Surviving a great recession: memoirs of a junior consultant
I was on a short assignment in the United States with an objective of making the gig count for a longer stint, to achieve financial sustenance for future plans of going to business school. Right in the middle of it, the global financial crisis unfolded, leaving millions jobless and many more horrifically homeless around the globe. This is a story of how I lived and survived through it. It’s not a playbook, its not a mantra and as in most stories, even if the events repeat success of following a particular approach is never assured. However, I hope it provides ideas and themes of a response, to myself and many of my dear fellow consultants, especially those who are starting their journeys.
Euphoria
It was May, 2008. Obama was running a spirited campaign and winning primary after primary. “Yes We Can” was the mood whether you were an American or not. Lewis Hamilton was driving faster than most mortals had, galloping towards being the first colored person to win a F1 title. Optimism was high. I was a junior consultant with a leading software consultancy firm. I had arrived in Houston, for a short assignment of 4–5 weeks. I was on stipend to cover my expenses in U.S. with an Indian salary. The assignment was part serendipitous and part a result of my efforts, but this story is not about how I got it so I will not go into further details.
Seeing the success of millions of Indians living abroad, it was a template I was keen on following; I wanted to go see the world, experience it, gain international work experience and in the process save enough to sponsor my MBA, as there was no other way to fund it. Most software firms in India have clients in the US or West Europe. Traveling there to spend time with clients, was coveted and a matter of pride, getting on USD / EUR payroll being an ultimate objective.
Hoping to do well on the assignment I put in the hours, feeding the exigencies of being recognized and be given additional opportunities in the United States. The story played out well and few things give you the joy more than that of seeing your best laid plans roll-out how you imagined them. I was given some extensions to stay and continue working on the same assignment and by July the big moment came, I was moved to a US payroll for 4–5 months — I was happy.
The Great Recession
The challenge with finding happiness in outcomes is that outcomes evolve and can change in the context of the reality around us. Outcomes are more often than we might think driven a lot by luck than sheer brains. Embarrassingly we all think otherwise.
I had some reluctant realization of this when on Monday, Sep 15, 2008 Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. What followed was scary, every other day, the rest of the large credible banks were likely to go down next and mergers were being announced. Millions were expected to lose jobs and savings. So while I was doing well enough at my role, I wasn’t sure if new projects were as easy to come by and given I was on secondment, the surety of being awarded more assignments had begun to fade away, (the priority of the US offices would be to have their permanent employees being staffed first). As months passed and large bail out programs were announced, 2009 was looking painful.
Staying relevant and Blue Oceans
One of the things I had always done was seek a lot of advice from senior leadership of the firm. A common one was — we have many with your skill set, try to differentiate and see if you can continue to stay longer on the existing project. Essentially some of it was trying to look for Blue Oceans. Now, here’s another learning, theories make sense when the conditions are right, and luck is a dividend of hard work! Thanks to my inter-personal skills, I started checking around where else I could add value in the project; one of the team members working on a completely different technology was going on maternity leave, and the team was looking for a replacement. I spent some time knowing / learning what she was working on (most consultants are solving a problem a few others have tried in the past, so finding information usually is not as hard we think); I set up a few chats with different team members and we agreed to a trial run of I taking over but there was one complication. I would have to serve both my current role and the additional one for a good 2 months. At the end of the 2 month time frame if I was found to be good enough, I could be allowed to continue. Fortunately, the engagement partner , a former US Navy commander was always supportive of people wanting to learn new skills. And so by November 2008, I had a second life line.
The next 6 weeks were one of the hardest I have experienced as I was doing my day job and learning a new technology as well in parallel. I was in touch with a girl, and matters of heart usually are more complicated at a distance plus the hours were not helping.
Little Things
Despite these, I made it a point to attend the Thanksgiving and X-mas parties. If these were going to be my last couple of months, in the States at least on this trip, I wanted to ensure I spent a good time with my colleagues who had become friends, and we were all extremely fortunate to have jobs and skills that were still in demand. Having zero family in the U.S. and no friends in Houston, I had spent a lot of time with them in the past months, attending baseball and american football games (it’s a unique experience to watch a sport you understand nothing about, at least the first few times) You might have heard of the airport test, that most hiring decisions are made on whether people can spend time with you while waiting for a delayed flight. Thanks to the socialization, I had close bonds with my colleagues and I could sense they were happy for me to continue if a role was available.
Act two
In early Jan 2009, when the two months were over, the leadership reviewed my work on the new skill and while I had some distance to cover, it was good enough to continue serving on the role, at least until my colleague got back from her maternity. My work on the actual assignment I had traveled for was almost complete and therefore I didn't have to work two shifts any more.
Thus, I had an extension now for another 2.5 months. A slightly senior colleague of mine, who was much better technically, chose to stick to his core skills and he moved back. No harm done to either of us, we chose our waterfalls.
The world needs more Canada
With my confidence to a different level, I was now looking for additional opportunities with a certain assurance and the quality of conversations was improving. I stumbled upon the possibility of working on the Canadian phase of the same work we had delivered. I was trying to assess how I could fit in. One suggestion was that I could go on to play a dual role of a business analyst and the lead developer, as budgets were tightening and I would free up the bandwidth of other analysts who could work on system configurations. Let me explain: in most IT projects you have developers, who do the coding and then you have some analysts who understand the business context and advise on the changes which can be made into the system to make it work for the business. How could I do this without a formal training or degree in business? Well, quite often you never know what you can do unless you have to.
I worked with the analysts in the team, to identify parts of the work that I could confidently take up like documentation of specifications, explaining them to the team members back in India, and also at times developing the prototype of the solution. There were parts which I could not have taken over or didn't feel confident enough to. We devised this plan and presented it to the project leadership in the US and India and it was agreed in-principle to be watched closely.
This was an 8 month assignment, and while I might have skipped the technical details, it wasn’t a rosy path. There were long days, some of the work didn’t come through in the first attempt, I was juggling between Indian and US time zones, my love interest moved on and I was now required to start planning for my MBA.
Habit is not always a good habit
While by Oct 2009, I was very settled into the U.S. having spent a good 18+ months in the country, still, I was keen to pursue the MBA and then started working towards it. It was a tough decision; the partner and leader of the US program I was working with suggested, I was good at what I was doing and was likely to see more success. His recommendation was not to go astray on a management career. My parents had visited me in the US and they were satisfied to see what I was achieving. Why fix if it isn’t broken? Maybe I was getting too comfortable? or was it that my engineered approach to success, and I was seeing an Asia-based management role as the next frontier? I don’t know, but I went ahead and in the coming 6 months, got enrolled into an MBA in Singapore. I moved to Singapore in July 2010. I graduated in December 2011 and by then most of the world economy was back on its wheels.
My lessons
Seeing this story as that of dogged survival, or success or one of desperation to live an American dream is your choice. But here are some things I learnt
- Ask why not, you never know what are the possibilities until you do
- Never disown the magic within — the magic to keep learning and adapting
- Ask for advice — conversations with senior office folks throw lights on new ways to think. Had someone not advised me on differentiating my skills the story would have turned out differently
- Little things matter — spend time getting to know people
- The longer you are on the playing field the more you are likely to succeed as you then get to practice, learn and get better at what you do
P.S. While I am happy with my career as a management consultant and got most things out of my MBA as I would have wanted, the two years in the US remain my very best. No regrets, but another lesson: sometimes, prioritizing people and places above your plans is fine, let some part of life remain an unscripted drama.