24 x 7: Will IT help spread the good word?

Some years back I had the opportunity of working closely with a person born and brought up in the US of A. (Not that I haven't worked with others, but this born and brought up Indian case was different.) Most of my meetings with him wouldn't get to any serious level of business discussion. Even at a superficial level, it wouldn't last very long. I often wondered why.

Couple of months later I came across a child whose father complained that he was just not able to get his son to apply himself to studies. The problem was quite similar. The child war unable to focus on whatever was at hand and would keep straying to other things.

In both cases it was the problem of short attention spans. (I guess that's how the psychologists describe it.) I can very well relate to the harried parents because I had gone through the experience of dealing with a person with attention span problems.

In a business environment, how do you deal with such situations. Imagine the problems, when such a person turns out to be your boss! Well, how does such a person get to be your boss in the first place is what you will ask? Valid question. But the answer isn't that difficult. This guy could well be a second-generation entrepreneur who has inherited his fathers business. Right?

Somehow, dynastic have had a way of being around in India. One thought one had seen the last of dynastic rule in India when India gained independence. But the people of this country thought otherwise. And they returned three successive generations to power at the

hustings.

You would have thought it would be different in business. After all, a professional environment ought to be different. But most big business houses were loath to give away control. And so it was that their children and then grand children took over the mantle to run the organizations.

If you don't see many of these organizations doing too well, it may be only to be expected. Genetics does not ensure the same level of capability generation after generation.

While most big businessmen do make it a point to send their children to prestigious institutes of learning, that is no real guarantee that the siblings will acquire high standards of business acumen. The need for capable professionals can therefore hardly be underestimated.

With the growing dominance of information Technology, there is greater appreciation of the professional. And the fact that venture capitalists are playing an increasingly important role in funding projects, the barriers to entrepreneurship have more or less been removed.

I am sure a professional would like to work for someone who can look upto at an intellectual level. For too long he has had to toe the promoters line irrespective of whether he agreed with his ways or not. Just because the promoter brought in the money to run the business.

But that has changed now. You find professionals quitting their cushy jobs in their prime to start their own ventures. The focus is on management talent that has the capability to take the business forward. This is one of the key ingredients that venture capitalists look for when funding projects.

In a way, we are already seeing the fulfillment of prophecies (if I can call it that) made by some pundits - of the future bringing about the revenge of the nerd and the revenge of the grey haired.' (So if you want to make doubly sure that you have a place in tomorrow's organization, I guess the best thing to do is to get yourself to be a grey haired nerd'.)

All this is for good. The professional entrepreneur is able to better relate to the aspirations of the younger generation because he has gone through the same or similar motions in the past. He is also willing to look more positively at the softer sides of the job requirements. Unlike his hard mosed out and out businessman (meaning profits to the exclusion of every thing else) predecessor, the professional entrepreneur is more a live to interesting in creating a congenial work environment.

After all, when an employee spends the major part of the twenty-four hours at work, you better make that experience worth its while.

The 24 x 7-work environment are nothing new. The industrial age brought the three-shift work culture long time back. There are many industries, especially the process industries that work non-stop without a break. It was only when the white collared guy had to start working 24 x 7 that so much of hype got generated around this term. (Typical of the IT industry that thrives on hype.)

Why is it that nobody thought of creating better facilities for the blue collared worker of yore? Obviously the management did not identify with it. The IT environment is different. Both workers and the management strongly associate and relate to the same environment. The similar background from which it hails makes management alive to the needs of the workers. It is a healthy development.

Maybe there will be a fall out of such positive IT environments on other industries as well. IT may show the way for improved working environments for the blue collared worker too. The hard rosed businessman descendent may still realize the benefits of interesting in people and creating congenial work environments for them. Provided, of course that he over comes the problem of 'short attention spans.