Skill Fit vs. Culture Fit: Tallent challenges for social ventures

In this article on nextbillion.net, Univ of Michigan's own Moses Lee presents a common dilemma for social enterprises facing a talent crunch: For a job opening, you have to choose between two candidates. One that fits the job profile, but not the culture, and the other that gets the culture and has the will/passion for change, but does not have the right skillset. Who do you pick?

My response:

During the last two years, I helped found the Grassroots Development Laboratory (www.gdl.org.in) in Rajasthan, India. We finally gained momentum and started growing at the year and a half mark, and the talent shortage was our single biggest impediment to growth.

A few things that I've come to realize:

• NGOs/Social Ventures start because of the passion of a few individuals. It is important to stoke this early on. At this point, it is KEY to find someone who 'gets' the culture
• There IS a transition point where you have to grow out of your comfort zone, and become 'professional'. It is where the ideas and passion are no longer enough for the founders, the community you serve, or the donors who serve you, and they demand hard results. You will need people to execute the right things, the right way, and thus the skillset becomes important.

I think it is possible to misjudge this transition point too early. Organizational culture, and not financial viability, may be critical to surviving beyond the nascent stage, and stories of many NGOs would support this notion at least anecdotally. Understanding what stage you're in, and sticking to your priorities, is very difficult for any startup organization, especially when there is a talent shortage.

From early missteps (and subsequent right steps) we figured out what worked for us: the founders need to have a clear understanding of which stage they are in, what their priority is, what they want their organization's values to be, and orient prospective/new employees VERY clearly about these values. In a startup environment this seems so redundant, because everybody "knows" the values anyways, but the exercises can sometime stir up a hornet's nest. It is fruitful to be able to commit to something in writing, as well as define the limits/relative importance of these values by defining the extent to which we will demonstrate/practice/cultivate the values. For example: Does simple living come at the expense of efficient delivery? In what way? To what extent?

Of course, throughout this continuously transformative phase, the tough question may sometime not be what, but who: who are the founders, and thus, who defines the values of this organization.

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On responsibility

Pontius The Frog: Sometimes I'd like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine and injustic when he could do something about it
Another Frog: What's stopping you?
Pointus The Frog: I'm afraid God might ask me the same question

A fantastic take on being responsible for what you do, from the absolutely fantastic book: Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell. I'm sure I've waxed eloquent about it at some time.

Preceding the cartoon, is this little poem:

I am only one,

But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the
something that I can do.

Two Points For Honesty

There are many things that I have pushed back on the to-do list, nay the ULTIMATE to-do list of them all, the 'to-reflect' list.

In many ways, I'm going back to precisely the same behaviors that made me less than who I can become . Actually, I don't know if these behaviors ever went away. In India I was simply trying to do 150% of what I could possibly do, and that let me perform somewhere near my capabilities. It was the incessant people to pay bills to, the incessant stock/inventory to keep, the incessant fires to put out, the incessant incessancy? of Mahendra (God bless his soul for being so perseverant).

It's funny how this thought has even entered my mind. It's not really an internal reflection, but rather a reflection on someone else's mirror. It starts off innocuously - what classes do I take next quarter. Then it boils into, how many classes do I take next quarter? And slowly the heuristics have nothing to do with ourselves - how much is that guy taking (only 3, but the dude never has any free time!). Or, oh my God, that girl is taking 7 classes and running the show here and leading this and leading that, and still manages to look good. BTW, I don't think I still understand the word heuristics fully, but I'm sure our Management& organizations professor will burn it into our psyche forever by the end of 2 more weeks.

Perhaps it is a lack of other heuristics of comparison that forces you into the default one of your work/school peers. It is the ultimate 'crab' mentality: I am only as happy relatively to those around me. And rather than looking for other comparative heuristics, and giving personal weights to it (the logical way), I need to stop comparing altogether. I need to figure out what matters to me (aka priorities) and what am I really capable of (aka competence). And go from there. To realize that, there is only one way. You guessed it. Self-Reflection. It's what Indicorps showed me. It's what Initiatives of Change (formerly MRA) showed off so brilliantly.

I think I started off this quarter with a talk about body, mind and soul. I'm not sure if that is good enough. Or maybe the soul part is a lot more than spirituality. Actually, like heuristics, I don't really understand the meaning of spirituality either.

But Two Points For Honesty, non?

Amitabh Bacchan Now Blogs in Hindi (or rather: अमिताभ बच्चन अब हिन्दी में ब्लौग करते हैं)

While I haven't figured out a 'solution' (or perhaps even a clear problem definition), I am still quite passionate about the promotion of Hindi language usage on the web, and in computers in general. I have seen first-hand the transformation of my students in Bagar when they start using a Hindi-language interface versus an English one.

Looking back: the key difference is in the confidence to explore. I have never really been formally 'taught' Windows: my guess is by now many people who use Windows on a daily basis haven't been either. Simply the amount of time you spend on it making mistakes and then learning from them probably determines how good you get at it (of course, formal training will help you get there much faster). So the basic scenario that changes is that when an error message pops up in English, the students look for the teacher to 'tell them' what to do. In Hindi, they are much much more likely to start clicking around and learning themselves from a cause-and-effect method.

