Here is a complex problem. I played with this ‘live’ problem for quite sometime and challenged many to solve this problem – verbally of course. Fair to say, it remains unsolved or unchallenged for the past 4 years. This is the first time I am writing it out.
Would you love to challenge your brains on this nagging problem? Here it goes for you:
A certain factory producing goods made out of rubber decides to raise its productivity. The rubber products are made in moulds that are placed in a hydraulic press and kept there under specified conditions of temperature, pressure and time for proper curing and formation to take place. The hydraulic operated presses have one mould cavity to place one mould at a time.
The owner comes up with a simple plan to improve productivity. He decides to increase the number of mould cavities in the hydraulic press allowing him to process multiple products at the same temperature, pressure and time. So, he goes for ‘two mould cavity’ presses and quickly replaces the old presses by these two mould cavity ones.
He then calculates the possible output if he does that. Let us say that he would get 100 products by changing from single mould cavity press to double mould cavity press.
But he is dismayed when he finds out the actual output. It is less than 50% (acceptable products) of what he expected to get. How is that? He thinks that something must be wrong. So he decides to increase the number of presses accommodating double mould cavities.
What is the result? Again less than 50% (acceptable products) of what he thought he must get.
Infuriated, he goes for ‘3 mould cavity’ presses. He then increases the number of presses to 10. And also increases the number of operators and workmen to run the operation. He backs it up by increasing the number of supervisors to look after the operation. He also increases the number of overhead cranes from one to two.
How did that turn out?
Again less than 50% of what he calculated would be the output.
Baffled, he then thinks to improve the system and institute a system of quality culture. He also thinks of training the workers and the supervisors to do their jobs better and pay close attention to the performance of the machines and moulds and the way rubber is injected into the mould cavities -- trying to lessen the time and the apparent wastages in the system.
What happens?
The output refuses to move even a percentage point above 50%.
Can you crack this stubborn, nagging and chronic problem for the factory owner? He would be indebted. What would be the right thing for the owner to do?
Note: I first published this problem in Anveshan, Vol III, '11 edition (April 2011) a technical magazine of NIT Durgapur, my alumnus
Alamgir Pasha looks on as his fourteen children play cricket in the sprawling lawns of his mansion which more or less resembles a medieval fort. Alamgir is happy with his two wives, fourteen children and one daughter-in-law. He lives in Mirpur near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Alamgir owns a rice mill and exports rice to different countries. He is 53 years old.
Alamgir wanted to celebrate Edd with all his family members. This year he had been successful in bringing all his sons together. Some of them had been studying in England for higher studies. Tears rolled down. It was tears of joy. As every member came to Alamgir for their “Eddi”, he was filled with pride. As he was doling out gifts and presents he felt a sharp pain on the back of his shoulder. Next Alamgir was in ICU at a local hospital. It was diagnosed as a cardiac arrest. He was unable to move his feet and arms. He was paralyzed. The local doctors suggested an operation. Alamgir’s family did not want to take the risk. They applied for a medical visa to India. As medical visas is open to residents of countries including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and China with a validity of one year they had no problems. Why the Alamgir family opted to treat him in India? India offers medical treatment at between half and one third of the cost of similar treatments in neighboring medical tourism countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.
Alamgir family calculated only the cost and the language factor. Why? Singapore is two to three times more expensive than India. Thailand is eighty percent more expensive while Malaysia has just started from the running blocks. They had felt comfortable in India in their last trip as they spoke their own language and not English or Mandarin to express them but what lay for them is another story. The Alamgirs did not have the considerable amount of time researching the destination and its facilities on their own and had not shown a degree of initiative. They were left totally at the mercy of the hospitals and their touts. In countries like Thailand and Singapore the governments goes out of their way to attract medical travelers as it has now become a lucrative revenue earner.
India never thought medical tourism as an industry which can give you high revenue and a number of employment opportunities for a host of people connected peripherally with this business. Putting advertisements like “incredible India” and touts and law enforcers running after one’s wallet, with no proper place to relieve yourself, getting beaten up by a taxi driver in the mid way of your journey, rouges throwing you out from your legitimized train berths and on checking up with the flight schedules in the internet you end up sitting like a frog in the airport as your flight was long away reschedule --- the tourist in you pops out “incredibly”. So India was never serious in her attempts to recognize any unorganized sector as “industry”. Medical tourism is also suffering from the same official apathy, and continues to do so.
