Career Planning for MBA Students in India

Career Planning for MBA Students February 21, 2012

Compiled by MAQ Software 1

Rajeev Agarwal Founder and CEO

February 21, 2012

Managing Your Leadership Journey

Compiled by MAQ Software | Page 2

Agenda

• Manage your leadership journey: The map

• Top 5 expectations from good leaders

• Myths of management

• How do I set myself up for success?

• Recommendations




Perspective and trends

• Over 40 years of professional life ahead of you

• Increased volatility and uncertainty in the economy

• Increased globalization of industries

• Pace of change and competition is increasing

• Major technological changes (communication, hardware and software)

• Eroding profit margins (commoditization)

Disclaimer: Use our discussion as one data point only. My perspective is based on 25 years of experience through colleges, work, family and entrepreneurship.


Manage your leadership journey: The map

Leadership means • Different things to different people in different organizations

and industries

• Different things at different levels of an organization and industries

• At each level of an organization, there are fundamentally different expectations of what a leader should look like and do

Example • In Japan and India, people rate the ability to speak English as a

key leadership requirement.




Perspective on leaders

You can lead at all levels of the organization

• Leadership is not the sole preserve of the CEO

• To succeed, you need to develop and practice leadership skills consistently from an early stage

Expectations of what a good leader is differs at each position/ hierarchy level

• This explains why some people do very well at one level but then get altitude sickness at the next level

• To succeed, you need to adapt at each level to the new rules of success


Top 5 expectations of leaders at all levels

Recent Graduates/

Emerging Leaders

Leaders in the Middle Top Leaders

Hard work (43%)

Ability to motivate others

(43%)

Vision (61%)

Proactivity (57%) Decisiveness (54%) Ability to motivate others

(37 %)

Intelligence (63%)

Industry Experience (70%) Decisiveness (47%)

Reliability (61%) Networking Ability (57%) Ability to handle Crisis

(56%)

Ambition (64%)

Delegation (43%) Honesty and Integrity

(48%)

Source: The Leadership Skills Handbook: 50 Key Skills from 1,000 Leaders

http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Skills-Handbook-Key-Leaders/dp/074944827X/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329884015&sr=8-1-fkmr1




Good news about these criteria!

• You do not have to be superhuman to be a leader

• The leadership requirements are simple and basic, yet many people fail to live up to them

• Focus on the basics, do them well and you will stand apart from your peer group


Perspective on performance

The performance expectations for emerging leaders is largely about behavior

• Hard work, proactivity, reliability

• Many aspiring leaders fall over these very low hurdles

The most critical criteria is honesty and integrity

• A boss who was rated well on this, and was therefore trusted, tended to be rated well on everything else

• Bosses who rated poorly on this were penalized on all other criteria




Myths of management: What it really means to manage

Myth Reality

Operative Principle Authority Interdependency

Key Players Subordinates Include those outside of your

formal authority

Source of Power Formal Authority “Everything but”

Focus Managing one on one Managing one on one and

leading the team

Desired Outcome Control through

compliance

Commitment through

empowerment

Key Challenges Cope with complexity Cope with complexity and change

Essential

Competencies Technical Technical, human and conceptual


How do I set myself up for success?

1. Master professional skills

• Develop functional skill such as sales, marketing, accounting, project management, recruitment, analysis, etc.

• Execution

2. Develop insights into industries

• Key drivers (cost, capital investment, innovation, regulatory, unions, talent pool)

• Hard to change industry mid career (10- 15 years of experience)

3. Learn about yourself • Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

• Personality and style

• Emotional Quotient (EQ)




1. How do I improve professional skills?

• Take challenging courses to maximize learning

• Supplement your classroom knowledge online – KhanAcademy.org – Free video courses at MIT Open Courseware

(ocw.mit.edu)

• Learn to execute in college – Paid or unpaid positions on campus – Research for Professors (no task is below you) – Clubs and other organizations (profit or non profit)


2. How do I select and analyze an industry?

• Size of the industry

• Growth rate of industry

• Profitability of the industry

• Location and other personal factors

• Your competitive advantage

– Biologists/Chemists/Doctors should consider Pharmaceutical industry (Doctors/Scientists call the shots!)

