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Others'
Musings
What
We Must Learn From the West
Excerpts from a lecture delivered by N R Narayanamurthy at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of
Management, New Delhi, October 1st, 2002
 I
decided to speak on an important topic on which I have pondered for years –
the role of Western values in contemporary Indian society. Coming from a company
that is built on strong values, the topic is close to my heart. Moreover, an
organization is representative of society, and some of the lessons that I have
learnt are applicable in the national context. In fact, values drive progress
and define quality of life in society.
As an Indian, I am proud to be part of a
culture, which has deep-rooted family values. We have tremendous loyalty to the
family. For instance, parents make enormous sacrifices for their children. They
support them until they can stand on their own feet. On the other side, children
consider it their duty to take care of aged parents. We believe: Mathru devo
bhava – mother is God, and pithru devo bhava – father is God. Further,
brothers and sisters sacrifice for each other. In fact, the eldest brother or
sister is respected by all the other siblings. As for marriage, it is held to be
a sacred union – husband and wife are bonded, most often, for life. In joint
families, the entire family works towards the welfare of the family. There is so
much love and affection in our family life. This is the essence of Indian values
and one of our key strengths. Our families act as a critical support mechanism
for us. In fact, the credit to the success of Infosys goes, as much to the
founders as to their families, for supporting them through the tough times.
Unfortunately, our attitude towards family
life is not reflected in our attitude towards community behavior. From littering
the streets to corruption to breaking of contractual obligations, we are
apathetic to the common good. In the West – the US, Canada, Europe, Australia,
New Zealand – individuals understand that they have to be responsible towards
their community. The primary difference between the West and us is that, there,
people have a much better societal orientation. They care more for the society
than we do. Further, they generally sacrifice more for the society than us.
Quality of life is enhanced because of this. This is where we need to learn from
the West.
I will talk about some of the lessons that we,
Indians, can learn from the West.
Respect for the public good
In the West, there is respect for the public
good. For instance, parks free of litter, clean streets, public toilets free of
graffiti – all these are instances of care for the public good. On the
contrary, in India, we keep our houses clean and water our gardens everyday –
but, when we go to a park, we do not think twice before littering the place.
Corruption, as we see in India, is another
example of putting the interest of oneself, and at best that of one’s family,
above that of the society. Society is relatively corruption free in the West.
For instance, it is very difficult to bribe a police officer into avoiding a
speeding ticket. This is because of the individual’s responsible behavior
towards the community as a whole. On the contrary, in India, corruption, tax
evasion, cheating and bribery have eaten into our vitals. For instance,
contractors bribe officials, and construct low-quality roads and bridges. The
result is that society loses in the form of substandard defence equipment and
infrastructure, and low-quality recruitment, just to name a few impediments.
Unfortunately, this behavior is condoned by almost everyone.
Apathy in solving community matters has held
us back from making progress, which is otherwise within our reach. We see
serious problems around us but do not try to solve them. We behave as if the
problems do not exist or is somebody else’s. On the other hand, in the West,
people solve societal problems proactively.
There are several examples of our apathetic
attitude. For instance, all of us are aware of the problem of drought in India.
More than 40 years ago, Dr. K. L. Rao – an irrigation expert, suggested
creation of a water grid connecting all the rivers in North and South India, to
solve this problem. Unfortunately, nothing has been done about this. The story
of power shortage in Bangalore is another instance. In 1983, it was decided to
build a thermal power plant to meet Bangalore’s power requirements.
Unfortunately, we have still not started it. Further, the Milan subway in Bombay
is in a deplorable state for the last 40 years, and no action has been taken. To
quote another example, considering the constant travel required in the software
industry; five years ago, I had suggested a 240-page passport. This would
eliminate frequent visits to the passport office. In fact, we are ready to pay
for it. However, I am yet to hear from the Ministry of External Affairs on this.
We, Indians, would do well to remember Thomas Hunter’s words: Idleness travels
very slowly, and poverty soon overtakes it.
What could be the reason for all this? We were
ruled by foreigners for over thousand years. Thus, we have always believed that
public issues belonged to some foreign ruler and that we have no role in solving
them. Moreover, we have lost the will to proactively solve our own problems.
