This is NOT an attempt to define Corporate Culture. It’s an attempt to reflect upon what it has become.

Birth, Life, Survival and Death are four ‘natural’ acts and pillars of the eco-system in our planet.
Anything and everything else is built on as a layer for aesthetic value.
Society is a fabric that was introduced much later in the scheme of things. The original purpose unknown, but the overwhelming fact is that we are still self-weaving it and continuing to add layers.

Each individual comes with certain inherent qualities and naturally builds on to that individuality.
Where there is life, survival skills exist by default. And therein lays the seed of conflict.

Some seem to gain clarity early in life, either because they have privileged access to certain information and tools or because they seem to assume the role of a ‘Guide’ for the rest of mankind.
In that attempt, they set to achieve and use the others as resources in fulfilling their dreams.
Because the other set of people are yet in the seeking stage, assume to find purpose in helping and chasing someone else’s dreams.

When some of the dreams are achieved, there is celebration and an example is set for others to see and experience. Meanwhile, society continues to create complex structures to supposedly strengthen and fuel this model. This model works fine till the time there is a distinct clarity between, who the achiever is and who the resources are; who the leader is and who the followers are.

Current education system is designed to produce mass followers. However, there have been some rebellious breakthroughs and there are all sorts of streams that also allow some to be trained as leaders. Yet again there are achievers and non-achievers and many that fall in between. Here is where the lines start to blur and the seed of conflict gets watered. The self-weaving fabric of society gets into self-destruct mode at some point here.

People who set to achieve their dreams, cross the line and give birth to fake identities calling it corporations, which are meant to outlive them. I’m not being judgemental about this behaviour. That’s another topic of conversation though. However, in such a situation and a non-living entity, the ‘follower’ category of people, begin to assume the roles of a leader in a bloated setting for continuity and longevity regardless of the corporation’s health.

In this environment, when incompetence is accidentally given an opportunity and fails, the results are disastrous with ripple effects.
Competition accelerates such occurrences and once it goes beyond logic, control and comprehension levels, this very behavior is easily then brushed under the carpet termed, ‘Corporate Culture’.

It’s a well-established fact that we humans are not born (read manufactured) with user manuals.

Obviously, there was a market opportunity right there. So, for eons now, people have been trying to create user manuals; Right from the epics to the Self-Help genre on the book-shelves and now to pocket-sized suggestions. A-la “7 habits of successful people”; “6 things that millionaires do”; “10 Tips for effective parenting”; “3 magic steps to a healthy living”; 5 tricks for a flat stomach and many such.

But I guess we forgot that every individual is a different model and make and that the user manuals can’t be applicable to all. When you try and change the settings based on these manuals, you’ll either find it working in patches, have ‘error’ messages or a complete system malfunction. After all, ‘To each, his own’!

Self-Help OR Parenting, Life is meant to be ‘lived’ and ‘learnt’ through experience alone.

We can’t learn to swim by staying dry. We’ve got to jump in the water and get wet.

These books and lists only act as a ‘floating device’; Ideal to take a breather during a long swim.

But we have to kick and push to move ahead. We must encourage our kids to do that too.

We have to encourage them to jump, actually push if necessary.

Over-protecting and over-policing the kids in the name of disciplining and not letting them explore LIFE their way – both, at home and at school is only like having screen protectors or fancy cases to our gadgets without focusing on the actual hardware maintenance and performance efficiency.

I’ve overheard or at times been directly asked at work too, if we’re running a school with so many rules and disciplinary policies and micro-management. The root cause can be seen in the parenting styles as a community / country.

Nothing is moved or achieved with simple requests. Things are heard only when it is amplified with drama to the highest level. Be it a kid asking for a toy/food; labourer/ employee demands OR the overall political scenario.

Here’s what’s worked with me, both at home (for myself and as a parent) and at work (as an employee and as a boss). *

Discipline, Perseverance and Patience were some important virtues I had to re-visit in a new ‘Avatar’ or with “New Packaging”. In a mad-rush to attain multi-tasking, the ‘Task’ is ignored and the focus shifts on ability to handle multiplicity – often with compromised or delayed results.

Now, once I’m done with a task, I ask myself if this is my best output for the given task (personal OR professional).

If in the given situation and circumstances, the answer is yes and I am convinced, then I don’t bother about the world.

