Against All Odds

A letter of rejection is hardly a conventional décor piece, but it once took a prominent place in Richard Smith’s office at the top of an office tower in the USA. “I was always impressed with the idea of consulting. After my undergraduate degree, I interviewed with a consulting firm and was quickly rejected. I saved the rejection letter from the partner because I was even impressed with the rejection,” explains Rick, Professor of Strategic Management (Practice) and Deputy Dean of Programmes at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB).

Hanging right next to this rejection letter in his towering office however, was rather a different document – one informing him of his promotion to partner at the same firm that turned him down at the start of his career. The difference between the rejection letter and the partnership letter? After his Bachelor’s degree, Smith worked in industry for a few years and then completed his Master’s degree. He was then invited to join several consulting firms. He is a big believer in the power of a master’s degree as a career transformation, but shares that the career path is not always clear.

He recalls: “After completing my masters, I had the choice to continue with my PhD or do something else. I was torn. The trouble was that I met a girl — this girl was going to work on Wall Street in financial services and neither my prior career in manufacturing nor my idea of PhD were compatible with continuing in the relationship in New York. The logical choice was to forget the girl and move on.”

But, he did the complete opposite and chose to move to the big city, where he serendipitously landed a few consulting job offers. “Perhaps this was not the best way to go about a career choice, but somehow it all worked,” says Rick.

The rest of the story was a happy one – he spent almost 30 years in consulting, and put the two letters up on his wall after being promoted to partner. “Perhaps as a good reminder of not giving up on ideas.. Oh and about that girl… she is still with me as my partner in life for 33 years,” he adds.

You might think that Rick has led a charmed life of lucky breaks, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Since his father worked in various factories in different states of the US, his family moved around quite a bit and lived modestly. To chip in, he would take on odd jobs even as a teen.

“I started working at the age of 14 by delivering newspapers and then called on those same ‘clients’ to help them with odd jobs or lawn care. I always needed to work – in fact, I worked much more than I studied in both high school and college by holding two or three part-time jobs at a time,” he recalls.

Despite having to juggle work and studies, he won a scholarship to Purdue University and snagged a steady job as an industrial engineer upon graduation. Over the years, as he learned more about how the business operated, he also developed an interest in management.

“I was not sure how to manage people and I was not comfortable in my attempts to replicate the traditional ‘command and control’ approach of the senior level bosses. To learn more, I found a way to take part-time courses at a university, which eventually allowed me to complete my Master’s degree in business with a focus on management,” he says.

“My engineering foundation allowed me to be comfortable with computer technology, quantitative methods, and operations management, but my coursework on organisational behaviour and management allowed me to rethink how I would manage people and work with others. This management education was quite critical in allowing me to be effective in my consulting career.”

Perhaps due to his modest beginnings and grit that arose from sheer hard work and tenacity, Rick believes that one’s values should also always trump short-term gains. During his early years in consulting, he worked with his team for months on clinching what was dubbed a “must-win” deal — one that would hit pay dirt for his personal career and the firm’s annual targets. However, the client had requested that he handled the financing of the project in a questionable way.

“If I chose to walk away from the deal, I would lose my chance for promotion, miss the sales targets and be looked down upon for losing ‘the big one’. If I agreed to the client’s plans, I would win big with my career and with our sales targets - but compromise on my values”

Sticking to his principles, Rick walked away from the deal. Years later, that same client was found guilty of criminal acts and imprisoned.

“On hindsight, it is easy to see that it was the right decision to stick to my principles and values, but at the time it was very tempting to just go with the flow.”

Tapping on his rich experience in consultancy, Rick first ventured into teaching as an adjunct back in Philadelphia, USA, when he was asked to co-teach a course during the dot-com era of the 1990s. After moving to Singapore from Hong Kong in 2008, he explored the path of academia further with SMU and started teaching in the newly launched MBA programme. As a founding partner of the global management consulting company Accenture, he was able to retire in 2012, but chose to stay on in academia instead.

“My plan was to move back to the US at that time, but the leaders at SMU had a different idea for me and suggested that I stay in Singapore to help in the business school,” reveals Prof Smith, who can be found jogging along the Singapore River or joining in SMU student activities in the evenings.

“SMU has been a great place for me to continue to engage with businesses while also playing a part in the growth of the business school to be one of the best in the world. SMU has a way of drawing in great faculty, great business leaders, and great students - I feel fortunate to be a part of this close-knit community.”