---
title: "Bob Pryor of NTT DATA Services: No Task Is Beneath Anyone Because Essential Execution Drives True Leadership"
url: "https://authoritymag.co/articles/bob-pryor-of-ntt-data-services-no-task-is-beneath-anyone-because-essential-execution-drives-true"
publisher: "Authority Magazine"
author: "Doug Noll"
authorUrl: "https://authoritymag.co/authors/doug-noll"
interviewee: "Bob Pryor"
company: "NTT DATA Services"
category: "Business"
datePublished: "2023-03-06T20:38:03.435Z"
dateModified: "2026-11-12T17:07:11.638Z"
tags: "Business"
---

# Bob Pryor of NTT DATA Services: No Task Is Beneath Anyone Because Essential Execution Drives True Leadership

*The CEO of NTT DATA Services shares valuable leadership lessons from his early days as a programmer, highlighting the critical importance of integrity, humility, and honoring commitments.*

> My takeaway from that period is that no task is beneath anyone. If it’s important, be the person who does it well and gets it done without question, debate or drama.

---

As*part of our series called “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Suite Executive” we had the pleasure of interviewing Bob Pryor, CEO, NTT DATA Services.*

*Bob Pryor is CEO of NTT DATA Services, which delivers consulting, systems integration and digital transformation services for large enterprise clients. He previously served as COO and Chief Integration Officer overseeing the 22-month post-merger integration of Dell Services into NTT DATA. He started his career as a systems engineer at EDS and progressed to senior roles leading sales, vertical industries and geographic businesses. He’s also held senior executive positions at EY, Capgemini, HP and Fujitsu. Bob earned an MBA from the University of North Texas, a BBA in finance and accounting from UT Austin, and was named one of the “Top 25 Consultants” by Consulting Magazine earlier in his career.*

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**Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?**

I earned a bachelor’s and master’s in accounting and finance before realizing I didn’t really want to be a professional accountant or financial analyst; I could totally relate to John Belushi’s character in Animal House when he said, “seven years of college down the drain.” About the same time, I considered going to law school, but my very patient wife said it was time to start our family. In a fortuitous moment right about that time, I heard Ross Perot Sr. speak and had an epiphany: “I want to work for him at Electronic Data Systems (EDS).” Even though I had no background in software, I entered EDS’ arduous three-year system engineering development program knowing I had to make it work because the alternative was to become an accountant. I ended up programming for six years. From those roots, I moved into several areas across the company and eventually became president of one of the industry business units at EDS. I’ve been in some form of corporate leadership ever since.

**Can you share the most interesting story that has happened to you since you started your career?**

Two experiences come to mind that were highly influential on me. In the 1980s, EDS was implementing a new mainframe-based system for the Texas Medicaid Program. This was before PCs, the Internet and ubiquitous high-speed networking. Our engineering team in Dallas would write code that produced countless reports at the client site in Austin. For many months, I drove to the downtown bus station in Austin every Sunday morning to pick up 20 boxes of reports. I was the “human sorter” who opened, separated, collated and distributed all of the paper reports. That particular task certainly did not require a college degree, but it was essential. My takeaway from that period is that no task is beneath anyone. If it’s important, be the person who does it well and gets it done without question, debate or drama. Also, be aware of your impact on other people and how to make their jobs and lives easier. As a programmer, I never wanted to cause someone else to be a human sorter vs. writing good software.

A bit later in my career, after moving into sales, a mentor and dear friend teasingly called me “copy boy” because I spent so much time in photocopy centers. I seemed to always have ink stains on my white shirts from changing toner and ink cartridges. That aspect of the job was neither glamorous nor prestigious, but somebody had to do it. In that case, I was the somebody. I recognized that sometimes, leaders have to ask people to do really menial tasks, and the job has to be done well. If anyone can find a better way to do it, I’m all for that, and one aspect of good leadership is finding new ways to get the job done, raising the bar for expectations, and improving the experience for everyone. Nonetheless, some tasks just have to get done. I urge new college graduates and others entering the workforce to embrace the learning that can be found in any job, especially essential-but-tedious tasks. I still apply that line of thinking to all sorts of roles today.

**Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?**

I can narrow it to two quotes:

- “Do business with people who want to do business with you.” Over the years, I’ve often reflected on that principle in my professional and personal life. While the customer may “always be right,” not every client may be right for your company. I believe the alignment of goals, culture and values with clients and partners is a critical success factor.
- Ross Perot Sr. said, “If you can’t be happy without money, you’ll never find happiness with money.” It’s critically important to find joy in life wherever you are and in whatever you are doing versus always wishing your situation was different. It’s tempting to think, “I’m just one job, promotion or salary increase away from being happy.” But, if you can’t find happiness now, you are unlikely to find it later in life with more stuff.

**Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on your leadership style? Can you share a story or an example of that?**

My style is eclectic and incorporates snippets I’ve heard, seen, experienced and read from many sources. I latch onto things that have a positive impact and translate them into my own approach to life and work. I’ve been blessed to have interacted with many fabulous leaders, peers, clients, colleagues and partners during my career, and many have had a lasting impact on me. Ultimately, we all have to find our own way and what works for us.

**What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?**

NTT DATA is distinguished by its culture and values as lived by our people. Within our culture, we devote substantial resources to continuous training, development and mentoring to help our team members advance their skills, capabilities and careers. The resulting quality, caliber and expertise of our people make us stand out. That’s evident in our high client-retention rates.

Our team’s accomplishments early in the COVID pandemic are a great example. Within a matter of days, we shifted the vast majority of team members to remote work, which was a massive exercise to deploy hardware, software and — where needed — reliable power supplies. To keep essential businesses running, other team members had to go onsite at hospitals, banks, educational institutions, manufacturing sites, government entities and numerous other critical businesses and organizations. We made sure clients never missed a beat in serving their constituents, but it required extraordinary human efforts and many personal sacrifices to assure uninterrupted service.

**You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?**

- Exemplifying honesty and integrity. You can recover from lots of mistakes and shortcomings, but not from a lack of honesty and integrity, especially over the long haul.
- Honoring commitments. That’s foundational. I’m more driven by a fear of failure than a sheer love of winning and thus, I hate to fail! I especially loathe missing a commitment. It’s safe to assume I’ve done everything humanly possible personally and organizationally before reaching that point of failure. Living up to commitments is an imperative that forces me to be thoughtful and cautious about the commitments I make.
- Recognizing and appreciating the positive forces outside of my control, be it good luck, karma or divine intervention. Good and terrible experiences, situations and outcomes often happen for reasons we can’t explain and that are out of our control. I’m fortunate because the net of good and bad outcomes for me has been very positive over time. Of course, individual hard work and good decision-making typically precedes rewards, but many things often happen within an often-incomprehensible bigger picture.

**Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?**

Sometimes the choice is between good alternatives, but oftentimes leaders have to choose the “least-bad” option. One of the client accounts I had responsibility for earlier in my career represented a substantial amount of revenue coupled with an extraordinarily difficult and stressful environment for my team. Daily operations, periodic reviews and key project updates were often a beat-down for the team, and every year came with some new demand for unilateral concessions by the client.

The last time this client put the business out for bid, rather than lowering our price and margin, I decided to raise some of our rates to improve the overall profitability of the account We ultimately lost the contract to a lower-priced third party, but I don’t regret my pricing decision. In retrospect, I should have proactively met with the client sooner to talk about a transition strategy for them to identify and start working with another third-party supplier that represented a better fit for them.

It’s a great example of that life lesson, “Do business with people (and companies) that want to do business with you.” NTT DATA takes pride in strong and enduring client relationships that are mutually beneficial with well-aligned goals and objectives. There will always be challenges, difficult initiatives and projects, periods of adversity and uncertain change, which is why this adage is so important, especially in forging successful long-term relationships.

**Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a C-Suite executive does. But in just a few words, can you explain what a C-Level executive does that is different from the responsibilities of other leaders?**

A common perception is that C-suite leaders focus on vision, strategy and high-level direction rather than getting involved in daily operations and more mundane tasks. The reality is you must dig in, understand the operational and financial details of the business, establish clear priorities and hold yourself and the collective team accountable for outcomes.

There are constant decisions required and endless tradeoffs to reach the best possible outcome. Daily agendas include energy-zapping requirements like reading contracts, reviewing financial statements, deciphering PowerPoints, and wading through countless emails. In the midst of that, big things constantly pop up and derail the day you had planned. That’s why I value adaptability! Problems that percolate up to me are big and require an urgent decision, with limited information and time.

Every job has stress, hard parts and elements people don’t enjoy. It’s the same for CEOs. At the same time, I recognize there is a degree of privilege to the role, that comes with responsibility for my clients, employees and other key stakeholders of our company.

**What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a C-Suite executive? Can you explain what you mean?**

One myth is that C-level executives operate in a tower or different world with no connection or understanding what front-line team members do in a day. There’s another countervailing myth, especially about CEOs, that we know every detail of our business and/or should have all the answers.

The reality is that the best C-leaders are well-grounded in their business, clients and people. While it’s true there are many details I don’t know, I am careful to understand and recognize everything from high-visibility strategic projects to the fact that someone has to do data entry for the client, and someone has to meet vendors or clients at a worksite, and somebody has to make sure there’s coffee for the team! I am careful and intentional about understanding, appreciating, respecting and empowering the diversity and complexity of roles that combine to make NTT DATA great.

I respect senior executives that are always on “receive mode” and listen more than they talk. As a rule, I’m more interested in learning than knowing, challenging vs. defending my position, and seeking out alternative and better points of view.

**What are the most common leadership mistakes you have seen C-Suite leaders make when they start leading a new team? What can be done to avoid those errors?**

I mentioned earlier how I absorb snippets from diverse sources. One of those sources is Patrick Lencioni’s book, “The Five Temptations of a CEO.” Career-limiting mistakes include choosing status over results and outcomes, and choosing popularity over accountability.

I strive to be polite and respectful, but don’t mistake that for weakness. A leader doesn’t have to be a jerk to be strong. In fact, the strongest leaders I’ve worked with in my career are straightforward, honest and kind while making hard decisions that might affect individuals negatively but benefit the organization and team members as a whole. Those decisions can be intensely unpopular in part of the organization, but they’re part of the job.

**In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?**

There’s a tendency to underestimate how hard it is for a company to achieve operational excellence every hour, every day, every year. I read a terrific book over 10 years ago entitled, “The Paradox of Excellence,” which framed the challenge well. In short, it hypothesized true excellence is generally invisible. For example, you probably never think about the electric company when the power and lights are on; conversely, you become acutely aware and highly dissatisfied when the power goes out. In the IT industry, we’re very familiar with this paradox because amazing software, networks and technology is quickly taken for granted — until it stops working!

For the good of the company, colleagues and our clients, I much prefer to incent, reward and recognize the people who are maintaining excellence quietly in the background versus devoting all the attention to people who solve big problems, often the very same individuals that created the crisis. Leaders should seek out the quiet ones who make the organization work seamlessly behind the scenes and encourage others to be more like them.

Perhaps paradoxically, I also believe you can learn more from problems and adversity than when everything is going smoothly. I remember a tortuous client deployment I was responsible for early in my career. I would start every day with a hope and a prayer of “not letting anything bad happen that day!” My wife, in her perpetual wisdom, pointed out my narrow view vs. the much bigger opportunity to learn, grow and develop more complex problem-solving skills. Leaning into a problem now helps you better understand, anticipate and avoid bigger problems in the future.

**Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Suite Executive”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.**

1. Identify a clear and compelling vision and mission for the organization, and be crystal clear about the fundamental non-negotiables such as culture and values that define your organization. Then connect it to the subsequent points.
2. Completely understand the economic drivers of your business, including the cost levers and profit drivers. Where and how do you generate revenue and profitability? What accelerates or dilutes revenue and profit? These fundamental economic drivers are the starting point for clarity, simplicity and good decision making.
3. Establish your priorities, make them very clear, and share them broadly, simply and regularly across the enterprise. Within NTT DATA, we refer to this handful of top priorities as “Business Imperatives,” and they are unequivocal. We refine and update them each year, and I urge team members to use these imperatives when making decisions, assessing alternatives, leading teams and mentoring colleagues.
4. Set clear expectations and objectives for your organization and especially for the leadership team. People need to know what is expected of them along with clear definitions of success throughout each performance period and fiscal year.
5. Be decisive and consistent with decisions that reflect and re-enforce your vision and mission, economic drivers, priorities and expectations. In this regard, be prepared to say “no” to lower priorities and anything that distracts the team from delivering upon expectations and achieving their goals and objectives. Saying “no” generally creates organizational capacity.

**In your opinion, what are a few ways that executives can help to create a fantastic work culture? Can you share a story or an example?**

A fantastic work culture begins with being very clear about what you want to be, and what values will define and guide acceptable behavior. If you’re not clear about that, then people can’t clearly see if the company is a good fit for them. You’ll end up confusing the organization and wasting precious time and resources. Also, recognize that whatever environment you create, it won’t be considered “great” by everyone. That’s inevitable, and it’s okay. I’m not suggesting homogeneity, because the most successful organizations are the ones who take diversity, equity and inclusion seriously. But you do want diverse people who are unified within the company’s purpose, values and culture.

Other factors include:

- Creating great training, development and career opportunities for team members.
- Pushing continuously toward greater simplicity — always finding better, simpler and faster ways to get things done. Simplicity reduces costs and increases speed, which increases momentum to drive great outcomes.
- Empowering and holding people accountable. Empowerment and accountability are both fulfilling, and people are more energized when they feel they have ownership of their outcomes.

Finally, I’d say encourage people to have fun and enjoy their work, teammates and the company. Part of that means finding the positives and being an energy giver. There are too many people who can always find the negative and drain the energy and joy right out of a room. I strongly encourage people to be the ones who give energy and encouragement to others while finding innovative ways of delivering our services, honoring our commitments and having fun along the way.

Creating a workplace where talented people feel respected for their skills and feel welcome for whoever they are enables great people and teams to come together, deliver amazing accomplishments and experiences for our company, clients and teammates.

**You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)**

The world offers a seemingly infinite number of worthy causes. My advice is to find something you’re passionate about and devote your time, money or both to that need. Use your time, energy and resources to help relieve suffering and improve the quality of life for someone else. Most of all, never underestimate what committed individuals can do on their own or together with like-minded people.

It could be about climate change and sustainability, hunger, education, a homeless family or underprivileged youth. Maybe you could help people learn to budget and get out of debt, or help give a nice home to abused or abandoned animals. Find something that that speaks to you. Then stick with it because being a force for good requires more than a volunteer day or weekend shift. And don’t forget that helping others helps you feel better, too.

**How can our readers further follow you online?**

I can honestly say that I care about the well-being of everyone reading this article, but I’m not trying to engage the world on social media. It would be far more interesting for people to see what NTT DATA team members are up to as a whole, and a great way to do that is by following the [Perspectives blog on our website](https://us.nttdata.com/en/blog?/#=null&blog%20type=Perspectives%20Blog).

([https://us.nttdata.com/en/blog?/#=null&blog%20type=Perspectives%20Blo](https://us.nttdata.com/en/blog?/#=null&blog%20type=Perspectives%20Blog))

**Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!**

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A*bout the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on*[this](https://podcast.dougnoll.com/podcast-guest.)*link to learn more and apply.*

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Source: https://authoritymag.co/articles/bob-pryor-of-ntt-data-services-no-task-is-beneath-anyone-because-essential-execution-drives-true (Authority Magazine, Business). Interviewee answers are first-person statements of the guest. Index of all pages: https://authoritymag.co/llms.txt