How do we change our work ethics?

[Naren1987]

From the looks of the organization of the CWG, it is clear that we desperately need it, how do we become another Japan, or Germany?
I don't want India to become as dysfunctional as Greece.
Which state has the most productive way of doing things?
I'd like to hear about your ideas.

 

[agentperry]

the need for achievement should be high. if people have high need for achievement then they will automatically work harder.

now how to make ppl have higher need for ach.- by making them accountable for all the things from childhood. like girl child in India, if she fails is not scolded by teachers by parents and all, this sends a wrong message to her. it conveys that society was expecting her to fail. this makes our Indian women even worse in the female oriented house hold works. on the other hand boys are held accountable for failure and cheered for success. this makes even a man good chef.

other things are autonomy and encouragement of the kids to do positive and creative work. this also results in increasing need for ach of that kid in later years of life.

these steps are crucial and are primary. MOST OF THE PERSONALITY OF A PERSON IS SHAPED UP BY THE AGE OF 6. so these steps are crucial

 

[Bangalorean]

Just stop accepting substandard work, and start expecting things on time.

In all day to day affairs. From the smallest stuff like expecing the payment collection guy to turn up on time, to things like expecting perfection in our roads and footpaths - not even a speck out of place.

 

[The Messiah]

Do people actually enjoy there work ? No

Vast majority are doing jobs that they dont enjoy doing and are only doing it because of financial compulsions.

 

[Bangalorean]

^^ True, but isn't that the case throughout the world?

Most people work only out of financial compulsions, and people always feel that the grass is greener on the other side, and that they should have been elsewhere...

 

[The Messiah]

^^ True, but isn't that the case throughout the world?

Most people work only out of financial compulsions, and people always feel that the grass is greener on the other side, and that they should have been elsewhere...

But not to the extent it is in India. Not only financial compulsions but here we also have social compulsions.

Things like "Don't become chef but rather become 'second' rate engineer/doctor/lawyer." What motivation will person have in that scenario when his basic ends are meeting ?

 

[thakur_ritesh]

divide the country into two segments, one the government/semi-government set up, the other private set up and draw the conclusions.

the government/semi-government set up is what one associates with the inefficient, lazy "sab chalta hai" attitude, no meeting of deadlines/targets, so on and so forth, talk about work culture here and it gets as bad as it could.

take the private set up and you have a completely different picture, a highly efficient set up, professionally well managed, high emphasis given on bottom lines, targets met within deadlines, etc and these people do extensive workshops on inculcating best global practices which means the best out there regularly being engaged to train the staff in india.

indian economy's real driving force is the latter, will the former shape up? highly unlikely and we cant even say they should ship out!

anyways, after reading the first post the sense i get is the discussion is about work culture and not ethics, ethics has to do with morality.

the way out, give the private set a bigger stake in the economic growth of this country, end the government monopoly in as many areas as possible, government needs to implement investor friendly policies, limit its role to very few services and take to administration more efficiently. do this and the private sector will sort it all out for you, they are as such highly efficient.

 

[agentperry]

making every thing private is a bad move. why the whole world is hoping something out of India is its stability. now what is stability, stability is the existence of both private and public machinery which assures that in events like global meltdown or when the corporates go greedy and shift their businesses to low cost producers like us cos shifted to china, there is some hope for local public in form of govt companies.

to avoid anything like shifting of factories and exploitation of public, public machinery is required.

and its these public sector and govt companies who are taking development to whole of India. there will be dozens of company to make and operate noida toll, delhi-jaipur highway or mumbai pune highway but none for making roads in arunachal or assam. its NHAI whose making a headway in these regions.

if we are thinking of even changing our work culture then it is due to the opening of our mind and broadening of our horizon since liberalization. people dont work to get a car, they work to get a better car than his neighbor.

 

[Energon]

This is a great question, but also one where the answer is so complex that it can't possibly be coherent in one post.

By looking at other successful civilizations (especially modern ones like Germany and Japan) it is clear that good work ethic is a byproduct of both cultural and structural factors. Only when these two factors are combined to set up a positive reward system do we see an impressive societal work ethic and subsequently high productivity.Unfortunately in India, both the cultural norm and the structural set up discourage a good work ethic.