The Locksmith's Paradox
Why does one equate the quality of work with how long it took to complete it? The Locksmith's Paradox opens your eyes to it.
We all know that famous incident where one of the most celebrated artists of all time, Pablo Picasso, is met with a pestering art lover -
So why is that one equates the value of the work with how long it took complete it? Just like Picasso, our director Tapan Misra has his own anecdotes that will open your eyes to a new “paradox” -
One quality I consistently lacked - being "smart" in the workplace. I could not correct them even after I got superannuated. I have contributed to the extent God has endowed me with knowledge and technical ability. I was not a boasting type to make a crescendo of the noise of self-congratulation when I deserved only a small appreciation. I hardly stayed very late in the workplace except when my hardware testing needed 24x7 vigilance. For some reason, I could never over certify all my contributions as solving a very complex problem. So people always had a feeling that whatever I achieved, was possible because they were simple and doable. I also never could counter those notions- how could one achieve anything if it were not doable in the first place?
But I was amused at the antics of many of my successful colleagues who achieved much more than they deserved. They had some common traits. They learnt early in their careers that there are much easier ways than making serious technical contributions, to garner the appreciation and attention of their superiors. Then they practised not only the art of staying late in the office but also to make known of this fact to their bosses.
One illustrious gentleman was rarely visible in labs but very strongly audible on the first and last hours of any technical review, whether he was invited in or not. These are the precious hours when bosses are around in the reviews, either to start the review or to understand the conclusions of the review. He managed to get a formidable reputation by asking "intelligent" questions. During his office hours, he was mostly a campus trotter, trying to sneak in the info about what was going on in the campus. He even became an authority on almost all the secrets in campus affairs. The best part was that he would diligently write long emails late at night, around 9-10 pm, with his suggestions, and comments to individuals who matter. Those hapless seniors will encounter those emails on the top of their inbox in the first place the next morning. Though they may not make head or tail out of those lengthy monologues, they were definitely impressed with his supposed hard-working nature by the propensity of him writing emails in the office at such unearthly hours. When bosses are pleased, can success in career stay behind?
There was another illustrious person. He was one step higher. He could manage week-long travels to other ISRO centres with an ostensible reason of being a member of umpteen committees, strewn all around ISRO. He had a legendary capacity of projecting himself as an expert in any subject in which he has hardly any exposure or knowledge. After a week-long sojourn in different cities and different airlines, he will appear as a weekender in SAC, making the family lives of his colleagues and juniors miserable by conducting long meetings to apprise himself of all the work carried out in his absence on working days! He had a favourite question to floor any presenter in any review, "What is the practical utility of the work to serve common people?" He was so enamoured with this earthshaking enquiry that he managed to corner one astrophysicist from PRL into numbed silence, who was presenting his study on esoteric cosmological observations, with the same intelligent question on the societal application of his findings. He impressed his clueless bosses with his inane expertise and supposed hardworking nature so much so that he rose to stratospheric heights.
I have marked consistently that the very much contributing women scientists were assessed and rewarded much lower than far inferior male colleagues. The reason will stump you. When I used to enquire about the reason, I used to be told that women scientists are not hard-working enough, they generally do not stay beyond office hours, and they do not come to the office on weekends or on holidays. Their real contributions became a subject of secondary importance.
Late in my career, I came across a proper explanation of this phenomenon. It is called Locksmith's Paradox. It is common knowledge that apprentice locksmiths are learning different tricks employed in different locks by trial and error. In the process, they take more time in solving the issues with problematic locks. As they become more and more seniors, they get a vast experience and also improvise on the tools required to unlock the secrets of a lock's riddle. Hence they spend much less time repairing the locks. Customers usually are ready to pay the apprentice whatever price they ask as they equate expertise with time spent on completing the task. Same customers will haggle with the expert locksmith arguing that he solved a simple problem as he took a much shorter time to fix the problem.
The same Locksmith's Paradox is applicable to any workplace whether it is ISRO or a bank or public utility service or bureaucracy. The people in the position to evaluate performance, more often than not, tend to equate long office hours as a measure of the contribution of the individuals. They are not in a position with the requisite expertise to evaluate the real worth or contributions of the individuals under their purview. After all, they also climbed the ladder by using the techniques in my illustrations. The same management tradition continues generation after generation.