Do you often overvalue your experience, skills, knowledge, etc?

I strongly believe we overvalue our experience, knowledge, skills...rather simply anything that can be defined as measure of success in society :-)...I do that often and to some extent knew it too whenever I encountered my frailities. I got a rude awakening to it when I read the book Irrationally predictable" and some of the works of Daniel Kahnemean and Taversky....

But, why do we do this and how do we avoid it? Lets answer the first part of the question:

1. To gain social acceptance.
2. To prove to the people we know and sometimes want to know to build a superior perception of us.
3. To get an expected treatment of ourselves or to achive the higher gaols we set upon ourselves in society, workplace and so on....

How can we avoid it?
1. Accepting the fact that our measures of success is relative. Its all a matter of anchoring ourselves to the right individuals/groups and our position/status quo in a society is relative.
2. Constantly, reminding ourselves that the workings of this world is far more complex than that appears on the surface or at our levels of understanding.
3. Reading more and more about topics that we know we know too little about!

How do we handle such people at work?
1. Pamper their ego: Just give it to them...let them reach the self-realization on their levels! Atleast, you please their ego and let him/her be happier in their own perceptions :-)
2. Probe them to discover if they really know what they think they cliam to know....
3. Netural approach, just listen to them. Most of the time you are never entitled to your opinions or maybe the other person is a poor listenet!
4. Remind them that one knows far less than what one thinks and if possibel quote them to "predictably irrational" and works of Daniel Kahneman :-)...
5. Prove to them you know much more than them...hee hee...you bet this is something that will please your ego!!!

We may choose a combination of options...not really restricted to one...Whats your view?

Cover your ass (CYA) - Its economic recession!

I've seen so many people gaining expertise in covering their own ass when it comes to protecting their jobs and status quo in organizations. It seems the more you reach positions demanding decion making.

I've mostly seen lot of people out there who shy from making decisions and live through it consistently (good or bad). If decisions are forced upon them they lack the guts to own up the outcome especially when things go wrong. They usually seek refuge in adopting a stance, whereby they claim anything but their how bad their decision has been.

How do you describe these behaviours?
1. You may simply blame it on the value system: Integrity, commitment, Authenticity, etc.
2. You blame it on their competencies, skills or experience?
3. You blame it on the social norm/culture of the position in the organization?
4. You blame their id
5. You blame it on the externalities: Economic recession !

I've often seen they exhibit all the above traits.

How do you handle such people?
1. You avoid them!
2. You deal with them in a politically right way!
3. You fight them head-on!

What choiced do you have to enable objective decision making in each of the above case:
1. Be straight present facts and figures to enable right decision.
2. Play their game and beat them at it, but objectively through facts and figures.
3. Become them and avoid contributing to any objective decision! BTW, who cares.


What would you do?

How do you enable objective decision making if your boss thinks he knows everything?

You may surely have faced similar situation at work. Especially in societies where collective (to be more precise hierarchical) decision making is prevalent.I'm sure you would've seen war movies where decision making follows hierarchical protocols and the people on the ground suffer (eg. US war in Vietname, war in Iraq) where 1000's of foot soldiers loose their life and/or limb abiding decision made by a general somewhere out there who knows nothing abt ground realities. Sometimes the decision making realm has lot more complexities and dynamics that are difficult to comprehend superficially (i'm sure there are lot of superficial leaders out there!). What do you do in such circumstance?

1. Try to remedy it:
a. You give your bosss the context, facts and apprise him/her of the complexities involved in making the right decision and let him/her solve it?
b. You enable the right decsion by giving appropriate choices to choose from (well ofcourse only if your boss is a listening type?)
2. Do nothing about it:
a. Just wash off your responsibilities and let your boss make the his/her own decision and live through it whether it is right or wrong? Ofcourse you suffer on the field, but you do it anyways if you choose option 1 above :-)...


All the above make you realize how futile being objective and pragmatic is in real-world!

What would you do in such situations? What course do you choose?

How do you influence objective decision-making in a group that has race prejudice?

How do you influence objective decision-making in a group that has race/class/citizens prejudice?

Thats a very interesting question, what will one do if he/she is challenged working with people across countries from different race to enable objective decision making. What will one do if there is a clear demarcation of racial undertones/overtones that one witnesses day in and day out localized to specific country/geography. what will one do if one believes it is an accepted social/organizational norm to play one-up race against the other or atleast subtle biases that clouds objective decision making? What will one do if he/she is unable to influence rational and objective decision making?

