I always say that momentum will keep the ship running for some time and than the changes will start to show effect. Same is true for a leadership change. A new leader comes and it takes some time... some time even a year before the impact of the change start to show. I joined GlobalLogic in 2010 to head a very precarious and a strategic account. It was Genband.
Leaders are born. Shashi Choudhary is one of them. People can love him or loath him... but he is a great leader. Someone who has power and he knows how to yield it. A leader is who entrust his team and this is what he does best. He entrusted me this account and fully backed me. Many people will remember the day (any also the way), I was introduced to my team. I would not have done it this way. This was not my way. However, it was very effective as most of the existing leadership left the team and I had all the field for myself.
Boris Schnayder, who was the global head of Telecom BU, fully supported the move and the journey began. Genband was a Goliath who devoured the cash rich business of Nortel. SBC was their sunshine product. A product that was part of the strategic IMS roadmap. Unfortunately, SBC (session border controller) had a legacy which GLobalLogic had to handle. It had serious quality issues. Sally Graves, then R&D head at Genband, was troubled with GlobalLogic's handling of this product. There was too much of back and forth between GL and Genband and the relationship was getting worse. SBC was a bad decision by Genband which was good for GL. A codebase which was 12 years old at that time should have been moved to sustaining. Genband should have either developed or acquired another SBC. They kept on increasing the features and capacity of SBC all the time.
If there is challenge, take it, face it and enjoy it. However, It was fun. The aggression of Sally combined with Steve was a killer. We did all the work and also a lot of talking and a lot of presentations to keep them cool. Another bad thing at Genband was frequent leadership changes. BG came as the boss of Sally and first thing he did was to fire Sally and bring on DJ. DJ was a technical genius and a great manager. He did not show but he had lot of aggression. His strength showed in his actions which he voiced against the mess. DJ was let go and Randy Rutherford took his place. Randy was soon let go... the leadership heads kept on rolling.
My relationship with Sally was professional and I was very attentive to her. With DJ and Randy I enjoyed a cordial and warm relationship. It was just too good. Around this time we made some tough decisions to restructure our team. It was a smooth ship for around three years. Then some changes were made by Sunil Singh, our India MD at that time and these changes impacted me. I will write about these changes soon. :)
One thing, that was best at GL days was my team. Manish, Ashish, Anil.. these people are gems. I think there was almost no attrition in my direct report during my entire time... We grew to 170+ and we did team events all the time. It was fun and I miss this team. There were committees (!thanks to Sanju) just like the Japanese Quality Circles... independent, self executing... just create them once and they will run for you forever...
Good things came to an end. I moved on and Sanjay Singh came over. During my handover discussions, he asked me why I am leaving and I told him the fact. I think, one can only report to someone he or she respects. If the management forces such decisions, they will eventually backfire.
Folks... so watch out... I want to write about Peter Harrison and Bob Beauchamp, two best CEOs that I have worked for. I have worked at BMC, at Syntel, at Aricent, at Siemens, at Erricsson.... I will write more about my experiences with great leaders...
Leaders are born. Shashi Choudhary is one of them. People can love him or loath him... but he is a great leader. Someone who has power and he knows how to yield it. A leader is who entrust his team and this is what he does best. He entrusted me this account and fully backed me. Many people will remember the day (any also the way), I was introduced to my team. I would not have done it this way. This was not my way. However, it was very effective as most of the existing leadership left the team and I had all the field for myself.
Boris Schnayder, who was the global head of Telecom BU, fully supported the move and the journey began. Genband was a Goliath who devoured the cash rich business of Nortel. SBC was their sunshine product. A product that was part of the strategic IMS roadmap. Unfortunately, SBC (session border controller) had a legacy which GLobalLogic had to handle. It had serious quality issues. Sally Graves, then R&D head at Genband, was troubled with GlobalLogic's handling of this product. There was too much of back and forth between GL and Genband and the relationship was getting worse. SBC was a bad decision by Genband which was good for GL. A codebase which was 12 years old at that time should have been moved to sustaining. Genband should have either developed or acquired another SBC. They kept on increasing the features and capacity of SBC all the time.
If there is challenge, take it, face it and enjoy it. However, It was fun. The aggression of Sally combined with Steve was a killer. We did all the work and also a lot of talking and a lot of presentations to keep them cool. Another bad thing at Genband was frequent leadership changes. BG came as the boss of Sally and first thing he did was to fire Sally and bring on DJ. DJ was a technical genius and a great manager. He did not show but he had lot of aggression. His strength showed in his actions which he voiced against the mess. DJ was let go and Randy Rutherford took his place. Randy was soon let go... the leadership heads kept on rolling.
My relationship with Sally was professional and I was very attentive to her. With DJ and Randy I enjoyed a cordial and warm relationship. It was just too good. Around this time we made some tough decisions to restructure our team. It was a smooth ship for around three years. Then some changes were made by Sunil Singh, our India MD at that time and these changes impacted me. I will write about these changes soon. :)
One thing, that was best at GL days was my team. Manish, Ashish, Anil.. these people are gems. I think there was almost no attrition in my direct report during my entire time... We grew to 170+ and we did team events all the time. It was fun and I miss this team. There were committees (!thanks to Sanju) just like the Japanese Quality Circles... independent, self executing... just create them once and they will run for you forever...
Good things came to an end. I moved on and Sanjay Singh came over. During my handover discussions, he asked me why I am leaving and I told him the fact. I think, one can only report to someone he or she respects. If the management forces such decisions, they will eventually backfire.
Folks... so watch out... I want to write about Peter Harrison and Bob Beauchamp, two best CEOs that I have worked for. I have worked at BMC, at Syntel, at Aricent, at Siemens, at Erricsson.... I will write more about my experiences with great leaders...
I also enjoyed and learned a lot when you were the head of the team for Genband SBC.
ReplyDeleteJoined GL back in 2010 as fresher and found you and the team very supportive. It was a very nice enviroment suitable for maximum learning and fun.
Genband group of GL was indeed incredible. All the hard work and fun we had will always be imprinted as a bold figure at my career portrait. There was something different about this team. No matter how difficult situation was, there were always some people who took all the pressure and the fun was never missing from our floor.
ReplyDeleteThe team we had was not just built overnight, it was years of time and effort of people which resulted into ecosystem that we had over there.
I spent significant period of my career at GL and I am happy that I enjoyed most of it :-)
Is Genband project @ GL vanished ?
ReplyDeleteGuys... I am touched and over whelmed with many comments I read... They are all good... so lets hear the bad ones... come on... I am not your boss anymore.... :)
ReplyDeletealso ... guys.... only 171 reads for this post.... not good. pass on to your friends.... my tweet and linkedIn post did no seem to go out to many people...