Not for the person whose money you've spent on the failure.
In fact in almost all cases, letting people fail is how let them learn.
If I hire your firm and you tell me you can achieve an objective, then I spend money and come to find out you can't and you knew you couldn't, you've defrauded me. If I ask if you can perform a task and you tell me you know how, then I find out you have no idea, you've lied to me.
I'll take a "No, but I can figure it out" any day of the week, but lying is a cardinal sin in any relationship.
In fact I'm a tad little surprised that I'm having to sell the virtues of incremental failure in a forum that idolizes "Move fast and break things"
The thread is about working with Indian contractors who frequently lie, pretending they know what is going on. We are very much talking about this kind of problem.
> In fact I'm a tad little surprised that I'm having to sell the virtues of incremental failure in a forum that idolizes "Move fast and break things"
What I'm talking about is orthogonal to this. You can move fast and break things, but be straight forward to your manager about the risk involved.
The point is that pretending to know does not open up the conversation of risk and reward, whereas "No, but I can figure it out" can and typically will. If, at that point, the manager drops the ball by not making sure the risk / reward profile is correct then it is no longer on the engineer.
...in western business culture.
If someone doesn't want to be reliable, that's their choice, but don't expect me to be willing to engage in business with them.
In Mexico, Belize, southeast Asia, and southern Europe, I found everything to be much less reliable than I was used to. Everyone spent a lot time more waiting around. But I felt happier and more relaxed, and the people around me seemed to as well.
I think it might be more cultural than you seem to think.
We so easily accede to someone who says "its policy" without considering that the person involved clearly outranks whatever policy is being dealt with. Perhaps we've not been burned by strict adherence to policy and expecting the world to be regular and predictable as recently as those other cultures. It might just be a temporary thing, but I don't know. We've got things like "personal space" which were a very American concept for a long time, but which has since spread, almost certainly with many negative consequences, widely. So maybe this desire for people to accommodate systems rather than for systems to accommodate people will spread too. We're screwed if that's the case.
Sure you could argue that these nations are culturally Christian, but Christian culture still doesn't imply an emphasis on reliability.
At most I might agree with this being a case of the protestant work ethic, which seems to have a high correlation here (northern and central Europe as well as America is very much protestant, southern Europe is more catholic and orthodox).
However first of all most historians agree it's false, and second you get places like Germany, where the economic powerhouse is the catholic south (Baden-Württemberg has Porsche, Daimler (Mercedes), Audi and Bosch, Bayern (Bavaria) has BMW, the protestant North and East are more poor).
However, just because it's lauded in Christian writings and by Christians doesn't mean that Christians are any better in this respect than others, "we are all sinners and fall short of God's glory" afterall.
I imagine Buddhism to have a similar focus on truth?
Its just that if you are working minimum wage, or you are a spoke in the gig economy it's different for you.
Based on my experience working in the US, my American friends weren't very different. Its just that when you have sufficient you tend to worry less about over optimizing for the rainy days.
US is a different country in so many ways. US citizens are lucky to be born in such a great country, which supports its citizens through social security. And later with food stamps should the need arise. There is also awesome infrastructure like freeways and cheap air fare to move around based on opportunities. The cities are so full of opportunity. You also get free public education(Something like that is quite expensive in India.). Every city I saw where I stayed or visited(Who Bay Area, Philadelphia and NY) had parks, playgrounds. Every city had a swimming pool. Roads were sparkling clean and people were so welcoming. Plus food in the US is cheaper than chicken feed. If you can cook, rice, veggies and lentils are just like walk in the park. Meat too, you can afford to eat twice or thrice in a week. In my 3 years stay, I only have good things to say about the US. The full story is impossible to write. But I just can't imagine how anyone born in US can ever complain about lack of opportunities or ability to make a good life.
When you live in heaven, you tend to worry a little less about putting food on the table.
India is different. You have none of this. And its on your shoulders. Ensure your hands work till you die, or you will die.
Saying no to opportunities is very very expensive in India.
It was same in any country of the world just century ago. I.e. Indians are doing that not because of economic situation (which is much better than century ago), but because of culture. And culture is result of moral principles, which are moderated through punishments and support.
Unfortunately lying about your skillset is very expensive in the long term as well.
It'd only be useful to be honest if you do have a skillset, and the company has a reasonable chance of reaching out to you fot the skillset in the (near?) future
That's only true locally. Globally, you've got a variety of reputations, for yourself, for your firm, and whether or not you like it or consider it fair, for your country. You're burning all of those things. This will eventually catch up to you, your firm, and your country if withdrawals exceed deposits. This is, of course, a global truth, not an India-specific truth.
In a country like India where opportunities are scarce, saying no in many cases can mean permanently losing the opportunity to do something big.
Saying 'yes' and failing is a lot more better than saying 'no' and not trying at all.
If I'm not wrong this isn't just limited to India. I think it was Richard Branson who said something to the order of never saying no to an opportunity. Always learn and do it.