And Vijay Says…

A client of mine gave me a very nice compliment today in a meeting – he said something like “You very naturally used the word colleagues instead of employees, and that is something very unique to our culture. How do you adapt like this?” . My honest answer was “After a long time spent in consulting, it is second nature for me to adapt to the client’s culture. I don’t do it consciously”. He suggested that I should blog on it, and I agreed – I think it might help someone if I shared my line of thinking here.

A good consultant is a change agent. I say that a bit “tongue in cheek” because for the longest time I have teased my colleagues who are experts in change management that “change agent is someone who can write an SOW selling change management” 🙂 . The primary value a consultant brings to a client is to help bring a point of view on how best to transform from where they are to where they need (not just want)  to go .

Change is darn hard. I don’t like change very much either. I like Carnatic music , and I like Indian food. It took a lot of effort for me to try Italian food and Western music.  I am glad I did because it exposed me to a lot of pleasurable experiences that I would otherwise miss on. But even today – if I have a choice, I revert to Carnatic music and Indian food 🙂

Knowing that I find change is hard for me – how do I influence change for someone else ? Let me go back to how I started liking Western music . It happened initially because a young aunt of mine that I was very fond of (I still am) started playing western music when I would vacation at her house. She and I had a lot of common interests and I got a feeling that if she likes it, maybe I should try it too. And I did. But the turning point for me was a lecture I attended in 2000 in Colorado where the speaker did a compare and contrast between eastern and western classical music. That helped bridge the gap for me significantly and I started appreciating western music a lot more.

That is roughly what I – often not even consciously – do when I am consulting. Every client has a unique culture. I try to understand and adapt that culture so that I have a good chance of walking in their shoes and seeing problems as they see them. It also helps build trust to a large degree. Once I have an appreciation of the problems and have built the trust – the next step is to step back and find a bridge from their current world to where they ought to be. When you build that bridge – or roadmap as we consultants say – then the future becomes less of an unknown. And when it less of an unknown, the resistance to change is lower and we can all move forward.

There is a small risk involved here that consultants should watch out for – and I have paid a price in my early career for not being aware of it. A consultant is only useful if they appreciate the culture of the client, but can remain objective about the end results one should drive to. It is quite easy – especially over long term relationships – to go native and think exactly the same as your client. The way I deal with it is to make sure that I always have a diverse team around me to keep me honest. Another strategy is to change roles from time to time so that you are forced to shift focus and learn something new .

One last point to finish my thoughts on this – often time is not your friend when it comes to getting to appreciate your client’s culture etc. This is one area where I think social media has helped me build empathy in quick time. I share my thoughts on a wide range of topics over linkedin, twitter and this blog. When I walk into a meeting with someone I have never met before in person – it is quite normal to expect that they have googled me and would have found some POV that I hold. Whether they agree with it or not – it provides an instant start to the relationship and I can build on from there.

 

 

It’s tax season now and I owe a bunch of documents to my CPA to file my taxes . It’s a pain in the neck to compile all of them . I do all my banking with one single company – and have multiple accounts with them . I can get a view of how much money is in all my accounts on the opening screen . But if I need tax documents – I need to go into each account and download them . There is no way to do a batch download or batch transfer to a cloud service .

It’s no different for mortgages and insurance policies and W2s and what not . I still have to go one at a time to each account to get the documents and manually compile it . Then my CPA has to look at each and put data into his software and file taxes. I am sure if this process were easier – I wouldn’t have to pay him a lot in fees , and he will make even more money than he makes today by having more clients.

I have gone through this problem when applying for mortgage as well – find documents one at a time, download it and then send it to the lender who looks at each PDF , and types the information to some screen and then someone takes a decision .

A (smaller) version of this problem happens when you join a new employer or start a side business.

There are 250 million or so tax filers in US . I would think there are at least 50 million mortgage applications each year as well . And each of them have to go through this time consuming and highly error prone process. Just thinking about it makes me want to scream !

What is funny (and sad) here is that vast majority of the companies – banks , mortgage lenders and the like – have some kind of customer 360 view for everyone they do business with . That is how they sell more and (hopefully) better service their customers . But these same companies, when they design their customer facing solutions, limit the customer to – at best – a dashboard that shows the combined view of accounts . It’s not done in a way that the customer can share information easily with the government , or a lender .

