And Vijay Says…

Having “Chief” in your title is pretty awesome . I am friends with several people who have “Chief” in their title and they are rightfully proud of it – and I am very proud of them for getting to those important career milestones. I have my own ambitions on this matter – some day I hope to the the “Chief Trainer” at the dog training business I intend to establish post retirement. While I don’t exactly know at the moment what people with the title “Growth hacker” actually do – that is also a cool title I intend to take on in that post retirement business.

The baseline case is that the person running the company is called CEO and the direct reports to the CEO carry “Chief ” in their titles like COO, CMO, CFO, CRO, CHRO etc. CEOs cannot have an indefinite number of people who directly report to him – so some other C level roles get one notch down in the pecking order. For example – CIO working for CFO, a Chief Risk Officer working for the COO and so on. From that point on – it gets out of hand pretty quickly.

While I chose to rant on “C” titles here – this does happen in many flavors. EVP/SVP/GM roles for example all have a habit of playing out the same way.

There are about a half dozen common reasons I can think of on the top of my head why additional “Chief” roles get created. I am sure there are many more.

1. Some “must have” movement happens in the industry and pundits will advise the board and CEO that this needs a C level role. Hence roles Chief AI officer, Chief Analytics officer, Chief Digital Officer and so on get created with great intentions to drive transformation – but not always with any real budget or authority to make decisions.
2. Some “top talent” types won’t join the company without a C level title. Off late I have seen “Chief Growth Officer” as a title cropping up – and many of the people occupying those roles are people who otherwise would have only joined for a CEO or CRO role.
3. A way to retain senior talent for a period of time till another plan can be created . A famous big data company had a chief or technology, chief of engineering, chief of engineering and a few other similar sounding titles co-existing . This scenario is very common when the company is limited in making compensation increases. Similarly it could also be a way to show that a growth milestone has been met, usually for startups. The VP of Legal will become General Counsel, VP of sales becomes CRO, VP of marketing becomes CMO and so on – even with very little or no change in actual responsibilities.
4. A way for the boss to punish someone without actually firing them immediately . I know of a CTO who created a title of “Chief of intellectual renewal” for a very senior engineering leader who was out of favor. It could as well have been “Chief Librarian” . It could also be the other way around – A way for the boss to save face after hiring someone with a great resume only to find out quickly that the candidate is not going to work out, but cannot let the person go immediately due to contractual or PR issues . Not that long ago, a high profile CTO hire was converted to a Chief Business Officer with an unclear charter – who then left the company several months later.
5. A way to temporarily make sure a big transformation effort does not get off the rails – like a business reorg, a new product line , a big M&A etc . Lots of overlay roles are put in place as guard rails – especially for making sure organizational antibodies don’t kill the change before it takes root.
6. As largely aggregation functions – where the role in reality just adds up the work of everyone below then in the hierarchy, and reports it to the top. And similarly serves as a traffic cop on decisions coming from above.

All the above reasons might have been absolutely valid for the context in which those decisions were made . But the trouble is that once these roles are created – they don’t get eliminated even if there is limited proof of value add. And there is a tipping point where everyone will agree that a C level title is meaningless because it is given away cheaply.

What will absolutely happen every time is that the overall cost will go up – and revenue might not proportionately go up. These additional CXOs will need support functions. They create additional operational overhead. They exponentially increase communication overhead. They will all measure the same things across various dimensions and ask similar but repeated questions to the same people on the frontlines, wasting the time they should spend on value adding activities . And at a certain scale – invariably they will create conflicting messages and confuse the heck out of everyone.

Over time, a top heavy organization is a diminishing returns proposition. In the simplest case, it makes a company less agile. If market needs it to shed overhead quickly – it is a lot harder to let go of people at the top than at the bottom of the pyramid even if that is the right solution. Too many people sitting in meaningless roles creates a problem in promoting organically, and worse still – there will always be people aspiring for those low value jobs because the title is impressive.

So what can we do about this ?

Clearly the corporate world will not eliminate every low value CXO role – so what we need is a framework to minimize the trouble it comes with .

