Leaving Microsoft to Change the World - Coursework Example

Introduction In the book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, John Wood describes his journey from being a Microsoft lackey to going to Nepal to set up a non-profit organisation which is focused upon setting up libraries and schools for children in that country. Wood starts out not knowing anything about having his own organisation, let alone how to fund it. He learns this, setting up fund-raising networks throughout the United States, eventually expanding to the UK and Canada with his fund-raising. Likewise, he is able to expand the Room to Read program to Vietnam and Sri Lanka, with the help of two women, Erin and Suba. He gains confidence and skill through his journey. That said, he never shows leadership for the organisation, as he meets these women, and pretty much sends them on their way to do their thing in these other countries, with very little guidance or management from Wood himself. Because of this, this book should not be looked upon as a book for leaders, and to provide guidance on how to lead people, because this is not where Wood’s skills lie. In fact, his lack of leadership arguably hurts the project, as he is never able to gather a team for himself or for the other branches of the project in other countries. This paper will describe how the project came together, how he got his fundraising teams together, how the project branched out to other countries and also analyses the governance of the project. Discussion The personality traits of Wood is pertinent to the discussion of Wood’s leadership, because these traits have a bearing on how he leads. One of the personality traits that Wood shows throughout the book is a sense of independence. This is shown in the fact that he left the high-powered job at Microsoft in the first place to go to Nepal. Moreover, the overall personality trait that he exhibits is one of empathy and compassion. An ordinary man would not be moved as much as he was by his initial visit to Nepal. At least, an ordinary man would not be moved to give up his entire life to help the people of that country. In fact, this was confirmed in the opening chapter of the book, when a Nepal native expressed doubt that Wood would come back and help them, stating that many trekkers had come through the village and promised to help and did not come back. This proves that Wood was a special guy in this regard, in that he had to help those people because he felt for them so much. He also has the personality trait of somebody who is a risk-taker, and, indeed, he leaped before he looked in this case. Meaning that Wood decided to leave Microsoft and build libraries in the Himalayans before he had any idea how he would pay his bills. He also decided to do this before he told his girlfriend Sophie, who did not take to the new career trajectory kindly. Yet he also displayed a kind of insecurity, despite the other personality traits. This is shown in the early part of the book, where he states that he is eager to please. Also, he cares about his image, or at least he cared about his image early on in the book. This is shown by the fact that he felt embarrassed that he might end up tending bar to make ends meet, if he decided to leave Microsoft for his project. His personality did not translate to good leadership, however. What shone through most of all through the book was that he was a passionate guy who blindly leaped before he looked. This did not translate into leadership qualities, however. He literally did not know how to make the organisation work, and it was not until Erin came on board that he really had a good handle on fund-raising. Moreover, it seemed that he was entirely too eager to let untested and green individuals to set up branches of the Room to Read in different countries, with very little guidance from himself. In other words, it seemed that he had the passion and compassion for the project, but he did not seem to know enough about organising, and it seems that he really didn’t learn this all throughout the book. As a result, in the end, there were only the three of them running this massive project in three different countries – Erin running the show in Vietnam, Suba running the show in Sri Lanka, and Wood running the show in Nepal. If Wood had more commanding leadership qualities, then he would have been able to get more staff to volunteer to help himself and the others in this project in these different countries. Wood initially conceived of the organisation when he went through the Nepalese village and realized that the children there did not have any books to read, and no way to learn English. Therefore, it began as a plan to furnish a school library for the children. Therefore, when he got back to Sydney, where he was living, he e-mailed everybody he knew, asking for book donations, as well as monetary donations for the children. He found out that his work was so appreciated by the children and the adults alike that he decided that he would make it his life’s work to deliver libraries to the people in the Himalayas that need these libraries. He proceeds to build a support network, which initially consisted of his father, who went with him when he returned to Nepal for the first time. However, when he became serious about the project, he had to build more of a support team. This consisted of his college friend, Jim, who helped him set up the tax-deductibility of his organisation. Then he had to line up donors. His first support member was Erin, who he met at a coffee shop, after she had found out the work that he was doing in Nepal and Vietnam. Then he decided that he needed to build a network of people who would be able to fund the