Thus, we have got used to just executing someone else’s orders. Borrowing
Aristotle’s words: We are what we repeatedly do. Thus, having done this over
the years, the decision-makers in our society are not trained for solving
problems. Our decision-makers look to somebody else to take decisions.
Unfortunately, there is nobody to look up to, and this is the tragedy.
Acknowledging the accomplishment of others
Our intellectual arrogance has also not helped
our society. I have traveled extensively, and in my experience, have not come
across another society where people are as contemptuous of better societies as
we are, with as little progress as we have achieved. Remember that arrogance
breeds hypocrisy. No other society gloats so much about the past as we do, with
as little current accomplishment. Friends, this is not a new phenomenon, but at
least a thousand years old. For instance, Al Barouni,
the famous Arabic logician and traveler of the 10th century, who spent about 30
years in India from 997 AD to around 1027 AD, referred to this trait of Indians.
According to him, during his visit, most Indian pundits considered it below
their dignity even to hold arguments with him. In fact, on a few occasions when
a pundit was willing to listen to him, and found his arguments to be very sound,
he invariably asked Barouni: which Indian pundit taught these smart things!
The most important attribute of a progressive
society is respect for others who have accomplished more than they themselves
have, and learn from them. Contrary to this, our leaders make us believe that
other societies do not know anything! At the same time, everyday, in the
newspapers, you will find numerous claims from our leaders that ours is the
greatest nation. These people would do well to remember Thomas Carlyle’s
words: The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. If we have to
progress, we have to change this attitude, listen to people who have performed
better than us, learn from them and perform better than them. Infosys is a good
example of such an attitude.
We continue to rationalize our failures. No
other society has mastered this art as well as we have. Obviously, this is an
excuse to justify our incompetence, corruption, and apathy. This attitude has to
change. As Sir Josiah Stamp has said: It is easy to dodge our responsibilities,
but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
Accountability
Another interesting attribute, which we
Indians can learn from the West, is their accountability. Irrespective of your
position, in the West, you are held accountable for what you do. However, in
India, the more ‘important’ you are, the less answerable you are. For
instance, a senior politician once declared that he ‘forgot’ to file his tax
returns for 10 consecutive years – and he got away with it. To quote another
instance, there are over 100 loss making public sector units (central) in India.
Nevertheless, I have not seen action taken for bad performance against top
managers in these organizations.
Dignity of labor
Dignity of labor is an integral part of the
Western value system. In the West, each person is proud about his or her labor
that raises honest sweat. On the other hand, in India, we tend to overlook the
significance of those who are not in professional jobs. We have a mindset that
reveres only supposedly intellectual work. For instance, I have seen many
engineers, fresh from college, who only want to do cutting-edge work and not
work that is of relevance to business and the country. However, be it an
organization or society, there are different people performing different roles.
For success, all these people are required to discharge their duties. This
includes everyone from the CEO to the person who serves tea – every role is
important. Hence, we need a mindset that reveres everyone who puts in honest
work.
Indians become intimate even without being
friendly. They ask favors of strangers without any hesitation. For instance, the
other day, while I was traveling from Bangalore to Mantralaya, I met a fellow
traveler on the train. Hardly 5 minutes into the conversation, he requested me
to speak to his MD about removing him from the bottom 10% list in his company,
earmarked for disciplinary action. I was reminded of what Rudyard Kipling once
said: A westerner can be friendly without being intimate while an easterner
tends to be intimate without being friendly.
Professionalism
Yet another lesson to be learnt from the West,
is about their professionalism in dealings. The common good being more important
than personal equations, people do not let personal relations interfere with
their professional dealings. For instance, they don’t hesitate to chastise a
colleague, even if he is a personal friend, for incompetent work. In India, I
have seen that we tend to view even work interactions from a personal
perspective. Further, we are the most ‘thin-skinned’ society in the world
– we see insults where none is meant. This may be because we were not free for
most of the last thousand years.
Further, we seem to extend this lack of
professionalism to our sense of punctuality. We do not seem to respect the other
person’s time. The Indian Standard Time somehow seems to be always running
late. Moreover, deadlines are typically not met. How many public projects are
completed on time? The disheartening aspect is that we have accepted this as the
norm rather than the exception.