I'm sure each one of us has faced the above situation working in cross-cultural setup. (sure Mr. Obama you face it everyday as President so does the average common man like me somewhere in India facing it too in my realm). How do we handle such scenarios?

1. Do we do something about it? If yes what are our options:
a. Should we be more assertive in influencing objective decision through facts and numbers?
b. Should we escalate within the organization through ombuds or similar such processes and draw it to management attention to set it right and stter towards objective decsion making? (well ofcourse we need to have all facts lined up to make a strong case)
2. Do we just read Geert Hofsted culture topology and then change yourself to be more "culturally" sensitive?
3. Or do we do nothing about it?

I dont have answers just questions.....How have you handled such situations to enable objective decision making?

Free IT SI and Outsourcing services pointers: Can we offer such services for different IT service categories?

Having looked at the problem statements for free IT System integration and outsourcing services, lets now look at some examples of 4 free IT pricing models based on the categories suggested by Chris Anderson in his Free book:
1. Direct Cross-subsidies: This category is defined by as those services that are offered as free in relation to another good. In simple terms we are cross-subsidizing one service while charging for the other. Given this definition, here are the problem statements:
1.1 For an integrated SI and Support service can we offer the SI service free to client if the support pricing exceeds a certain threshold?
1.2 For just support services, can we offer transition service free to client, instead of charging them for the transition service?
2. 3 Party markets: This category is defined by the fact that IT services are offered free to the actual consumers but being paid for by a third-party. For example in Radio & Boradcasting services, Newspaper and digital newspaper industry; advertising companies pay for the free services to consumers. Going by the statistics provided by chris the market for these services in US alone is USD 45 billion in 2006 and he estimates worldwide this is to the tune of USD 80-100 billion. In IT services space the following problem statement arise:
2.1 Can Hardware and IT product vendors sponsor the free IT service to client? Why not they do charge a huge AMC or Software Update and product support fees every year on clients? What is the minimum portfolio of services that can be offered free in this mode? Are their any companies already providing this in open (lets forget for a moment about IBM).
3. Premium or versioning: The service here is defined by the fact that few clients who can afford and are willing can pay for these services. In reality there can be tiered service offering to clients. For example Flicker and some Startup companies Web 2.0, etc. offer tiered services for free and some features and functionality only for premium clients. According to Chris, in 2008 there is an estimated USD 36 billion worth of business done through this medium: corporate clients USD 800 million, Retail clients USD 200 million, Opensource 30 billion (Red hat ), other apps ~1B, Online game markets (Multiplayer games is USD 1b; Casual is USD 3 B ). Now lets turn focus on IT services problem statement:
3.1 Can we offer a shared service model for outsourcing where we can offer free services for small support footprint? This may also help in smoothening the load of resources?
3.2 Can we charge premium whenever the bespoke service support requirement is high? Typically large and complex home-grown system. The challenge ofcourse is how do we qualify "Large and complex system" objectively?
4. Non-Monetary markets/ Gift Economy: Wikepedia example. Here no dollar figures attached. Apple iPod USD 4 billion, my space 65b (free music), 2b music concert business due to online trading of music.
4.1 Can IT product companies offer these IT support services for free like the Linux ecosystem? Can this atleast be modeled for PHP platforms? I'm sure there are lot of freelancer/mavens who would love to do it for free (just that it gets them the recognition)?

What are your views/insights? I'm sure the model can be better qualified and refined to a great extent.

Free IT Services - Pay nothing for IT Implementation (System Integration, Application Development) & Outsourcing (Maintenance & Support) Services

I was listening to the Free audio book "Free" and was quiet intrigued by why we havent seen any IT service provider offering free IT Implementation and Outsourcing services. This excited me and I had formed some interesting hypothesis based on my insights in the IT products and services industry.

