Insight through Interviews
Telephonic interviews were conducted with a few willing respondents to validate the findings on aspirations and gaps as well as understand some possible reasons behind these responses.
In the gaps area, interviewees concurred with the results in 3 gaps areas viz. ‘health & fitness’, ‘career satisfaction’ and ‘leadership skills’.
Possible reasons for gaps in ‘health & fitness’ (and also for gaps in ‘work life balance’) are:
- They service global customers and due to time zone differences they need to long and odd hours
- Sitting for long hours in front of computers
For gaps in Career Satisfaction, possible reasons discussed are:
- Relatively faster growth in earlier stages of career which slows down later causing dissatisfaction
- Most IT companies operate as one business units, hence there are not too many roles to grow after a certain level
- Many staff remain in one customer account for long period that may also lead to dissatisfaction
- Staffs are technically focused and have not developed in other areas viz. understanding users business, understanding people management, etc. This limits their growth in taking up senior management roles
“Leadership skills” was third area of gap. Possible reasons for this could be that it’s a young industry and there is probably a dearth of experienced leaders in the organizations. The average age of the staff in most companies is in late 20s and COOs being in early 40s and thus there is possible dearth of leadership skills in the industry
Gaps in networking skills was a surprise inclusion in this list to a few interviewees as they felt this is very important requirement in their jobs and most of the staff strive hard to network with each other and with their clients.
In the attributes listed under highest aspiration, there was a general agreement on the 5 attributes that were identified. Reference to ‘listening skills’ echoed their sentiments as they often are told by their overseas clients that they (IT Service staff) need to listen more (to their users/clients).
There was a good response to the question
What key areas would you use an Executive Coach for?
Most of the responses echoed the attributes mentioned in the questionnaire.
A few new ones are:
- Strategic thinking
- Learning Coaching/GROW model and Mentoring
- Enhancing entrepreneurial skills
- Dealing with egoistic peers and customers
References:
- NASSCOM Report FY 2012 on Indian IT Industry - Internet
- ICA Reading Material
- ICA Class Notes
- Dempbary tools on coaching assessment - Internet