The Benefit of Sameness

Nothing feels more exhilarating than hiring a guy/gal fresh out of college, their resume is free of useful experience and therefore their mind is a blank canvas ready to absorb whatever dogma you feed them.

When you were a very young person, you did what your parents told you to do When you were old enough to attend school, you did what your teacher told you to do in order to get good grades. You may have attended church where someone in a position of moral authority told you what to do. When school gets to an end, you want to have your own place and drive a nice car so the natural thing is to look for a job.

It's only logical for an employer to leverage from the submissive situation into which many people have been raised into. Our culture doesn't push people to think by themselves, start companies or revolutionize something. Our culture pushes people into conformity, the opposite would create societies that would be unmanageable. As a result, our culture rewards unproductive tasks where our brain is shut off most of the time, only to resurface during momentary lapse of reason to enter a state of quiet desperation. When you’re not thinking, it’s the society that benefits. Why do you think a TV show like "Deal or No Deal" is so popular?

All this grooming into sameness is deeply rooted in our subconscious, so for a employer implementing strict procedures that defy logic is not hard at all. Employees somehow expect to be treated like a number, even though they'll say the opposite Employees expect an org chart with a tiny box with their name on it (or better yet – no name at all), like a universe map with a arrow titled "You are here". Employees expect a performance review from their boss because they're so fucking stupid they can't make a self-assessment of what they're worth. Let me tell you something, people do not think by themselves, Oprah Winfrey was able to figure that out and built a billion dollar empire on that.

So this week's advice to manager is this: Think about something in your organization where there is weak control, something for which employees do not ask for permission. Or maybe it's a loose process that would benefit from a standardized form. Take that weak point and enforce a strict control around it and make sure 2 people need to authorize it, just one is insufficient and does not justify enough middle managers.

You’ll be amazed with how easy it is to enforce something.

CGI is not for sale

When you’re a teenager girl and no one asks you out, either two things. Your physical appearance puts you in the Susan Boyle class and most people would guess that you live with approximately 12 cats, or you’re a total knockout and no one dare to ask you out because they know you’ll turn them down just by the way you grin.

In one very good interview I gave to the Financial Post recently, I said that CGI has never been approached for a merger because everyone knows we’re not for sale. I like to think that our more of the same (MoTS) strategy will ultimately deliver more value to the shareholder (me in particular) and we can grow this thing slowly without taking unnecessary risks.

I don’t want to be in a position where I have to sell knickknacks like Perot has to do now. Now that those guys report to a hardware outlet, guess what happens when Perot consultants do let’s say a strategic plan to overhaul your infrastructure. You’re right, they’ll want to shove a truckload of blade servers up your butt so that the local VP from Dell get a huge fucking bonus this year. Everyone has an agenda. Same thing with IBM, their codernauts want to lock you in a long-term mainframe service plan along with their biased consulting expertise.

You can’t be all things to all people and pretend you have your customer interests at heart.

Of course what I don’t say is that a merger would put me in a position where I would have to report to someone, and when you’re a CEO this is like a total demotion. We all have egos, don’t we? I would rather retire, go back to Pembroke and grow a subsidized product like pigs or corn.

But I have to admit, I’d like to have offers on the table for CGI. Just for the pleasure of being considered and then politely say no. Or yes. But no one calls. Is it because we’re so heavily in the Canadian market which is considered a niche from the U.S. perspective, or is it because we’re a prized jewel whose value puts us above the rest? I’d like to think the latter, but I have my share of doubts like everyone else.