Medical tourism is related to three ministries--- Tourism Ministry; Foreign Ministry and the Health Ministry. The Tourism Ministry has no plans for its “Incredible India” market leave alone formulating any plans for this niche market. The Foreign Ministry after issuing visas to medical travelers is oblivious to other sectors. Though they are very particular that medical travelers cannot re-enter the country sixty days after one exit post operative or cure. This hinders any post operative care. But they sometimes issue visas to black listed dreaded international criminals. They have no time to think about themselves what to think about a person on a wheel chair. The Health Ministry has enough complexities to sort out like curbing the polio, H1N1 virus, distributing condoms, ORS packets, iodized salt packets, AIDS control, sterilization and also other medieval aged diseases like malaria, diphtheria, small pox which comes to India at regular intervals. Getting into the intricacies of attracting medical tourists doesn’t suit them. The credit for getting six lakhs patients to India and spending more than Rs.4,500/- cores in getting treated in India is purely because of private enterprise with a few corporate hospitals, pharmaceuticals companies, freelance agents all working in tandem to build a thriving ecosystem that educates, facilitates and ferries medical tourists from Africa, Europe and neighboring countries.
Alamgir Pasha got treated from Christian Medical College, Vellore (Tamil Nadu) and is now able to move around and carry on his business. Before leaving India he went to Ajmer Sharif (Rajasthan) to pray for his wellbeing and his family at the “Dargarh” of Kwaja Moinuddin Chisti.
Why stories captivated and continue to captivate human minds?What is the secret in stories that glues people together? Why it doesn't care for age, race, religion, color, caste, gender, national boundaries and genetic makeup?What universal appeal stories hold?What is common between stories, poems, paintings, sculpture, songs, dance and music?
Why do we remember stories told by our grandmas, poems and songs sung by mendicants, dance or dramas played on stage, paintings and sculpture of great artists and music of any genre?
Well all these forms of human expression of storytelling hinges on one critical factor known as 'feelings'. These forms of storytelling strongly evoke feelings. They do their work silently inside where even words fail to reach. But why 'feelings' are so important and why do they strike a chord somewhere deep within so strong that we remember them for life?I think there are two fundamental reasons for this. First, all living things on this planet have feelings in some form or the other however rudimentary that might be. Humans have it great measure. So do many animals, birds and even plants. Second, we are inherently designed to many wise choices. Wise choices are more easily attained through the route of feelings than anything else. Through feelings we are made wiser even to the point of being enlightened.That is why epics like Mahabharata, Ramayana, Iliad, Odyssey are passed down from generation to generation. They all tell unforgettable stories of human wisdom and follies.
That is why stories like Aesop's Fables, Panchatantra, Greek mythology and stories of Hans Christian Anderson are enjoyed by people across the world.
I liken 'feelings' to feminine energy because of its essential fluidity and formlessness that ignites wisdom enabling enlightened living. Is this the deep secret of living, thriving and surviving as members of this planet and universe? No wonder ancients understood this aspect very well. The Greek word for wisdom is Sophia representing the female form while Indians have encapsulated the concept of wisdom in feminine metaphors of Kali, Shakti etc.
Well, if it were such a powerful thing then why is it so neglected in today's world? Today's world as we know it has been dominated by industrial age thinking for the past 300 years where feelings have been relegated to the lowest possible level replaced by the wonders of machines and unprecedented levels of human consumption that followed. It was considered unnecessary or harmful in the world of science, rationality, critical thinking, machines, monopolies, factories, world of few producers and thousands of consumers, world of few leaders and thousands of followers and in a world of few rich people and thousands of poverty stricken human souls. The last 300 years have been the age of thieves, plunderers, robbers and uncouth inhumane bandits -- man killing man for glory. What type of glory is that and what type of progress is that is not comprehensible to me. Now all of that must change if we are to survive and live. Our rational scientific thinking has gotten us to the point from where we can't proceed any more. Global warming is a result. Sustainability of the planet is now threatened. It takes around 7 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food. Wars are leaving scared children in nations without limbs where women are violated and families become extinct. How long are we to put up with all this rubbish? People are not lowly robots that worship wage slavery in return of food. More the constraints more have been the production of theories to analyze such constraints that produced less long term solutions. The nonsense perpetuated by thieves and bandits have grown to ridiculous proportions. This world is no longer tenable. All this must stop. Something more is needed. The innate power of the feminine energy must be back. Not in the form of feminist movement pressing for gender equality. Nor it need be in the form of burning bras. It must be restored to its rightful place through its more authentic form -- the form of storytelling. There seems to be no other way. It would complement the male energy for meaningful action to strike a balance that is going to see us through the 21st century and beyond. No wonder creativity is now being felt as the number 1 skill for the 21st century. Where this feminine energy would be used?It would be used in understanding problems, In finding a solution. In communicating, In envisioning, In design. In branding. In product development. In board room strategy, In marketing, In training, In human interactions. In education. Everywhere!
