Clearly, I was a risk for Gartner as there were a few things in there that I had not done before. In my conversations with the Gartner executives, I explained that we dealt with a group of client organisations at MBS. In fact, there were probably about forty globally who were participants in our research and development, and executive education.
For our part we shared our findings and insights with them as part of them providing access and/or funding. We ran many two- or three-day executive education programs, our favourite being ‘IT for non-IT executives’, which was sometimes funded by one of the technology firms. And our centre certainly had a budget, which had to balance, and revenue and expense streams. But those were rather basic statistics.
Heading to Gartner was a risk for me too.
I would again be leaving an environment where I had built up a strong reputation, both locally and internationally, to go to the ‘dark side’; that is, commercially focused research, which had different drivers and balance. The research had to focus closely on what would resonate with clients, and not so much on what we thought was important (though, in our case, the fit was usually good anyway).
Both roles, Executive Education at MBS and the Gartner role, came to a head at the same time. I took half a day off to sit at home and think about what I really wanted to do. I drew up a one-page business plan for the first twelve months in each role, and overlaid this with the usual questions: ‘Which is a bigger stretch?’ and ‘Where will I learn more?’
Gartner was the definite winner, but it was hard to share with my colleagues and more than challenging to explain to the Dean.
At that stage, Gartner was not a name known by many business people, even though I tried to explain that it was ‘the McKinsey of the IT Advisory world’. After some further negotiations though, I did leave to take on the next career challenge.
Build on existing capabilities
MBS had enabled me to build a base of capabilities for the future. Again, the role I was going to was a new role that I could shape—I hoped!
An acquaintance once commented to me about my career moves, ‘Somehow what you do is build on your capabilities and experiences in a way that gives you future options. You didn’t know what they were, but when the timing was right an opportunity came along and you took it’.
The hardest part was leaving valued colleagues and young students whose optimism often knew no bounds, and who were generally challenging and stimulating to work with.
It was also hard to tell my parents. They were proud of their daughter as an academic, considering their lack of formal education. I made a special trip to Sydney to explain to them the new challenge I was taking on. My mother was devastated and my father confused. It was only when I explained that if it didn’t work out I would always be welcome back as an academic that their concerns were somewhat lessened.
For the family it meant a lot more travel for me, but we probably didn’t realise just how much till well after I started. I also had some trouble explaining to the kids exactly what my role was. They could understand being a professor, but how could they explain this new role to their friends?
When I returned to MBS many years later, they breathed a sigh of relief, I think, as they could more easily understand and explain the nature of my work.
The challenge of repetition
I spent the next six years at Gartner moving into progressively broader regional, then global, roles. It was a fantastic experience, and, as expected, I learned a lot.
For many years I believed I had about the best job in the world—developing new and valued services, working with smart and collaborative colleagues, visiting clients in different countries and learning more about the diversity of industries, firms, and government agencies that I would have thought possible.
But in my sixth year at Gartner I started to feel that my role was becoming a bit repetitive. I had suggested to the then CEO and executive a number of other roles I could do, or businesses we could expand on. However, I was usually told something like, ‘No, we need you to keep doing what you are doing. You do it well and we can’t afford for you to do something else’.
Be wary about using the phrase ‘We need you to keep doing what you do’ with a valued employee. They are trying to tell you that they need to do something different, no matter how much you want them to continue doing the same role.
When it came time to start working on the next annual survey of CIO issues and attitudes I found myself saying, ‘Here we go again’. This triggered some reflection over the next few months about what I really wanted to do next.
I did not do any active looking, but I had a number of concurrent offers. One was a lucrative role working with a competitor and being based fully in the US. I went through the process, was offered a role and then realised I really didn’t want to be domiciled outside Australia. We might have done it some years earlier, but there were too many things now back in Melbourne that were important to us.
Paul Rizzo and Ian Harper at MBS had contacted me about returning to the school as Associate Dean and leading what is now called the Senior Executive MBA. I would be able to devote a day or more a week to consulting and applied research and, thus, rebuild those local connections that I had not spent much time on. I accepted this role.
I gave Gartner about four months’ notice, so that my successor could be revealed at the same time as the public announcement of my departure, and returned to MBS to lead both the academic and marketing roles of the Senior Executive MBA.
Working with mature executives in an intense program meant that you were often explaining how things needed to work to people who were used to being in charge of their organisation or line of business.
Quite a few found it difficult to return to this type of study—in four residential four-week blocks—over a period of about sixteen months. No matter how we explained to them that they would need to hand over the reins of their business role to someone else while doing a four-week module, some did not believe it till part-way through.
Meanwhile, I was proud that the team that I had grown and developed at Gartner continued to be regarded as high performers and remained largely intact for quite a few years.
4
Grasp big change management opportunities
Inflection number five: Co-leading a major business turnaround
About ten months into my time at MBS I had a number of interesting phone calls with Gartner.
The previous CEO had left about midyear and the incoming CEO had spent some time investigating why a big chunk of the business was stagnating (which was also contributing to a low and sluggish share price).
Clearly a turnaround was required. Feelers had been put out to a small number of people and I was one of them.
I had maintained quite close links with Gartner while at MBS. Gartner is an iconic company and, like MBS, an organisation that once you have worked there, you will always have continuing ties.
During my last six months at MBS, the book I had co-authored at Gartner, The New CIO Leader, was on its way to the printer, and due to be launched at the next three major Gartner Symposia in Orlando, Cannes and Sydney.
I was invited to meet with the newish Gartner CEO, Gene Hall, at the Cannes symposium. His first words were that he wanted me back in the company. I replied that that might be possible, provided I could continue living in Melbourne.
This time the challenge was of a different type. The business that I had been part of previously represented about one fifth of Gartner’s total revenue, while the stagnating Research part of the business represented more than three quarters of total revenue.
My friend and former boss Robin Kranich had been asked to lead the business turnaround of the Research business, and my new role was to lead new product development as part of that turnaround. We all knew that most of the new Research business products