First – The CEO and the Board should come to terms with how much dilution can they live with C level titles being dispensed liberally. Obviously if they are ok with significant dilution, they deserve the pain it will invariably generate.

Second – Don’t create any leadership role, especially a C level role, unless there is a clear charter that makes it a unique necessity. That charter should then come with adequate budget and decision making power to deliver on the charter. Agree on a clear way to measure the success of the role before announcing it.  This cannot be a one time activity just when roles are created – all roles need to be reviewed critically every few years.

Third – if you need to make an exception for any of the half dozen reasons I listed above, then put a firm time frame around the life time of the role and define periodic check points to see if you still need the role. Make it a CEO level decision if the role is still needed after the role gets to its expiry date.

Fourth – Ideally, hire people on a time and outcome bound contract into those additional C level roles – so that it is an easier conversation with the people when the role expires, or performance does not match up to agreed levels.

Fifth – Automation ( as in analytics, AI, BI etc ) and business process changes should be the first way of solving aggregation issues. It may not be enough to eliminate all redundant roles at once – but in general it will help point out the glaring holes in organizational design very quickly.

 

 

Over the last few days – I had multiple conversations about different aspects of anxiety in the work place . I also chimed in on a couple of threads in social media about it . So when I woke up today – I felt like I should share some thoughts about how I deal with it myself .

When I was a young consultant – I was anxious all the time . Every Sunday I would get anxious about getting on a plane on Monday morning . Every time a Partner visited my project, I would get anxious . Every time I had to make a presentation or report status – I would get anxious . It didn’t take much to for me to feel anxious .

It would manifest in many ways – ranging from sweaty palms on the mild side to acute acid reflex on the harsh side . I was misery personified . What made matters worse was that I also tried really hard to hide my anxiety from my colleagues . And strangely I never asked anyone for help – and just chose to suffer through it myself . Not a lot of my friends even know today that I had to deal with those problems back when we worked together .

It had an impact on my career progression too – At 29, I was still a senior consultant when most others who started with me were managers and one or two were already senior managers .

While struggling through anxiety for several years – I also got better at analyzing problems and experimenting with solutions . I started analyzing what was causing my anxiety and what could I do about it . And at some point – I think I cracked the code !

Life turned for the better – and rather dramatically . I started feeling better physically , and started enjoying Sundays . I no longer threw up before big meetings . And my career took off – in another 5 or 6 years I got into the executive ranks .

So what did I find out ?

The primary cause of my anxiety was fear – or more precisely the fear of getting fired !

I had very good skills for my line of work . And my line of work – SAP development – was in hot demand . And if I messed up at work – the first thing a Partner or my client would do was certainly not to fire me . In hindsight all of this is plain obvious . Just that it took me half a decade to realize that the odds of getting fired were really low !

I also realized I had two big weaknesses to overcome .

1. I could have come to this conclusion quickly if only I had asked for help sooner .

2 And there was a possibility that even though I had great skills – I just didn’t know enough good people to find a job if and when I needed one.

So I started actively seeking help .

Thanks to my wife insisting on it – I went and saw a doctor and he prescribed something that helped with my acid reflux . He almost immediately diagnosed that it was stress related – and he was right . As soon as my approach to work changed – acid reflux went away and I didn’t need the medicine any more .

Looking back – a part of the problem was that I was (and still am) an introvert whom many people who know me mistakenly take for an extrovert . By now I know I am not alone with this situation, and I can joke about it 🙂

I started asking for help early and often and that made a big difference . I no longer felt the need to be the smartest person in the room who knew all the answers . This also made me realize that everyone has some difficulty asking for help . The moment I started asking for help – others in my team did so as well . Collectively – we figured out solutions much faster and with less stress . Another learning was that it is a very limited exercise if you only helped people who could help you back . You have to help what you can and then over a long period of time , you tend to always get more help than you ever expected .

I also made it a point to keep my skills sharp all the time . Every quarter I set a goal to master a new skill and I would use the weekly plane rides to get it done . It’s a habit that has become second nature . It has helped me change my line of work several times over the years – from ABAP to SAP functional consulting to BI to CRM to AI and so on . Off late – my interests have also widened to ethics , psychology and history . Eventually it became no longer about job risk mitigation – but it doesn’t hurt that it serves as an insurance in case I ever need it .

