My colleague Natarajan recently brought to my notice the following article  he had written several years ago. Amazingly, it actually quite well reflects lot of the culture we have at our company.

In a nutshell here is what I think makes for a good contract between employees and companies. The top three things each needs to do to create a lasting, pleasurable, goal oriented workplace. In this age of 140 character for a tweet, 10 is too big a number – we only have top three

Top 3 things for the Employees:

1. They have to be customer focussed (obsessed) – everyday morning they should get up and ask the question how can I be relevant today (to their customers – internal/external)
2.  Bring a single minded focus to the mantra of execution – need to be in the “now” and get into the zone while working. This is the biggest driver of productivity and quality, and consequently customer satisfaction
3.  Accept every execution challenge as part of a long journey (called their career) and focus on how they can solve the challenge and in the process add value to themselves at the current job. Stop worrying about things beyond their control.

Top 3 Things for Companies:

1.  Have a clear direction and priorities at any given point of time  – this can change from time to time but at any given instant there is one clear direction.
2.  Establish a fair, transparent organization which is data driven and where everyone has visibility into all aspects of business. We carry this to an extreme and so far there is no data other than personal compensation that is not known/made known to people. We encourage participation and eschew politics.
3.  Provide a supportive atmosphere for helping people succeed and give them enough chances to succeed. On the other hand when it is clear that people will not succeed in this environment (we are very sure there are other environments/roles where they would be very successful), it is right for the careers of those people as well as the morale of the organization to help those people find alternate positions where they can succeed.