The silent power of storytelling extends the edges of the minds, rolls one edge with the other and intelligently mashes up edges to create new knowledge and beauty. As of today most of this silent power is unutilized.
What would it create?
It would create chaos, discontinuity, jumps, emergence, self organization -- helping us to adapt quickly to the randomness in the world which is nothing but the manifestation of the inner levels of wisdom resulting from how well the feminine energy flows within. With lower flows and lesser wisdom more is the randomness in the outer world. This flow of vital energy was missing in our grand march to progress. We have time to make up for the loss.
How would we tap into this super energy after years of neglect? I don't know for sure. But I have a feeling that it would happen by inducing ourselves and others to express their personal knowledge, understanding and wisdom gained through experiences through any form of storytelling for others to feel, visualize and act with their own evolving wisdom. They in turn would tell the world their own stories of struggles, failures and triumphs for others to gain wisdom. And the cyclic pattern would continue.
The cyclic pattern would be: Storytelling --> Feelings --> Insights/Wisdom --> Meaningful Actions --> Knowledge --> More Storytelling
The other advantage would be: different people would learn differently at different points of time reflecting their evoling wisdom with the distinct possibility of instant enlightenment though the stories in their original form would permanently be there to stay. Note there would be less compulsive need for data stream analysis since information and data would be replaced by stories and feelings (the feminine energy flow). This serves us well in real life since when we tackle real life issues and problems relevant data are hard to get by and disjointed as they really are, if not non-existent. However, the most important advantage of this type of learning and gaining wisdom is the relative ease compared to other forms and types of learning.
Therefore, this type of learning through storytelling, acquiring wisdom forming the basis of creative actions would be there to stay creating meaningful impacts in our lives.
So let the chaos unleashed by this feminine energy begin for us to attain collective wisdom!
Chinnaswamy Srinivas Tamarindulu in short --- CST looks like a C grade South Indian film hero. Every morning he gets up sharp at 5 AM. Takes bath exactly within 8 minutes. Drapes himself in a white dhoti. Bare bodied, he stands in front of the different idols and chants hymns in a rhythm. Applies the sandal wood paste horizontally over his forehead and arms. After finishing of all the religious rituals he goes to the kitchen to make some “filter coffee”. Prepares two steel glasses of “filter coffee”. One he gives it to his widowed mother and then enjoys the coffee with the vernacular morning newspaper. After finishing off the political headlines he heads for the color pages where the newspaper supplement is filled up with film gossips. He stares at the buxom,navel showing actresses with lots of flesh. CST wakes up from his imaginative world.
CST is preparing for the Civil Services Examination. He is already 27 years old and had already flunked twice, now he has to clear the examinations this time, otherwise what will his maternal uncle think about him. His uncle is the Home Secretary of a North Indian State. He is quite popular in the corridors of power. CST doesn’t get distracted by anything else except he often leafs through the pages of different girlie magazines in the middle of his “studies”. This not only “rejuvenates” him but also brings back his “concentration” and focus in studies.
CST gets a very low position in the examination. He was offered a post in the Rural Development department. His maternal uncle helped him out. CST gets into a “sensational department” of Government of India in a “sensitive post”. CST joins the department. CST starts his “nine” moths training. After “nine “months he will blossom into a full grown “Government Bureaucrat”. His mother started looking for a “well educated Brahmin” bride for him. At last the bride was found. She was from the IPS cadre (Indian Postal Cadre). CST couldn’t control his emotions and hormones. He was desperate to be in touch with his fiancée. CST used to make a queue outside the “ISD - STD, Local Telephone Booth” after 10 PM as the tariff rates were much lower.After many a “sweet nothings” he used come home with a lesser purse and a sense of accomplishment. What accomplishment? Getting into a good department using the backdoor and having a girl in his life.
The junior staff used to call CST --- megalomaniac, which was more than appropriate. His weird ways of working had completely put off the staff. He was not popular and created divisions. He was in a habit of bullying his staff which later turned to terrorizing the poor fellows. Not allowing any sort of leave to the staff during an emergency which would have been in the form of “death of parents” or wedding of a staff or it could be birth of a child. CST had a “greater vision ahead for the country” which the common people could not “foresee”. As a head of an office he refused to give the staff a “Pay Certificate” to enable them to get a house building loan from the banks. The reason being they would be “exposed” to the outside world and thus could be easily “purchased” by the enemy. CST believed as he and his staff worked in a sensitive department they have to attain maximum restrain in “exposing” themselves unnecessarily to the “general public”. Though Mr. CST himself took a house building loan of Rs. 35 Lakhs from a private bank.
