CARLA PAONESSA

LEADERSHIP: A JOURNEY OF

SUSTAINED PERFORMANCE

General ObservationsWhat are the corporate leadership imperatives for thesecond decade of the 21st century? Drs. Allen andRoberts are insightful to pose the question. And I re-spond willingly through the lens of being a partner atAccenture for the better part of 25 years.

Corporations must clarify their values and embodythem. Corporations must have a global mind-set, evenif business is primarily local. And corporations mustkeep leadership “fresh” and adaptable as business cli-mates change at ever accelerating speed.

It fascinates me how leadership works at Accenture.How can a leader get hundreds, even thousands, of peo-ple to follow him/her when they aren’t colocated in thesame office or even the same country? What makes thatpossible? Leadership learning, including skill training,education, and development are certainly part of the ex-perience, as Drs. Allen and Roberts point out. But thereare other factors at play, which allow leaders to be effec-tive in that global management consulting, technologyservices, and outsourcing company called Accenture.What is Accenture’s secret, a company with $21.5b rev-enue, trading at twice its stock price versus when itopened on the New York Stock Exchange in 2010, nowwith 211,000 employees, in 200 cities, 53 countries, serv-ing 1000s of clients: 94 of them Fortune Global 100 com-panies and three-fourths Global 500 Companies?

Accenture’s Staying PowerAccenture company values are consistently taught, mod-eled, rewarded, and clarified as business environments

change. Employees know to trust the word and the workof colleagues from different parts of the globe becausepeople who don’t perform to standard expectations arenot kept around.

And many of these values confirm what Drs. Allenand Roberts suggest in what they call their “principleapproach.”

Integrity. Tell the truth, unembellished. Talk straight.Do what you say you will do when you say you’ll do it.This value and leadership characteristic of integrity cre-ates incredible trust within the organization and withclients. We stand behind our word and our work, evenif it means redoing work at our expense. And it forces usto confront clients who don’t share the same value.

Teamwork. No one person is knowledgeable and capa-ble enough to do what needs to be done. Therefore, honorteamwork. Share information liberally. Share praise. Sharelessons learned. Share responsibility for results.

One company: Globally connected. This means qual-ity is the same everywhere. Teams function similarlyeverywhere. Standards of performance are uniform.Revenues are shared, with profit and loss ledgers con-solidated, even though measurements are kept at localand organizational levels.

Client service is preeminent. The client is our mainfocus. Internal matters are postponed or dropped in def-erence to clients, and we jump through hoops to earnand keep the respect of clients. They are most important.

Our people are considered the best. We recruit the topperformers in their class. We train them throughouttheir careers. We promote them, or they leave withhonor to become treasured clients. We really do think

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our people are our greatest asset. They create our repu-tation and our wealth in the global marketplace.

Good business practices. Good business practices alsocontribute to the sustained performance of Accenture.

Performance expectations not only include perform-ance toward the bottom line, but leaders are also meas-ured on their effectiveness with people. I have been inpromotion discussions at the top of the organizationwhen someone wasn’t rewarded so well as they couldhave been simply because the leader’s reputation withpeople was negative.

Input from all is solicited and respected, but alwaysin balance with the fact “time is money.” Therefore, peo-ple can’t stall. They can’t hold up progress until all viewsare heard and acknowledged. Speed is valued. Clients aremost important, so the attitude is: “Don’t waste time.Create value.” And above all, “Be responsive.”

People work virtually, but everyone knows the com-pany priorities, usually made short, sweet, and to thepoint by the leaders, even as the complexities of the global business world increase.

Client service innovation is showcased in face-to-facemeetings, so others are motivated to emulate whatworks well. Everyone shares information liberally andhelps because “you might need help someday.”

People get in trouble for grandstanding. Work is per-formed in teams, so credit flows liberally outward to theteam members, not the leader.

We want to do for ourselves what we propose for clients.We are constantly self-critical to follow our own advice.That means we are constantly re-inventing ourselveswhile performing.

