No, It’s not any forecast or the technology trend that I’ll be sharing with you all going forward. It is a very small experience which I felt should make sense to some of you.
Like many other Google admirers, I admire Google too. Their technology expertise and the work culture among many other things the most which apparently I’ve not seen but heard of from many people around and through some email forwards.
Point is not to debate over the culture at Google but the fact that young & first generation entrepreneurs like me are generally fascinated by the glitter of the king’s palace to an extent that we put every effort to construct our small hut to look like the King’s palace does.
Question: What is so wrong about treating your hut as a palace?
First Reaction: Of course nothing wrong, our hut is after all OUR palace, however small.
Observation: It is still important to learn that Hut and Palace are two different entities.
Recently I had an experience which demands more insights, therefore, thought of sharing with the fellow entrepreneur friends.
Most of us have experienced or at least heard the stories on Hierarchical Organizational Structure (HOS) prevalent in big corporate glass structures. Talk about Corporates in contrast to startups, it is natural for us to echo negatively for the “Hierarchy” word itself. There comes a want in us to be able to build an innovative organization away from all hierarchies and with several flexibilities like it exists in Google/ FB kinda companies. Flexible working hours, working from home, freedom from reporting to someone every now an then, casual dressing during work hours etc. etc.
While you try all these innovative ways, there is a high possibility that they will be highly abused by your so-called startup family.
Like you always wanted to get that leave without going through a chain of approvals in your previous job because you thought you are a true soul and do not abuse such facilities, you end up making such a policy in your own startup with a great heart.
Like you always wanted the flexi work hours and an option to work from home, you end up extending such options to your fellow next-genere-entrepreneur-employees with all the open heart.
In my observation with couple of other startups (including mine) is that we actually end up experimenting many (read every) nasty thought in the name of INNOVATION in our startups.
Result: Suddenly everyone wants to start contributing from home, slowly & gradually everyone starts calling you 10 am in the morning citing their inability to come to the office for the day (they know we do not have many approvals policy in place) and bringing even eight hours of standard work output becomes a challenge.
Thank God … with us they were only the Interns. I learnt a lesson that “You can’t put your hut on fire, looking at the king’s palace“. Trying to copy the culture at Google will not work unless we understand the kind of people work with us and similar other dynamics related to them.
I realize hiring Interns came out to be a boon, as it gave us a chance to experiment many of our nasty (innovative) thoughts with them and alleviated us to judge the definition of Innovation carefully.
Does this mean hiring Interns is a good way to PoC your thoughts on how to build the kind of work culture we want to build at our companies?
Though it may not solve the problem in it’s complete entirety but you’ll get the hang of several things like how much to be liberal with the employees, how to communicate about your strictness in the work culture etc.
Learn that employees observe and learn faster from each other. It can be rewarding to learn the art of nurturing innovative culture with Interns first and then with the employees. Thoughts?
WEll said – I think this is not just with startups,but with any other co. Most of us, in the name of worklife balance end up giving lot of ‘freebies which just hurts the org.
And, I dont think Google has been able to maintain its innovative culture. Infact, when they were a small co.- they did the opp. of what startups currently are doing.
They brought in things//goodies which made employee stay longer (and work) – for e.g. laundry, massage parlour etc..
A small team should remain closer and approachable otherwise it leads to stupid processes which kills productivity.
what do you think?
Can an Indian organization ever have the kind of culture that Google has? As you say, I’m sure every Indian web dreams of creating a mini-Googlesque-work-utopia where everybody comes in as they please, leave as they please, work from home, work from a coffee shop etc. – and this leads to huge amounts of productivity. But as you have found Ashish – this may not work. Is this a cultural thing? I explore in this post: http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog/?p=242
Gautam Kshatriya
gautam.kshatriya@moneyvidya.com
http://www.moneyvidya.com/blog
Valid Point Rajesh, Small team should remain closer and approachable, there is a lot that comes from being closer.
