Is it possible to build a stellar IT career and have fun
at the same time? Mittu Sridhara, vice-president of information
technology and product management at Sabre Holdings, the
$2.8bn-revenue IT travel services supplier, thinks so. In fact, his
own career is a testimony to the fact.
Yet Sridhara has always been deadly serious about fun. He
believes it is the mystery ingredient that turns an average
performing IT team into the kind that surpasses management
expectations.
He says, "We have all got jobs to do. But when we wake up in the
morning, we can either go about our work, get the job done and feel
depressed and cynical about it or at the end of the day we can
return home thinking that we did the job and had a laugh while we
were doing it."
It is not a bad philosophy for any IT professional. But it is
especially important for those who have reached management roles
and need to motivate their teams to improve their performance in a
climate where the business always wants more.
"Two plus two can equal five and not four when you discover how
to fuse the intellectual and emotional qualities of the people in
your team," says Sridhara. It's a valuable insight. Many people who
go to work take their brains into the office, but leave their
feelings in the car park. Sridhara makes a key but often overlooked
point: if you can get your team members to combine their intellect
with their passions, they will deliver much more. And the secret?
Make work fun.
At Sabre, Sridhara has helped this process along by introducing
novel ways of communicating with his team, which is spread over 21
locations. There are podcasts and videos to communicate new ideas.
And underlining his fun-at-work philosophy, Sridhara has introduced
a pair of cartoon superheroes, the Solvinators, whose comic-book
style adventures punch home messages such as teamwork and customer
focus.
"All these help us to address and find answers to common issues
that we're facing," explains Sridhara. "It's a way of engendering a
sense of common identity in an IT function whose members are spread
around the globe."
So the answer to that opening question - can you combine a great
IT career and fun? - is plainly "yes". But advancing through the
ranks of IT involves more than a laugh a minute, as Sridhara's
career shows. Having fun is one of the principles that has driven
him on, but it is not the only one.
From the very beginning Sridhara has underpinned his career with
some solid business thinking. "My starting point has always been
understanding how what I was going to lead or deliver would add
value to the company," he says. "If you see your role as
creating business value for your firm, you have to understand the
impact of what you're doing and how it will add value to the bottom
line."
Any IT novice would be well advised to learn that lesson well.
In the management suite, the debate still rages about how - or even
whether - IT adds value to a business. IT pros who show they are
plugged into value delivery do their career prospects no harm, as
Sridhara has found.
Before taking on a new role, he has always carefully assessed
whether he will be able to make an impact in it. "I believe the
biggest factor in my career has been the ability to understand what
customers want and deliver it," he says. "When I've been offered a
new post, I've always wanted to understand upfront how I could go
in and deliver the transformation that was being asked of me. So
it's been important to me to make sure that the environment was
right. That's meant the organisation's culture has had to be
roughly aligned in style and values with my own."
After taking on some tough IT jobs with companies in Europe and
North America, Sridhara has won a reputation for building effective
teams. It is something in which he clearly takes personal
satisfaction. So it is not surprising that it has also been one of
the drivers in his career.
"One of my passions is developing teams," he says. "It's
obviously important to me to get better at what I do. But, then,
having put the frameworks in place, it's very important to mentor,
teach and help other members of my team get there sooner, better,
faster."
In doing this, Sridhara draws on his own experience of valued
mentors at earlier stages in his career. "I was fortunate to be
able to work with Joan Kuehl, who was senior vice-president of
Sabre at the time," he recalls. "She provided not so much
day-to-day mentoring, but a working environment where you felt you
were safe to take risks, learn and grow.
"I could be confident that if I made a mistake, there would be
somebody who would come to help me correct it. More importantly,
the environment was safe in the sense that you felt initiatives you
took would be supported and rewarded. If you started a promising
project, they would provide resources to help you take it
forward."
Yet for all the talk of learning from mistakes, it is the risks
that result in innovative projects delivered on time that build an
IT professional's reputation. Sridhara reckons he has had at least
three such "defining moments" in his career.
The first was back in the early 1990s when he was a project
manager at American Airlines Decision Technologies. He headed a
team that delivered a workflow-based system that was a forerunner
of the customer relationship management (CRM) systems that later
became commonplace. "It was a key moment in my career because it
was the first role in which I went from being purely a technologist
to leading the development of a product for a marketplace," he
recalls.
The second defining moment came a few years later at Sabre, when
he led a team which delivered innovative products that helped the
company generate around $250m of additional revenue from some
important customers.
And the third was during Sridhara's time as CIO for Avis Europe,
when his team delivered a customer-facing system based on then new
wireless technology. "There was an entire broadband network behind
the system," he recalls.
What is the secret of being successful in projects such as
these? "The most important thing is to understand the customers and
what they are looking for from the products or services you're
planning to deliver," Sridhara says. "It's also useful to
understand the market trends which form a backdrop to your
project.
"More than that, you have to get a clear view of the
capabilities of the team you're going to work with: their skills
and their ability to deliver the end results."
But Sridhara points out that defining moments only look that way
with the benefit of hindsight. "When I've taken on new roles, I've
usually not been aware of making a big step. I've been more focused
on getting the job done. At the same time, I've probably been aware
that the role would mean some growth for me personally."
Defining projects can provide great learning opportunities for
IT professionals. And, for Sridhara, continuing to learn is as
important as having fun because it enables him to grow into more
significant roles.
"Learning has been a key imperative for me, all through my
career," he says. "Every defining moment typically comes with some
learning, and you should grow with that learning. You're either
learning or you're dead!"
And that's no fun at all.
STEPPING STONES
• 1988 Graduated from Visvesvaraya Regional College of
Engineering, India, with mechanical engineering degree and began
working as design/sales engineer for Thermax Private, an Indian
conglomerate, in Mumbai, on waste-heat recovery systems.
• 1992 Completed his Masters in industrial engineering and
operations research while research associate at North Carolina
State University, US.
• 1992 Led multi-disciplinary team on ERP/CRM project as project
manager/consultant with American Airlines Decision
Technologies.
• 1994 Set up and worked successively as senior consultant,
programme manager and director of Europe/Asia strategic IT business
unit for Sabre Technology Solutions.
• 1998 As senior director at Sabre Inc, modified and implemented
corporate strategy for technology services delivery in Europe,
Middle East and Africa.
• 2000 CIO at VersaPoint, a pan-European broadband services
company.
• 2001 As Group CIO for Avis Europe, given the task of
re-establishing the company's technology leadership in the car
rental market
• 2004 Rejoined Sabre EMEA as vice-president of product
marketing and IT.
IT ORGANISATION
• Mittu Sridhara works from west London and reports to Sara
Garrison, Sabre Holdings' head of global development and
delivery.
• Sridhara has five direct reports: chief architect, head of
development, head of product management, head of customer-facing
units, and manager handling programme management and shared
services.
• The IT function under Sridhara's responsibility has 240 staff
in 21 locations around the world. The three largest concentrations
are development teams in Krakow in Poland, Dallas in the US, and
Bangalore in India. The other locations keep IT staff close to
Sabre's customers.
ComputerWeekly Best Places to Work in IT Awards 2007
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