Growth of Leaders Is a PriorityBeyond good business practices, we make growth ofleaders a priority. We do this by making sure that:

There are ample opportunities to lead early. Our workis structured so people are leading others shortly afterthey enter the organization. There is ample opportu-nity to practice leading others. No doubt we pay a pricefor that early exposure to leadership because a lot of the learning is from the “school of hard knocks.” But weembrace the research that says perhaps 70% of infor-mal learning is done outside of the classroom, on thejob (Buning & Coull Williams, 2010).

Training and development is a priority. Training andclassroom learning is prescriptive and rigorously en-forced as employees progress in their careers. In fact,training is not an option. Instructors are selected fromthe field. Everyone teaches and is constantly enrichedby field experience. Stories told by the instructors arefresh from client sites, and quality of instruction ismaintained by detailed instructor guides. This educa-tion rigor gives a global predictability of what someoneshould know and do at various levels in the organiza-tion. And the organization pays handsomely for thatformal training and development: on average 8% of netrevenues. But, training and development is always fo-cused on business impact, and the latest technologiesand social media are exploited to bring the latest of whatworks in training and development to the employee.

Culture also provides the leadership learning. We donot miss deadlines. And we are expected to cross-checkour opinions with others. So, we share liberally withone another what works and what doesn’t. No one per-son is expected to have all the answers, and if someoneacts like they do, they are suspect. Learning is strategi-cally positioned for performance and business impact.

Finally, leaders are expected to perform as leaders beforethey are promoted to the role. So before someone has themantle bestowed upon him or her, there is a trial run.

From Partnership to Public CompanyPerhaps it should also be acknowledged that theAccenture culture came from first being a global part-nership, before it was a global public company. Therewas a hierarchy in the partnership, but it seemed to beearned year after year. One couldn’t rest on his or herlaurels. And no one was guaranteed a job, even as apartner. One had to perform. That same culture per-meates the current public company.

It should also be noted that Accenture came fromtechnical roots. It was a global systems builder and inte-grator. Accenture needed to learn how to be as good withpeople as it was with the technology it programmed andinstalled. When the company admitted it needed to beas good on “the people side” as it was on “the technicalside” is when the real leadership learning began.

It seems that two organizational disruptions came toa head that caused the organization to refocus on the

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way it was creating leaders: (a) a crisis of excessiveturnover forced the organization to examine what it wascosting itself by not focusing on the people issues, and(b) when client jobs failed to produce projected benefits,even though the technology worked, it caused the or-ganization to examine and conclude that it needed topay attention to the people dimension of client jobs.Those two problems helped the organization to iden-tify what it needed to do to purposefully create leaderswho are ready to lead in a global economy. Again, we seeDrs. Allen and Roberts focus on the principles versusthe details.

Accenture’s response to those two problems was myr-iad, but two big programs were created that bear men-tioning. A change management practice was created tohelp clients realize the benefits they were projecting fortechnical solutions. The change management teamsworked with Accenture project team and client leader-ship to help: (a) communicate the vision of what neededto change and why; (b) create changes in workflow,structure, tools, and training; (c) measure progress to-ward stated goals; and (d) realign reward structures to fitthe new work environment. In effect, by example thechange management teams taught project teams howto be good leaders: leaders who could work throughadaptive problems in a global climate. Since changemanagement work was being done for clients, the Ac-centure organization had to also apply good changemanagement principles to its own organization.

This is not to suggest that the change managementpractice alone created excellent leaders for Accenture. But,it helped shift the organization’s focus from being tech-nology-centric to being holistic in its approach to clientservice. And that made all the difference.

Additionally, a “Great Place to Work” program wascreated for Accenture employees. Management startedlistening to employees more closely. Benefits programswere rearranged to satisfy those needs. Work–life bal-ance issues were heeded, so more flexible working sched-ules could be accommodated. And, most important,leaders were held more accountable for the whole of apractice, not just its productivity. Many years runningnow, Accenture has been named a “Great Place toWork” by several publications and organizations: in2011 Fortune’s Top 50 World’s Most Admired Compa-nies (2003–2011); in 2011 No. 8 in Hay Group’s 2010

Best Companies for Leadership; ninth out of 34 inLeadership Excellence’s 2010 “Best in Leadership Devel-opment,” to name a few, not including awards in India,the United Kingdom, South Africa, Finland, Sweden,Ireland, Belgium, Japan, Portugal, Hungary, Argentina,China, and France.