This situation is more than ripe for significant disruption . I would gladly pay for a service that can aggregate assorted documents for me as a secure cloud service – statements, tax forms etc – from the vendors I have accounts with . And then I should be able to just select the view I want to share securely with whoever I want – like the government , or a lender or my employer . These documents are all structured in a simple way – so it doesn’t even need to be shared in PDFs . An API based solution should be totally possible to provision .

Some combination of a company like Box and a company like DocuSign can solve most of this problem with existing technology and ecosystem . Tech is not the issue here at all – it can be solved by a range of tech from good old XML to the coolest blockchain and AI tech 🙂

Does anyone know if such a company exists today ? If not – I am seriously tempted to start one , or put some investment if someone wants to do it .

Yumi, the young flight attendant in Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Chicago, is the closest I have acknowledged anyone to be similar to both my late grand mothers ! I didn’t tell her that though since I was not sure she will take it as a compliment 🙂

I was practically raised by my paternal grandma, Vijayalakshmi. She passed away when I was ten. The only other person I remember as fondly is my maternal grandma, Sankari . My own name – Vijayasankar – is a combo of both their names !

Growing up – the best part of my life was visiting grandma . And the part I enjoyed the least was going back to my engineering college dorm every Monday after spending the weekend at home. I knew I had to do it and never really fought it – but I couldn’t wait to get out of college and never do this weekly commute again . I had to clue the universe would just replace train and bus rides with plane rides !

A week ago, I had to do a last minute trip to India with my client. I took a combo of American Airlines and British Airlines to get there. I landed at 7AM in Bangalore airport and by 10AM I was in the first meeting of the day at the IBM office. Now, on the way back it’s Qatar Airways to Chicago and then American to Phoenix . I am typing this from the Qatar flight with about an hour left to land in ORD. And my mind is racing back to 1992 to the dread of catching Parasuram Express to Kollam every Monday morning from TRIVANDRUM central station.

While I had no bad experience on my way to India, I have not a single memory of what happened in the American and BA flights. I don’t remember the staff , or food or anything. It was a workhorse experience – totally efficient, and yet not memorable in the least . I wanted that flight to land early. And I can’t believe I am saying this – I really don’t mind that this Qatar flight that will land 30 minutes late will put my connection to Phoenix at risk.

I don’t drink alcohol on flights and I don’t like plane food all that much. But Yumi and her colleagues convinced me in the friendliest way possible to try their assorted non alcoholic drinks . Her supervisor who is apparently a foodie herself gave me quite a lot of insight on how they choose dishes to serve, how they take time to learn customer names and how to pronounce them correctly before they see us.

The bar for customer experience is the last great experience one has had . And having enjoyed the over the top service in the hotels in Bangalore and Delhi – it would have been impossible to go over that high bar . And yet that’s precisely what happened . The Qatar staff didn’t overwhelm me with attention like the hotel staff – they had a balanced approach of being there when I needed their attention , but leaving me alone for most of the time.

I also witnessed a teaching moment earlier in the flight. A fellow passenger asked for a cup of sparkling water and unfortunately they had run out of bottles . That is partly because of me – I must have had half their supply in the last 15 hours 🙂 . The young flight attendant seemed to panic when she got the request .

I saw the supervisor who was about 10 feet away calmly walk up to the customer , apologize and offer another beverage and then slipped a cookie from her pocket to the older gentleman . From his face I knew he was happy ! Her supervisor who saw me watching quietly told me “She will learn soon that the trick to thriving in this job is to ALWAYS stay calm . When you are calm, you will always find a quick solution”. I nodded in agreement – this is obviously true in my line of work too 🙂

I take something like 120 flights on average every year for work – and have been doing it for 20 years or so . After the first million miles – I completely stopped looking forward to getting into a plane . I try really hard to not fly for vacation – I would rather drive a car for 12 hours a day instead . Which is ironic, given my big goal while in college was to get a job that lets me get into a plane and travel the world frequently 🙂

Thanks Yumi, Leizel and the Qatar team for reminding me of the joys of flying – and for reminding me of my dear Ammoomma in the best possible way. And how I wish the other airlines sent their executives and staff to check out how you do a world class job and learn from you ! I absolutely look forward to enjoying your hospitality the next time .