Table Of ContentManagement in India: Grow
from an Accidental to a
Successful Manager in the IT &
Knowledge Industry
A real-world, practical book for a professional in his
journey to becoming a successful manager in India
Rahul Goyal
professional expertise distilled
P U B L I S H I N G
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Management in India: Grow from an Accidental to a
Successful Manager in the IT & Knowledge Industry
Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing
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First published: May 2012
Production Reference: 1180512
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84968-262-6
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Cover Image by Sandeep Babu ([email protected])
Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Rahul Goyal Vishal Bodwani
Reviewers Proofreader
Rajiv Mishra Aaron Nash
Kishore Shenoi
Pankaj Ghanshani Indexer
Tejal Daruwale
Acquisition Editors
Amey Kanse Graphics
Manu Joseph
Kartikey Pandey
Production Coordinator
Lead Technical Editor
Arvindkumar Gupta
Kartikey Pandey
Cover Work
Technical Editor
Arvindkumar Gupta
Ankita Shashi
Copy Editor
Leonard D'Silva
Foreword
Reading this wonderful book by Rahul brought back early memories of my career. It
was nearly 15 years ago that I became a manager, almost by accident. Back then I had
always prided myself in my creativeness and technical ability. I had this wonderful
opportunity working for an exciting startup in the Silicon Valley with three other
code wizards. I discovered that while I may never be as good a programmer as
they were, I had this innate ability to see the big picture and mobilize everyone to
achieve results. After a large company acquired our startup and my leaders quit, my
team expected me to lead the integration with the large company. I was elated and
petrified at the same time about the important responsibility that I had in my hands
early in my career. This became a turning point in my career. I was not only able to
integrate the team but many of us were able to build successful careers over the next
few years in the large company.
Whether you have always had a career plan to be a manager or if you have become
an accidental one, I believe you can excel in being one. Understanding the key
principles to being a successful manager and learning to apply them early in your
career will make the difference between success and failure. Looking back, I have
often wondered what a difference it would have made if I had known what I know
now. This is where this book comes in.
In this book, Rahul Goyal has delved deep into his rich experiences as a manager
in India and the US to write a guidebook with practical insights on the gamut of
competencies that you need to be a highly successful front line manager. In an
easy-to-read style he helps you handle the transition from individual contributor to
a manager and guides you on all the competencies required for a manager including
hiring and building great teams, planning and executing your work, motivating
people, making great decisions, handling the inevitable attrition and building an
inclusive place to work where diversity is celebrated.
He takes a contemporary approach emphasizing the challenges today's managers
need to handle in a globalized and flat world where you need to excel at working
across time zones, generations, cultures, and markets. I believe this book is unique
in how it applies sound management theory to the practical situations you will
run into as a manager and develops it into a set of simple how-to guidelines that
we all can follow. I particularly love the way Rahul has applied candor to address
the tough situations we all have faced everyday. He has masterfully interweaved
examples and stories for each of the principles in order to bring them home to us.
We often forget that managers are employees as well and they need to be successful
in achieving their career goals. Rahul thoughtfully includes advice on how can a
manager think about their own career and the steps they need to be successful
I feel this book will not only be indispensable for a newbie manager that wants to
get it right early but also a great reference for seasoned managers who are constantly
looking to up their game. In short, this book needs to be the one you keep next to you
throughout your journey as a manager.
I have had the opportunity to work together with Rahul for many years and
consider him a role model manager. In this book, he speaks from his own direct
experiences progressing from a talented engineer to a successful manager and now
to a leader-teacher that is grooming others. I wonder how much better a manager
I could have been in my earlier years if I had this book to guide me.
In the end, Rahul's message is simple – It's all about the People. Being a successful
manager requires many traits and competencies, but it begins with how you put
people first while solving for all three stakeholders – People, Customers, and
Business. Here in India, we are blessed with a wealth of talent. As we look forward,
it is our responsibility as managers to teach how to leverage this wealth to build a
great future for us all.
I am inspired by Rahul's contribution and I hope you all do as well.
Vijay Anand
Vice President
Intuit India
About the Author
Rahul Goyal is an accomplished manager with a rich experience of nearly two
decades in the software industry. He began his career at UBICS, Bangalore as a
programmer working on e-mail systems in India. He started managing people very
early in his career and honed his skills in Bangalore, India, and then in Silicon Valley,
USA working for Oracle Corporation. He now works as Director of Engineering at
Intuit India.
Rahul finds management in everything, such as a game of soccer or a line of ants
carrying food or his two sons, sometimes in a tussel for the TV remote or suprisingly
co-operating to clean their room. While working at Oracle, he went to IIM, Bangalore
to get executive management education in general management.
He is an avid reader and also writes a blog on management which can be found at
http://rxgoyal.blogspot.com. He enjoys spending his spare time with family and
friends or at the course playing golf.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my dear friends, Rajiv Mishra, Kishore Shenoi, and Pankaj
Ghanshani for their encouragement, input, and critical feedback through the
process of writing this book. They kept me going though the entire effort and
got me un-stuck many a times.
My sincere thanks to Vijay Anand, who provided me the courage to go ahead
and take this journey. Vijay is truly inspirational and one can learn a ton of
management just by being around him. Vijay is a role model to many a managers
including myself.
To my wife Seema and my sons Kunal and Karan for being so understanding all the
time and giving me lessons on management every day. To my parents who taught
me to follow my heart and never doubt my instincts. They are my pillars of strength.
Thanks to my first manager, Abhijeet Bhalla, who showed me the ropes and put his
faith in me when very few would have. Thanks to my teams, past and present; to
my managers in the past and present; to the organizations I worked for, and to my
teachers in academics and in sports for teaching me all that I know today.
Finally, thanks to James Lumsden, my publisher at Packt for starting this effort
on his visit to our campus and pushing me to get on with it. Thanks to the editors
Amey Kanse, Kartikey Pandey, Ankita Shashi, and the project co-ordinators,
Zainab Bagasrawala and Vishal Bodhwani for working with me on this book.
About the Reviewers
Rajiv Mishra is currently working with Yahoo! India as a director of product
development. He did his B.E in Computer Science from NIT, Nagpur and has close
to 18 years of total experience and around 11 years of management experience both
in India and in US. In the past, he has worked with Oracle, Citibank and found a
startup. Rajiv's interest lies in building complex distributed software systems
and high performance teams from scratch. You can reach Rajiv on Linkedin at
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rajiv-mishra/0/6b0/bab.
Kishore Shenoi started his IT career as a C-programmer after completing his
masters in Physics. He has worked in various capacities in technology and business
development, within leading consulting and retail companies in India and the USA.
In his current management role, he is using his project management and retail
expertise to make a positive influence on the organization.
In the past two decades he has also added two more masters (MBA Business
Analytics and MS Operation Management) and certifications including Software
Engineering (Harvard University DCE), Data Warehousing (Microstrategy), Project
Management PMP (PMI), and Supply Chain CSCP (APICS).
Description:Paperback