While all of this was going on, the organization re-structured itself to be a global practice, not a geographicpractice. That meant that the organization was nolonger a U.S.-centric led company. It was truly global.

Leadership LanguageMost companies, and especially Accenture, don’t spendmuch time debating what we call the creation of lead-ers. “Leadership training,” “leadership development,”“leadership education,” “leadership learning”: they allwork. In the 1970s, when instructional design begancoming into its own, we listened to instructional de-signers ask us what our learning objectives were in cre-ating leaders. In fact, it caused us to be purposeful innaming the characteristics we would want in leaders.Accenture likes to claim that it may have been instru-mental in creating change management disciplines as aviable commercial offering. At its peak, Accentureemployed 6,000 change management professionalsglobally. And at the heart of that practice was therequirement that all sustaining change in companiesneeded to be properly led, which put us in the executivecoaching business, as well.

Talented People Demand GoodLeadershipBecause our people are indeed talented, they seem torequire exceptional leadership, leadership that doesn’thover, but rather leadership that inspires and removesbarriers so the people can do what they do best. Drs.Allen and Roberts are right. “Leadership learning is notsimply a laundry list of programs, services, andresources.” It is in its essence unleashing personaland organizational barriers so the human potential canemerge. And that talent more easily materializes whenthe organizational culture is respectful, interdependent,and accountable.

Leaders percolate to the top of their teams overand over again. They are those sought after first when

tackling tough client jobs. They aren’t afraid of whatthey haven’t yet done. They learn what they don’t knowthe first time they do the work. The second time theylearn how to do the work better than anyone else.And the third time, they are tasked with teaching othershow to do it better than they themselves. That createsleverage, and it creates promotion for those leaders. Fur-ther, it keeps the ego in check when growing others tobe better.

The challenge is not in finding good leaders, butrather in not de-motivating equally talented colleagues.There is, after all, a limit to those promoted in a matterof time. But they usually move on to other leadershipopportunities in due time, so the pipeline doesn’t getclogged. Leadership opportunities are not always up-ward. They are also lateral and global.

Because Accenture works virtually, it allows peopleto be self-regulating. Because Accenture is client-focused, it is motivated to be innovative, producingorganizational performance and business results withclients. Because Accenture is a performance culture, itdemands excellent leaders who produce business resultsand the good will of 211,000 employees. Accenturedoesn’t always get it right, but it “always rights what itdiscovers is wrong.”

Personal Privilege and HonorIt was my personal honor to have been a leader inAccenture for 25 years.

I retired in 2001, but the company has continued tomake me proud. It has been led by insightful, hard-working, visionary leaders. All of them have been dif-ferent, coming from different countries. But they haveall been focused on one of the most important valuesof Accenture. And that is stewardship. We knew fromearly in our careers that we were to leave Accenturebetter than it was when we joined it. Every leader I havepersonally known in those 25 years of service, and since,has achieved this. Each has inherited a business climatedifferent from before. Each has been confronted withdifferent economic realities over which they had littlecontrol. All have made Accenture a better company thanwhen they entered the leadership role. The growth hasbeen remarkable, and the market has continued toreward this leadership and this stewardship. Would thatmore of our global companies be as diligent about lead-ership learning as this one company that I have knownup close and personal.

ReferenceBuning, N., & Coull Williams, B. (2010). Ten enterprise learningimperatives for a new generation of business challenges. Outlook,December. Retrieved from http://www.accenture.com/us=en/outlook=online=2010=enterprise=learning=imporatives.aspx

Carla J. Paonessa is President of CJAssociates, an organi-zation dedicated to helping executives actualize their lead-ership potential.

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