TheZerothLawOfThermodynamics

"Keep things informal. Talking is the natural way to do business. Writing is great for keeping records and putting down details, but talk generates ideas. Great things come from our luncheon meetings which consist of a sandwich, a cup of soup, and a good idea or two. No martinis."

--T. Boone Pickens


Great advice (save the last remark).

The last three blogs I have written to you talked about what I call the three critical success factors: cooperation, commitment, and control -- the three C's. Frankly, I don't think that anything great happens without these in abundance in the working environment. People have said to me, "What about communication? Isn't that really necessary?"

My education provided an insight from the study of thermodynamics. After the First, Second, and Third Laws of Thermodynamics were formulated, the cognoscenti believed that something even more fundamental needed to be articulated to permit practitioners to apply the Three Laws. So they went back to state the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics (namely that a quantity called temperature exists that...... er, sorry about that, wrong career). Mathematicians call these "necessary but not sufficient" conditions. To me, communication is even more fundamental than any of the three C's.

A skill I long ago gave up trying to master was mind reading. The problem with mind reading is not the high probability of being wrong. The worst part is the impact it has on your own thought processes. We tend to make real any information we take in; hence Mark Twain's warning that a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous. When we fail to openly and freely communicate, each person is left in a conversation with himself.

An old comedian (I'd mention the name, but too few of you would recognize it and then I'd feel really old) used to tell a story about a guy in a rental car who gets a flat tire. Predictably, there's no jack when he looks in the trunk. He remembers seeing a gas station a few miles back, so he starts walking. On the way, he plays out the conversation with the service station attendant asking to borrow a jack. "What if he doesn't have one to spare? What if he tries to overcharge me? What if he doesn't have the authority without a manager there? What if he's just a jerk? ............." By the time he reaches the station, having worked himself into a frenzy, the guy flings open the door, and screams at the astonished attendant, "KEEP YOUR GODDAM JACK !!"

Obviously, that's silly. It's also what happens when we substitute speculation, conjecture, and partial information for open communication. It's also what we run the risk of having in most organizations. We're all guilty, so don't be too tough on yourself. Or too kind. If we don't resolve to continuously improve the situation, than we all know what to expect, and it's ugly.

We also need to work on communications with our clients. The fastest way to breed ill will is to do a lousy job at this, so we will be paying more attention to training, improving the various channels, etc. People have a tremendous capacity to be understanding if you let them know what is going on, just by telling them. When they do not receive information, they all too frequently think the worst.

Which medium is the best? Face-to-face. Phone. E-mail. Voice mail. Text messages. Tweets. All of them are part of a culture and discipline of communication. Whatever the medium, the important thing is to open the dialog -- that's the hard part. But how? [This is a "Grant's Tomb" question.] Try asking them. "Do you have any questions or concerns? Do you have the information you need?" Most importantly, we must each back up the words with the action. If your listener thinks that you're just going through the motions, you might as well have saved yourself and your colleague the trouble.

I am coming to the belief that the people and ability that I prize most in an organization are those that get everyone freely talking with each other. I see the other values as logical extensions of this kind of behavior. If I have any regrets, it is in not having seen the importance and emphasized this value sooner.

Finally, it is essential to consider that perhaps the most valuable communication skill is listening. In order to have effective communications, you must have a committed speaker and a committed listener. John deButts, the late CEO of AT&T and the man with the vision that his business was to become a lot more than plain old telephones, was asked if he'd rather talk or listen in a meeting. "I don't learn anything by talking" was his reply.

So I'll stop talking. Lucky you.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I just completed my first trip to India, and it was such a remarkable experience, and had such a profound effect on me, that I think the only responsible thing to do is to try to describe why it was so special, for me and for our business.

Traveling to Delhi at the time of the summer solstice is not the hallmark of good planning. But I found that the weather is not so bad, especially when you’re in air conditioned comfort for most of the day. The fact that most days were cloudy and kept the daily high to around 38ºC (that’s 100º to you and me) resulted in conditions well within my comfort level.

My first impression is that going to India is a trip thru a time warp. The key question is whether you have gone back or forward in time. Perhaps the miracle that is India is that it’s both.

