Accidental Entrepreneur: Diversity in Strength and Strength in Diversity
Hi Everyone,
Welcome to my 12th weekly article on how diversity in thought, personnel & perspectives can lead to the creation of amazing results.
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“எப்பொருள் யார்யார்வாய்க் கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள்
மெய்ப்பொருள் காண்ப தறிவு”
— திருக்குறள் (423)
“Though things diverse from divers sages’ lips we learn,
’Tis wisdom’s part in each the true thing to discern”
— Thirukkural (423)
Lately diversity has taken center stage in the high-tech industry and management boardrooms. I understood from an early age that diversity in background, gender, socioeconomic condition, and diversity in ethnicity are critical for success in life. Throughout my life, having lived in various continents (Asia, Africa, Americas) & have had the chance to interact/work with all kinds of diverse people, I have found intelligent as well as not so smart people from all walks of life.
Strength in Diversity: As I started my first job at Rockwell, nearly all the engineers were white male engineers with so many years of experience. They were mostly very nice people and were willing to help each other work well together. Most of them had worked many decades together and became a close-knit group over time as everyone became fond of each other’s families forever.
I was hired with nearly another 10 engineers to join the team. Interestingly enough, with some forethought, management had hired fresh graduates with nearly all backgrounds and ethnicity. We had engineers that were female, Asian, Middle Eastern, and African American.
These multiple cultures/backgrounds brought different work ethics and problem-solving skills to the table. I worked with an Indian engineer who later became the main founder of both companies who always had a knack for problem solving. First, I was part of the team which was taking existing architecture and evolving into incremental products. This fresh graduate Indian engineer with a PhD, singlehandedly architected a Digital Signal Processor which became the backbone of early cell phone technology. While the team which was working on older evolutionary technology and spent hundreds of millions dollars in product development, the technology developed by the new architect only cost low ten millions and worked simply.
I managed an engineer from New Jersey, who came from the lower middle class. Due to his family’s hardships and other environmental factors, he started working (hacking) at a young age. He ended up supporting himself through college by selling label maker software to people in Japan and the US. He would describe the challenges he had encountered but never gave up. I still remember him showing up to the first week of work with a nice shirt and tie, which wasn’t fashionable by then. He had the will to tackle/solve any problems and was a very straight shooter, sometimes too straight 😀. This amazing engineer was my very first hire at my first startup and he joined me again on the second startup too.
I remember during my university years I had friends from various backgrounds. One of them was an African American, whom I got to know while I worked at an engineering lab at nights, and he worked in the facilities while taking classes with me during daytime. He was about ten years older than me. He used to tell me stories that he lost his parents young, which forced him to live on the streets and at fourteen got involved with drugs + gangs. He was lucky to survive and decided to turn around his life in his mid-twenties and got his high school degree and completed an engineering degree with me. I still remember his positive messages and his big grin whenever he greeted us.
Diversity in Strength: I had never thought of how to build complex products prior to joining Rockwell. At universities we tend to work on projects alone or with another person. Normally those projects are 3–6 months long and very self-contained with well-defined external environments.
In major US corporations, small projects cost millions and large projects cost hundreds of millions. These project teams had people from many backgrounds such as architecture, modeling, engineering, manufacturing, quality and finance. Teamwork is critical for the success of any project.
First and foremost a diverse characteristic is experience. Conventional wisdom is that experienced people produce more and make less mistakes. That is somewhat correct, but not always the right attribute in a very cutting edge and futuristic technology era. I had few experienced engineers who helped me understand the solutions and history behind those solutions. I worked with an engineer, John Spence, who had nearly forty years of experience and if I remember correctly, he had worked with people at Fairchild semiconductor. For people who don’t know the history of Fairchild Semiconductor, that was the fertile ground for engineers who founded nearly all the early semiconductor companies or key technologists at companies such as Intel, Motorola, TI and many more. I learned many characteristics such as persistence and attention to detail from him. On the other hand, the young and fresh, I say brave, foolish engineers, brought technology and thinking processes to scale the design. Prior to our time, all the designs were done manually and verified manually. Young and less experienced engineers brought automation and scale to designing complex chips.
Diversity brings the best in people. In sustaining slow pace projects, companies can escape without diversifying the workforce. I have seen firsthand how the American education system at the university level performs well with a diverse student population. I have seen how out of box thinking and challenging each other from various backgrounds helped build as well as deliver great products. Look for diversity and you will never regret it. Even better, you may learn something new from completely different angles and point of views.
