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Everything related to work

Is Startup Culture eating the Corporate Fabric?

We praise Startup Culture. We mean workplace for – creative problem solving, open communication and flat hierarchy. Builds comradeship. Provides opportunity to celebrate individuality through group success. Does this promise hold good when it sweeps corporate floors? Does it change the outfit but not the fabric? How’s it working for you?

One thing is clear. Startup Culture has changed the dress-code within Corporates. You are not stopped at the gate for wearing what you might in a Startup. So are the business titles, workspaces, initiatives. Job titles and pay grades are also entering the corporate corridors. Soon there will be changes in qualification of people, hiring terms and work packages. All good. But this is eating a few good things too… that’s the worry.

Big, Forever-startups introduced and mastered the art of Always-beta-culture. A promise that the product and services might get delivered broken, for a while. Works well for them in attracting investors, employees and partners. Customers are at the receiving end. If they are on-boarded-free or remain in free-tier, we know that they soon become the products. But if you are an individual-paid-customer, you are at risk of unprecedented changes. What you paid for may not exist tomorrow. If you happen to check late, you may not know what you had paid for. So are those hoping to build their business-castles on the moving platform. Large enterprises might have two other alternatives to bank-on.

The churn of products, services and companies is common within Startup ecosystem. Speed and Scale needs drive frequent changes and pivots. This might be good for the startups. But when big corporates mimic this, they have to be careful. Brands thrive on the trust and commitment factors. Deeper customer relationships and loyalty stem out of these attributes. Typical startup failures are not welcome when coming from corporates. This might threaten the pillars of decades of existence.

While adopting Startup Culture, it is important to stick the value system. Reinforcing freshness with new ways-of-working and quicker innovations is fine. The fabric of commitment makes corporates stand tall and weather better. Also, the stitching of governance and sustainable practices. While wearing Startup Dress, it is important to check how the fabric is changing. What it means to the company, customers and the ecosystem. Do what a startup does. Build and test MVP, in all areas – before going-full-hog.

Every company is important to keep the world ticking well. Many lives and livelihoods depend on each one of them. It is important to be cautious while embracing the new. Call it fiduciary responsibility or basic human need. While you are part of sweeping the Startup Culture within your company, watch what you are cleaning and what you are keeping….

Always beta is fine as long as you don’t hang someone else’s dreams!

Putting a price tag on your work

There’s a price for everything. That’s true. Someone is paying in cash or kind in every transaction. When we bartered with only need as the basis, it might have been simple. You get this for that, because we both need what we don’t have or I can’t live with what I have.

Some wisemen decided this is not fair. What’s the fun without some imbalance. So we got a common denominator – money. One that started as means to measure turned itself into the measure of worth. If you don’t know what your work is worth, may be you are not worthy. Or more you price your work, it might become worthy and so are you.

A lot of science, technology and experience has evolved to price a thing. People follow a variety of strategies around pricing and using price as a bait, a reward and in some cases a chain. How does this work when it comes to your work. Are you getting paid what you are worth or what your work is worth?

In most of the cases, you hire for potential and pay for performance. Unfortunately, both of them fail the test of common understanding and measurement. People question – what’s the use of potential when performance is not upto the mark! So, the worth get’s reduced and so is the price over time. Young people then start looking for a restart. Since you may not get a chance in the same company, you jump!

Every company that’s hunting for talent, is looking for potential as judged by what you show on CV++. Since they are desperate, you get your price matched or improved than expected. It shows their desperation and not your worth. But we assume we are worthy and move-on. Until you hit another cycle when work gets measured for its worth as per the price-tag. Spiral continues till you get tiered or market moves on.

As you get old in the system and reach the middle-management-cadre, new reality emerges. You are now required to measure the worth of work and pay! You do what you feel is the best to keep your worth and move on. Till the crises becomes unmanageable. How to measure the worth of your work as a manager? A big question and a lot of defensive answers. But have you tried answering this in-front-of-a-mirror, in a closed room? Give it a try.

I ask this question to all probable CEOs of our ventures. Tell me what’s your price tag and how do you make it worthy? Some of them tell me standard answer which points to their achievements in the past. Some of them want me to fix all the issues and inefficiencies they had in life so far. Only a few tell me how they are going to make it worthy. We ask them to break-it-down to pieces they can measure in first 90 days. We know there’s no correct answer. But interest to find and prove their worth, makes the game more interesting. That’s the good-will they build. We then work our way to agree a tag post 90 days review if they cut-it. Else, they get paid whatever they ask for for the 90 days of work. Only when they cut-it, they become the CEOs of the enterprise they will lead in performance.

We tried this method of allowing people to put a price-tag and proving their worth across levels. Works wonders at middle-to-senior-level. Those who don’t fit the bill, will anyways find their worth where they can or settle-in. But we have seen how serious contributors up their game and improve everyone.

What do you think? Isn’t this a nice talent to have – finding and living a worthy work life?

Are we getting the talent war right?

We are at war. A talent war. Every technology company claims that they are in it. At least that’s what we read, hear and talk about. Not sure if they are fighting to win or to defend. Not even sure if they know what they are fighting for or against. Yet, no one is reporting loss of revenue or dip in margin due to loss of people on board. Then, is this a no-impact war fought in closed rooms of a corporate? Point to ponder.

From the data, it is clear that people are leaving the companies. They must be taking up something they love a bit more. Or some genius tribe with more than one-job are settling for one they love. Some experts blame it on remote-working-induced-hesitancy. A few more say it is due to jobs becoming hyper-local-by-design. A few more say this is a normal phenomenon of next-wave-of-working. But, it doesn’t seem like war.

It’s true that the pools of people technology companies want on their roles is more or less the same. Is that pool shrinking? Every employment data over last 10 yrs say that only 30% new engineers get jobs. So, there’s a large pool of people. The issue may be the talent. Ability to perform as required and when required!

We associate performance with skill and willingness, among other things. There are several initiatives to skill, up-skill, re-skill. Then, where’s the issue? Are these skilling programs not delivering as expected? One has to check the performance of these programs and people who went through them. The issue then may be experience.

Experience – the art of learning from use of the skill. Unless you practice, how can you gain this? There are on-the-job-training, internships and apprenticeship programs. So, are they not delivering? One has to check if they have any active leadership in these programs. The issue then may be with willingness.

Willingness is a key aspect of performance. The hidden core of talent. Being desperate to get a job may hide this. But not to continue in a job which they are living on for a while. People already working in the company have their own talent nurtured over a period of time. If the issue is retaining people who are leaving within six months of joining, be watchful. Manage the native talent of the company well to safe-guard loss of new ones.

Experts know that talent management should cover selection-performance-retention-retirement aspects. Every company has a lot of people talking about this. Hardly any company has a designated talent manager. One who owns, cares and nurture the talent required for the performance of the company. Find and fix this responsibility. Talent war then might get a different twist.

Companies hire only a fraction of their existing population and retire smaller fraction. Then talent management effort should focus on retention of native talent first. Hire little of lateral talent and nurture fresh talent a-lot-more-than-usual.

If your business is suffering due to attrition or inability to hire new talent, then you may have a deeper issue. Analyse your business, business model and ecosystem. Seek professional help. All else may be fear-of-falling-short or fear-of-losing-out. You can fix them with right talent.

It is important for all businesses to stay-afloat and grow-well. It is the only way to keep-up-the-promises you made to yourself, your people and the world around. That is the talent, worth fighting for!