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In some professional settings, when I had to meet new people; often during the greeting people say “Hi, I am ABC and I am the <<insert fancy title>>” and look back at me, while my responsibilities were at similar level I did not have a fancy title. I have always been associated with companies which did not go for fancy titles and it has been a downhill when there needs to be a peer to peer conversation but it ends up in a hierarchical communication.

This has a big domino effect and people want bigger and fancier titles much earlier in their life. My dad retired as an engineer and when I looked into his career path, he was not called an engineer until he spent 5-6 years as a technical assistant to the engineer, another 5 years as deputy engineer and finally an engineer when he had enough experience and wisdom to handle a lot of things. Now we started calling people who connect cables to the modem as service engineers.

Different people are motivated by different things, for a few people status is one of them but by succumbing to that need we put a lot of others at a disadvantage because; now every one has to play the game to make sure there is proper titles associated to them based on the years of experience or the volume of things they are handling.

Looking forward to a future where titles do not matter that much and we stick only the basic ones. We should not have inflated titles to the point where people are judging someone’s worth by the title they carry.

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A zen monk was watering a plant, a follower was puzzled as the monk was watering the plant which was full of thorns, people have been injured regularly from the pricks. The disciple went to the monk and quizzed about why a plant which harms others is being nurtured. The monk replied, I am watering the plants for the beautiful roses that will bloom, it is the roses I care for and nurture it.

As many of us are not monks, I think most of the rules and regulations are centered around preventing something from happening than making things easy. It is evident in the corporate world, in simple things like office libraries. It defeats the purpose of having a library if a user cannot browse through books. I had a habit of going to the library after lunch and browse through a few books, if interested read for 15-20 minutes and then get back to work.

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I was able to read a lot of books during my breaks, it is when I changed jobs and went to a new office that I realised people can lock libraries. We had to stir up a movement to get the administration to open up the library for casual reading instead of lending only policy which was put in place to prevent book theft.

Most of the systems are designed to be like this, in order to reduce the undesirable activity by a small margin, we tend to impact good behaviour on a larger scale. It is also the result of measuring the wrong things, like an admin being measured on reducing bad debts. There are some initiatives of coming up with designs that promote good behaviour like smart speed bumps but it does not gain traction as people in charge don’t have any incentive to design it that way. So everyone of us will have to go over that nasty speed bump in the neighbourhood for years to come because some random idiot will speed through.

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Would we still have aeroplanes if Wright brothers were not able to invent it? The answer is yes, someone else would have made the breakthrough may be months or a few years later. It is applicable for most of the inventions. The end result for the general public will more or less be the same; even if there was no Marconi, JL Baird we will still be having radio and TV. Things will happen and breakthroughs will be made, some winner may take it all, but inventions would keep happening irrespective of those individuals doing it or not.

Who creates and invents things? Is it the individual? No, it is the environment. If we look through the history, inventions mostly come from places where lower hierarchy of needs are taken care and people are able to concentrate on more complex things to solve problems. To learn well & build upon previous inventions requires a certain level of development and surplus of food, skills and mind space (to mind one’s own business).

Many organisations that I have visited or interacted with the people who work there are doing something the opposite. They are grooming individualistic culture of heroism and rockstars. Some of them have gotten into rewards and recognitions on a big scale to the point of very small achievements are rewarded well. A few lucky individuals who get noticed end up getting a lot of support and becomes a showcase for self fulfilling prophecy and others have to be motivated a lot to do their day to day things that they sign up for.

Workplace has to be an engine of producing high quality people who go on to bring results instead of focusing on identifying high quality people and giving them the upper hand. Workplace should encourage people who are inclined to continuously learn and work well with each other, build on top of existing advancements. It is too easy to focus on top performers but that tilts the balance further out of aspirants.