Early in his life, Bill McDermott and his family went through two tragedies. He was seven when his five-year-old brother James Michael died. When Michael was born, doctors had given him only a few days to live.
The whole family had nursed him and he brought immense joy into their lives. But even as they were now consumed in grief, their mother, Kathy McDermott, lifted them out of the misery. “Jamie is gone because he has so much good work to do as an angel,” she consoled McDermott and his brother Kevin.
Five years later, their house was gutted in a freak accident. When the family had moved in, the house was infested with rats and needed a lot of repair.
It took help from close ones; and McDermott’s parents dug deep into their meagre savings to make a home out of it. His father Bill McDermott used to toil day and very often nights, at Con Edison, New York City’s electric company. Though they were not poor, money was tight. Now the fire had completely destroyed their house. But their mother again gave hope. “We will fix it,” she said.
McDermott — who went on to head one of the most prestigious companies in the world — has inherited his mother’s optimism, which oozes out of Winners Dream — A Global CEO’s Life Lessons in Sales, Motivation and Leadership. It is a part-biographical and part-management book from the chief executive officer of SAP, the world’s largest business software company.
With an impressive resume, McDermott is qualified enough to give a management talk. His use of jargon, such as “think about the customer”, keep it simple” and “work as a team” tends to be boring.
Fortunately, Winners Dream is much more than just another management book by a top CEO. McDermott, in the company of bestselling author Joanne Gordon, tells his inspiring rags-to-riches story and then laces each incident with management lessons.
It works most of the time. And McDermott’s success is inspiring, especially after a first grade teacher told his parents, “Bill is a good boy and behaves well, but just don’t expect too much of him. He will probably be a mechanic, or maybe a truck driver.”
Tragedies and the seemingly discouraging comments had a different effect on McDermott; they fuelled him to perform even better. It helped that he had the ambition to succeed at everything he laid his hands on.
From being a paper-boy to owning a corner deli (a store); and to habitually surpassing his targets as a sales agent at Xerox, to drive change at SAP when the company was in need for an urgent overhaul — McDermott comes across as one of those rare individuals with an endless source of energy.
Initially, that adrenalin seems misplaced. Like many of his colleagues, readers might initially take McDermott to be one of those motor-mouths who like to use big words to impress. One even wonders if he is for real. But figures don’t lie and in a career spanning over three decades, McDermott can stake claim to many successful campaigns.
Taking the right calls
McDermott’s forthright discussion of the tough decisions he had to make in life make the book humane. When he was 11 years old, McDermott got a job delivering papers.
To get more tips from his customers, he tweaked his delivery model (some customers wanted the paper in their mailboxes and a few in a plastic bag).
Later, when he became the owner of a deli, the teenager was perturbed that despite steep discounts the store wasn’t getting enough footfalls.
So he first asked himself: “Who is my customer?” He identified three different sets of customers and started focusing on them. To create loyalty he gave credit to customers and added business by installing video game machines. The store soon became popular in the neighbourhood.
With managing skills as good as these, McDermott could have opted to become an entrepreneur.
The deli could have been just the start for a successful businessman. But he was more fascinated with the idea of working in a big corporate, wearing sharp suits, managing and motivating a team and meeting targets.
He did just that over a 17-year career at Xerox. Starting as a sales trainee, he rose to become the group’s youngest ever corporate officer.
By the end of those 17 years he grew disillusioned with the road Xerox’s top management was taking, McDermott started looking around and was soon facing a question that every professional has to answer at least once in his or her career.
Should you accept a job offer if the money is good? McDermott wisely realised that money alone is not enough when it came to deciding on an offer from Techies.com.
The company was planning to go for an initial public offering (IPO) and McDermott stood a chance to cash-in. Instead, he chose to join Gartner. As it turned out, techies.com’s IPO plans were shelved.
Re-assessing aspirations
In the early 1990s on a flight to Europe, McDermott wrote down his career aspirations on a piece of paper. On top was: “To be a winner.” Each of the remaining five was connected to his career.
Those goals changed dramatically 10 years later. His wife Julie had just recovered from breast cancer but the experience had shaken him out of his flight-hopping, adrenalin-driven corporate life. Now the aspiration-list was topped by “Happiness and serenity for my family.” The next four were related to family and the sixth one said, “Career is secondary to the above.”
He might have remained jobless for a brief period, but the renewed attention to his family hasn't dulled any of the shine from his career.
When he joined the company, SAP’s America unit was a sleepy organisation that had missed revenue targets for 23 consecutive quarters.
But once he assumed the reins, the new head made sure that the 24th quarter became the first in five years when the company surpassed its own revenue expectations.
The successes eventually saw him become the co-CEO of SAP, eventually becoming the sole CEO in 2013.
Signing off in the book, the 53-year-old McDermott says it is “the end, for now.” It will be interesting to track how his career shapes up from now.
Buyer's details:
Book: Winners Dream: A Global CEO’s Life Lessons in Sales, Motivation and
Leadership Author: Bill McDermott with Joanne Gordon Publisher: Simon &
Schuster Price: ₹699
(This article was published BusinessLine on November 2, 2014)