{"id":1717,"date":"2013-09-05T13:06:40","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T18:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kbicblog.com\/blog\/construction-recruiter\/?p=1717"},"modified":"2013-09-05T13:06:40","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T18:06:40","slug":"sunny-gupta-of-apptio-on-the-glass-half-empty-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kbicblog.com\/construction-recruiter\/blog\/sunny-gupta-of-apptio-on-the-glass-half-empty-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunny Gupta of Apptio, on the Glass Half-Empty Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows of the half-empty or half-full glass idea, which one are you? Sunny Gupta , the CEO of Apptio tells\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0how he feels on the subject.<\/h4>\n

Q.<\/strong> Were you an entrepreneur early on?\"08CORNER-articleInline\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A. <\/strong>I grew up in India. My father was the secretary of education for the Indian government. And my mom\u2019s family was all entrepreneurs. So it was an interesting dichotomy. From the time I was 7 or 8, the world of entrepreneurs seemed more intriguing to me because you could control your own destiny. I have two brothers, and all of us run fairly large companies now.<\/p>\n

We also had a lot of kitchen-table debates in my family. My dad used to always say, \u201cThe best idea will surface if you debate.\u201d That actually has been an incredible strategy from an entrepreneurial perspective, because one of the biggest challenges is surfacing good ideas from other people. If you don\u2019t have debate, people will suppress them.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> So when did you move to the states?<\/em><\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> I felt like I needed to go to the U.S. because everybody said, \u201cYou can start from nothing and create something.\u201d India was not that way at the time, though it has changed a lot now. My dad couldn\u2019t afford my education in the U.S., so he said, \u201cAll I can give you is $2,000 and a plane ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I flew here, and because of my SAT scores, I got a partial scholarship at the University of South Carolina. I started working odd jobs to support myself. I cleaned dishes. I worked as a mover. I studied like crazy and got a full scholarship. Then I applied to be the intern for the president of the university. I told them I was like Avis \u2014 I\u2019m just going to work harder than anybody else. The president told me later that that was the reason he selected me.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> And what were the early years of your career like?<\/em><\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> My first job was as a software developer, and then I did some consulting. But I said to myself, \u201cThis is going too slow.\u201d It was not even really about the money. It was just too slow. I felt like I was more talented than the pace at which my career was moving.<\/p>\n

I really felt that I could do my boss\u2019s boss\u2019s job. Yes, you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know, but I just had this strong conviction within me. I also felt the cultures I was working in were too bureaucratic, not transparent, and not customer-focused. That all really bothered me. It was probably the easiest decision of my life to start my own company.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> Tell me some things about your management approach today.<\/em><\/p>\n

A. <\/strong>We have this phrase that I use a lot: \u201cglass half-empty.\u201d My marketing guys wanted me to change it to \u201ccontinuous improvement.\u201d But I said to them that \u201cglass half-empty\u201d is not gloomy. It\u2019s all about how, every single day, maybe 85 percent of things are going right, and there are 15 percent that aren\u2019t going right. And if we have an hour, I\u2019d rather focus on the 15 percent that are not going right, because that\u2019s how you become great.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard for people to get behind that principle because my sense \u2014 having managed a lot of people \u2014 is that human beings are generally driven by a desire to be recognized every single day. And I absolutely believe recognition is important and you\u2019ve got to recognize people. The culture has to be set right from Day 1 that we are going to recognize you, but our culture also has this maniacal focus on the things that are not working. People can get frustrated because they feel like you may be attacking them or always asking them about the things that are not working.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> How do you hire?<\/em><\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> One of my favorite questions is asking people about the three to four things they need to work on, or the things they are just not good at. And I will ask what their managers would say they need to work on. I\u2019ll ask that question three to four times from different angles until I am satisfied with the answer.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> And what are you listening for?<\/em><\/p>\n

A. <\/strong>I\u2019m looking for transparency, and it also goes to the glass-half-empty approach. If they cannot internalize the things that they need to work on, then they\u2019ll probably get frustrated because they need too much patting on the back.<\/p>\n

I also ask them about tough times they\u2019ve faced, in their personal life or at work. That tells me a lot. With managers, I always ask, \u2018How many people have you fired?\u2019 I\u2019m looking for whether they\u2019ve actually dealt with poor performers. Are they transparent with their employees? Are they going to give them feedback?<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> What else about your culture? You mentioned earlier the importance of debate.<\/em><\/p>\n

A. <\/strong>In our meetings, we tell people to check their ego. We have a regular meeting that we call Blue Sky. It\u2019s an innovation meeting. I was concerned that people wouldn\u2019t say what they think if I was there. But anybody can say anything to my face. We encourage active debate, and you debate things for a set period of time. Then you get a lot of the facts and you make decisions.<\/p>\n

We also insist on a one-pager approach for new ideas. If you have somebody come and present, they might want to spend the entire time giving you a PowerPoint. I don\u2019t want that. If you can\u2019t capture your thoughts in one page, something is wrong. We pass it out in the beginning of the meeting, and everybody reads it. That way, we all have the facts. Then we debate, and all ideas are good ideas to start with. Eventually, we make a decision. It reminds me of the debates we used to have at the dinner table as a family.<\/p>\n

Q.<\/strong> What would you say to a class full of aspiring entrepreneurs?<\/em><\/p>\n

A. <\/strong>The entrepreneur stuff is pretty core to my heart. My first piece of advice would be to just do it. Not everybody\u2019s cut out for it. It\u2019s 10 times harder than you think it will be. Most of the days are going to be bad days. You have to self-generate a lot of the enthusiasm and the optimism you need to be a successful entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

And the key principle that I\u2019ve learned again and again is that humility and relationships are really important. Never burn a relationship. One relationship always comes in handy for the next one, and for the next one after that. The whole life of an entrepreneur is about steppingstones.<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/08\/09\/business\/sunny-gupta-of-apptio-on-the-half-empty-glass.html?partner=rss&_r=2<\/a>&<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone knows of the half-empty or half-full glass idea, which one are you? Sunny Gupta , the CEO of Apptio tells\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0how he feels on the subject. Q. Were you an entrepreneur early on? A. I grew up in India. My father was the secretary of education for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","column","twocol"],"yoast_head":"\nSunny Gupta of Apptio, on the Glass Half-Empty Idea<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We have this phrase that I use a lot: \u201cglass half-empty.\u201d My marketing guys wanted me to change it to \u201ccontinuous improvement.\u201d But I said to them that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kbicblog.com\/construction-recruiter\/blog\/sunny-gupta-of-apptio-on-the-glass-half-empty-idea\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" 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