The day of the great “rejoicing” came in his life when he was called to undergo a three year stint at Berlin. He immediately took the flight leaving behind his “Postal” wife and daughter. The same type of tyrant attitude towards the staff continued in Berlin also. He used to torment his personal secretary Mr. Hada.His personal secretary was a soft spoken man and wanted to enjoy his foreign posting at Berlin with his family members. It’s a dream of every, well almost every Indian to “live” in a “foren” country and “enjoy” the magnificence and bring back home the much wanted “US Dollars” and the stories to be told and retold to all, including strangers.
Unable to bear the constant “torture” and humiliation from CST, Mr. Hada committed suicide leaving behind a suicide note blaming CST for taking this ultimate step. A case for “abetment to suicide” was registered against CST. He was in a big trouble. CST rang up his Godfather – maternal uncle. Mrs. Hada came back to India with her eight year old daughter. Mrs. Hada approached her husband’s office for any compensation in the form of Gratuity, Provident Fund, and Exigency Fund but to no avail. She ran pillar to post for her genuine rights but the senior officers, clerks were not honest in their approach. It was difficult for her to maintain her family and dignity. How she would continue her life and educate her daughter?
Someone advised Mrs. Hada to go to the media and tell them to flash the news of how a perverted murderer in the form of CST has destroyed a family. Mrs. Hada acted accordingly. The media got “sensational news” of a “sensitive department” of Government of India. CST felt the time has come for him to go to the prison.
The time has come for Home Secretary maternal uncle to become active. A troupe of senior officers came regularly to negotiate with Mrs. Hada. She was given a deal. A job in the same sensitive department as per her qualifications and also give her a lump sum of 50 lakhs rupees plus all her husband’s dues would be released within three days. For all these she has to write a simple statement which would run like this --- “My husband Mr. Hada was always a mentally unstable man and had suicidal tendencies. Even when there were fights between my husband and me he used to threaten me that he will commit suicide………….”
Mrs. Hada accepted the deal. CST’s wife left him for good. The junior staffs are still suffering.
Note:
CST is a fictional character created entirely out of imagination by the author. There is no malicious intention of the author to show a particular individual, sect or community in a derogatory manner. This has been done intentionally to justify the main character. Readers are advised to make their own assumptions about the particular department which CST is working for. Some of the events as depicted may be found a little bit disturbing for the readers but this is life and most of us do not learn lessons from it…………
We all want to change something or the other all the time.
Many men want to look and feel like 22 year olds when they are almost over the hill and touching 50. So they try hard to change and behave like a youth sprinkled with a liberal dose of self hypnotism that age is only a number and try hanging around with women half their age. It does not work.
Similarly many women would love to hide their ever growing imagined wrinkles and sagging skin to look like a sweet sixteen through application of costliest available cosmetics till men can no longer read between the lines. That does not work either.
We imagine the trauma of cancer and do our best to avoid the disease by supplementing our breakfast with anti-oxidant capsules and make bold public declaration of giving up smoking, drinking and probably sex. The chance of having the disease might in all probability be decided by the flip of an unbiased coin.
We also don't want to remain poor. So we try with great effort to change our thinking and action by copying the richest people on earth with well concealed hopes pinned onto their rag to riches stories only to find at the end that we were left running on an endless conveyor that leads nowhere.
Lot many are crazy about going up the very oily and slippery corporate ladder. So we gather around us all types of self help books that promise 101 ways to reach the top in less than 5 years. We all know what might happen. The authors of the self help books get richer by the day and we continue to remain where we were or might even slip off the ladder to break a bone or two.
As human beings we are all afraid of death. Some take it to absurd extremes by changing their lifestyle and probably their inner lives in 8 predictable ways like a) give up smoking b) give up drinking c) moderate love making d) moderate exercise e) trim the fat around the waist f) take cholesterol lowering drugs for life g) take aspirin for life h) change the nature of work. Risk assessment studies show the worth of such careful interventions and changes to be +/- 2.5 years than one would have normally lived. It isn't worth the effort.
Most of our lives we try to deal with changes the hard way with lot of pomp and fury signifying nothing. The reasons for such changes are a) Fear b) Social pressure c) Pleasure d) Self aggrandizement. Changes in these lines are always fraught with inherent danger of not working out well enough resulting in wasted effort, time, money and a big dent on the self esteem. Moreover, these are all superficial in nature. We think we have changed the inputs but the outputs don't change in any significant ways. It might at times, deteriorate instead.
