Give it to me in writing

Nothing drives me up the wall more than hearing this: "Give it to me in writing". Especially since it comes with that ever-so-stereotypical governmental attitude.

Most of us spend all our professional lives doing something or getting something done. To us, that one sentence is the epitome of the opposite. It is the starting point of "how I don't care whether anything is done or not".

I am sure you all have your own hilarious anecdotes of this nature. My point today is neither satire nor humor; rather, something more fundamental and of enormous consequence. Of how huge chunks public (our) money is being squandered - not under those ubiquitous account-heads such as corruption, misappropriation or fraud. Under something far more innocuous: Work culture osmosis.

By this, I mean how the private sector is rapidly absorbing this work culture of the governments; how this transformation is powered by the strength of the government employees' convictions and the lure of the government business.

If you are unsure of why or how this is happening, let us begin with this easy question: Why do governments outsource work to the private sector?

All your answers could simply be summed up under: "to leverage private sector competencies", a.k.a., to get things done quickly, efficiently, with higher-quality, by more competent people, etc.. Right?

It beats me then, how governments first hire private sector companies mainly due to these differences; and then proceed to iron out those very differences by subjecting them to various forms of "this is how it is done in government; please learn these things when you work with us!"? With each such interaction the private sector employees are inexorably brainwashed, tutored, re-tuned and transformed into something else. So thoroughly, that soon it will be impossible to tell them apart from government employees, were it not for those telltale laptop bags and ties.

Here are two recent examples - deliberately taken from low-impact situations.

1. Here is an email from a govt. employee to an SI:
"Further, I of the view that MOM should be prepared in the pattern of Govt. style and not being send. ... Please make the MOM as per Govt. pattern".
True. The MOM (minutes of the meeting) and their style are of supreme importance. Far more so, than the issues discussed and solutions being sought. As it happens, after two weeks of "giving and taking it in writing", the MOM is not yet finalized.

This, is how the wondrous transformation begins.

Now let us go see the results.

2. Here is a phone call from a private sector employee:
"Sir, your team member wants a soft copy of our draft approach document."
"The one you showed us today?"
"Yes sir."
"I don't recall seeing anything confidential in that. You did intend to share it with us, didn't you?"
"Yes sir."
"So where is the problem?"
"I just wanted to take your approval sir!"

These are but a small sample of what I've been seeing everyday during the last 11 odd years. The virus has spread so deep, that I won't be surprised if some of you find these examples quite normal.

It is indeed a pity that Scott Adams (of the Dilbert fame) has never been exposed to our government.

The emperor's new clothes

We all know the story. We all admire the innocence and courage of the little boy. However, in his defense, I submit that the poor emperor was only partly responsible for what happened.

Here is how I faithfully traveled the emperor's path - with equally spectacular results. I write this in the hope that other emperors wake up before little boys speak up. To save your time, I'll begin the story half-way and embellish it only ever so slightly to make it a tad less boring.

Year 2006. I had just started my second company. As a startup company, I worked closely with everyone of my employees. They addressed me as "Sir". I found it awkward. I asked them to call me by name. When they didn't, I began calling each of them "Sir" (including the female employees), just to rub my message in.

The company grew. New employees came in. I was deeply engrossed in my product development and customer expectation management issues. I was only acquainted in passing, with my new receptionist and accounts manager. I was now getting used to being called "Sir" or "MD-Sir".

Apparently by this time, my driver had started asserting his "superior status" over other drivers in the parking lot. He would expect other cars and drivers to give way to him and "his" car - even when I wasn't around. On the positive side, he would dress himself in a manner "befitting his status", so he was always very well groomed.

By now, I have begun to be completely preoccupied with my "important" work, worthy of the attention of an MD. I no longer had the "luxury" of more than a quick nod when people greet me on my way to my sanctuary and hallowed-work-place-of-the-MD. I am still nice to the people around me, but start building layers around me so that my important work is not interrupted "needlessly".

People stand up when I enter a meeting room. Without conscious thought I always make way to the head of the table in a meeting. I feel compelled to take control of every meeting and discussion I am in. I think nothing of interrupting anyone mid-sentence and hand out impromptu solutions - clearly conveying my no-nonsense go-getter attitude. I smile smugly at the astonished expressions on their faces and know that I've impressed the heck out of them with my incisive analysis and deep insights.

I often admire the intelligent nay - brilliant and successful, "MD Sir" who smiles back at me from the mirror. On my birthday, though I am touched by my employees' gesture with a bouquet and an obligatory speech - in a small corner of my mind, I congratulate myself for having done an exemplary job. No doubt I am a great guy and deserve every bit of admiration I am getting.

I now feel a tinge of irritation when a person waiting in the reception doesn't stand up when I enter the office. I consciously tell myself that I am beyond such petty things and I don't have a bloated ego (so why was I irritated?) - and in my generosity, I forgive the person.

I feel restless when I have to listen to most people in any meeting. Why don't they understand that I am intelligent? I already know most of this (whatever that subject was); and what I don't know, I don't need to know!


Note to self: I need to review the hiring process and performance appraisals esp., for this Project Manager who thinks she has a better solution than what I gave - and almost argued(!!) with me in the meeting.

Let me not bore you with more. I most definitely was wearing my own "emperor's new clothes". 


So I end this with just one thought: 


Why didn't someone slap me in the face and bring me to my senses earlier? Why didn't someone stand up and tell me what a damn fool I was, to not even consider others' suggestions? What gave me the exclusive right to the correct opinion? How did it happen that I am the best and the rest of the world is ... erm... next-best?


I submit that though the first mistake was mine, the people around me are equally guilty of letting me get away with it for so long - just to humor me, or in their own self-interest (to get their job done somehow and move on).


