S01E08: Own the Circus, Own the Monkeys – Vivek Mullick
Vivek Mullick, senior manager at EY, discusses the opportunities hidden in failure scenarios.
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KB: You are listening to the Failure Bites podcast, and I'm Kristin Brynteson, helping you take the bite out of failure, one story at a time. Have you ever seen a project that you know is not going to make it? One that has failure written all over it. I don't know about you, but many of us might look at that situation and gratefully think not my circus, not my monkeys and quickly turn to walk the other way. However, there are a brave few who see these situations for what they really are: possibilities. In this episode, we hear from Vivek Mullick, a senior manager with EY. He is an NIU alum who has over 20 plus years of experience in consulting and financial services with companies such as Accenture and JP Morgan Chase.
VM: Several years ago, probably earlier in my career, one of my bosses had called me, and we had a large project for a bank out west. We had about ten million dollars worth of work, two million dollars of it wasn't going well. We were building out of portals for their sales managers in a certain line of business, and that project was about six months late. We had to push some products out into production, so people could start using these reports. And reports were taking two minutes to generate; they should have been taking ten seconds. Things weren't working, and so, they asked a small team to come in and do an assessment and help turn things around.
Also, at that time, we had about eight people working on the project, and my company at the time was giving something called flex leave, so if you want to take six months off and do a sabbatical and keep your benefits and come back, they were allowing employees to do that. Well, the whole team decided to do that because the whole project was in bad shape. Couple of things I learned from that: First, it was very nerve-wracking to say yes, I'll come in and help turn this around. What I've learned is that you don't say no. My boss at the time told me, he was like, you can't make this worse. It's only going to get better from here. Don't be afraid of challenges.
Taking risks is a good thing, and getting out of your comfort zone--you'll never realize what you can do until you actually take on something new, and I still remember to this day being on the project for two weeks and presenting the status to our partner at the time, because I was in a consulting group. He stopped and he said thank you. And it was the first time he had said anything nice about that project in six months. So, you know, it was rewarding turning that around. It took about three months of really hard work and bringing a great team in to help turn this around, but, y'know, over all, the client was happy and it saved our relationship with the client. And more importantly for myself, it helped me build relationships for people I work with now. So, you know, fifteen years later, some of those people on that project are senior leaders at my current company, or colleagues, and they'll never forget that work. It's a life-long network because we were in the trenches; it was not a great situation. And I can call them to this day if I need a referral for somebody or if I'm looking to hire somebody--if I'm looking for a job myself or if I just need some advice, they always pick up the phone and they answer.
KB: Vivek's story is one of triumph. It might not have been his circus initially, but he was able to take ownership of the problems and turn a flop into a success. We can learn a lot from his story. Don't say no, and don't be afraid to step into the spotlight and take on a challenge. You might be surprised by what you accomplish--and the people you help along the way will never forget it. Thank you for listening to Failure Bites. I'm your host Kristin Brynteson. You can find us everywhere podcasts are found. You can step in and help us out by clicking the subscribe button or leaving a review. A rating would be fine, too. This podcast was produced by NIU STEAM at Northern Illinois University. Your future, our focus.
