HollyPayton013118.mp3
Broadcasting live from the business radio studios in Atlanta Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta business radio spotlighting the city’s best businesses and the people who lead them.
All right. Next up on Atlanta business radio this morning it is my distinct pleasure to introduce executive consultant with a little company some of you may have heard of called IBM. Please join me in welcoming to the show. Holly. Pate Good morning. Hello. It is good to have you in the studio. What did you learn that last segment
Well I took a lot of notes. And I definitely need to get the book traction so that I can get more information.
Well you’re here today to talk about IBM corporate service corps. Can you tell us a little bit about them. Sure.
Ibm has a program called corporate service corps. They started it. In 2008 about 10 years old. And what this program is. Is. They select. People. 12 to 15 consultants from around the world. Who come together and are sent to an emerging part of the world. To work on projects. All Pro Bono. For 30 days
And then how is it decided what part of the world and what projects work.
That’s very interesting. IBM partners with. Other NGOs that. Work locally in different parts of the world in India in China and in Morocco in. Parts you know countries in South America etc.. And. Typically. The NGO. That. Partner NGO. Is. Meeting with different. Government agencies or small businesses or other NGOs. To determine the best fit for the people who are available. And. Something that can be done in 30 days. The objective is to have it completed so it’s not just. Oh we’re going to help
And then we leave and they still have needs. This is to accomplish some
Concrete objective yes some finite piece of work. We we partnered for the trip that I went on. We partnered with Pike Sarag global. Based out of Washington but they have local people in Bonn. And then what was the project you were. You were accomplishments. So there were 13 of us. From eight different countries. And they’re all IBM. And they’re all IBM. And it’s. As you can imagine there’s over 400000 employees in IBM be to be selected. Is a very big deal a friend of mine said you know it’s easier to get into Harvard than it is to be selected for CSC. So you absolutely have to go. We went to Mumbai for 30 days and we worked on four different projects. There were. Three. People per project. One product had four. People. The project. And they were all in the education industry. It was the first time that CSC had ever chosen one industry to have everybody work on. And at the end we said to IBM. You really need to do this again because it was so wonderful for us. To have a view. Of all the things that everybody else was learning in their. Projects. That you came away with a broader richer understanding of the education industry in India. So. My project my project was working with a high Valya Education Foundation. It was started about 10 years ago. And it was dedicated to bringing. Leadership. Skills. To the schools. Here was something that was I thought was very good.
The school administrators or school actual the teachers the boots on the ground. Right. It’s
It is for the administrators but it’s also for the teachers as well. So here’s the thing. That. Was the gap that created this need. In India. If you want to be a teacher you can go to college. If you want to be a headmaster or a principal or a government official in education. There’s no there’s no training there’s no higher education. So. You’re a really good teacher. You get. Named the principal of the school. It’s like taking a really good manager at a plant. And saying OK. You’re going to be the plant manager and you’re going to run everything. As a school headmaster. You. It’s like running a small business you have a budget. You have to grow. Those are different skills. Absolutely you have to treat teamwork. You have to focus on curriculum. You have to fill out all the forms that the government want etc.. So. This organization. Was dedicated to bringing leadership. Skills and those kinds of programs to schools. And. They’re very successful. The way they do it is they leverage what’s called Gandi fellows. This is a Gandi fellowship program. It’s two years. It’s young people that are fresh out of college. And they sign up to be a Gandi fellow and what you do is you. Visit one school everyday. So five schools a week. So you. Shepherd five schools over two years. They have a proven track record with their program. Of improving student learning outcomes by 18 percent. But it does scale right. As you can imagine. It’s it’s one to one and it doesn’t scale
So. So they’re not Leaming on technology or in person physically yet going around India which is a
Kind of a large it’s a large thing. They have programs at the district level which of course you can have a broader impact. Because. You
Would impact all the schools in the district. But still. Gandi fellows one on one. So the project that they engaged IBM was to. Come in and make recommendations on how they could stand up. A virtual field support center. So that. Headmaster said they. Are. They open their mind to the fact that we want to leverage technology correct.
So they’re thinking of Dondi slash Watson. Watson with me yet but. This would be. Where. Teachers headmasters. Parents. District officials. And the Gandi fellahs themselves how to place the call
To get an answer rather than a teacher has a question. Now I have to wait a week from the guy to come back and that maybe not a week it could be longer.