I believe that access to technology is NOT the chief impediment in the uptake of computer/cyberspace by hindi-language users in rural India. The issues is compelling applications and content. So far the only things that have worked are a) Bollywood b) Bollywood and c) Matrimonials (but even THAT is usually in English).

So, Amitabh Bacchan's announcement that he is going to blog in Hindi (बिग बी ने हिन्दी में लिखा अपना ब्लौग) is somewhat exciting. It is more of what works, but the mass media appeal of Amitabh Bacchan can't be denied. We had a Diwali party a week ago at our house, and we were showing some Bollywood videos on the projector. I remember all the Indians getting excited when Big-B came on the screen during 'Kajre Re'. And I remember my American friend's comment, "He's...got funny hair", in response to his Mehendi-dyed hair. It really his appeal and legacy that draws the crowd (and not his current performances), and through a Hindi-language channel, that could be a potential draw.

Actually, having JUST read his blog, i don't think (or rather hope) that there's going to be much traffic to a site full of photos of the view from his hotel room (I sure hope the Oberoi Udayvilas is paying him for this)

Anyways, will keep posting stuff as and when it creeps up. अल्विदा।

P.S. Here's the direct link to Big-B's blog: http://bigb.bigadda.com/

Thoughts while travelling

I write this on my laptop sitting here at Union Station, Chicago, on my way to Ann Arbor from my hometown of Bloomington, IL. I had a long layover, so I decided to stop by the food court. I get stopped by this (presumably) homeless lady, and she asks me for money for food. Mom had packed some stuff for me, so I said, here’s some food you can have. Turns out she doesn’t have any teeth, and would settle for a coke.

Now this is not an uncommon situation in India, and usually I tend to just ignore it and move on. I think the Indicorps training kicked in at this point. I bought two cokes, and sat down with her. The conversation was, well, VERY interesting. She really had a lot to say. I think the lady was suffering from some dementia too, and I just didn’t what to say about most things (How do you react to a lady wearing foil under her hat so that the ‘people who can change shapes’ don’t read her thoughts?) I just listened to her politely, and when I finished my drink, I wished her good luck with her crocheting (the needlework stuff) and walked away.

Something about this experience shook me. In some sense, my experience in India was a lot about in-your-face reality. I could have chosen to like it or hate it, but as a ‘social worker’, I could not have ignored it. In America (or actually just as easily in India), you can choose to block it out, ignore it, act like it’s not there. It reminds me of a line from the movie Crash, which talked about how we’re so separated from each other within all this glass and steel. Student life has really been like a bubble. Ann Arbor has a lot of issues to work with: but it’s so much more comfortable in your room.

It’s been a whole week since I promised to write, and I clearly haven’t even written an iota. I can’t complain though: I’ve had an ultimately relaxing (read: lazy) break. Some TV, answer a few e-mails, run some errands. Nothing to really push the limits anyhow.

And that in itself summarizes nicely my modus operandi for the last three months. Do a little work (enough to get by), watch TV (I call it catching up on lost time), answer a few e-mails, talk a lot every now and then. If the US army helps you be all that you can be, I’m definitely operating at no more than 30% of what I can be. This is not the Ashish of the last two years. I owe it to myself (and so many more), to be much more than that. B-School can’t just be another two years to get a degree – there is much more I can do in this world.

In the spirit of true self-reflection, I have to talk about what I’m going to do about it. B-school does provide rigorous academics, and it does nourish my intellectual curiosity (to what extent is purely my choice). But that still doesn’t take much time, and I still operate in a very me-centric world. My biggest decision of the day really is to figure out what I’m going to have for dinner. I think I’m walk upto the Chinmayanand Mission in Ann Arbor, where Shardaji is the Acharya, and start giving time there. I was really impressed by her BalVihar and her philosophy on working with kids and helping them connect to their Indian/Hindu roots. I think it’ll be really good for the soul to work with kids again: remind me that most of the joys of life are really really simple.

Plus, I think for overall health I am going to start running again – but to a particular goal. I am going to run a marathon next summer (let’s call it May 2009). I think the running is also going to provide me much needed daily discipline.

It all sounds very nice: on the eve of this next quarter to begin, here’s my plan to engage my body, mind and soul. Stay tuned for weekly progress.

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YNMTYSYNO

You Never Move Till You Stick Your Neck Out


Words. Of Wisdom.

(oh ya, this means I'm back to writing a lot more)

P.S. Hope you enjoy the new Diwali template

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A statement of priorities

Business school is not 'difficult', but it is 'challenging'. It pushes you around with the workload. More importantly, there's a lot to do, and you have to pick & choose.

It becomes a question of priorities, and executing on those priorities.

I thought I had a very clear picture of what I wanted out of b-school: 1) Really understand how to start a business 2) Do really well in the fundamentals 3) Learn sales by helping out with Issist 4) Come out with a business plan for my own business in India. My priorities were straight.

Right now, I find myself NOT executing on ANY of these. And I don't actually know why. Many  little excuses come to mind: I haven't found my 'whitespace' yet, I'm not used to studying, America's got way too many distractions etc etc.

But I think a lot of it is because the fire within is getting lost. With all this talk of career, I find myself hedging (e.g. non-profit management could be close right? two years working in the US won't matter right?).

I need to figure out why I'm here. And get organized & start delivering. ASAP.

Any support on the matter is MUCH appreciated.

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