3 Reasons Why I Love Working at Forge
“I love this place, this is exactly the kind of place I would like to work,” I tell myself as I walk around Forge for the first time. I was quite enthraled by all the gadgets lying around, people glued to screens coding, and the entire buzzing atmosphere. I felt so excited that day and even spoke about what I saw at Forge to my friends.
I always had this fascination to work for a company that is ahead of others in time — Forge was one. A few months later I joined the company. As I write this, 9 months later, I’m certain that choosing to work for Forge is the best career decisions I’ve ever made. There are a number of justifications why that’s true, but here I’m sharing the top three reasons why I love working in Forge.
1. The Emphasis is on Learning, not Performance
Any typical company would measure an employee’s worth by their performance, and it’s obvious. But we don’t do that in Forge, instead, we measure people’s worth by how much they’ve learnt and how much more they can.
In the beginning, it didn’t make sense to me either, I used to think “is it not gonna affect the company’s performance when we only focus on our learning?” But today, it makes sense, a lot actually.
There are two reasons why it works and why I like it. First is that we live in an ever-changing world, there’s a high probability that the skills that are relevant today may become obsolete in a few years, hence we also need to constantly update our skills. So what gives people an edge in this dynamic world? the answer is “learnability.” It’s only those who can constantly learn, unlearn, and relearn are prepared for the future. I wrote about this a year ago and was surprised & excited to know that Forge has already embedded it in its work culture.
The second reason, and the most important one, is that learning is one of my core values, and so is Forge’s. What else can excite an employee to work when his personal values and the company’s values align?
But someone should monitor people’s performance in the company right? like managers? Yes, there are managers, but they don’t monitor performance. We do it ourselves.
2. Managing Oneself
When I mentioned that the emphasis is on learning, it is not just reading articles, attending workshops, and going through training modules; rather it’s applying what was learnt. Learning is not complete when it is not applied. As Vish Sahasranamam, the CEO of the company, puts it “It’s a fallacy to assume that we become smarter by reading more, true learning is in applying it.”
The culture in Forge makes this clear. And when I did this regularly, I found that somehow — surprisingly — my performance improved, so did my outcomes.
Managers don’t “manage people” here, instead, they help us learn. And performance comes as a side effect of it, a strong one indeed. They do manage outcomes on a broad level but never micromanage.
Giving people the opportunity to learn more and the responsibility of owning up their own outcomes puts people is an extraordinary position of wanting to learn and do more. This, according to me, is one of the prime factors that makes Forge a successful startup.
3. What’s in it for me?
“I don’t want anyone of you to learn because there’s something in it for the company,” says the CEO in a team meeting “I want you to learn from the perspective of what’s in it for you.” Any typical company wouldn’t make this statement to its employees, not even by mistake. But we hear this often at Forge, probably in all team meetings.
The idea that the company has given me a platform to learn and grow personally gives me an optimistic feeling. This feeling, combined with the learning environment makes me wanna learn more and do more, in other words, I thrive.
I’m passionate about three things — writing, designing processes, and formulating strategies. And my work at Forge involves primarily these. So I spend more time working, not because the company wants me to, but because I want to learn more. Also, burnout is out of the picture.
I strongly believe that there shouldn’t be hard boundaries between work and personal life. They should somehow merge so that learning at work can help in personal life and vice versa. That’s precisely what my work at Forge does — I enjoy the benefits of learning in work in my personal life too.
All these were possible only because I ask myself “what’s in it for me?” when I work on something, and the work gets really exciting when I figure something that is in for me — I almost always do. I’m still improving this process and trying to make this as a habit, but I already see the value in it. Not only I benefit here, the company does too.
Closing thoughts
It’s less than a year since I joined Forge, but the learnings I’ve had is immense. And I see the positive effects both in my personal and professional life. However, I’ve only scratched the surface, there’s still a lot to learn and a long way to go. I’m excited and can’t wait to learn more!
About Forge:
Forge is a Technology Business Incubator — it helps government, industries, and academic institutions innovate through startups. Forge provides consultancy for innovation, technology, and product development strategies to its clients.