Lets look at good examples cited by the author about 3 formats of free forms in markets and let me problem statements (some lead to hypothesis) on what similarities do we see in the industry:
1. Paying people subsidizing loss making products/services: I never imagined if IBM ever made any money selling some of their Hardware and software products like Lotus notes, z series and so on! IBM shift to services from their product focus may be a great example....see some companies like Sun never managed to make that shift and ended up getting bought out by Oracle...
Problem statement 1: Can we offer some (need to qualify this well) SI/AD services free and cross-subsidise this with some (qualifications needed) Outsourcing service?
2. Paying later subsidizing paying now: Well Red-Hat Linux or Novells Suse Linux is a classic example....no license cost for software but imagine paying their support through your nose...any CIO will keep scratching their heads on how to associate a firm value...wondering why Oracle dropped the idea of acquiring Red-Hat...theyy seem to be happy just allocate R&D investments to support Red Hat platform...
Problem Statement 2.1 : Can all SI/AD engagement services be billed (through claw back clauses) to client on annuity basis instead of charging them upfront?
Problem Statement 2.2: Can transition costs (for outsourcing engagements) be billed on annuity basis instead of levying an upfron fees on clients?
3. Paying people subsidizing free people: Adobe Reader is a great example where the reader is offered as free downloads to all, but some enterprises and media companies will be forced to buy the Adobe Writer so they can use the Adobe reader to reduce their distribution costs...Well ofcourse some may never buy Adobe Writer but use tools like Amyuni or Open-offcie ports to achieve the purpose....Poor Adobe!
Problem Statement 3: Can we offer free services to some clients who cant pay and cross-subsidize with other paying clients? (Ofcourse yes but what are these qualifiers. You have to pay me to know it or implement it!

What are your insights and data points that can help prove/disprove such hypothesis. IOfcourse it should be an econmoically feasible solution...I dont want to sell my brethrens to unemployment!

How can client Short-list the right Outsourcing IT service provider?

Large IT services firm try to offer all types of services to every other client in the market. Most often one in the system realizes that what the big IT services firms are selling to client is really their internal complexities rather than what the client really wants. In good times, clients are willing to tolerate all this complexities and buy services/their internal complexities from large IT service firm. There are few reasons for it:

1. De-risking service delivery by the brand name of the services firm (large IT services firm), rather than their ability to deliver flawlessly.
2. Clients often convince their internal stakeholders by saying that the are paying premium for the brand accretive outsourcing. For example when you are outsourcing to Cap Gemini by paying them premium rates that makes big news in media as the perception built among the stakeholders in the market is that the client is spending on preparing for "high performance" business
3. You must've heard the famous saying, "No one got fired for hiring IBM for service delivery". Large IT services company often have good relationships with boards and senior stakeholders that it affords a middle manager facilitating the decision on the large IT Services vendor easy. As you know the middle manager is just aiding the senior client leadership team to make a safe choice :-)...


You'll often note from above that in a thriving market client is willing to pay premium for the "Value" rationale and buy the complexity of large IT services firm. In difficult times that may not be the case, client is wanting to buy specific services that are simple to manage and enables the client businesses to be run without much complexity. Imagine in this situation if we still try and sell complexity, value and premium service to client!

It is no surprise to see the quarterly results of the Indian Pure play IT services firm continuing to keep their y-o-y revenue growth flat though there are lot of clients who are cutting down agressively on discretiionary IT spends.

Having understood the problem scope, what characteristics should the client look for while selecting the right IT Service provider:

1. Simple service offering.
2. Willing to be flexible (comercially and operationally) to suit client service demands.
3. Demanding less if not zero upfront investments from client in terms of transition cost, setup cost, etc.
4. Ability to pass on lot of cost saving back to client through various levers at the disposal of the IT Service provider.
5. Providing the required value in service and not overplay and charge premium for even the basic client service requirement.
6. Understand clients position in market and engage in a mutually beneficial relationship, rahter than trying to protect your interests alone in an already difficult market. Some of the cases here are that some IT services firm go an extra mile to protect themselves from failure points (on SLA, paymet terms, etc.) and try and inpose a very tight legal T&C.
7. Last but not least, be willing to make investment for the client especially in areas where you dont have a strength. This will help you in more than 1 ways, help you build/strengthen your own service offering at a marginal cost while at the same time provide the basic service to client.

I'm sure client would have access to the competitor analysis for Q1'09 for Tier 1 players and Indian Pure plays from their TPI's. ofcourse, they can gain the above insight with some difficulty from the TPI's/analyst reports.

Now compare the above with the leadership position of the IT firms mentioned in the earlier article? What are your views on who is best positioned to emerge out of the current scenario competitive and well-positioned to serve long term in IT Services outsourcing market?