May 19, 2012
In One Adjective, Please Tell Me Who You Are
By ADAM BRYANT
This interview with Chris Barbin, chief executive of Appirio, an information technology company that focuses on cloud services, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What are some important leadership lessons you’ve learned?
A. I would start with transparency — it is a huge part of our culture, and what I think makes a company and team really thrive and work. You should never surprise an employee. I’ve had experiences in my career where you’re building something, you think everything’s great and all of a sudden there’s a layoff. That should never happen. The team should know. We have meetings every other week in the company, and we use a system of red light, yellow light, green light on the key attributes of the business, like financials, customers and team.
From my experience at bigger companies, I think there’s a tendency to overanalyze, with too many metrics. It can be confusing, so you have to boil it down to simple, crisp goals that you hammer and repeat. That’s part of transparency, too.
Q. Tell me more about the culture of your company.
A. We have three values that we hire against and three that we run it against. The three that we hire against are trust, professionalism and gray matter — as in, how smart are you? The three we run it against are customers, team and fun. That last one is really core — if you’re not having fun 8 out of 10 days on a consistent basis, you’ve got to say something. You can’t just expect that your manager always knows if you’re not having fun.
I reach out to a lot of employees. It’s one of the first questions I ask: “Are you having fun?” I can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voice. I’ll just ask, “What’s your ratio of fun days right now? Are you 6, 8, 9, are you 4 out of 10? If you’re 4, why?” It helps me get to root causes, since it’s a pretty easy thing for people to think about.
Q. Give me an example of what you do to keep things fun at the company.
A. This year, someone suggested a great idea for a joke to play on Narinder Singh, my co-founder. She suggested that we get bobbleheads made of him and give them out to the entire staff. So I paid for 400 of them to be made with my own money, and they’re not cheap. I thought this was the greatest idea ever. The punch line is that she ran the same play with Narinder, and now everyone has bobbleheads of both of us.
Q. Tell me more about the qualities you look for when you hire.
A. I mentioned gray matter. We’ve got to have really smart people here — that’s kind of the no-brainer table stakes. There’s trust: you have to be able to trust somebody in the foxhole and know that they’re going to put the team first, not themselves. Two of the co-founders are ex-Naval Academy guys, and they’re very much about professionalism. Do you return a phone call right away? Do you respond to your e-mail? Do you show up on time for a meeting?
Q. What were some early influences that affected how you approach leadership?
A. My dad worked for New England Telephone. He climbed telephone poles before moving up to a senior manager position. One thing he always taught me was the importance of being decisive. When you make a decision, never look back. Once it’s done, you might have made the wrong decision, but at least make a decision. That’s something that’s served me well over the years because this is a fast-moving environment, with a lot of complexity.
I also learned not to take things personally. I was in one environment where I saw people take it very personally if people started to leave, like it was hurting the family. But if somebody leaves and it’s for the right reason, you’re never going to stop that. That’s something I’ve tried to really embrace, in fact, by setting up an alumni network to keep people engaged.
Q. How do you hire? What questions do you ask?
A. One of my favorite interview questions is, “What are you most proud of?” It’s a fascinating question if you just end it there. People will say, “Well, what do you mean, in business?” And I’ll just say, “No, what are you proud of?” You can always tell when people kind of make up answers to impress you.
Another one is, “What do you stink at?” Some people will say, “Oh, I take on too much and I work too hard.” Then I’ll say: “That’s a pretty common answer. Give me something better.” I know things that I stink at. One of the things I’ve realized is that I am not a good deal closer. I’m a good business development guy early in the cycle, but then I might give away too much in the details when we close. So I know when to bring in other people who are really good at that.
Q. What are your other favorite questions?
A. Another is: “So fast-forward three years. You’re talking to your best friends and you’re reflecting on your Appirio career the last few years and you tell them, ‘Hey, this has been an amazing experience at Appirio because of X.’” And then I’ll ask: “What is X? What would you tell your best friends that that is?”
Then I’d ask another best-friends question: “If I were to ask those same three best friends to use one word to describe you, and they can’t use the same word, what’s the one word each would say? What are the three words?”
What’s funny about that question is how many people can’t describe it in a word. Everyone wants to give a paragraph of characteristics and traits. I actually love the people who just sit there and take 30 seconds to think and then just give me three words. Or I had one sales candidate say to me recently, “Well my husband’s my best friend and he would say ‘bossy.’” Which I thought was a great answer. And then I always ask on the heels of that: “What word would you use to describe yourself? Is it one of those words or something else?”
Q. How would you answer that question?
A. My one word is persistent.
Q. What about the three?
A. I haven’t been asked about this in a long time. Driven would be one of them. Fun would be another one. And the third would be passionate.