Although his official title is chairman and CEO of Kenexa Corp., Nooruddin “Rudy” Karsan likes to give himself another title: chief
complaint officer. It’s a way to make himself available to customers and employees so they feel comfortable bringing problems to his
attention, he says. Karsan has led Kenexa, a provider of software, services and content that enables organizations to recruit and retain
employees, through a period of tremendous growth. Kenexa posted 2005 revenue of $66 million and 2006 revenue of $112 million, and
the company is expecting to hit $195 million in 2007. Smart Business spoke with Karsan about how sometimes, the smartest move is
to hang on for dear life.
Let it ride. Our growth has been a combination of building an infrastructure in combination with letting people run. Kenexa has
grown by 70 percent last year. It’s growing
by about 80 percent this year.
At 70 to 80 percent, a lot of times, you’re
just hanging on for dear life. You’ve just got
to know when to let go.
An example might be if I were the captain
of a ship, and we were in gale-force winds
heading east, and I really want to head
southeast. Now, I have to make a decision.
I have to put up the sails, let me go as fast
as I can east, and then tack back south
because I know the seas are calm there.
But the last thing in the world I want to
do is tack now because I would rip my
sails. I only have two choices: Pull them up
at full and head east, or take them all down
and ride out the gale. Tacking is not a
choice here because it’s going to rip the
sails.
Similarly, when you’re in a high-growth
situation, you can put the processes —
which are like the boats — in place, but in
hyper-growth mode, your choice is only, do
I put up the sails or take them down? Do I
let the organization run in this direction as
hard as it can, even though it may not be
exactly the direction that makes sense, and
then we’ll tack back at the appropriate
time?
Don’t damage your character. There is one
commonality for all leaders: character. If
your character gets affected, you lose the
moral right to be a leader. That’s the biggest
single trap for any leader — whether
you’ve got two people following you or 200
million. Once you’ve damaged that, it’s
almost impossible to recover.
A good example is someone like [former
President] Clinton. If you measure his eight
years on social development, economic
development, global leadership — you can
go through the 50 most important metrics
for the president of the United States. He
was probably in the top five in any one of
those metrics of all the presidents of the
U.S., but in the end, he’s going to be remembered that he lied to the American people.
Not that he had the affair, but that he lied.
You see it in the business community, too.
Doesn’t matter what segment of society
you look at, the single biggest downfall of
the leader is character.
Preach what you practice. Set the values up
the way you’d like to see them. To use an
old cliché, you walk the talk. If you say,
‘Work-life balance is very important in my
organization,’ and you’re a workaholic,
people will emulate your work style, and
your words become empty.
Or if you say, ‘This is a learning organization, and I am a learning leader,’ and you
don’t read at all, you don’t talk about
advances of science, people are going to
find out you’re not a learning type.
You’ve got to understand where your
strengths are and make those your values.
So if you’re not a learning-type individual,
don’t make learning into a value. If you’re a
workaholic, don’t make work-life balance
into a value.
Learn the art of leadership. Leadership is
more of an art than a science. When you’re
providing leadership, the inputs are data,
from which you get outcomes, but if you
play by the book all the time, you’re bound
to fail. You need intuition and gut feel.
If you try to unpack the words ‘art’ and
‘science,’ when we think about it in the way we’ve studied from childhood, science is
hard and art is soft.
From a leadership perspective, there
is the notion that we grew up with:
Leadership is a science, you tell people
what to do, they follow you, etc. When you
really step away from it, and if you really
want to expand on leadership as being an
art, there’s a tremendous amount of softness associated with it in terms of understanding what the people you are leading
are looking for. Remember, they are always
tuned to their favorite radio station, WIIFM [What’s in it for me?].
Keep the ego in check. My ego gets me into a
lot of trouble. It stops me from hearing and
listening to what’s happening. Sometimes,
I’m defending my position, even though it’s
wrong. It becomes an obstacle to the
growth of the company.
There are some leaders out there who
have great egos, as well, but they’re so smart
that they’re right a lot of times. For them, it’s
safer to have an ego. I’m not as smart, so I
have a tendency toward more mistakes.
Then, the ego really gets in the way.
It’s a constant battle, the same battle I
have in life, as well. Bring the ego in check
so you can hear what life is trying to tell
you. There are three ways. Probably the
main way is, I’ve been fortunate in the lady
I started dating at age 17 or 18 — she’s my
wife today — we’re the best of friends.
She’s become an absolutely awesome
gauge in letting me know the ego is getting
in the way.
The second is surrounding myself with
people I have a tremendous amount of
respect for. Whether it’s our CFO or our
president or our CMO, my innate respect
and the tremendous amount of faith in
what they have to say overwhelms the
desire to be right all the time.
The third is constantly talking about it.
The more I talk about it, the easier it gets,
the less shameful it is, the more I can be
aware of it.
HOW TO REACH: Kenexa Corp., (610) 971-9171 or
www.kenexa.com