In the West, they show professionalism by
embracing meritocracy. Meritocracy by definition means that we cannot let
personal prejudices affect our evaluation of an individual’s performance. As
we increasingly start to benchmark ourselves with global standards, we have to
embrace meritocracy.
Intellectual independence
In the West, right from a very young
age, parents teach their children to be independent in thinking. Thus, they grow
up to be strong, confident individuals. In India, we still suffer from feudal
thinking. I have seen people, who are otherwise bright, refusing to show
independence and preferring to be told what to do by their boss. We need to
overcome this attitude if we have to succeed globally.
Contractual Obligation
The Western value system teaches respect to
contractual obligation. In the West, contractual obligations are seldom
dishonored. This is important – enforceability of legal rights and contracts
is the most important factor in the enhancement of credibility of our people and
nation. In India, we consider our marriage vows as sacred. We are willing to
sacrifice in order to respect our marriage vows. However, we do not extend this
to the public domain. For instance, India had an unfavorable contract with
Enron. Instead of punishing the people responsible for negotiating this, we
reneged on the contract – this was much before we came to know about the
illegal activities at Enron. To quote another instance, I had given
recommendations to several students for the national scholarship for higher
studies in US universities. Most of them did not return to India even though
contractually they were obliged to spend five years after their degree in India.
In fact, according to a professor at a reputed US university, the maximum
default rate for student loans is among Indians – all of these students pass
out in flying colors and land lucrative jobs, yet they refuse to pay back their
loans. Thus, their action has made it difficult for the students after them,
from India, to obtain loans. We have to change this attitude.
Further, we Indians do not display
intellectual honesty. For example, our political leaders use mobile phones to
tell journalists on the other side that they do not believe in technology! If we
want our youngsters to progress, such hypocrisy must be stopped.
We are all aware of our rights as citizens.
Nevertheless, we often fail to acknowledge the duty that accompanies every
right. To borrow Dwight Eisenhower’s words: People that values its privileges
above its principles soon loses both. Our duty is towards the community as a
whole, as much as it is towards our families. We have to remember that
fundamental social problems grow out of a lack of commitment to the common good.
To quote Henry Beecher: Culture is that which helps us to work for the
betterment of all. Hence, friends, I do believe that we can make our society
even better by assimilating these Western values into our own culture – we
will be stronger for it.
Most of our behavior comes from greed, lack of
self-confidence, lack of confidence in the nation, and lack of respect for the
society. To borrow Gandhi’s words: There is enough in this world for
everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. Let us work towards a
society where we would do unto others what we would have others do unto us. Let
us all be responsible citizens who make our country a great place to live. In
the words of Churchill: Responsibility is the price of greatness. We have to
extend our family values beyond the boundaries of our home.
Finally, let us work towards maximum welfare
of the maximum people – Samasta janaanaam sukhino bhavantu. Thus, let us –
people of this generation, conduct ourselves as great citizens rather than just
good people so that we can serve as good examples for our younger generation.
Thank you.
Three
visions for India, a speech by Dr Abdul Kalam Quote: I have three visions for India. In 3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The Greeks, the Turks ,the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not done this to any other nation. We have not conquered anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture, their history and tried to enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others. That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its first vision of this in 1857, when started the war of independence. It is this freedom that we must protect and nurture and build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us. My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels are falling. Our achievements are being globally recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and self assured. Isn't this incorrect? I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the world. Because I believe that unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength respects strength. We must be strong not only as a military power but also as an economy power. Both must go hand-in-hand.
My good fortune was to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material. I was lucky to have worked with all three of them closely and consider this the great opportunity of my life. I see four milestones in my career: ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the opportunity to be The project director for India's first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that launched Rohini. These years played a very important role in my life of Scientist. TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the Part of India's missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994. THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of participating with my team in these nuclear tests and proving to the world that India can make it, that we are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure,for which we have developed this new material. A very light material called carbon-carbon. FOUR: One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory. He lifted the material and found it so light that he took me to his hospital and showed me his patients. There were these little girls and boys with heavy metallic calipers weighing over three Kg.each, dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram callipers and took them to the orthopaedic centre. The children didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a three kg. load on their legs, they could now move around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That was my fourth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed To recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why? We are the first in milk production. We are number one in Remote sensing satellites. We are the second largest producer of wheat. We are the second largest producer of rice. Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert land into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE?
Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign TVs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked Me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is: She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, You and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation. Allow me to come back with vengeance. Got 10 minutes for your country? YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU say that our laws are too old. YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, the airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination. YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give Him a name - YOURS. Give him a face - YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground Links as they are. You pay $5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you Have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else." YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 kmph) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai sala main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost." YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country why cannot you be the same here in India. Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay Mr.Tinaikar had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said. "And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the o fficers to do? Go down with a broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public. When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? "It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to change the system? What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to The system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into th e distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand. Or we leave the country and run away. Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money. A
Culture of Ideas Nicholas Negroponte says expertise is overrated. To build a nation of innovators, we should focus on youth, diversity, and
collaboration.
Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined,
contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. In short, being innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass.
Yet without innovation we are doomed—by boredom and monotony—to decline. So what makes innovation happen, and just where do new ideas come from? The basic answers—providing a good educational system,
encouraging different viewpoints, and fostering collaboration—may not be surprising. Moreover, the ability to fulfill these criteria has served the United
States well. But some things—the nature of higher education among
them—will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual source of new
ideas.
One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture
(national, institutional, generational, or other), the less likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. Common and
deep-seated beliefs, widespread norms, and behavior and performance standards are enemies of new ideas.
Any society that prides itself on being harmonious and homogeneous is very unlikely to catalyze idiosyncratic
thinking. Suppression of innovation need not be overt. It can be simply a matter of people’s walking around in
tacit agreement and full comfort with the status quo.
A very heterogeneous culture, by contrast, breeds innovation by virtue of its people, who look at everything
from different viewpoints. America, the so-called melting pot, is seen by many as having no culture (with
either a capital C or a lowercase c). In rankings of students in industrial countries, U.S. high school students
come across as average, at best, in reading, mathematics, and science. And unfortunately, the nation is
unrivaled in gun-related crimes among young people. Yet, looking back over the past century, the United
States has accounted for about a third of all Nobel prizes and has produced an unrivaled outpouring of
innovations—from factory automation to the integrated circuit and gene splicing—that are the backbone of
worldwide economic growth.
I see two reasons for this. One is that we do not stigmatize those who have tried and been unsuccessful. In
fact, many venture capitalists are more, not less, likely to invest in somebody who has failed with an earlier
startup than in someone who is launching his or her first company. The real disappointment is when people do
not learn from their mistakes.
The other reason is that we are uniquely willing to listen to our young. In many cultures, age carries too
much weight. Experience is rewarded over imagination, and respect can be too deferential. In some cultures,
people are given jobs on the basis of age, creating a sedentary environment stifling to the young. Remember
the saying “Children are to be seen and not heard”? Well, look at the economic growth created by such
“children” as Bill Gates and Michael Dell, to name just two.
That’s the good news. But when it comes to nurturing our youth, we have to do better. I am especially
concerned about early education, which can (and usually does) have a profoundly negative effect on
creativity. In the race to understand what children learn, we are far too enthusiastic about celebrating their
successes. What is more fascinating is what children do wrong. Even the concept of “wrong” should get some
attention. Though the wind is not made by leaves flapping, as some children guess, the theory is sufficiently
profound that it should not be dismissed out of hand. In fact, disassembling erroneous concepts is one of the
best ways to find new ideas. The process is akin to debugging a computer program and has almost nothing to
do with drill and practice (which is once again becoming a cornerstone of schooling).
Our biggest challenge in stimulating a creative culture is finding ways to encourage multiple points of views.
Many engineering deadlocks have been broken by people who are not engineers at all. This is simply because
perspective is more important than IQ. The irony is that perspective will not get kids into college, nor does it
help them thrive there. Academia rewards depth. Expertise is bred by experts who work with their own kind.
Departments and labs focus on fields and subfields, now and then adding or subtracting a domain. Graduate
degrees, not to mention tenure, depend upon tunneling into truths and illuminating ideas in narrow areas.