project, starting with Michael Lindenmayer, who is a Chicago-based entrepreneur. He was able to give Wood some good ideas about getting money, as well as giving him contacts for doing so. He and Michael set about creating fund-raising teams around the country, and they had these fund-raising teams in place in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle by the end of 2002. Reaching these teams depended on not only Wood but Michael, who knew how to reach different motivated individuals in different parts of the country. This was helped out by publicity, as his work and his organisation was featured in Fast Company, Forbes and Time magazines, which would get his name out there and bring out more donors and networks eager to help. This is how his fund-raising support grew. As for this staffing support, or “boots on the ground,” it was only himself and Erin for much of the book. Then he added Suba Sivakumaran, who smart and capable, and was killing time before graduate school. Like everybody else who was involved with this project, she was committed, passionate and willing to work for literally no money, as her position was an unpaid position. She became a country director for the Room to Read in Sri Lanka. There was also a subtle clue as to the most important trait that he looked for when filling out his staff, and that was that the individuals who came on board were like himself – they were willing to take a leap of faith, without any kind of guarantee as to how they will get paid or how they will pay their bills. At least, this was true of the support team that he got to actually implement the Room to Read program. Erin took the volunteer position without any regard for her own finances. Suba did the same. This is a by-product of both women being passionately committed to a cause, which is other traits that he looked for when finding people on his team who could actually administer the Room to Read projects in these depressed areas. His organisation definitely went through life-cycles. Initially he set up the Room to Reads in Nepal and Vietnam virtually on his own. At this point, the life cycle of the organisation was that of a solo practitioner or solo entrepreneur, doing his thing. Then it became more of a partnership when he brought Erin into the fold. Erin proved to be a very good asset, as she was able to get donors on board. The next lifecycle that the organisation went through was that of a network. This occurred when Wood hooked up with Michael, and Michael gave Wood the idea and contacts to expand his fund-raising to networks around the country. At this point, it went from a solo project, to a partnership to a national network. The next recognizable life-cycle was when the organisation became international, as the network of fund-raisers expanded into the UK and Canada. Therefore, the life cycle at this point was solo to partnership to national to international. As he expanded around the world, he evidently was looking for people to help him in different parts of the world who were bright and enthusiastic. For instance, the first international contact was Dean, who was described as “genuine, smart and focused” (Wood, 2006, p. 164). Aja Haman was in Vancouver, and she had extreme high energy, and was highly motivated, having already done her homework on the organisation before ever calling Wood. She was also a very good salesperson. One of the main traits that he looked for, however, at least when it came to his donors, was their rain-making ability. These individuals had to have the ability to raise funds, and this was the most valuable trait of his fund-raisers around the world. His leadership definitely changed as the Room to Read became more developed and matured. He started out distracted, unsure, green. He was this way through much of the book. For instance, as of Chapter 19, after the fund raisers had been working for his project all over the world, and he had been at the project for a long period of time, he was still describing himself as a rookie. He also seemed to let others take the lead on the fund-raising. For instance, he relied upon Erin and Michael to set up fundraising for him at first, relying upon Michael’s contacts and expertise, and Erin’s eagerness. However, it seemed that, as he went along, he became more confident in his own abilities to create networks of volunteers, so he was able to show more leadership in this regard. His new comfort and confidence in himself and his abilities was on display when he went on CNN to talk about Room to Read after the Sri Lanka tsunami devastated that country. He ended up pledging to set up Room to Read in that country because of these appearances on CNN. The founder’s syndrome is unlikely to plague Room to Read. The reason for this is because, for all of Wood’s other traits, one of the traits that he exhibits is the willingness to be flexible, and he never gave the impression that he seemed to think that he had all the answers. He was perfectly willing to let Erin and Suba run the show in Sri Lanka, as he had total confidence in their abilities to get things done properly. If anything, he seemed to be pretty easy-going, and not overtly confident or arrogant. There was never the sense that he thought that it was his way or the highway, and he was willing to engage others and bring their talents and energies on-board, and he was also willing to listen to new ideas. Therefore, there would not be founder’s syndrome in the company. As for whether the organisation would suffer if he stepped down as CEO, the answer to this is “no,” for the same reasons as above. This organisation is larger than him, and, really, it seems almost as if he was buffeted along by others in developing