Author Archive
Not one, but many Microsofts in the making
Even before Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to join Paul Allen’s efforts to build a BASIC interpreter, firms like IBM, ICL, DEC, Data General, Cray and yet some more existed. However, Microsoft (MS) did not come out of their cradle. It was born in an unlikely place called Seattle, from the efforts of two very unlikely people who would not have been candidates for beatification in the first four decades after ENIAC.
Story about Integrity and Values – Professional’s Quote
In the last blog, I had shared with you how had I reached out to a world-wide group of people I deeply admire for their professionalism while writing The Professional. I had asked them these three questions: what qualities did they admire in a “professional”? What were some of their own uplifting experiences in dealing with other professionals? Three, what were their recollections of unprofessional conduct?
Connecting the Dots: Looking Forward
Connecting the dots looking forward is like looking into a starry sky, and from all the innumerable dots, seeing a coherent picture in a small group of them, and naming a constellation.
A few weeks back, I was speaking at the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore to a group of alumni. We were speaking about something called “connecting the dots”.
‘Jai Ho’ is no longer an Indian desire!
It has been a longtime since we connected – I really feel at fault. Having said that, traveling all over the US and Europe on a 35-day trip, meeting prospects, customers and MindTree Minds have seen me living off a couple of suitcases. It has been one airport to the other every couple of days. No, I am not seeking sympathy – people like Krishna Kumar, Janakiraman and Ashok – my other co-founders at MindTree – routinely clock 120 days or more of travel every year. Unless we increase face time with customers and our own people, we really have no clue what is going on in the world.
Time to Move On?
Last week, I was moderating a TiE Panel in Bangalore with three industry experts who spoke on the subject of how an Entrepreneur-CEO should plan his or her own career. Like any other role in an organization that needs planning, nourishing and systematic care, the role of the CEO also needs the same careful attention.
Of the Melt Down & IT Jobs
The first time ever the Indian IT industry tasted a downturn was in 2001. That is when 9/11 sealed the doubt over whether the dot.com and telecom busts as well as a recession were all real. At that time, at MindTree, we were a less than 500 people. We did two things immediately: the internal board took a 25% salary cut and everyone else took a 10% cut. Those steps were not enough. So, we seriously considered asking the “bottom 5%”, formally assessed as “non-performers”, to be let go. That was when we had a lesson in people caring. The middle-management team walked in to Chairman Ashok Soota’s room and said they were willing to volunteer an additional 2.5% reduction in salary so that the bottom 5% could be retained until the market rebounded. Their logic was simple: do not let go of poor performers at a time when jobs are difficult to come by in any case. We listened to them and we all survived.