Exactly exactly. So we came in. And we was the standard
Consulting approach. You you we interviewed over 50 people. When you say people who were the people so we were they the fellows were they the teachers were they are all of them all of them. We interviewed groups of Gandi fellows. We visited schools we met with headmasters we met with teachers and parents and where were you asking them
Like what are you asking the fellow. Are you asking them. How can we scale this. Are you just kind of getting a feel for what they’re doing all day working. We asked them
We asked them what’s working and what’s not. We asked them the success that they have what are their challenges. We asked them. If you had a virtual. Support Center. What are the types of services that they could offer that would help you. What are the. Questions you might have that. They would need to answer. So we ask that. The gamut. And we did the same with. With the government officials. To us each of the constituents who are using this. Yes. What are your priorities what are your challenges parents. And the kids. We didn’t ask the children. We did visit with some parents of course all this was through interpreters. We did. We did visit with with some of the parents and. And asked them similar questions as well. So then
How much of your time you’re on the clock here.
Yes oh my gosh the stress. So. We gather the data
You document your findings and we did that for about the first week and a half to two weeks. We documented it we gathered all our data. We documented our findings. We synthesize we. Aggregated what we heard into themes. And then you start building what your recommendations are. So in the third week we started to have playbacks with the clients and with executives within. So you were trying to show you how to get something to the point where you can test it. To some degree right. We implement or know. We were. For our project we were not able to do that some of the other teams were able to. To build a piece of technology. But that wasn’t the case for the project that we were on. We left them with. Recommendations. On. The services that this virtual field support center would offer. The technology that they would need to implement. We visited they have a field support center but it’s not doing this work right now and so we analyzed their technology and their servers and so on. So the technology that they would need to implement. Gave them architectural diagrams and etc.. And. The skills that the people would need to have in order to do this type of work. We gave them recommendations on the processes. And process improvement and. They didn’t ask for this but we gave them recommendations on. Branding. And. Awareness. So we left them. With an outline and all the detail we could. We could muster put and. Put into the documents as well as tools that we used a cost benefit analysis spreadsheet that we built for them and so on. So now you leave
Now is someone following up holding them accountable. Or is that like well
Our work is done. I have my real job to worry about. They are on their own. And. I do keep I do keep in touch with them. Our team was made for this project. We had mysel. Holly talk a Morah from Washington D.C.. And Yang Yang from China. So our team was Holly Holly Yang and Constellation and the three of us keep in touch with the client and. Are very very excited about. The progress that they’re making. So they are making progress. Yes they are making progress. They’ve. Today’s the end of January so they should have closed on the decision of the software package that they would be implementing. They have already started delivering some of the training that we recommended. They are visiting different support. Centers of different companies and we were able to arrange for a visit to an IBM. Support. Center in Pune just outside of Mumbai. I think they’re actually going to go visit another one just outside of Delhi. So I touch base with we all the three of us touch base with them about every. Two to three weeks and they know that they can certainly schedule meetings and so on. So now at the end of the day
For yourself to have gone through this experience what has it done. Maybe the altered the way you think about things and how fast you can execute something in
It. It was an amazing experience. I have to say. I have never felt so alive. For 30 days. And the reason I say that is because you were in I’d never been to war. So you were in a new place. New modes of transportation. New Food. New people new hotel new clients. Everything. So you’re you’re on high alert sensors were on high alert. And. That was such a magnificent experience and a wonderful feeling that when you come back. You want to pursue new things it’s very rejuvenated and you want to pursue new things. So that you continue to feel that way. What about the impact did you feel that in that short period of time you made impact that was maybe
Larger than you anticipated. You know. I was very impressed with. The impact that all of the four teams
Could have. I didn’t have any expectations. Because I didn’t really know. What. We were going to be able to do today. You are charged with trying to help. Yes. You know you were charged with trying to help. And and you knew that would help. But the idea that. Today. This organization has been able. To reach. About. 12 to 15 hundred school. And that if they implemented this there’s no hard statistics on exactly how many public schools there are in India. But I know it’s over 7 million. And. They say that if they were able to implement this and. And. Have. A virtual support center where people could get those questions. Then. They’ll reach the the way you would be able to impact so many more schools than just
Fifteen hundred. Right. I mean you’re going from thousands to. Millions. Yes. And so that’s a tremendous impact in a short period of time to at least you know
Knock over that first domino. Yes absolutely. Yes. It was a wonderful
Wonderful film. Now what about now you go back to the real world here. And you see your work. And you’re trying to impact people. And then maybe. I mean you tell me if the scope of your work here
Is that impactful. Some days yes and some days now. I can remember sitting. At a. At a. At the table. On that last day and we were debriefing. The 30 days with the lead from like Sarah global. And I. Sat there. And I looked around the table and I said I wonder if the CSC team at the end. Thinks
Wow I’ve got to get something more interesting to do when I go back home because you felt so bad for IBM when we sent the handful that they don’t want to scale this. And so and yes I think we all felt as though wow I want to make sure that. I am. Continuing to do interesting work as well as have a big impact and so many people. When they come back. They keep the same job they do the same thing but they find other avenues. To support
Other public programs perhaps within their own right hometown. And so. Now how appreciative were the people that you were working with in India
When you left. Were they sad to see you go. Yes
Very but. But here’s the thing. I figured. Silly me. I figured that. Any
Company group may be thrilled to have a set of sounds coming to coming to read you know how to do this work pro bono. But. They the companies and
This was not unique to the organization I worked with. This was I found out later this is pretty universal. In the beginning. The companies. Are. Oh it’s only 30 day. What can they do folks and all been negative about this. We’re the positive things we’re we’re so complex we’re so you’ll never understand that they’ll never understand. It’s a lot of resistance. The other piece they viewed it as. Volunteer ism. And their track record with using volunteers at a cultural thing. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. There’s a difference between the. Bee energy and effort often from volunteerism. Than from. You know it a job right where you pay someone to accomplish something. And all the IBM or. This was an engagement like any other. You were trained you were you were under the gun. Exactly. This is my client. So. So. All of the clients were a little bit. Tentative about it.