If I am not convinced about it being the best output, then I keep practicing to ensure I give my best and nothing less.

If it’s not an Eco-system that I enjoy, I don’t stay a victim for too long.

I take responsibility of MY life and put in efforts to change it. It’s that simple!

At work, I encourage my team to do the following on a daily basis:

Try to ‘find an issue’ (Not create but FIND an issue) in the process and ‘kill the issue’.

If they are unable to find one for more than two consecutive days, they are not doing a good job. If they are unable to solve it, they’re obviously expected to escalate. This simple thought process with random checks works wonders.

In a tweaked version, this idea works for kids too. I’ve encouraged my kid to explore something new every day and share it. If I don’t find anything for a few consecutive days, only then do I intervene for course correction. But yet again once done, I let go with random checks.

Explore, Experience, Enrich!

Go ahead and JUMP. Swim ON!

*Disclaimer: Do check your model for compatibility

I represent the generation born in the 70’s and 80’s. People from this generation were the torchbearers in to the 21st century and the last generation representing the 20th Century.

Every generation represents some cusp and also are a part of a big revolution that brings about a dramatic change in the way we live. Like we’ve had the generation that fought for our independence form the British. People who were a part of the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

Our generation led the world through Y2K and heralded an era that accelerated the IT boom and eventually laid the foundation for the highly ambitious Artificial Intelligence.

Closer home in India, we also took the IT Enabled Services (ITeS) industry to another level. Like a drop in the ocean, our efforts and little sacrifices highlighted India’s capability to deliver on that front. We rode the wave and gave a cosmetic face-lift to the country’s economic scenario, amongst other factors that led to extreme inflation and gave birth to terminologies like ‘Un-Real Estate’.

Ours must be the generation with maximum number of people per family who’ve traveled or lived abroad, albeit for a brief while. We created tiers within the middle-class (lower middle-class and upper middle-class) and made the Elite that much more premium. We’ve truly had the chance to witness different cultures and look at Life with newer dimensions. History may categorize this with a name and call it the ‘IT Revolution’ or the ‘Convergence Revolution’.

But like every cycle, this is a thing of the past and we are spiraling downward preparing for the next big wave in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This will have its toll on the society.

Obviously this wave has had its ill-effects. While I commit the cardinal sin of generalizing, fully aware that there would be exceptions, the new generation, who are labelled ‘The Millennial’ generation, have it all easy on a platter. This generation has not learnt to ‘wait’ OR ‘build something substantial’ apart from apps and the likes that are mostly useless (nice-to-have luxuries). The ‘Must-haves’ are either neglected or given the least priority. Almost everything is either ‘Instant’ or ‘Use & Throw’ – including the ‘News’. They also suffer from the ‘Share without a care’ syndrome. Be it opinions OR voyeuristic and sadistic bits.

Just recently I had a situation when one of my teams had some personnel issues and upon scratching the surface, it became evident that some controls that were originally put in place needed some updates (just like our apps get them regularly) causing above average attrition. The only problem was, our Team Manager was ‘WAITING’ for such updates, expecting it on a platter. Not realizing that it was his JOB to CREATE those updates and patch it to the production floor.

This downward spiral is inevitable in every cycle, but what good is knowledge if we don’t prepare ourselves for it and go face-down all over again.
We either bear the cross on our shoulders and lead into the era of AI and expect the next generation to somehow grapple with the situation OR some of us can choose to reshape and skill the new generation for a soft-landing and be poised for the next big WAVE, in whatever form and shape.

While we rode the wave, we’ve also caused some dent on the ‘culture & tradition’ front. Our obedient previous generation, tried to hand over some important rituals without understanding the science behind it. Hence, some of it came down as mere disciplinary rituals and/or were discarded by us as myths and/or superstitions. Some were genuinely those but many hidden gems are getting lost in the confusion. We have the responsibility to re-plug those lost connections.

Progress is now measured only in economic terms and very few realize and associate progress with the concept of overall well-being that includes ‘Health’, both – physical and mental. This part is extremely important; else we may be tampering with the very nature of biological evolution of human beings in the era of AI.

While I’m happy to have contributed to the previous wave in my own miniscule way The situation is not yet beyond repair and it needs strengthening, I personally want to now get involved in the restoration of our foundation – lest we wish to march towards ‘Artificial Living’ and not just ‘Artificial Intelligence’.