Sachin posted an interesting comment about learning in companies.
One of the things I've noticed when talking to people is that most [Indian] companies do not take any steps to nurture adhoc groups. These are groups where like minded people can get together and talk or do side projects. Companies can create an environment where people can form such groups by themselves and then just sit back.
If you look at many of the US software companies (Google, MS etc) there is something there which causes people to do side projects and spread knowledge all the time. If one guy finds something cool, pretty soon there are a bunch of people discussing it.
Compare that with my experiences here. If anyone talks about some interesting topic, not connected with work, the reaction is something like "oh ok," rather than "cool, lets find out more about that." Or if someone decides to do something interesting, not connected with work, the first reaction is "whats the use" rather than "cool! lets do that this saturday".
Why is that? Is it that there are not many doer type people in Indian companies? Or is it because the company culture doesn't enable them to actually do anything? It is probably some combination of both I would think.
It's not like this in all companies of course (eg: Yahoo Bangalore), but its true in a depressingly large number of them.
What can be done about this?
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2 comments:
People, people, people. Thats a good point. Without them, nothing is ever going to happen.
What about the mandatory 20% time they have in Google? They don't have it in Microsoft, and there is a big debate raging about it.
Speaking of Drucker, I just got my hands on "The Essential Drucker". Read it?
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