Hard realities of soft skills of current CXOs

Please call me back after an hour; I will call you back; send me an email and I will revert; remind me to send you the details; the list is quite long, so I will stop here. I am not even listing unanswered emails, requests to call back, text messages, and connects on various professional and personal social media sites. These are a few statements from busy CXOs running from one activity to another, meetings, conferences, review discussions, lunches, business trips, who have no time to catch up with work, forget time for their life !

I am sorry I forgot, I was too busy, my work has been killing me, there was pressure to complete for the board/weekly/monthly … meeting; and then there are those who believe that they are above the rest and don’t need to apologize for their silence. The resultant perceptions are generalized in culture (we are like this only) or end up labeling the person “that’s the way s/he is”. There is no reference or mention of the resultant loss of time or opportunity or the challenges such tardiness creates for the other stakeholder.

The multitude of channels has increased the complexity of staying abreast with the increased interest towards connecting with each other for various purposes; there are also cold calls and messages from interested parties to gain attention. Tools and technologies have also evolved to a stage that they can provide notifications, alerts, and alarms across all kinds of off-person and wearable electronic devices. Despite this interconnected scenario, at least 70% of reverts do not happen (this is based on data I have collated over the last year).

And then there is a minority who always get to meetings on time, call back when they have promised, send you a response when they said they would; they are apologetic if they miss their commitments and make amends as a corrective step. They use Assistants (earlier referred to as Secretary), technology, and plain and simple to-do lists to ensure that they don’t slip on personal integrity. They value their time and give the same respect to others time too. Driven by the clock at times, an appointment turning up late is not tolerated.

What creates these two distinct breeds of professionals ? Before we start analyzing their childhood and the foundation set in their formative years and then blame the past for their current behavior, I would say that internal stimulus is far greater than external stimulus to create any change. External factors like training, mentoring, and coaching do help in triggering internal change which when sustained becomes a habit. The bigger stimulus is failure or an adverse outcome as a result of self-behavior or lack of action arising out of habit (inertia).

When one falls hard, the natural reaction is to blame the other person(s), circumstances, rarely if at all looking in the mirror for the person responsible. It is an uncommon occurrence that a person accepts accountability towards suboptimal or undesired end results; they justify their conduct based on their perception of themselves and excuses based on level of activity that constrained them. It is almost inhuman effort to acknowledge a self-limitation, learning or improvement opportunity that gives the power to change results.

Representative issue, not isolated: A vendor sought inputs on getting through to a CIO; he had emailed, phoned, text messaged, and called her Assistant innumerable times without success; it was as if he was not relevant to her. She was an existing customer and the relationship preceded her elevation to the position. The same request also came from other sources wanting to understand how to get through to her or get her attention/audience. Talking with one of her compatriots it emerged that even internally within the enterprise the situation was no different.

There are no easy answers to change; it happens one step at a time and requires significant effort and active coaching. People who give themselves the freedom to explore the new world gain from the new world of possibilities; they rise from self-imposed mediocrity to taste success. People want to be associated with such individuals who are beacons of qualities that make them worthy of emulation. If you have been in any of the situations above, give yourself a chance, a small chance to make a difference to yourself.

Process or Relationships ?

Within a span of a week, twice I was asked the same question in different forums by different people. I don’t know if that was pure coincidence or what is due to the fact that both belonged to different parts of the world and thus had different perspectives. In both cases they were curious to get an alternative view of how CIOs succeed in culturally diverse environments with dissimilar work ethics and realities. What if anything separates the modus operandi and style of the CIOs in the East and the West ?

I am not sure if this is a fair comparison or should we be listing the divergence in the approaches; both adapt well to their realities and both have had share of success and challenges. Neither can be said to be better than the other as they address similar opportunities a bit differently. One way of working cannot be transplanted as-is into the other world and expect success; even if the second is a part of the same organization in another geography. Thus global best practices remain good to read, not always workable on the ground.

What separates the CIOs between the West (read US, Canada, and EU) and East (mostly Asia, though the comparison set is largely India). You will hear this from almost every vendor doing business in East, and so will you get a similar message from the CIOs of Indian enterprises or CIOs of the Indian entities of global companies with business interests in India. Despite the recognition I have not come across a formal analysis of such differences in the way of working across markets and geographies.

Everyone agrees that India is a value conscious market; products and services vend at lower margins and discounting is normal. The outsourcing boom in India driven by wage arbitration did not leave too much behind for the Indian companies who had to pay higher wages to get quality skills. Due to this the services play for the Indian market was taken up by mid-sized companies who out-priced their bigger brothers who were happy to take the higher margin business from the West until recession dried up their pipeline.

Software vendors realized that to gain market entry and sustain business, the discount levels had to be different from their home markets. For hardware manufacturers the margins stood squeezed to low single digits, enough to cover marketing and administrative costs, not to make too much money. System integrators and consultants fared a bit better though not by too much; only the subject matter experts and high technology professionals could bill at global rates, in many cases reduced to advisory roles.

CIOs in the West are process driven, like standardization, drive scale though tools and technologies and create predictable outcomes with great contracts and Service Level Agreements between the parties. This is fairly well accepted as a way of doing business and everyone internally and externally aligns to the order and discipline. There is limited flexibility and exceptions are indeed rare. Thus everyone knows where they stand and what the terms of engagement and governance are likely to be.

The East shuns order that takes away individuality; everyone believes they are uniquely different. Standard solutions are frowned upon as they take away the flexibility that casts everyone into the same mold. While contracts are drawn up and SLA signed, they are rarely followed if at all irrespective of the size of deal or financial implications. If there is a change in reality, the first thing customer wants is a change in terms of engagement. If there is an adverse event, SLA is damned, immediate service is expected.

People do business with people and that is reality. Standards can change because the relationship manager changed jobs; who you know overrules contracts or SLA. A call to the right person will get you right resources or help resolve a problem. Relationships score over process every time. Value is paramount and cost is always expected to go south. It is a delicate balance which everyone learns to sustain their business interests. So SLA is measured, penalties rarely enforced; contracts are fought over until signing, rarely referred to afterwards.

I believe that for a global business to sustain, these differences are acknowledged and adapted to. There is no other recourse. For the leader, the CIO, s/he continues to wonder about the debate over the different realities. I am sure there are nuances to each country, market and culture; a global entity takes all in their stride. Employees who work across borders get used to this. For management consultants and their elk, they want to create untenable uniform models as global best practice. All the best to them !