Here are some notes on our people philosophy that came-up in my recent conversations at work.
Firstly, No we are not really worried about people leaving. The negative impact of people leaving is exaggerated. It is mostly that we cannot take the rejection.
Mostly, it does not make a difference as to who comes or goes, our experience has been that it has never been that coming-in of someone or going-out of someone has had any transformational impact. In the end there is a lot of grind that even the most talented people have to go through to produce worthwhile results.
Mostly the importance of a person is exaggerated by us and more so by the person himself or herself. Mostly it's illusion.
But some people make more of a difference than others. You can see them as the Steve Jobbs, or Nandan Nilekani, or Ray Ozzie, or Warren Buffet for the company. They are hard to replace. Hard to replace by either other people, process or technology.
Incidentally these are people who work for the love of it.
We don't have to worry about retaining or driving people. Some people are better gone. Some people contribute more when they stay out of the office than when they are at work. We are not interested in monitoring the hours people clock in.
We don't mean to disrespect people. We don't mean to undervalue people. Neither do we intend to waste our time driving reluctant employees. We intend to understand how things work and who makes what difference. very very clearly. We intend to know what is best about a person and how we can bring that to the fore.
We have more to gain from improving our Knowledge, Brand, Production System, Ecosystem, Culture etc. than we have from adding or subtracting people.
Lastly when we work with people, we have to understand that we are working with lives, that we are working with manifestations of the divine. So we need to act with respect and discretion.
1 comment:
Tarun, interesting views and I don't disagree completely - it is true that companies are bigger than people - people come and people go but companies build a character of their own and have lives of their own. However, I do feel entrepreneurs need to first truly believe that people are important to their building companies and secondly, have a mental list of the team members who are the innovators, the doers and the loyalists. Every company needs team members from these three categories though the proportion can vary. It is important to remain engaged with team members on a continuous basis and listen to what they are saying and what their concerns are.
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