Renowned for its intellectual prowess, India stands on fertile ground, steering towards economic growth. In a recent interview, Narayan Murthy, the founder of Infosys, stated that Indians should commit 70-hours per week of effort to catapult India into the league of developed economies. In pursuit of a new era of Independence for India, the core concept deeply hinges on economic growth while harnessing human resource potential.
In line with a Business Standard report, Hari Mohan Bangur, Chairman of Sree Cement, emphasized that mastery in a particular trade involved 10,000 hours of dedicated work to gain proficiency, while 20,000 hours for achieving mastery. India has immense human resource potential and demands a strategic approach to harness it effectively.
Bangur further advocated for the importance of individual autonomy while adding everyone should have the freedom to decide how quickly or slowly, they wish to progress in their chosen field. Ola’s founder Bavish Aggarwal, echoes Mr. Murthy’s thoughts, commenting that there is no room for leisure; instead the focus should be on diligent hard work to ensure and sustain India’s autonomy in the global economic landscape.
India stands at the crucial junction to overcome inhibitions and embrace calculated risk-taking. CP Gurnani, CEO and MD of Tech Mahindra defended Mr. Murthy’s statement, asserting that those expressing discontent may have overlooked the broader context.
While the current generation demonstrated generating wealth in various new age industries, it is imperative to move beyond the western perspectives and focus on investing in the tech sector while prioritising human resources. The emphasis should be on cultivating a work culture of continuous learning and development.
On the other hand, former Shark Tank judge Ashneer Grover shared his perspective, suggesting that public reaction may stem from the continued evaluation of work on “hours” rather than “outcome.” India’s journey towards becoming a developed nation required a concerted effort and a willingness to sacrifice for future generations. Learning from the experiences of other countries, India has an opportunity to leverage the lessons of hard work and dedication.
Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, notably shares his impressive 120-hour work-per-week! It is crucial to note that success is not built solely upon working hours. Instead, the work culture in the US has normalised autonomy as a function of innovation.
The core of the work culture lies in fostering a collective mindset that values growth, collaboration, and enjoyment in the workplace. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, mentions the need for a work life balance. Similarly, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, believes 8-hours of sleep is the key to boosting productivity and making high quality decisions. In an interview in 2016, Bezos highlighted the importance of participating in “high IQ” meetings for those requiring mental acuity before lunch or postposing them the following day.
From an India perspective, higher education emerges as a catalyst for fostering an unrestrained mindset and attracting foreign direct investments. The endorsement of Narayan Murthy’s proposal for longer working hours finds support from various quarters, like senior congress leader MP Manish Tiwari suggesting that extended hours should become a norm.
Radhika Gupta, MD, and CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund raises concerns about the lack of acknowledgment for women multitasking tirelessly, highlighting the numerous responsibilities they manage alongside work. The concept of work life balance becomes a pivotal point while addressing productivity gaps.
As such, schools of emerging thought are embracing innovative approaches that propel India towards the threshold of becoming a rapidly developing superpower. The collective efforts to balance work demands commit to economic growth while understanding the evolving needs and aspirations of the young Indian workforce.
Shark Tank Judge Namita Tapar, continuing the topic, questions the feasibility of a 70-hour work week and its impact on family and mental health.
In Japan, the work culture is notoriously known for long working hours. The concept of “Karoshi,” describing the sentiment of “death by working,” underpins the labour characteristics of peer pressure or the stigma of taking leaves. On the other hand, “hustle culture” prevalent in the US sees a shift towards remote working as communal spaces for collaboration are redefining the traditional office culture while leaving little or no room for meaningful connections outside work.
The proposition that economic development hinges on long working hours remains subjective, while critics challenging Narayan Murthy’s belief that labor is essential for generating wealth. According to The Wire, interpretation of value varies among professions, such as IT professional and teachers, raising concerns about Murthy’s call for extended hours as being seen as “entitlement driven” for a meagre portion of the workforce.
The other significant portion is in the unorganized sector, working more than a standard 8-hour workday. It further opines that Mr. Murthy’s advocacy for 70-hour work per week raises a deeper issue of predefining the purpose of labour while neglecting diverse paths to a fulfilling life.
So what’s the verdict? How many hours a week do we think you should actually work?
Well the truth is there is no ‘one size fits all’ for a metric that may or may not be directly seen as resultant in ‘productivity’.
Some of the most gifted entrepreneurs will swear by the creative spark that they are able to preserve and keep alive as part of a healthy work life balance while other revel in the hectic.
It’s not even completely about the magnitude of ‘love’ or ‘passion’ for a particular field of work since the body after all has limitations.
In the same way that no matter how gifted you are as an athlete, you do need an off-season to rest, recuperate and ‘reflect’ on your season. If you don’t do that, you end up getting injured more often and break down more often ultimately disappearing into oblivion.
We need to understand that in the same way that athletes are seen reasonable in their expectations for a healthy break from time to time in order to preserve their physical body and stay ‘sharp’, there is a certain amount of mental toil that accompanies most our jobs and we need time to recover from it.
The ideal metric to be measured should be something that incorporates both the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ such as ‘percentage goals achieved’ per quarter or ‘season’.
Maybe ‘progress’ should be measured with a wide angle view that takes into account the ‘multidimensional’ nature of human achievement and contribution.
So Mr. Murthy is right in defining a ‘simple’ goal that is achievable and explainable to a vast majority of the workforce.
However, if India is truly to become a top world economy and stay the course, quantitative benchmarks need to be seamlessly merged with qualitative aspirations and productivity measured in ‘outcomes’ not ‘quantitative inputs’.
As ex RBI Governor and a leading economist Dr. Raghuram Rajan says in his recently released book “Breaking The Mould”, India as an economy should not try to ape old models of development based largely on the production oriented, labor intensive models of Eastern economies.
A huge part of India’s stunning growth story, it’s ‘X factor’ has been its leapfrogging into the ‘human connect’ intensive services sector.
That’s one space where quantity of service doesn’t ever necessarily indicate ‘quality’ of service. It’s easy to think that the only contributing factor to the services boom especially in say the tech support and BPO verticals was abundance of cheap skilled labour.
That would really be at best an incomplete assessment since the drive and ambition to perform and be ‘seen’, ‘respected’ and ‘rewarded’ was so high in the Indian youth at the turn of the 21st century that it was unbelievable.
Post the new economic policy in 1991-92, for the first time since independence, the job space was full of opportunity, positivity, perks, incentives, competition and a certain level of ‘prestige’ that even a moderately educated Indian could realistically aspire for.
It’s not that racial stereotyping didn’t take place in this period, it’s not this was a very easy task because a lot of the ‘kids’ that were being promoted to team lead and managerial positions were still quite green and with a lot to learn.
Pretty soon however you had sharp, quick and smart young kids on the line speaking confidently and flawlessly in an American accent only a seasoned ear at the other end of the line could pick out as ‘non native’.
So while it’s true that the hours do matter, the quality of those hours probably matters a bit more!
References:
Book: Gurcharan Das: India Unbound
Pic credits: irishexaminer.com
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