Then came the need to network . It didn’t take long to realize that just by connecting to a lot of people on LinkedIn and Twitter didn’t do me any favors in having a useful network . It’s a painstaking process of building meaningful relationships one at a time – starting with strengthening existing friendships and business relationships and then working from there to extend to others . It takes a long period of time and there is no end to it – it’s something you do all the time , and again without making it a “I will only help people who help me ” transaction .

There are other factors involved like living under your means and saving for a rainy day , taking good care of your health , prioritizing your family over work and so on . You can’t take those for granted – just by optimizing on work alone will not get you to a good space .

The confidence – and especially the peace of mind – that comes from removing fear from your mind is something that you need to experience for yourself . Words are not adequate to explain it . It’s a huge feeling of liberation from a jail that you created for yourself .

It’s not that I no longer feel anxious – I absolutely still do . It’s just that I have learned how to use it to my advantage instead of letting it stress me out . The “trick” for me essentially is to have a routine about things I feel anxious about .

For me – that includes listening to music – usually Carnatic , getting plenty of sleep (I need 7 to 8 hours) and focusing hard on just the first couple of things I need to do to get into a rhythm . If I have a presentation to make that I am starting to worry about – I focus on making sure I know what I have to talk to for the first 2 or 3 minutes . Once I get through that – my experience kicks in and I can get through the rest quite easily . If I have to review my business with my bosses – I think about what they would want to know and figure out that aspect of my answer very well . I spend less time worrying about peripheral things . If I still feel the stress – I know it’s because I need more help . I call one of my mentors and spend a few minutes talking with them and pretty quickly I am back in a good mental space .

Dealing with your own anxiety is one thing . That in itself takes a lot of effort – but it still might not be enough . There is a high chance that people in your team are anxious – and you may actually be the reason for that . As I grew into leadership roles – this started becoming more and more a topic of interest for me .

My approach to this is as follows –

1. I cannot be insecure at all if I have to help some one in my team with their anxiety . This means I need to think carefully about how I hire , how I communicate and so on . Insecure managers compound the insecurity of their team .

2. Everyone is different . What worked for you to minimize your anxiety might not work for them at all . I remember a young colleague who got anxious about flying – fearing that the plane will crash if there is turbulence . That led to a couple of glasses of wine every trip and some times even before getting into the plane . I tried to help but this was beyond me – and I was happy that this person went to a professional and got the help he needed .

3. You need to proactively and consistently take fear away from the work place – and then make sure that other people in your team are reinforcing that behavior .

4. Your primary expectation as a leader should not be to be liked – it should be to be respected and trusted . If they like you – that’s a nice side effect . The truth is that you will have to take hard decisions that affect people in your team . As long as they know you have been consistent and fair with your decision – they will understand and respect your decision even if they don’t like you for what you did . I try to be as transparent as I can be with my team – and give them headlights into what will happen next for each course of action we take .

5. All that said – there is one area where I haven’t been able to minimize my anxiety . That is about firing people . Almost invariably the moment I take that decision – I feel sick and the acid reflux comes back full swing . It’s predictable and that makes me realize it’s my body preparing me and I get through it with some pain . It is one area I definitely need to improve .

The smart people that I listen to have been saying for some time that I should think about the issue of “work life balance” more as work – life integration and it will be easier to make sense that way .

Their infinite wisdom was that I will find a lot of useful things that I can take from work to life and vice versa . Also – it’s easier to perfect one behavior and then use it seamlessly all the time instead of the constant context switching between my two phases of existence . What’s not to like ?

I have been giving this whole seamless integration thing a shot since I was a trainee at TCS . I was born and raised in Trivandrum and my training was in Mumbai – which was two days away by train , or a month’s salary by plane . Phone calls were so darn expensive too for my trainee salary . So before I left home – my mom told me to write letters instead of phone calls .

