Dead Ringers: How Outsourcing is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves: Shehzad Nadeem

An interesting book. Haven't got the time yet to read it. But it has some interesting observations which is similar to my previous job at Samsung R&D. Although the R&D was not supposed to be an outsourcing institute per se but we failed to innovate miserably. My intuitive feeling was we could have innovated more.  But we did not. May be this book has some answers to the reasons behind that.

Andrew Robinson reviews 

A lack of emphasis on individualism in Indian family life and a widespread deference to authority may be part of the reason, says Nadeem.

But much more important, he says, is the global economic system. Outsourcing managers, both in India and the United States, are “locked in a contradiction”, he notes. They want their workers to mature into professionals who show initiative and take responsibility for projects. But simultaneously, they want to migrate easily replicable, standardized tasks rather than whole projects to India. Farming out tasks generates a reliable stream of revenue while ensuring that control of the process remains based in the United States and Europe. The core work requiring creativity therefore stays in the West.

I think this 2nd part aptly described exactly what happened in my previous job. We used to work on partial project without knowing why and how, we also did not get many updates on what was happening inside. 

IBM topped the US patent production list and it gave credits to its global diversity. 34% of its patents came from outside of the USA. 

How Diversity Makes Us Smarter - Katherine W. Phillips

I have always been interested in diversifying my team, when I was in my country, I used to recruit people from different cities, gender, religion and socio economic background. Now I am studying in a global school in Europe I recruited students from different races, religion, ethnicities and countries to have a great team for our innovative University club. Today I read a very interesting article in SA.

Katherine W. Phillips's article is quite a great round up of latest scientific research on diversity and innovation at the Scientific American. It draws on her years of own research and as well as other people's research.

This is not only because people with different backgrounds bring new information. Simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort.

we need diversity—in teams, organizations and society as a whole—if we are to change, grow and innovate.

This is a good read. Read it here :  [Link]