The hotel where everyone from Sapient stays is about 30 minutes from the airport and the office 45-60 minutes from hotel. Many roads are jammed 24x7 and the driving scene could easily have been scripted from Monty Python. Horns blowing constantly, by design and not in the angry sort of way you might hear in American cities. Lanes are wherever you make them, so all drivers need multiple sensory inputs to gauge the traffic around them. Cars, trucks, buses, cyclist, bikers, pedestrians, and livestock share the road. I didn’t see any runners so I took that as reinforcement for everyone’s advice to stay in the gym. The driving is wildly aggressive, up until an impact parameter of about 1½”, whereupon it becomes strictly defensive. On the trip from the airport, upon seeing a driver blow through a red light, I facetiously asked Sheeroy if traffic lights were optional after 11 PM. He said they were pretty much optional all the time. My first time through this I was neurotic, then calmed down totally with the observation that the system works and extremely glad that I didn’t have to do the driving to make it work.

The office in Gurgaon looks like a SAPE office anywhere, only bigger. I was greeted at reception and immediately made to feel welcome. They had an access card ready for me, a GSM phone for my use, and inclusion in the ‘New Delhi Guests’ distribution list to make sure I was aware of everything made known to the people in the office. OPS and IT can’t do enough to make sure that everything you need done in terms of setting up a room for a presentation is running flawlessly. The office has its own travel department and a Citibank ATM (and trust me, ATMs are nowhere near as easy to find). In the reception area were several candidates awaiting interviews. How great is that to see, at just about every business hour? Buzz.

Our FS colleagues were great hosts and mentors throughout the week. You walk through office into another time warp; is it the past or the future? It looks and feels like a SAPE office in 1999…. crowded…. lots of team meetings…. team cheers (funny when the team cheer is in Hindi, and they make you say it, but won’t tell you what it means). Buzz.

When my high school daughter visits college campuses, among her initial observations of places she likes is “everyone looks happy”. Well, that’s true in Gurgaon. There were two boot camp sessions going on last week. The people looked thrilled. At 8 PM one night, three Sapient Start members get on the elevator, introduce themselves, and are excited just to meet a visitor from New York. These guys were so happy they are going to need surgery to have their smiles removed. Then they get staffed to Janus, can’t wait to start, and join in a team event even before their first official day on the account. Buzz.

L&D sets up a Learning Lunch in a DC with the topic being FS 100 (ie, the basics, before you even get to FS 101). Standing room only. Great interaction. Direct feedback. Lots of people wanting to join FS. Buzz.

Paige sits in the Janus team area all week and is welcomed with open arms and smiles. Attends AMO team meeting where she witnesses a new team member singing a song as part of her introduction (and sings along with her…as she’s “new” to Delhi too). Team cheer, in Hindi, and with great energy. Buzz.

The Marketing & Business Development Help Desk teams learn that we’re in town, and proactively seek us out to make a personal introduction. Buzz.

There are symbols of the SAPE culture everywhere: plots, war rooms, posters on core values, people sitting on floors when there aren’t enough chairs, people talking for no more than 10 seconds without going to a white board, then marking DNE before leaving. The vocabulary is distinctly Sapient, I suspect in Hindi as well as English, which switch effortlessly and without confusion in most conversations. The joint is packed well into the night….. even on Friday night. Buzz.

The newly remodeled cafeteria is packed at lunch, and is the venue for meetings and private conversations throughout the day and into the night. Though many westerners stay away lest their tummies object, the energy even at lunch is contagious. And you meet a better class of people (ie, people who do the work) in the cafeteria every time. Buzz.

I (ahem) encouraged the PRUPAC team to do one of our earliest GDD projects three years ago. The process maturity that exists today is an order of magnitude greater than it was in 2001. In projects. In SAMS. Even in QA, arguably immature as a standalone service. Everyone walks the talk, which is after all, what makes Sapient delivery so great. Buzz.

Spoke with CK, just appointed GM of our soon-to-open Bangalore office. Plans to relocate a few hundred people, rev the hiring engine for a few hundred more, and get the office to 400 people by year end (2004, in case you had to ask). Buzz.

Some SAPE vets might say ‘we’ve seen all this’, so this looks like the past. But what’s happening in India is remarkable for its pace, its scale, its energy, its optimism, its challenges. And throughout, there is the unmistakable belief that everyone is committed to making this work in an unprecedented way. So what’s so special about this time warp is that it looks like the past but is actually the future. But not just a replay…. who’d want that? This is a case of building on the past, mixing in lots more energy and acquired learning, and slingshot-ing our way into the future. Believe it.

Best summer vacation I ever had.