It is quite a long time now since the last one. But there is a reason behind it and that blogging in no way should be the top priority of mine, not even amongst. All this time was spent in making first of all some mistakes, some wise decisions (and not smart), being in a great lot of mess and founding Zmart Traderz. And conceivably, this was the interval that taught me what it would require to create a good and a humble business out of conservativeness, honesty, modest intellect and a proficiency to understand people you are dealing with, one has got to be really dexterous at the last one. Actually what I have discovered is that it is only the people that enable you to get on to the top of something, stay in the middle or lie down. It does not matter on what altitude lies your intellect nor it is do anything with the kind of money that you can afford to pump into your business, but they are the people who matters. So let me get into it much deeper. I have studied back in my school days right from I don’t know what grade, that an enterprise requires land, labor and capital also known as “Factors of Production” in economics. Capital includes every other thing that you put in to your business for operations. Now out of these three factors don’t you think labor (people) is the most important one and religiously difficult to get and to manage? Well for me, obviously yes. The other things are essentially non-living in nature and that the people are living beings. It is absolutely plausible to acquire, buy resources that are materialistic than buying or hiring a guy who would “love” to work in your organization. Organizations put hell no matter how much amount of money on creating technologies, facilities, formalities, etc. But these things most of the time are not essentially needed in order to build an enormous amount of moat or a valuable castle for yourself does it? And these organizations wouldn’t be the ones who would be amongst the bests. Exceptions are Google, Wal-Mart and the likes, these are equally well in everything else they do and certainly they do care for their people as much as they do for anything else. It’s also quite interesting to note the way any organization now recruits people. The essentials for the candidate seeking to get into that organization are typically to have his bio-data (curriculum vitae, resume whatever you call it) well made. The guidelines usually keeps shouting at the individual to go brief and to the point because certainly the HR (human resource or the one who is going to interview that candidate) wouldn’t be having all the time in this world to listen to the candidate’s boring story or what the HR is not at all interested in listening. Then goes the so called “psycho-metric tests” (for those who didn’t get the words it’s a series of tests essentially the ones in which you need to do some scribbling and mark the right answers). These tests are pretty much basic in nature which strives to know how much comfortable are you with numbers, words and emotions nowadays. I mean these tests could more easily be answered by a 10th grader than a typical just-out-of-the-college-dude. This function is almost every time performed by the HR without the founder interrupting. And this works perfectly fine if the length and breadth of the organization is very large. I believe I share a different view altogether as I have always believed in approaches that features common sense in it.
I believe being one of the most important faces of any business –people should be understood first and then should be hired. In the process of conducting tests and keeping the strict norms of having your resumes to the point companies restricts the individual to come out with basic human traits godly important for the success of any business i.e., trust, emotional regard, honesty and love whatever that an individual do in that organization. Most of the time it happens candidates simply join a firm and then gets out of it or simply went absconding for some reasons and then when it comes to get into an another one they end up in cooking up stories that if seen from a simple perspective, heck will not make any sense, but I am sure it will to the HR. This happens as the candidates fear from the rejection they shall face should they tell the interviewer the truths. That’s right. But it is indeed wrong. This gives enormous confidence to the candidate if his lie enables him to get into the firm and especially when he landed on a well-paying job and hence the structure of basic traits quivers. So the next time this lie might be a highly organized one and might be cocooned into what organizations and professors say “effective communication”. And to the candidates unknowingly this ain’t a lie because the reward clouds it all giving birth to a sadistic cycle. Then comes exodus of people, attrition shoots up, strikes, etc. and problem occurs to which the board responds with fancy stuff in terms of financial lures, etc. Retaining of people becomes the “actual” work then and then starts sleepless nights which are inhuman.
What if the HR were to allow the candidates to speak the truth regardless of good or bad? What if the resumes were to be allowed to be made as a short biography of individuals with incidents and events both personal and professional and not just in a “bulleted-format” that lays out objectives, work-experience, education and birth and marital details, etc? The argument against the fact that interviewers usually does not have time to screen individuals’ resumes is absolutely crazy as this is what they are there for and that they are trying to get “people” who are going to be the bricks and the mortars of their business. And training people with numbers and words is far easier than say training them with to be trustworthiness, honesty and humbleness. Bestowing some time in knowing and understanding your people would be like in understanding those who shall be a part of your family for a long time. So have been the individuals like our Prophets, Andrew Carnegie, Sam Walton, Warren Buffet, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Jamshedji Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata, etc. who created not just juggernauts but institutions where true human pursuits are cultivated and not at the expense of losses or short-term profits but unmatched wealth creation for people. It has to be a situation where both of them should emerge as winners and some third ones. Any throughputs?
