Sourcing's a Young Man's Game

Outsourcing’s becoming a young man (or woman’s) game. With the demographics of emerging economies, youngsters are increasing being appointed to leadership positions in offshore delivery centers. Is this a problem? Should we be worried?

I’m just back a few days from a trip to India, where I spent time with some very smart kids definitely young enough to have been my children. Their technical knowledge, coupled with unbridled enthusiasm and confidence in their abilities was breathtaking.

But, on reflection, I came away a bit worried. I saw smart people able to solve very defined problems; what I did not see from these sub-thirty-somethings was the level of maturity required to lead and manage —those intangible qualities that are critical to performance and customer satisfaction in shared services and outsourcing.

So I did a bit of research on maturity, and was struck by a factoid that goes back to the authorship of the US Constitution. It seems that the Founding Fathers were onto something when they set 35 as the minimum age for a presidential candidate. Since 35 was well into middle age in the 18th century, I thought perhaps longevity entered into the equation, but it seems that the likes of Jefferson and Madison believed that age marked the attainment of maturity.

Years later, supporting science confirms the Founders’ good guess. Research by leading neuroscientists proves that people younger than 35 just don’t have the skill or experience to make complex decisions. According to Sam Wang of Princeton, the vital connections in the frontal part of the brain, responsible for restraining impulses and making long-term plans, are not developed until then.

That’s not to say that the sourcing industry does not have many gifted people in their 20s and early 30s. Technology services is a field where there’s a shorthand of information and rules that can be taken at face value, where there are a lot of absolutes and not much gradation of meaning. However, the skills we inherently seek in our delivery leaders are those we might term wisdom — the ability to recognize patterns of behavior and performance, and to make good decisions in the face of contradictory or imprecise information. With 35 deemed the age of maturity, I wonder whether the run to locate delivery centers offshore makes us come up a bit short.

Whether the delivery model of choice is shared services or outsourcing, management is forced to make calls on a range of topics every day. So, having the maturity to know what you know, and also what you don’t know – and having the wisdom to know the difference! – is critical to good decision-making. As much as we derisively call delivery centers factories, they must be led by folks who can piece together incomplete data points.