The antidote to such canalization and compartmentalization is being interdisciplinary, a term that is at once
utterly banal and, in advanced studies, describes an almost impossible goal. Interdisciplinary labs and
projects emerged in the 1960s to address big problems spanning the frontiers of the physical and social
sciences, engineering, and the arts. The idea was to unite complementary bodies of knowledge to address
issues that transcended any one skill set. Fine. Only recently, however, have people realized that
interdisciplinary approaches can bring enormous value to some very small problems and that interdisciplinary
environments also stimulate creativity. In maximizing the differences in backgrounds, cultures, ages, and the
like, we increase the likelihood that the results will not be what we had imagined.
Two additional ingredients are needed to cultivate new ideas. Both have to do with maximizing serendipity.
First, we need to encourage risk. This is particularly hard in midcareer and often flies in the face of peer
review and the mechanisms for corporate advancement. This is simply because risk, on its own, can look
pretty stupid. People who look around corners are exposed to failure and ridicule, and thus they must find
buoyancy, or support, within their own environment. If they don’t, counterintuitive ideas will remain so.
The second ingredient is encouragement for openness and idea sharing—another banality nearly impossible to
achieve. At the digital bubble’s peak, being open about ideas was particularly hard for computer scientists
because people saw riches coming from not sharing their ideas. Students would withhold ideas until after
graduation. As one person held his or her cards close, another followed, and as a result, many research labs
declined in value and effectiveness. In this regard, thank God the bubble has burst.
Not so many years ago, Bell Labs conducted so much research it could easily house some very high-risk
programs, including the so-called blue-sky thinking that led to information theory and the discovery of the
cosmic microwave background radiation. But the world benefited, and sometimes AT&T did too.
Now, Bell Labs is a shadow of its former self, subdivided several times through AT&T’s 1984 divestiture and
subsequent split into Lucent, NCR, and the parent firm. Moreover, it is not alone. As the economy sags and
companies trim their expenses, some of the first cuts are in high-risk or open-ended research programs.
Even if the research budget does not drop, the nature of projects is prone to be more developmental than
really innovative. If the trend continues, eventually we will suffer a deficit of new ideas. Already, fewer and
fewer big corporations are focusing on new ideas. And the formation of startups has come almost to a
standstill.
More than ever before, in the new “new economy,” research and innovation will need to be housed in those
places where there are parallel agendas and multiple means of support. Universities, suitably reinvented to be
interdisciplinary, can fit this profile because their other “product line,” besides research, is people. When
research and learning are combined, far greater risks can be taken and the generation of ideas can be less
efficient. Right now, only a handful of U.S. universities constitute such “research universities.” More will have
to become so. Universities worldwide will have to follow.
Industry can outsource basic research, just as it does many other operations. That means innovation has to
become a precompetitive phenomenon—something Japan understood in the early 1980s, when its Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (now the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry) funded Japanese
companies’ collaboration on robotics, artificial intelligence, and semiconductor manufacturing. While this
approach does not always work, it can be far more effective than most companies assume. Costs are shared,
different viewpoints are nourished, and innovation stands a chance for survival in even the worst economic
times.
The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough
ideas. Usually this ability resides in people with very wide backgrounds, multidisciplinary minds, and a broad
spectrum of experiences. Family influences, role models, travel, and living in diverse settings are obvious
contributors, as are educational systems and the way cultures value youth and perspective. As a society, we
can shape some of these. Some we can’t. A key to ensuring a stream of big ideas is accepting these messy
truths about the origin of ideas and continuing to reward innovation and celebrate emerging technologies. White-collar sweatshops batter young workers By Laura Vanderkam
(Nov 02)
Nancy Collins remembers when she hit rock bottom. She was in Australia for her investment-banking job at JP Morgan, trying to seal deals on two projects at once.
She thought she could handle the stress. After all, co-workers had dubbed her previous boss the "Prince of Darkness" for making people work until 3 a.m., and she knew she was good at what she did. But then, one night after weeks of 18-hour days and constant travel, she staggered home at 7 a.m. Not to sleep. To shower. As she stood in the water, she started crying. At age 25, she was having a midlife crisis. "I started thinking, there's got to be more to life than this," she says.
JP Morgan isn't the only firm driving its young employees insane. Salomon Smith Barney. Goldman Sachs. High-end consulting firms such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group and many tech companies do the same. All hire the brightest Ivy League grads and make them a deal: We will pay you $60,000 or more a year and give you glimpses of corporate luxury, from ritzy hotels to jaunts on the jet. In exchange, you must work 70, 80, 100 hours a week through the best years of your life.