In a couple of weeks time, TCS drilled into me that communication should be crisp and concise . I tried it on Amma

My letters looked like this

Dear Amma and Achan

Pls note the following

1. I have been eating and sleeping well

2. Hope my dog is coping with my absence . Tell him I love him

3. Training is going great . I am learning a lot

Love

Your son

It took about three such letters before my loving mother strictly forbade me from writing anymore letters . Apparently “crisp concise bullets” and “restricting the note to three main things” are not what the communication with mom is supposed to follow as a template . Who knew ?

It’s a good thing that phone calls became cheaper over time . Otherwise my parents might have disowned me a few decades ago . I write very few letters, much to everyone’s relief – but my letters (and post cards and Xmas greetings and …) all still have bullet points . I have made peace with it since my use of written communication is mostly for work purposes 🙂

As I progressed through my career – I gained an invaluable survival skill . I can go back and forth with anyone with whom I have a disagreement without becoming emotional about it . I don’t raise my voice . I just stick to logic and data and I don’t tire easily . If the other party makes a good point – I quickly stand corrected with no drama . Occasionally I have had to break some glass – metaphorically speaking . At some point I also learned that humor helps make some points easier as well .

This skill had been honed over a couple of decades and in the spirit of work life integration – I of course try it liberally outside work too . If you haven’t tried it yet – take my advice . DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME !

With friends and family, it turns out that raising your voice and being an emotional wreck is absolutely the expected way to express your disagreement . Apparently humor is the least effective tactics of all . If you want to be a real pro – you need to curse and swear , and at least minimally be capable of breaking glass physically . Metaphors are like humor – don’t bother . And last but not least – outside work , you are an absolute weirdo and/or psycho if you concede your point without a major fight .

Again – it’s a good thing that most of my arguments are on the work front . So once again – I just stick to one behavior and gracefully accept my weirdo status outside of it .

It’s not as if I haven’t taken some lessons from outside work and tried it at work .

My parents are both super charitable people . My mom has often taken on debt to help people who were in distress . My dad has helped hundreds of people with no expectation of getting anything in return . My grand father was also wired this way and he was a big influence on me when I was growing up . Having seen them all operate this way throughout my formative years – I have this tendency deep inside me that when I see someone at work who is stressed out – I often jump in and try to help . Most of the time I make their problems into my problems , in the process of solving it .

My own mentors have warned me several times that I should be a lot more careful about this . And while I have largely ignored them on this piece of advice – they have been proven more right than wrong about this . In the work place – if you don’t do this “let me help you” thing very thoughtfully , all that you do is to create a belief in those people you help that they should lean on me again the next time they are in trouble .

I still believe that helping someone of the right thing to do , so despite the first hand experience of its side effects – I still do it . I have a feeling that I have started to do more of “here is some fish , but let me also give you a few tips on fishing” . I also have a feeling that my mentors still think I am at best a work in progress on this front 🙂 . I also firmly believe that a lot of people have helped me when they had no real reason to bother .

You would often hear from very successful business leaders that you learn more from failure than from success . Intuitively that feels right . Like every other sales leader – I have done my fair share of “loss reviews”.

But there is one thing I absolutely won’t do – if I lose a deal , I will never open that proposal deck again . I don’t delete it – but it will never see the light of day again .

This means that I often have to recreate content from scratch – even if it’s much easier to take the good slides from those decks that I had put in the “never open again” folders .

It’s certainly not an efficient way of working when you are under time pressure – and I won’t blame anyone for calling me superstitious . In my defense, I generally have won more pursuits than I have lost . So I haven’t had a lot of incentive to change so far 🙂

This habit was triggered by my parental grandfather when I was a teenager . He was a history professor . I did poorly in a social studies exam in high school and when I came home – he went through my answer sheet in great detail . There was one essay that I did an excellent job and the rest of my answers were pretty mediocre . My history teacher had told me to save that essay since there is a good chance that I will need it again for the final exams .

My grandfather had some very different advice . He asked me to throw the whole answer sheet in the dust bin and start learning from scratch – and don’t even bother saving the two pages with the essay . His theory was that the answer sheet will just rekindle negativity in my mind – and however great the essay was , it will always be associated with failure . I agreed with him then , and I still agree with him today !

So yeah – work life integration seems like a fine theory . But it sure would help if the experts had some concrete advice on better templates to write letters to mom !