Freebies … Hmmm. We haven’t really tried giving them so far. But it would be great to learn from the community if there are any reciprocating effects of creating such a culture as well!
It’s not to say that Google’s policies are not abused. I am sure they are, but there is only so much you can abuse it until there is some action taken against you. I am in favor of providing as many goodies as you can to your employees but at the same time not being afraid of enforcing the boundaries.
Very well agree with you Meghna.
Just that learning to enforce the boundaries is an Art
Most Definitely! But it’s worth it I think. It helps to develop a mutual sense of trust and that can only be good right?
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I agree. Few people have the self-discipline to work in an unstructured manner and still produce the deliverables before the deadline. But here is what I have found: the rock-star guys do have that self-discipline. They know how to manage themselves and do not really need any micro-management. They have created their own schedule, deadlines and a way of getting things done. Trying to impose rules meant for the average employee makes them dissatisfied and that spells trouble.
As you say, it is an art to find the right balance.
cheers
nilesh
Agreed, Rock star guys need their own space and can’t be driven by the rules laid out by you.
Does that mean involving them into the strategy as much as anybody else?
Building a culture is a very long process and it involves trust as a starting point. I don’t think it’s a good practice to let a policy be the starting point to build that.
The culture, in the example you cite, should be that of “honest” hard work. I have stressed on honest because that’s the important part. Then even if someone works for a few hours but does their best, it’s worth it. I guess that’s what google focuses on. I have noticed that many employers care more about the process rather than results and then there are some companies like Semco and Google that focus on the product or the end.
Again, I think that this culture of letting go doesn’t require some special breed of employees. Anyone can abide by it. It’s just that the culture should be so strong that the organization expels outliers through social pressure. If you are an aberration, you will either change or leave.
The founders have to set the right example of concentrating on honest hard work. Employees should not be asked the wrong questions: How many hours did you put in today? Why are you late? What time did you leave?
Instead they should be asked more result-oriented questions. This would be a way to show what you value more. My two cents.
Hey Mayank, You 2 cents are invaluable.
Trust … indeed!
Given Trust is also directly proportional to time you have spent with someone. A new employee you hire, you liked his past, his calm/composed character, just right aggression, willingness to create value. How do we build trust with him in a month or two?
Somehow, an entrepreneur is so much driven by his/ her own energy that everyone looks to him as an honest person, if not he still wants to give his understanding some space to be able to derive right conclusions.
I have begun to think that comparing with Google could be a wrong thing to do. Understanding the dynamics of your own employees with focus is more important. Fundamental difference lies in the culture “WE OURSELVES” and our people/employee(s) come from.
Note: The problem is from the perspective of a very early stage startup, which is yet to hire their first employee and do not have any culture sustaining yet. Assuming that the founders have a very different world altogether.
Piyush,
Your last comment should answer the question “Does this mean hiring Interns is a good way to PoC your thoughts …”. To develop Trust, they should first get a hang of what it means – which takes some time and by then their internship period will most probably be over
Neelima, you hit the bull’s eye.
I agree that the time span with Interns is really shorter and that the Art of building an Innovative Work culture is an On-going process.
Having said that PoC(ing) your new ideas with Interns could still be helpful in some ways (if not many). It could be a simple thought like “push(challenge) them more and more”.
In our organization, we have, as yet, managed to keep a positive work environment with the flexi hours/work from home model, tho on a selective basis. the key has been to test individual discipline and empowering them gradually; if they abuse facilities they get remedial measures.. if they perform and be responsible, they get more empowerment. consequently it impresses upon other employees that the fellow getting benefits is getting them because he hasnt abused them yet… and nothing inspires more than ur colleague doing better than u
as far the point of interns, i really dont think that experimenting policy changes for employees on interns wud give u any credible data… both have very different mindsets. while interns come with a 2/6 month mindset, employees generally have a little longer in their minds…
jst my two cents.