I have this mental model of people at work. I divide them into two categories:

White Box: People who's style of work and thinking is clear and transparent. People who can tell you how they think, how they do what they do, how did they fix that problem, and why did they take a particular decision.

Black Box: People who's style of working is thinking is not clear. When they deliver, you don't know how and why they did. When they fail, you don't know why they failed.

You'll find both kinds of people around you. And there will be 'good' people in both categories: people who deliver consistently.

Software development is full of both kinds of people. I've seen a few that will be able to quickly resolve a crisis or a weird bug. But if you ask them how they did it, or why, or sometimes even what(!), they don't have an answer. Their motto often is " Just tell me what to do, then go away, don't bother me. Come back to me in 2 days, and this thing will be done". These are the black boxes. Very scary, because you're always wondering: will it be solved this time?

I also think that the white box box people have a better sense of self. They are less likely to be surprised at such workplace events as the performance appraisal.

I strongly believe that in roles that have ambiguity, you must have the white box variety. The trouble with the black box variety is that you don't know why they succeed. When the situation involves a large number of variables, the environment is changing all around you, I feel safer if I can feel confidence in the inherent ability of the people, rather than their history of success. Because in a changing environment, history is not a good predictor of future. But inherent ability is!

Perhaps my white box people are the people with strong analytical skills, and the black box people are the ones with weaker analysis? Maybe. But there might be more. For instance, the ability to communicate the analysis is important. As is the ability to understand your own mind!

I've now been part of three startups. One of them as a founder, and the other two as a part of the management team.

I often compare the other two founders in my mind. One of the big differences between the two has been that one is more than happy to let go... of control. He's believed enough in his team to delegate and forget. Of course, there are some checks in terms of discussions, reporting etc., but by and large the team has the ability to take decisions.

The other one has not found it easy to do that. Most decisions flow from the top, the team feels constrained. He is involved at a very minute level of detail, when perhaps he needs to leave those to the team and concentrate on other things. This inability to believe in his people, I think, is costing the company dear.

In our own case, perhaps we did even worse. We believed in the team too much. Not that the individuals were not capable enough; but you need to balance delegation with reporting and monitoring. Otherwise, you're dependent on the capability of only one person. In a startup, that can be fatal, as processes don't exist to catch mistakes, and the environment is too fluid.

One of these companies can be considered a clear success. The other one, a little early to decide.

Here's another take on this issue, from an entrepreneurs.
Building an open culture

My own thought, as an entrepreneur, is that the way to do this right is to hire people that you can rely on in a white box (more on that in another post, but basically someone you can rely on because of the way they work) mode.

Once you've got those people, delegate like crazy, and allow them to take decisions. Let them be entrepreneurs in the garb of an employee.

I like to think I did that well in my own company. Will I call my company a success? Not in the financial sense, but I think the reasons were elsewhere. Did we hire the right people? Absolutely yes. If and when I start another company, quite a few of them would be the first set of people I'd look to hire.

Don’t Stop for Gas… We’re Already Late! » 6th Sense Analytics

Great post. Love the thought about confusing activity and progress.

Support functions in all organisations: I think they have got it absolutely wrong.
Most of them are so utterly fixated on rules and processes, one wonders if they leave their brains at home!

Their existence itself is to 'support'. That's the nature of their work. But all of them, without fail, across almost all organisations, take upon themselves a 'higher' meaning: as if their existence itself is the reason for their existence.

IT support, finance, payroll, admin... Does any of them not do this? HR, sometimes, is one exception.

On top of that, they will not hesitate from using regulatory or technical reasons to avoid answering the question Why can't it be done? Hoping that most of the people will get deterred by it. When actually almost all the time, there is no underlying technical or regulatory reason at all!

Some recent examples:

• We have to deduct both income tax and FBT on your allowance. Because that's how the government wants it. Real reason:I can't be bothered to take the effort to track your allowances.
  
• We can't deduct extra tax from your income, even if you give us a written request. We are not allowed to do it. Real reason: I don't have any idea how this works, no one's asked before, I can't be bothered to go read up the rules.
• I need an urgent salary advance. It is approved by the head of HR AND my manager. Oh, well, oops. Needs approval of the CFO too. By the way, we will send you a check for the advance, not deposit it directly to your salary account. And did we mention, the check will be on a different bank, so that it will take 3 days after you deposit the check for money to come in? Of course, it's the 29th already, so your normal salary would probably have come in sooner!

These were the finance guys. The other ones, some other time.

If only they could change from Why it can't be done to Let's find out how we can make it happen!

In political or social discourse, or even in the drawing rooms of our country, a mention of Muslims flares up emotions. In most cases, they are extreme emotions: it is rather difficult to carry out an intelligent, rationale conversation based on arguments.



Of course, the polity of the nation has become such that things are completely polarised and false notions and data abound.



Recently, when Manmohan Singh talked about the need for affirmative action for Muslims, once again there was a big hoopla.



But do people stop for a moment to think about the Muslims they see around them?



I have two instances of blatant discrimination around my day to day life.



We bought a flat at one of the hot new real estate destinations in NCR, Indirapuram, a couple of years back.

And this was at the most professionally run of all the builders out there at that time. They were telling us about the kind of people who will inhabit the apartment complex: professionals: doctors, senior executives etc.



And here's the part that shocked me:



We are not selling to any Muslims. When they come asking, we tell them we're all sold.



Another one:

We just moved to a new home last month, and were looking for maids. The rates were way higher than at other places. One girl came in, started out asking a rate that was already 20% lower than the others, and looked clean, earnest and honest. But we didn't hire her. Reason? She was a muslim.



We really wanted to. Believe me, we did. But half of our parents and grandparents would probably refuse to visit us, because a Muslim had touched the kitchen. Perhaps they would have been ok if she did not enter the kitchen, but the response would have varied from " Oh my god, a Muslim" to "what's the urgency to hire a muslim? Aisa to h nahin hai ki hindu bai nahin mil rahin? Phir kya jaroorat hai"?



What is a muslim to do in the face of such discrimination? Don't they deserve some help and push from the people who can?

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Saw Crash recently. It was mesmerising. Every scene was a revelation. It captures a couple of days from the lives of a few people living in Los Angeles. The main characters are from different parts of the world: white americans, black americans, first generation arab immigrants, second generation arab immigrants, mexicans...



And mixes them all up: throws them together. They meet at various times, in varying contexts, with varying results. World view changing results. Your view of racism and race relations goes all topsy turvy. You learn of the complexities involved in the social lives of a multi-ethnic society. Real nuances, real detail.



At first, a lot of the characters seem to be from your regular movie, caricatures: the racist white policeman, the young black thug,... And then the twists start. The racist policeman is not. And the white anti-racist partner is.

Couples coping with their different ethnicities and what it means to the world. Racism is multi layered and not unidirectional. Layers get peeled, and new insights emerge.



There are some incredible turn of events, but they are all completely believable. And they all open new lines of thoughts.



Bottomline: 5 stars. Must watch. And tell me what you thought about it.

The office had a day long powercut today. They were testing the floodlights in the Mohali Cricket Stadium, in preparation for the Champions Trophy. And Mohali doesn't have enough power for both the city and the stadium, apparently. So we ran through hoops trying to keep our service up for customers, while the lights shown on the already bright grass.

If that's the situation in day time in test, what will it be like when the lights are on at night during a match? Chirag Taley Andhera? People all over the world watch the match, but someone with a home across the road can't?

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