So, this year started very eventfully with my decision(no idea when it became concrete) to go on the E route. Where it came from? It came straight from the car-pool. Everyday for the previous two years we've been cursing the management and bosses for their ass-hat approaches and policies and how we were atrophying in this job. And then one day my home loan was all paid. Didn't have any other loan and had some money in the account to last us for sometime. And then this bug wouldn't leave me i.e. to put my money where my mouth is.
I started by looking for work on Elance. The response was encouraging. I was fortunate to get a couple of good projects. While working on these projects I realized how much I was working everyday! On a good day I'd be working 15 hours. Never less than 8 hours. I had the freedom to do whatever I want. I was learning what "I" wanted to learn. Never was I tired or sad that was working so much! That adage "You are not working when you do what you enjoy" is so true.
When I look back at the years I spent working for companies I wonder why I didn't work like this in the company I worked for. Not that I did not have spare time in the office to do things I like. It turns out that there are many factors:
- Unless you know what you are working towards you can't get the motivation to do the things that you need to do in the middle. Things like learning new technologies, knowing the intricacies of what it takes to make a product success, etc. When you are an 'E' you know what you are working towards, at any point of time. You will do what it takes to reach there. I remember that in the orgn. you will work hard to an extent and then raise your hands that I can't do more than this. When you are in the E-mode you will not rest till you resolve it. You will take some hard decisions like changing technologies mid-way but you will keep working towards your goal.
- Apparently, the surrounding negativity is a bad thing for productivity. When your colleagues are a demotivated lot and nobody has a good word for anything in the orgn. then it is a bad place to be in.
- Politics of the work place. You can't beat that. I can't imagine how much productive time we spent in the cafeteria discussing the politics being indulged in by bosses and colleagues.
- I think this one a big factor: Responsibility. When you are responsible to make your decision a success then you will slog for it.
- Motivation through discomfort! Or rather lack of motivation due to comfort. When you are getting your salary for just showing up and pulling your ass around, though at salary levels which are not at the killer levels of other companies but decent enough, where is the motivation to outperform?
Well, I have started my company but currently I have no people working for me. Naturally, my next thought is on what to do or what not to do when I have to employ people. Motivation, motivation and motivation! That is the only way people will be productive in a company. Convert all the above points to motivate people in some way or the other.
- When someone hates you but they work for you do not expect them work more than what is expected out of them. If you demand performance out of their current abilities then listen to them and be on great terms with them. I hated my bosses from the bottom of my heart therefore I never worked for more than what was required from me. If the boss-employee are on such terms then there is a one big money leak in the organization, in these times of high salaries. No point in continuing to keep the relationship going.
- Can you make each employee feel like an entrepreneur themselves?? If you can achieve it then there is a model that's bound to succeed. One good example is performance driven sales-force which is quite common in IT sector. The sales force gets a major chunk of their annual take home based on how much they sold. If this model can be replicated to each and every employee at whatever level then you have a winner. I would like to name this thing with a term I have coined: Entrepreneurial-node(e-node for short). i.e. every employee in the organization is an e-node. So, the organization is a network of e-nodes.
- Make your employees an integral part of the profit-sharing. Stock options,etc had started with that motivation but as the companies grew the benefits diluted that much more. How can you make a grass-root level worker motivated to put in those manifold delta efforts when his share is going to be 0.0001% of the profit taking??? Most of the big companies these days are top heavy. The takings rise exponentially as you climb up and so do the profit-sharings. It's an age-old debate on who is more instrumental in making a company profitable, the grass-root code-warrior or the meeting-maniac management. I think that if a company can work out a package structure that doesn't alienate the mass workforce which are at the bottom of the rung then they've got a winner.
- Stop creating vertical heirarchies! Can't stress this enough. This was a one big problem for me. I admit that I got carried away with the managerial suffixes and pursued streams in the company that didn't appeal to me. But this is a real employee killer in companies. Rather than creating new and improved heirarchies encourage employees to take up streams that they like and attach equal importance to all positions or rather don't provide any importance to any position. Once again, stop the managerial position mongering.
More on how it's going for me, very soon. I need to tell you why I am pursuing a product than pursuing consulting.
