Culture

Dedicated to:

• Darshan Jani
  • JPMC (culture)
  • my first manager (you always remember your first)
  • EQ/IQ

• HK and APal

• Speaking about this officially for the first time.
  • Have spoken and discussed about this with multiple organisations; examples of which will be covered.
  • But it was in bits and pieces. I will be connecting the dots, and hopefully I will be able to.

So, let’s get started?

Polls

• What comes to your mind when I say culture?
• What is it usually paired up with?
  • Indian culture, coding culture, literature, dating culture, tech culture, organization culture
• I will be speaking about organizational culture.
  • Which is the parent to all the cultures we were speaking about.

Why should you listen to me?

• Because I have worked in and for organisations; asynchronously striving for a good culture.
• And I have failed in the ones I was leading.
• But maybe that’s why I am standing here.
• I have been able to observe and identify differences in culture —
  • when I was a part of GDSC TSEC, TSEC CodeCell
  • when I speak to my brother about ICICI, or my father about departments in RBI
  • during my time at JPMC
• When my final year started, I was thinking about a plan of action about what to do, and there might have been a hundred things, but one thing that I want to do is explicitly (not implicitly) improve the coding culture of my college (charity begins at home).
• “Officially”, I am a part of CodeCell and Entrepreneurship Cell of our college; but I am trying to work towards organizational culture of these committees.
  • But again, this is something that I volunteered for and not something someone asked me to do.
    • Like this talk.

How do I try to influence culture?

• By giving “gyaan”, yes.
• This is a very broad question. You cannot just speak about culture - when you want to change culture.
  • We start asking questions about their interactions or just giving feedback on their decisions.
• But if we zoom out, it is less talking, more listening.
  • The way to do is to understand people, understand perspectives, understand why certain decisions are being taken;
  • And there onwards potentially try to find flaws in the system or tweak their thought process.
    • Discussed this approach with Aayush Pal (engineering culture at market.xyz)
  • TODO: A picture about dealing with things. A tree of decisions, nothing is right or wrong, it is about doing things the correct way — morally and ethically.

What will we cover today?

So, this is not going to be a checklist.

• like most of the things I speak about: design, documentation, culture.

These are the answers you will find for yourself.

• My job is to help you question things and how certain things can be looked at?

This is just going to be my take on culture.

• And trust me I am not “experienced”, I will be just showcasing my naive experiences, thoughts and opinions about culture.
• To help us think about culture when next time we look at an organisation.

Defining Culture

• The illustration: decisions and interactions at a potential organization.
  • These are all subconsciously influenced by culture.
  • Culture plays a major role in the way:
    • we speak
    • we take decisions
    • we work
    • we take responsibility

Types of culture

Culture

• tech/non-tech
• working/organising events
• CodeCell, GDSC TSEC, ICICI, JPMC, RBI

Types of Culture:

• Indian Culture
  • raised up

We are so much surrounded by it and it influences a lot of our decisions subconsciously.

• It is true what they say right — you are influenced by the people and the kind of ideas we are surrounded with.
• Like even yesterday, when I was building these illustrations, I found a potential UX bug in tldraw.com, so I opened a bug report.
  • Again, no one asked me to do it, but it is because I have been “raised” - raised in the tech world; there were people like Kartik Soneji and Harsh Kapadia.
  • Where you can improve software, and improving software is in your hands; even if it is smallest of the help.

Types of Culture (continued):

• Coding Culture
  • In terms of colleges
• Tech Culture
  • In terms of firms
  • Engineering blogs (cult.fit)
  • Supporting open-source (Razorpay)
  • Conducting in-house Hackathon (JPMC, Razorpay)

Talking about goals

• Individual
• Team
• Department
• Organisation

External motivators/externally driven:

• Collaboration/Competition driven culture
• Result/Fear/Incentive driven
  • Carrot and the stick story
    • College Committees
    • Tech Firms like Amazon
    • Non. Tech firms like ICICI Bank
    • Placement talk
• Goal-oriented Culture
  • DevFolio
    • A tight knit family with culture
    • Working towards a single goal
    • Engineering team

Harsh

• hackathon spirit blog
  • “Getting done with things” attitude
  • Resorting to temporary solutions
  • Tenure based work
  • Delegating work and being delegated

Ideal

• open conversations
• hearing and respecting opinions
• how to be empathetic and practice empathy
  • smallest case: empathy starts from within
  • think thrice, not twice — before you say something (Or do anything or text or email.)
    • When I say this, I am not asking to hold back — I am asking to review your answer/response/way of receiving and sending it from all angles. It gives a good practice of empathy.
    • And of course, something that is reviewed thrice is better than twice.
    • It might save you from some trouble, someday.

After working there for a few weeks;

• Communication Gap
• Accountability Gap
• to build a good team:

Character over Skill

1. holding accountable/responsibile
2. Building a good team, teaching them
3. Encouraging questions
4. Being approachable

• We all think we are open-minded, until we come across a different culture, a different opinion, a different perspective.