow as IBM promised in its plan .

Several people commented today that The best days of IBM are behind them . I actually think the opposite is true . I think IBM will come back with a roar in couple of years .

Why do I think so ? For two reasons primarily

1. Look at their investments in last couple of years while their top line was shrinking . They formed the Watson group – and put their best leaders in charge of growing it . They bought Softlayer and are moving full speed to make it the base of their cloud strategy up and down the stack . They partnered well with growing technologies ( capitalized on Hana momentum from SAP on the hardware side – and yes they sold it off to Lenovo , supported MongoDB API in DB2, etc) . They haven’t let the slow down on top line from affecting their investments – that is how IBM works . They bet on the long term and don’t panic (at least in public). On top of that they continue to invest heavily in their research capabilities . iBM spends more money on research than many hot shot companies make in revenue .

2. They have a very deep leadership bench – and has the brand and money to attract more leaders if needed . This is by far the most important reason for me to believe IBM will come back with a roar . There aren’t a lot of leaders of the caliber of Ginni Rommety , Steve Mills etc. The people working for them are equally talented and it goes a few layers deep . And if that is not enough – they have plenty of cash and brand value to attract away most top leaders from other companies .

So what is it that IBM doesn’t have ?
They don’t have time on their side !

Investors are not always a patient bunch . On the bright side , people buy IBM for guaranteed dividends and long term appreciation . Come what may – I am sure IBM has enough capability to squeeze costs to make earnings promises be made good . But if the investment community doesn’t show patience – they might have to cut deeper than necessary to deliver and that helps no one .

As much as I care for IBM – I feel terrible every time they let go of people, since I have a lot of friends who work there . And in every round, some of them get affected . That makes it difficult for me to justify what looks like a good decision on economic front . That does not do IBM any long term good – a business is only as good as the people who work there, and not just the leaders . But that is the price to pay when IBM does not have time on its side .

For the sake of all my friends who still work there , and for my own sake as an ex-IBMer who cares for the company – I hope that IBM can buy some time to make its come back and not cut much more deep into its payroll to deliver on its commitments to the street .

This is the greatest mistake that happens when we try building teams . We start out with the intention of hiring an “A team” – and pretty soon it magically transforms into a hunt for “A players” . It took me a long while to realize it’s not the same – and often hiring all A players into one team hardly makes any sense .

There are only two ways of building an A team that I know of .
1. If you have money and luck on your side – hire all A players you can to fill each role in the team.
2. OR, hire a few A players with strong leadership skills and fill the rest with B and if needed some C players . Then make it the Responsibility of A players to bring along the B and C players

Option 1 is a no brainer . A players love working with other A players – but there are only so many of that caliber. And you probably can’t hire them all.

Individuals can win a few matches with their sheer talent . But to win consistently and become championship material – it takes a team . Not just any team – but an A team .

My favorite example is the Indian cricket team that won the 1983 World Cup . There were two top talent players – Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev. Rest were average or slightly above average players if you look at their life time stats . Yet – Kapil led that team to win the World Cup , defeating the best West Indies team ever in the finals . That is the nature of A teams .

The Australian side of Steve Waugh in 90s was probably close an A team built with all A players . And they kept winning for a very long time , except when that crop of players retired – the team could not make another A team of A players . Now they are taking an approach which is closer to building an A team with couple of A players and the rest with B players .

I have had the fortune of working in A teams where every one was a star player , and also in A teams where only some players could be described as stars . But in both cases – output was stellar . And my current thinking is that the viable model is to discourage people from trying to build an A team of solely A players .

However, an A team with A, B and C players needs some ducks to line up in a row before their execution ability gets into stellar territory. Here are my top 6 thoughts .

1. An A team needs strong leadership – ideally an A player who can take responsibility of bringing along and improving the non-A players to play at major league. It’s the acid test of motivational ability of a leader.

2. Hire one or more A players to keep the leader honest throughout the time the team works together . Most often, of the leader alone is an A player – their ideas will go unchallenged . That can only hurt in the long term . You always need people in the team who can challenge the leader when needed

3. Never allow the B and C players to recruit . If you do – then the chance of them hiring an A player is close to zero. The biggest long term risk is the standard of incoming players decreasing over time and the team moving from stellar to mediocre status.

4. Don’t drink the “culture fit” koolaid in big gulps . It is important that people get along – but end of the day, fun needs to be balanced with output. And output needs specific skills and experience . This is a grey area at best – and a true test of a good leader is the ability to find the right compromise.

5. Stretch, but don’t break . A players typically can stretch a lot in the assignments they take on. Don’t let that make you try to stretch the B and C players too in similar fashion . Everyone has a breaking point – and the sooner the leader and team realizes everyone’s breaking point , the better the chance of great execution. In most cases , B and C players and can stretch the same as A players over time – as long as it is done in small increments .

6. Rotate players when they are successful . Let new players come in with new ideas . Let your A players go to other teams and expand their horizons . Share the wealth of talent – that is how it multiplies and scales .