Sashi Kumar - An effective leader has to be like a general - lead from the front

He is so intense, he admits, it spills over into his personal life too. He is currently amongst the global management team of a US$200 million plus business practitioning firm. And spearheads the Sales function for the global operations of the firm, from his Bangalore office. He began his career in Wipro where he spent the first four years of his professional life. From Wipro he headed to IBM where he was Program Manager for a short period of 17 months. From IBM he headed to Microsoft India where he grew to the position of Director - Sales entrusted with expanding Microsoft hold into the enterprise market. And he is the First Person for this issue of businessgyan. It is our pleasure to introduce Sashi Kumar, Executive VP - Sales of Sutherland Technologies Ltd., a subsidiary of Sutherland Group, USA. In this intense interview which was all about warfare, his conviction-connection model and passion for automobiles, is a must read for any management and leadership freak.

What is the basics of the conviction-connection model that you seem to strongly believe in?

The conviction-connection model is about a very committed leadership and the team that is closely connected to that conviction. Most senior managers may have a strong belief about a business model or a set of business values, however the rest of the team may not share these beliefs fervently. The conviction-connection model is a way to get the convictions of the leader and the team aligned. It moves away from the concept of facilitated leadership, which is prevalent now, in that in the conviction-connection model the leader has to be shoulder to shoulder with each member of his team and lead from the front. I strongly believe that the extra push in terms of teamwork and performance comes from connection and the level of that connection. Let me give you an example. Suppose one of the team members has a personal emergency and has to leave and an important sales call is pending. However busy the leader is, if he slips in and takes the call, it makes a lot of difference not just to that member but everyone in that team as well. Having said this, let me also tell you couple of clear guidelines for this model to work:

1.      There are no personal positions, only business interests

2.      Push the team to question convention

3.      Complete and absolute transparency

4.      Establishment of virtual processes so that people can believe in that conviction, connect to it and implement it

Where did you learn this?

When I was in Wipro, they sent me on training for a course on Sun Tsu and the Art of War warfare, and the training faculty was from the University of Illinois.  Here they taught us to correlate the warfare techniques and strategy to business reality. Then there is a book called "The Five Rings". Besides, it is also out of my personal experience of leading teams in the various positions that I have held, particularly the one at Microsoft. The model that I have developed and believe in is a confluence of all the influences, experience and learning.

What are the key aspects of effective leadership in your model?

First - drive yourself hard- harder than you are driving the team.

Second- choose your team yourself. I personally interview every person we hire in India no matter how long it takes to do that. And one needs to do that because while knowledge can be imparted, thinking capability cannot be switched on. Ability to think on ones feet is a finely ingrained attribute, which can be honed but not created. The interview is also very simple typically centered on the fundamentals of the assignment. Many a time, I just ask them some abstract question like - how many fuel stations are there in India? I had a Project Manager who had gone through all the stages and I had asked him this question. He blinked. And I did not hire him. You need smart people who can think on their feet. I asked the same question to another person. He started and went about how many liters of fuel gets sold, how many pumps are needed to sell that etc. etc.

Third- Conserve the energy and always take the high ground. That is what successful generals did to win their battles.

Fourth- Never duck a problem.

Fifth- Be available and stay connected to your team. The soldier in an army tank needs to hear the voice of his commander over the radio every fifteen minutes or someone is not in control.

Sixth- Believe that you can learn from anybody.

Seventh- Be accountable to your people, peers and the team. I still remember my stint at Microsoft. I had put in my papers but still stayed for 60 days after that to complete my tasks and you should see the remarks they had put in on the farewell chart they presented me. Many of the messages where from people who had never even worked with me at close quarters or were not even part of my direct team. That is why the conviction-connection model is very powerful.

Eighth- Never coast on past glory

What are the pitfalls of this model?

The intensity spills over into your personal life too. It is unavoidable. You see yourself applying the same principles with your friends, family and that does not work or is sensitive. 

What is business practitioning?

It is a business model, which straddles business process outsourcing and IT outsourcing. Here, a company outsources its complete selected business process to us and we then tweak it using Technology as among other tools to make it more effective and run it for that customer. The key here is transition and migration management. It is a much riskier model than the successful Indian model of IT services or IT outsourcing. But it is a viable and growing business space the moment you have your feet set firm in that space.

What is your lifetime ambition?

To lead a large global company and take it to success.

Who is a leader you admire?

Other than generals, in the corporate sector, I admire Rajendra Pawar of NIIT. I have not personally interacted with him nor worked with him. But I have listened to his lectures and keynotes in multiple seminars, happen to read a few notes on the management sessions where he had spoken and I find them very valuable. I find his approach to people management as one of the most effective.

What was the most challenging moment in your life?

It was my early days in Wipro and I was still wet behind my ears in sales. I was called one day and asked to handle the pitch for the sale of a supercomputer to NAL. And I was to convince a panel of senior scientists and heads of research laboratories to win the order. The competition was Cray. And I knew nothing about supercomputers. The challenge was too prove the benefits of a virtual memory machine in a general purpose-computing environment against our competition, which was Cray Supercomputers, known for their high-speed real memory systems. As a last minute resort I asked one of my friends to write a 20-line matrix inversion code, which was tied to the system clock, so that the unique selling point of what Wipro was selling Convex Supercomputers (Virtual memory unlike Cray) could be driven home. My friend wrote the code. On the D-day, in the presence of the committee, I asked them to load the code and run it on both machines. The Cray hung exactly in 20 seconds. After the code and we won the first Super computer order in India. That was my most challenging moment in life.

Future plans?

Settle at 40 and run my own car tinkering workshop. I love automobiles and jump at any opportunity to get close to them. So much so that I force myself into helping people choose their cars just for me to feel the machine.

Issue BG14 May02