Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Frank Modruson, CIO of Accenture (Part 9)

By Sramana Mitra and guest authors Siddharth Garg and Rahul Nagpal

Sramana: Yes, you can’t have a baby crying at the top of its voice and be able to maintain a professional environment where you need to maybe be on phone and such. There are some issues.

Frank: Right, and not everybody is in the situation where they have created that personal space. I think we are in a transition, because I don’t think it is as simple as you might think. There is a great deal of stigma that also come over time. For example, I have a telepresence unit at home. I did a telepresence meeting with one of our clients. The client was in Europe. I was in North America. The call was at 4:00 a.m. in Chicago, and it was something like 11 or 12 in Europe. You have an interesting dilemma. They know you are in Chicago, but it is a formal business meeting. Do you put on a suit? Does a suit at 4:00 a.m. look weird? I don’t know. I put on a suit. They were amazed with the technologies a couple of years ago, but you get into this kind of funny question of, well, how should I show up?

Sramana: What about a pair of jeans and a shirt or sweater?

Frank: Maybe, but the flip side of that is that we also know Europe is a bit more conservative, and it’s a financial services client. I kind of get that. So, I get the luxury of not flying to Europe for a meeting. I am OK with putting a suit on.

Sramana: Right, that’s a good trade-off. [Laughs.]

Frank: Yes, it’s a great trade-off. But I don’t think we’ve figured out all these norms.

Sramana: Yes, that’s absolutely correct.

Frank: I think that’s going to take some time. I also watch people who say, “I need to see my team so I know they are working. ” And I am like, you know if you need to see your team to know they are working, I think you have a different problem.

Sramana: Yes, you are not hiring right.

Frank: You don’t have the right people; you don’t trust your people or something. In fact, we should be really focused on output, not how hard people are working necessarily. You are really interested in results.

Sramana: I think we have covered a lot of different ground. Let’s keep in touch, and I would love to continue to hear what you have to say as we go along.

Frank: Perfect. Thanks very much, Sramana. I really enjoyed our conversation.

This segment is part 9 in the series : Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Frank Modruson, CIO of Accenture
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