Sridhar Vembu’s Blog

Individuals, families, organizations, even entire societies get into this we-know-we-are-on-the-wrong-road-but-we-can’t-change-now syndrome. This phenomenon seems scale invariant - it can happen at the level of an individual, and at the level of entire nations.

At the level of an individual, I have seen people say things like “I know I am failing in my job, I know I am not going anywhere, but I just can’t seem to muster the gumption to do something about it”. Sometimes they know there is a problem, but they don’t know if there is a solution. Sometimes it is a security and the fear of the unknown - if the job in question is a cushy all-benefits-paid-but-little-work sinecure, someone can go through an entire life being unhappy but still stuck there.

Looking at organizations, how can anyone explain a slow-motion-pile-up like what is going on at GM? I am sure there are many, many people at GM who know what is wrong, even how to fix it, but it just seems that collectively, they have given up.

At the level of countries, how do you explain a country like India wasting two generations of people stuck on a failing socialist path? The sad thing was that many people, even at the highest levels, knew the system wasn’t working. But at some point the system seemed to trap everyone, with no movement possible. Until a crisis forced change.

We humans seem to have an inherent tendency to avoid confronting a problem, if acknowledging it would cause us pain. We tend to postpone it, avoid it, procrastinate, until things reach the breaking point.

I have personally found myself in such situations before. I remember when I was an unhappy PhD student at Princeton, not really believing in the work I was doing, going around with the gnawing feeling “something is wrong, but I don’t know what to do about it”. In hindsight, the best decision I ever made was to leave the academic world, and come to private industry. I did it with only one thought: “let me migrate to a new planet, and see what happens”. It was scientific experiment in the true sense - the outcome was unknown and unknowable.

I think I was able to do that because I had already “migrated to another planet” when I moved from India to the US. In perfect hindsight, that move itself, to pursue graduate study, was a failed experiment - I didn’t really enjoy it. I went through it, got out with a PhD, but knowing what I know now, wouldn’t have done it. The one valuable thing I got out of it was “Have the guts to change course” and “Challenge even the most cherished assumptions”.

AdventNet has gone through such transformations too. We have refused to be pinned down to a fixed course. In an ever-changing industry, I believe that would be suicidal. We pursue the course that our judgement and conscience dictates us, unfettered by dogma. My favorite philosopher is J. Krishnamurthy, who, echoing Buddha, said,

That has stayed with me.

There are some universals, like “A business without profit will die” and “If you don’t take care of your customers, you won’t have too many customers”. But subject to these universals (which are of the same nature as “Thou Shall Not Kill”), we will keep changing and evolving.