Forget accounting, these white-collar sweatshops are corporate America's most successful scam. Give a kid a signing bonus and a $500 bottle of champagne, and he doesn't notice that he's working for $12 an hour. For years, exclusive firms have kept labor costs low by squeezing blood out of their hires. It's not exploitation. These kids are savvy enough to know what they're getting into. But they're also smart enough to wonder whether the lifestyle's worth the cost. As massive layoffs force the question, corporate bean counters should shiver at what the answer could do to their bottom line.
Since moving to New York a few months ago, I've marveled at Wall Street's and consulting companies' work-til-you-drop attitude. A friend still in a meeting at 10:30 p.m. asks whether we can reschedule drinks. A party moves from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on a Friday to accommodate late workers.
People complain. Oh, they complain. You worked 80 hours this week? Well, I worked 90. You slept four hours? I slept at the office and showered there, too! The dirty secret is, many sweatshoppers actually like it. This generation vied for status in college by comparing workloads. Many of them then dove like lemmings off the cliff into corporate America. A high-wattage job fills an almost religious need to be part of something bigger than yourself, and 16-hour days mean you don't have to deal with the messiness of life.
So people bought in throughout the boom. They skipped love affairs to save time and caught cabs back from the beach on Saturdays because the client needed that report. Ryan Sawchuk, whose co-workers at Amazon.com had to remind each other to eat, watched people bring sleeping bags to the office. He worked 12-hour shifts in the warehouse during the holidays and then did his real job, too. It got to the point where, according to Sawchuk, CEO Jeff Bezos told the Amazonians that since the company was no longer a start-up, they didn't have to work 90-hour weeks. Seventy-hour weeks were perfectly acceptable. And 65, once in a while, were OK.
I can't comprehend working anywhere for 65 hours a week. It's doable, I suppose, if you know you'll climb the corporate ladder to three-martini lunches soon. You sacrifice your 20s to the company, believing it will make you rich and powerful later.
Or not. For thousands of white-collar sweatshop workers, these next few weeks will be their last. Last week, the financial media reported that Morgan Stanley would lay off 2,200 employees worldwide. Lehman Brothers is trimming 500 jobs. McKinsey recently decided not to keep any of its second-year analysts. These layoffs continue the past year's trend. Russell Eckenrod, 23, recounts working 80 hours a week for a consulting company during Christmas last year, only to be laid off three weeks later.
Talk about a reality check. Turns out the folks who took you on the corporate jet will shove you out on the street faster than you can recount missed autumn afternoons. I'll never cheer a layoff. But every cloud has a silver lining, and the job-shedding at sweatshop firms is forcing brilliant young people with a world of options to consider that maybe they'd be happier somewhere else.
Nancy Collins ultimately started her own company, Global Adrenaline, which leads adventure tours to Africa and the Arctic. She values her JP Morgan skills, but "I'm much happier," she says. When she works Saturdays now, the decision is all her own.
Sawchuk left the four-cups-of-Starbucks-a-day Amazon lifestyle for other pursuits. More will follow as people realize comparable money can be made elsewhere and that when you are young, time is the most valuable asset you have. Why sell it all for $12 an hour?
This complicates the sweatshop bargain. If people don't lust after glamour, these firms lose their lure. They can find less-savvy employees, but then they'll lose the brainpower that attracts clients in the first place. Or, the firms can accept shorter workweeks and pay for overtime. It won't be easy: On Wall Street, at least, worker compensation is 50% of expenses. Try throwing that into a third-quarter statement.
But so it goes. A deal offered doesn't have to be taken when you realize the emperor has no clothes. I remember a summer 2000 recruiting event for investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, for instance, on a Hudson River cruise boat. We rising college seniors flocked to the open bar as the recruiters showed us the Manhattan skyline and the cruising DLJ lifestyle. Pursue that deal with us, the message went, and all this will be yours.
I thought of that cruise the other day as I took the No. 6 train to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a beautiful fall morning, the kind too beautiful to miss. I walked toward the middle of the steel trusses and stared back at Wall Street's skyscrapers, imagining people laboring inside. It was the same view as from DLJ's boat.
Still stunning. And from here, absolutely free.
New York-based writer Laura Vanderkam is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.
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