the organisation. He started out very green about how he was going to go about funding and founding this organisation, and, while he gained competence and confidence along the way, there was never a sense that he felt that he had total control over the organisation. Nor did he want total control. Because he was more than willing to delegate, as shown by his sending Erin off to Vietnam, and he never attempted to micromanage her, preferring her to run the Room to Read in that country as she saw fit, there would not be a leadership vacuum if he decided to leave. This was also shown by the way that he did the same with Suba, allowing her to set up the Room to Read in Sri Lanka, and he did not micromanage her or her operation either. Because power was so decentralized, and because Wood was so willing to delegate power to others, and he did not show a need to micromanage anybody, him leaving would not be overtly detrimental to the operation. The way that Wood could measure outcomes and accountability, at least as far as his staff goes, which included Erin and Suba, and really nobody else, was simply that he could measure how many libraries and schools that they would be able to set up. They would be accountable for how they spent their grant money, and this accountability would go to the stakeholders of the operation, which included not just Wood, but all the fundraising networks that he had built up around the United States, the UK and Canada. These networks would be interested in learning how their dollars are spent, and this would be measured by the number of libraries and schools that Erin, Wood and Suba are able to implement. As for his fiduciary duties to his stakeholders, assuming that his stakeholders are his donors and funders, Wood does not fulfill these fiduciary duties to these stakeholders. The reason why this is so is because he does not have enough support for his projects, therefore the projects cannot possibly be carried out as efficiently as they could have been. As noted, by the end of the book, there are only three people who are involved in Room to Read on a day to day basis – Erin, Suba and Wood. In order for the organisation to meet its goals, and spend the money of the donors wisely, Wood probably should have attempted to cultivate more of a staff and support for these operations. There is only so much that three people can do, especially considering that these three people are in three different countries, each of the individuals attempting to run their branch of Room to Read entirely on their own. This is a daunting undertaking, one which could have been made much more efficient if there were teams on the ground in these three countries. These teams could consist of administrative and clerical help, liaisons between the natives and the organisation, etc. As it is, it seems that the only teams that Wood cultivated were fund-raising teams. Therefore, because the organisation was not as efficient as it could be, he did not fulfill the fiduciary duties to the best of his ability. The model of governance that is in place as Room to Read matures is decentralized. There did not seem that there was a core Room to Read, which controlled the other Room to Read. Rather, it was more like the other Room to Reads which were set up in Sri Lanka and Vietnam were more like franchises, as opposed to being a part of the original Room to Read. Each of the Room to Read organisations had their own governance, and it seemed that Wood did not concern himself with the day to day operations of these other organisations. He pretty much let them run these organisations as they saw fit. Conclusion Leaving Microsoft was an interesting book for what it is worth, although the author seemed to focus more on talking about fund-raising than actually building a good team to focus on the day to day operations of the project itself. Wood himself seems to be a very nice guy, very passionate, compassionate, with energy to spare. That said, his leadership skills seemed to be lacking. He seemed to raise a great deal of money for the project, as he had fund-raisers throughout the United States, as well as in the UK and Canada, and he even got some big donors along the way. Moreover, his organisation was well-publicized, as he appeared on CNN, as well as on the cover of nationally-known magazines. It was therefore confusing as to why the organisation never seemed to have money to run it projects adequately. After all that fund-raising, Wood still was not able to offer any staff a salary, telling Suba that if she wanted to help out, she would have to do it unpaid. This was confusing, and it seemed that Wood should have prioritized at least some of this money to hire this staff and others who could help the organisation to grow. Because there never seemed to be any money to hire anybody, and also because Wood himself seemed disinterested in getting involved in the satellite Room to Read organizations which popped up in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, it seemed that the growth of the project was stunted. Perhaps a more leadership focused person, who had a better grasp of the logistics of using the fund-raising money to hire individuals and to grow the organisation, would have been more successful. As it is, it seems that he did not entirely fulfill the mandates of his donors, who are the stakeholders of the organisation. While John Wood displayed many great qualities of a great human being, he did not display qualities which would make him a great leader. Because of this, arguably, his organisation suffered because, in the end, Room to Read did not have Room to Grow. Reference Wood, J. (2006) Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Read More