Finally... who is that kid who spoke out of turn? Let us get him an ice cream, LOL.

Re-engineered by Google

It really happened #1: A history teacher asks an 8^th grade kid to write an article about the Rajputs. The kid does not ask her parents to help. It does not occur to her to peep into the bookshelf where some volumes of Amar Chitra Katha (much akin to Marvel & DC) do contain stories of Prithviraj and others. Instead, she plays on her Wii until the date of submission and 10 minutes before her school bus arrives, she quickly logs into her mother's home computer and does a google-search on Rajputs. She picks the top 10 links, opens all of them in tabs at once and quickly runs through the tabs to see which ones have nice pictures. She then opens a Word document; copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste... and soon she has 5 pages of text and a picture for each page. She spends a minute on creating a cover page with large colorful letters, another minute on adjusting the formatting on the rest of the pages and begins to print.

Total time spent: 4 minutes 18 seconds.

Total learning by the child about Rajputs, while “writing” this article: NIL.

Realization by the teacher that the assignment failed to achieve the learning objectives: Doubtful.

Continuation of #1 above: Dad walks in when he hears the printer noise. He reads the first page and notices  that some of the content has been repeated (having been copied from multiple sources). He asks the daughter a few questions and realizes the problem. He explains to her that she needs to learn to write in her own words (for which she needs to be familiar with the content) and attempts to teach her how to organize thoughts and present them in a reasonable structure and sequence. The kid nods impatiently for a while and says “Daaaad! I gotta submit this today and I am getting late for my bus, okay? I will do it your way next year. Promise!” and runs out.

It really happened #2: Kuldeep has been in my corporate marketing team for a year now. He is friendly and helpful. I've noticed that others run to him for help quite often and return happy. He is considered quite intillegent and capable of helping out in most situations. Yet, I have had problems in getting him to translate ideas into output; in getting him to understand the kind of brand image we want to build for the company. Since others clearly think highly of him, I often wondered whether there is a flaw in how I am trying to get work out of him. So I spent a two days walking around and observing how (and in what areas) he helps others. I saw that he was a power Google user!! He could construct complex Google queries and obtain the most pertinent search results with lightning speed. He proudly showed me a few tricks that I had no idea about, until then. I returned to my desk, very impressed about Kuldeep and a bit more knowledgeable on search techniques.

In the process, I also realized one thing. Kuldeep is a wizard at finding what has already been written and available on the web. He only has problems when I ask him to imagine/visualize something, think out-of-the-box or understand a concept. He can't create anything of certain complexity from scratch.

It really happened #3: I was expanding my development team and so, hired several new programmers. I had every confidence in the Project Manager (who I worked with for several years and always got good results) who interviewed and selected the new employees. After a few weeks of training and orientation it was time to assign them to real projects. I called Aarthi, one of the new hires, explained to her the logic for a small function (yeah, I know, I should've first written out a detailed design doc) and asked her to implement it, write another program to unit-test it and show me.

By evening, Aarthi was beaming. She came to me and said she completed the work. I walked up to her desk and she runs the test program. Out come the results........... exactly the opposite of what I asked for. I asked her to show me the code and quickly realize the problem area. One “if” statement was wrongly “phrased”. A very minuscule error that I figured will take a minute or two to fix. I showed her the line, explained the change needed and went home. The next day, by noon, I saw two more of the new hires huddled around her desk, staring at the screen and discussing animatedly. Soon, Aarthi was in tears. She came to me and confessed that she was unable to finish the job. I went to her desk. Instead of simply making the change myself, I asked a few questions and asked her to make the changes while I watched. She messed around a bit and made several fundamental errors before getting the program to compile (and still not cracked the problem). It was then that I noticed the minimized browser titled “if else – Google”. I clicked on it and found 23 tabs open. Each of them had a program segment. The third tab had a program segment with the exact variable names and comparison phrase in Aarthi's program. In less than a minute, Aarthi confessed that she did copy that code segment, but neither she nor her friends were unable to find anything on “Google” (not the “net”, mind you) that matched what I wanted.

Alas, I had to fire Aarthi + her two friends. Plus give an earful to my hitherto trusty Project Manager.

I think I've given enough examples by now. Google has irrevocably changed how we learn and how we work. We are now getting used to turning a reference aid into a crutch. We don't see anything wrong with turning a knowledge base (inappropriately) into a substitute for thinking and logic. How more and more children (and adults) are falling prey to this.

I find that a vast majority of parents and teachers are unaware of this fundamental shift. I see no evidence that educationists have adapted to this new reality. Unless we change the way we teach and train, we will soon see a crisis coming up in the available-talent vs demand mismatch.

The signs of this crisis are already quite visible. Surprisingly, Google search doesn't readily show those signs. When it does, we will surely wake up.

Epilogue that should've been a Prologue:

Much has been written about the impact of Google's phenomenal success on the world. This is one more drop into the ocean. I have had very minimal exposure to what has been written so far, so there is a small hope, that I might have brought in some fresh perspective without the influence of what has already been written. Of course, I welcome any pointers to sources where the same or similar topics may have already been explored.

As an IT professional, the very first reason for interest in the Google story was the way they built their initial server farms. My studies into search engines, search engine algorithms, search engine optimizations (of websites; so that they would be found more readily and higher up in the search results) etc., were not limited to Google. But the study of how server farms might be built with “older equipment” caught the imagination. Soon, the realization of the impact on power consumption, heat generation and other factors took the glamour away, but the message (of innovation) stuck with me.

Fortunately, this is not about server farms. Rather, it is a bit of a sociological piece, not Information Technology.

Non-disclaimer: Names of people changed..... to deliberately cause offense to those other than the real people! ;)