– Engineers should consider technology industry (Techies with business acumen call the shots!)




IT services industry

– Over $60 billion in exports from India every year

– Huge growth potential, India still represents ~10% of worldwide IT spending

– Fragmented with thousands of suppliers, incumbents have limited advantage

– Very profitable - IT majors still reporting high operating margins (higher than most industries)

– 50% of sales to financial services industry (IQ in banks is in sophisticated computer programs.)

– Offers a large number of good job opportunities

– Key drivers are technical folks, HR (not finance)

Implication: Great professional growth for you!


Leaders spend a long time in their industry/ company • N. Chandrasekar, CEO at TCS

– With TCS since 1987 – MCA from REC, Trichy

• Vineet Nayyar, CEO at HCL Technologies – With HCL since 1985 – BE and MBA from XLRI

• T. K. Kurien, CEO at Wipro – With Wipro since 2001 – Associated earlier with Wipro/GE Medical collaboration – BE Computers and Chartered Accountant

• Bill Green, CEO at Accenture – With Accenture since 1977

• Sam Palmisano, CEO at IBM Global Services – With IBM since 1973




How do I learn about an industry? • Company websites, blogs, newsletters and press releases

• Social Media – Facebook (Fan pages) – YouTube (Watch speeches of key industry leaders, events) – Twitter (Follow Tweets) – LinkedIn (Reviews)

• Books – Autobiographies for historical perspective – Books by major players in the target industry

• Movies (Dramatize, still better than nothing) – The Social Network, Pirates of the Silicon Valley, Wall Street

• Industry Association and Conferences


3. Learn about yourself

IQ, personality and EQ together determine how we think and act.




How to learn about yourself?

• IQ

– Accounts for only 20% of our overall success

– Need a threshold IQ to be successful

– Does not change (generally considered to be born with it)

• Personality/ Style

– Traits appear early in life and do not go away

– Trait examples include introvert/ extrovert, assertiveness etc.

– We use DISC and People Styles at Work to help our employees

– Many free tests are available online

• EQ

– Relatively new field, thought to account for up to 70% of our success

– Can be improved with training and practice


Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

EQ is the foundation for many critical skills. EQ accounts for 58% of job performance.




Recommendations • Look for long term success, not the immediate salary

– Focus on quality of work offered, overlook designations – Over long term, private companies pay good performers well – Sometimes companies offer a high package for unattractive jobs (e.

g. hours, timings, traveling job etc.)

• Meet at least five people in the industry in their office before you start interviewing – Functional role (sales job in a bank, meet people doing that job) – Selected industry – Meeting for 5-10 minutes at a relative’s wedding does not count

• Create LinkedIn profile, watch Facebook posts

• Give examples from relevant industry during your interviews

• Everyone gets only 24 hours in day – Use time wisely – Avoid peer pressure


My top 10 books

• Management

– Good to Great and/ or Built to Last by Jim Collins

– Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey

– Who by Brad Smart

– First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham

– People Styles at Work by Robert and Doris Bolton

– First 90 Days by Michael Watkins

– How to be an Even Better Manager by Michael Armstrong

– Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry

• Personal

– YOU: The Owner’s Manual by Dr. Oz

– The Success Principles by Jack Canfield




About MAQ Software

• Focused on Digital Marketing and Web Analytics

• 250+ employees worldwide

• 3 development centers: Redmond, Mumbai,

Hyderabad

• About 15% of the team focused on adopting Cloud

Computing, Mobile platforms and Business Intelligence

• 98% of all projects are from repeat customers or their

referrals

• Use Agile – Lean Development Techniques (daily build

model)


Company recognitions

Microsoft Partner since 2001

Inc. 500|5000, the Fastest Growing Private Companies, five consecutive years (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011). Rare honor for companies.

Puget Sound Business Journal’s 100 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in Washington state, six consecutive years (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010)

Microsoft Preferred Vendor for seven consecutive years (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011)



MAQ Software Confidential | Page 23

THANK YOU

Documents

Career Planning for MBA Students in India