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 It
is not uncommon for a junior employee to become a master craftsman
and eventually a competitor. Businesses have for ages experienced
the movement and turnover of employees, says MOHAN BABU
During a recent trip to my local barber shop,
I witnessed a change which most managers are perhaps very familiar
with: It involved personnel turnover. I had been visiting this neighbourhood
barber for a few years and had an opportunity to observe a young
apprentice of his turn into a craftsman in his own right. During
my periodic trips for haircut, the young barber used to chat with
me as most barbers are wont to, and the elder master would be busy
managing the shop which was always milling with customers. During
this trip, however, the young guy was missing and I asked the owner
about him. With a crestfallen look, he explained that the youngster
had moved on to setup his own shop a few blocks away. He went on
to ask if I was surprised at this change. You bet I was! This, even
though we are used to such change during every working day.
While waiting for my turn, I began thinking about
how familiar this story sounded: Junior employee turning to be a
master craftsman and eventually a competitor is not new. Businesses
have, for ages, experienced the movement and turnover of employees.
However, from an operational standpoint, the master-barber was really
disconsolate because the business model that he had worked hard
to cultivate was abruptly shaken up.
A story familiar to most managers: a key member
of his team had suddenly disappeared. Most of us like a sense of
equilibrium in our day-to-day dealings and find it hard to comprehend
changes wrought by others, especially if we don’t have a stake
in the decision-making. Managers like to be in ‘control’
and work hard to cultivate and nurture their resources. This is
true of the software industry, just as it applies to any other services
business, including managing a hairdressing saloon.
This move by the former-apprentice-turned-competitor
is something we see in the business-world all the time, and shouldn’t
really have surprised me. Many times the former employee turns out
to be a really formidable competitor. Case in point includes Tom
Siebel and the founders of one of India’s largest software
services companies, who moved away from the shadows of their employers
early in their working lives to found remarkable organisations (Tom
Siebel was with Oracle before starting Siebel Systems, and the founders
of Infosys were with Patni Computers before co-founding their company).
It is debatable if either of these entrepreneurs
would have done as well under the shadows of their former employers;
however, I guess it would be fair to speculate that their transition
would have involved a lot of introspection. Needless to say, their
decision must have wrought some unexpected change at their employers’
end, just as the junior employee’s departure shook up the
barber shop.
The job scene in the West, at least during the
past couple of years, has been lacklustre and not many brave souls
have taken the plunge towards entrepreneurship. However, the same
is not really true of India where entrepreneurship in the tech sector
is growing at a tremendous pace.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and technology
sourcing units and companies are mushrooming. Many of the entrepreneurs
founding these units are employees of established companies, which
were themselves founded not so long ago. Organisations in this industry
employ highly replicable business models, and the industry itself
has few barriers to entry. Talented employees—techies, architects,
and managers—sometimes realise that their real calling is
in entrepreneurship, and feel that they would be happier being free
agents. After gaining some confidence and learning the intricacies
of the operations, employees sometimes don’t hesitate to take
the plunge. Applying the best-practices of their employers, coupled
with some of their personal learnings, these fledging entrepreneurs
move on to manage their own organisations and customers.
Back to my barber. On asking how he would manage
without his junior, he just shrugged his shoulder, pointed at two
teenagers and said philosophically that he would just have to train
them and hope they would pick up the trade soon. Not very different
from the line of thinking of managers at BPOs and IT outsourcers
who are honing the skills involved in turning fresh crops of apprentice
trainees into productive employees—faster than the outflow
of skilled workers—into an art.
Mohan Babu is a US-based software consultant trying
to find the ‘sweet spot’ where IT meets business. E-mail:
mohan@garamchai.com
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