We keep looking for these three characteristics in people when we hire and it is saddening to see how less we see of it. In the last year we have gone through over 10K resumes and have interviewed a couple of thousand people and I see very few people with real talent, interest and curiosity. Almost no drive to be the best at the something they like, virtually no need to be on top of their game and no driving interest in life. What it all adds upto is a lot of mediocrity. lots.
I’ve blamed everyone at different times for why people turn up this way – parents, colleges, peer pressure – the full monty. We all live in a setup where experimentation is frowned upon, the need to be happy is shafted at the altar of making money and people even if they are driven haven’t found others quite like them to follow and be inspired from. Amidst all the pressures of life, we still tend to find people who want to make that change, take that risk, live a life where they can meaningfully achieve things they’d never dreamt of – but all these people are so rare that I wonder if India will ever have a human super-power company – the world class MNC where the very best with all their nuttiness can come together and make magic happen – while finding others like them.
May be companies are to blame – may be they don’t allow people to dream large enough and even if people dream large enough they get shot down really fast. May be companies are afraid of ’the individual’, may be companies never thought it necessary to worry about taking care of the things that really bother people and found that money acted like a good enough proxy to buy silence from talented individuals.
May be parents are to blame – may be they have too much say in what career a person chooses, may be they force you take the calls you do in the name of getting ’settled’, may be it is your peers – the people who make 5K more per month than you do. Whoever.
Hopefully a generation of people hit back hard and become the change. Else we will all be forced to work with idiots, act like idiots and sacrifice happiness at the altar of mediocrity.
Comments 6
how to find out what interests you most.,…what talent you have and where does ur curiosity is???
Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 2:04 pm ¶@harish – if you are not curious, you will never find out your interest or worry about enhancing your talent.
Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 2:07 pm ¶You surely hate mediocrity!
Remember the line in film Swades, “andhere mei toh Rawan aur bhi accha lagata hai” read: we’re like that only! ’santusht’.
I hope those who got through your hiring process are gem! out of 10k+ people.
Posted 13 Jun 2009 at 5:59 pm ¶Thats right Allwin.
Most People are taking jobs just because they have to..
And they will have no qualm accepting it.
Also I too doubt it when People say we will be the World’s superpower in 2050 or even earlier..
I don’t see that in the near future..
Posted 14 Jun 2009 at 4:58 am ¶Being in the Indian IT industry for last three years, I can surely say that there is no room for any experimentation here. The client-service model that most of the companies are, does not allow much scope for experimentation. There is too much at stake, projects are large and nobody wants to take any chances. Impetus is more on maintaining the status quo, rather than any change. It is in such an atmosphere that best minds in our country work. After a while, their minds too gets conditioned. They work in more of a reactive mode, never really trying to understand the business or technological needs. Your best chance might be with a fresher, straight out of college. Catch them before they too become ’stale’.
Posted 14 Jun 2009 at 12:16 pm ¶Allwyn Agnel, I am a fan of pg.com and I am in love with it ever since I joined it. From top to bottom it is a work of sheer brilliance. After using PG for 5 days I went berserk and I searched on the net about who is PG? I saw your interviews, and read a lot about you. You inspired me.
Posted 26 Aug 2009 at 3:00 am ¶Not everyone is born curious and talented. You hate mediocrity and you don’t find people with any real interest or curiosity. I agree we don’t strive for it enough but there won’t be any if there would be none to raise the bar.
I am just a graduate and while at college I wanted to inspire people towards creativity. So along with a team of 5 people we built a statue, 12 feet high. I felt that looking up at some symbol of inspiration may instill a movement in the hearts of the onlookers. And what happened to it? It was demolished by the college authorities not because it wasn’t well made but because they couldn’t maintain it. Today, even human forms of inspiration are demolished. The difference is in the authority demolishing it. Hence no one acts to inspire. No one thinks big enough to grow enough and inspire. Those who think are certainly, our very own Mayawati whose innumerous statues built on our hard earned money hardly seem to make a difference.
In the Mahabharata, Lord Krishna gave up all he had to mentor Arjuna. Today, we neither see Arjunas nor do we see any Krishnas. It is us who don’t have courage enough to find and spot Arjunas in order to be their Krishna towards a common good, leading to a better future. The generation of people who need to hit back hard need mentors. They need inspiration which lacks on all the fronts. We lack people who can do something to inspire lots. I agree that Hitler was a dictator but he had a voice which made hundreds jump into darkness for him. Today, the Bin Laden’s can inspire hundreds to become jehadis’s and we call them mad. At least they have an inspiration.
Look at our system where dishonesty leads the lag and we blame and apprehend the country’s future.
If we can’t inspire let us learn to…
Let us learn to duplicate and triplicate inspiration.
Else, Shame on us…
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