Defeating the politics by being apolitical

-
About a year ago, a senior manager at Google told me when I asked about how to deal with what seemed like a political situation I saw, by saying "Do what you always do. Be apolitical, make good decisions that work for everyone, and you'll find that it works out."

A few things at work, and the section on judgement in the Netflix preso I mentioned below, got me thinking about that again.

I realize that applies not just to political behavior, but a bunch of other bad habits that creep into large companies (e.g. not sharing info deliberately, gossiping etc. etc.) I believe that staying above the rat-race rather than joining it, is in fact that smartest option in the long-run.

On the other hand, this kinda thinking smacks of UChicago efficient market kinda thinking; and we know how that's viewed right now.:)

Personally, I'll stick with this, with the only caveat that acting "good" doesn't mean being unaware of the "evil."

Try, and try hard, to understand the political dynamic happening around you; just choose be better than it, rather than acting that way out of ignorance or a sense of being better than the system.

With that: my lecturing for today ends.:)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A short love letter to ~8 years on Google Search - 8 things I’m grateful for.

-
  After a few weeks off, I started a new gig within Google yesterday and it hit me that for the first time in almost eight years I won’t be working on some part of Google Search. Eight years ago, I told the team when I was interviewing that I was “looking for a place to call home for a while and grow there”. My experiences here more than met that need.  I used to write a regular “10 things about…” listy column for a while at a college newspaper. So in that style here’s 8 things (one for each year) I feel grateful to have experienced/learned in this time. Also, like that column which I banged out the night before it was due, this post is something that I don’t need to do, yet I feel somehow compelled to do (and so it’ll likely be longer and less crisp than it should be :-))    It actually is awesome to work on something so many people use and love, and that positively touches people’s lives. There’s a talk I give externally about Search and a line I often end up ...
Read more

Why don't you love Chocos, America?

-
Image
A few days ago I had the following conversation with a customs agent at San Francisco airport - as an Indian returning from India I get sent to the customs line even when I check "No food" on the customs form. :-) Agent: "Any food?" Me: "No" Agent: "Sure? No jira or cadipatta ? Me : "No....     well actually I do have a box of cereal." Agent: "Huh. What? Really?" Me: "Yes. Its a brand you don't get here." Agent: "Seriously. Even in the Indian stores? I've never heard that before." Me: "Ummm....yeah." I love reading local customization stories, particularly about how international chains tailor their offerings to local markets - the food industry has the best examples of these - check out this McDonald's story about the McPaneer , or how KFC is incredibly successful in China . But I seem to have missed that the customization extended to breakfast cereal. Turns out the ...
Read more

What might Twitter and/or Facebook have cost us if they were invented earlier (or should some things stay deliberately un-social?)

-
Image
So I was reading an ebook last week, and came across a quote that I liked. My first thought wasn't "I should write this down" , it was "I want to tweet this." My ebook reading software wasn't equipped for it, and it wasn't trivial to do so I didn't, but I expect most ebook reading software will be updated to do this in the next couple of releases and probably encourage me to as well. Why should reading be left behind? Twitter is already saving live TV . As I look back on the last week watching the Cricket World Cup , a huge part of it for me was watching my Twitter and Facebook feeds for reactions and being part of them. My parents were the only ones that actually called me during the match, but I felt connected to so many more people through FB and the Big T . Wether you're shopping, eating out, playing games, even searching ... apparently "everything gets better with social." We all have a very human, internal urge to express ours...
Read more