Having the opportunity to be a part of multiple projects I
have the luxury of interacting and working with various individuals and
companies. Some individuals representing themselves and some represent
companies. I am not being judgmental in this post. Of course being honest does
not tantamount to be judgmental.
In spite of all the differences there is a striking
similarity between mammoth organizations. They are equally (or competing to be
more) inefficient. Of course I would be alleged to make judgment. But the only
counter argument that I would accept here is that I have not found any
exception Hence, I do not have the exception to prove the law.
I had the fortune of working with India’s largest private
sector bank. Although the reception was clean and shining there was nothing
much in the systems that would echo the same feeling. To get one document
approved there were scores of e-mails exchanged. To add to that nobody wants to
take any sort of responsibility; people are not ready to apply their minds or
try to find the ways that would enable the closure of it. There is some sense
of joy in lingering on to a task. Makes me wonder, is it the complexness of the
process or the fear of having no work at hand once this gets over that there is
high attachment to a task.
We have the habit of using the word sarkari in a derogatory sense; it would not be fair to derogate the
government machinery in using the term for organizations that work
ineffectively.
To add more ingredients to my repertoire for the same
project I also happened to work with a quasi government body. Although the
hierarchy surprisingly was less but the inefficiency more than made up for it.
What I failed to understand is that people are inefficient even with miniscule amount
of work. Again the reason that comes to my mind is the same as earlier.
If I were to design course for graduate school I would
definitely add the subject Trivialization 101. Obviously it will not focus on
teaching students how to trivialize things but actually make them understand
what trivial issues are. How not to waste time, effort and energy on issues
that by no way would have an impact on the outcome. Swami Vivekananda once said
“The propensity of the Indian elite is that they spend hours debating whether
to drink a glass of water with left hand or right”. The country would
definitely had been different if Vivekananda would have been read more.
We form our opinions based on experience. And definitely the
opinions mentioned in this post are based on some unpleasant experiences.
However I am not totally against large organizations. If a small organization
does well and has the will to grow then it will certainly reach a large size.
But very importantly does this large organization cling on to the features that
helped it to become large?
If a giant still deploys process that makes a small team
become big and hence create these multiple sprouts the growth can be
exponential and such growth will never cease.