We’ll give this a try and maybe they didn’t have some scar tissue maybe other people trying to help. You know with more superficial so. In the end. To a
Client. Every single one of those four clients were. So. Blown away by the point that changed. Yes
Something changed. And then at the end there’s hugs and tears.
Absolutely. Oh I feel you know at that the final ceremony each client’s stood up and talked and I feel as though a member of my family is going away.
Yeah. That’s awesome. Yes. If you don’t get that every day. No. So now. Is this something bad for you. You mentioned that maybe now you’re going to look for other opportunities to kind of recreate that feeling. Is there anything that maybe companies out there that are IBM like can do. You know that they can learn from this that they can implement a program like this you have any suggestion for them.
Well it’s interesting. I think when IBM started this 10 years ago there weren’t many programs like this right now. I do think that many large companies whether it’s 30 days in a spot or whether they pick local people they might configure it differently. But. But a lot of. Big companies have something similar. The. Bow for IBM. To do this and I share this so that as companies think about it they might. Feel the same way. IBM has always said this program has a triple benefit. The. First benefit is. Obviously for the companies that are. Are getting the effort. Of the people. IBM has come. The second benefit is. The leadership. Skills. That are developed. In the team that goes right because. There is no leader in a CSC team. And when you form a small team Holly Holly Yang Yang. There is no leader there. You guys have to work together to figure it out and leverage all your skills.
So it’s not a playbook you’re making it up as you go along. And then. The third benefit. Is. That. IBM gets its name out in places that
Might Not Recognize what IBM is. Well I’ll say there’s a fourth benefit in that interview comes back to your own community. With the skills and experiences and impacts their families and the lives around them
By having gone through this. Yes
Absolutely. You’re absolutely right. So. For you
This is something that you’re going to keep track of these people for a while.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Part of your family. And then
Is there a way for organizations that are out there in the world to reach out to IBM to to kind of get on the list of areas that they’ll pay attention to and maybe help.
How does that work. The easiest way to find out more about the corporate service corps is to go to IBM dot com. And search. Corporate service for you. There is a longer you are out which I will share. But like I said the easiest way go to IBM dot com and search. Corporate service corps. But if you go to IBM dot com. Slash IBM. Slash. Responsibility
Slash corporate service corps. You will find all the IP right there me right there you’ll find all the information that you might want. Or just ask WATSON. WATSON What’s corporate service. Now I understand that you also kept a journal and of course you did the IBM
Way. You did a blog you. You kept track of what you were doing while you were there. Real time. Is that something you’re going to keep up with or make available to your circle or maybe even. Anyone else who wants to really learn about your journey.
I didn’t share the blog widely. I shared it with family and friends because I wanted to have the chance to. Speak from the heart which. Isn’t always
Socially acceptable.
Ok so not for public consumption public but it would but it was good for you for you and those around you. That was more of the
Part of the as they encouraged every person to create a personal blog as well as have a team blog. And it was wonderful. And I actually read. All of my blog posts last night preparing for today just to. Remember the feeling that went behind the words. And what a magnificent experience it really was.
Yeah. Why would Lee I think beneath all the benefits are important I think number four is as big as any. I think that is fantastic. Thanks so much for coming and. Sharing your story. And I have to believe people who hear this story. Are going to be inspired whether it’s through this specific kind of path. They’re going to be inspired to revisit their own personal commitment. To serving in this fashion. And maybe they don’t trek all over the world. You know maybe they had five miles down the street and try to help somebody out there. So
Thank you for that. Thank you.