That leaves us with very little precious time and energy to go for real changes. Changes that follow our natural instinct to do something very well. Changes that calls upon us to take real life changing initiatives for others. Changes that allow us to live more authentically. Changes that allow us to discover ourselves through play. Changes that spring from our intelligent insights and responses to ever changing reality and engaging in something more meaningful and humane. Changes that are based on the lessons learned from the dynamics of nature. Changes that are based on the reflection of reality. Changes that can bring about quantum effects. And changes that can be done almost silently.
These, fortunately, are all real big changes where a small change in the input with the right initiative and thought can bring about dramatic and long lasting changes in output.
Surprisingly, such changes call for the minimum effort, minimum time and minimum resources. Moreover, such types of changes can be brought about in any human activity that we are passionately engaged in. The other good thing is such changes are effortless and easy; devoid of fear, anxiety, pressure to conform and egos, which in turn release endless creative energies enabling us to make the right moves to live life more authentically, just as it was meant to be.
Now with more than 200 years of industrial age backing us we seem to be moving to a new age.
We are yet to decide what we would call this new age. Different people have different names for it. Some call it 'Participatory Economy'. Some love to say, 'Collaborative Economy' or 'Contributory Economy' while some rather outrageously call it 'Neo Capitalism'. Probably it has a bit of everything thrown into this new transformative experience. These more or less point to the new direction we are taking.
Whatever it might be two things are clear. First, we clearly want to get rid of the baggage of concepts of the industrial age that no longer seem to work well in the new reality. Second, we realize a social transformation where consumers are becoming producers of goods and services.
While all these are now playing in the background we seem to be carrying with us a big legacy of ideas governing productivity.
Don't get me wrong. I am not for a moment suggesting doing away with the useful concept of productivity. The fact of the matter is that new technology aided ways, which we are quickly adopting are already pushing productivity to unprecedented levels, never experienced before.
So, what am I trying to express?
The old and now nearly obsolete concepts of 'productivity enhancement' firmly embedded in our collective minds are all set to change. Traditionally, there were two prevailing schools of thought on productivity.
The Western school of thought centers around the idea of leveraging assets through scale of operation and capital infusion driven on management ideas.
The Far Eastern or more specifically Japanese school of thought is closely focused on minimizing wastage driven by hardcore technology.
Today, it seems both concepts have served their time and purpose with the constant blurring of national boundaries, lowering of tariff barriers helped more by the unprecedented use of information technology that brought into being more equitable distribution and use of information as the basic building block for all human activities.
The envelope of such human activity is constantly being expanded by the insatiable human desire for sharing individual collection of artifacts, mostly knowledge, strongly backed by the urge for social recognition, both of which were tightly bottled up during the industrial age that promoted secrecy and loyalty to particular clans, tribes, organizations and nations over other human values.
With equitable distribution of information and sharing of individual collection of artifacts we are now in an enviable position in human history to draw upon such deadly combination virtually from anywhere to create something novel and useful to serve society.
That brings human beings right into the center of activities than ever before replacing machines as the center of attention and action.
As we see now, except for a few limited areas, organizations and countries can no longer boast of superior technology or use it as a competitive barrier. Nor can they boast of superior brain power or be upbeat about advantages gained through educational or economic superiority as world economy is becoming economically interdependent than ever before for survival.
So the mantra of improving productivity and a host of other related issues like design, marketing, etc would have to be distinctly different to earlier mantras on 'productivity enhancement' considered sacrosanct but ready to be dumped unceremoniously.
The one word mantra that now holds the power to change the world and dent the universe is 'RESPECT'.
Everything important would depend on it and would grow out of it, like,
a) Collaboration
b) Learning
c) Designing and Creativity
d) Empathy and Feelings
e) Marketing
f) .....
g) .......
h) Productivity.
How do I know? Having sat through countless meetings, negotiations, collaboration teams, problem solving engagements, training courses in the last thirty one years, I have seen how disrespect buried brilliant ideas, brushed aside human values, blocked feelings, thrown out of the window the whole in favor of partial incomplete solutions, given lip service to teamwork, welcomed cookie cutter rules in place of real innovation, dampened human passion for work, trampled well meant objections, manipulated people, murdered careers and played ball. And all the while Productivity took a real beating. People suffered. Organizations suffered. Societies suffered.
Unfortunately, RESPECT is an almost forgotten word and hardly appears in the vocabulary of present day leaders. How do we develop RESPECT and embed it into our day to day activities is a billon dollar question yet to be answered properly by leaders of our societies for collective sharing and growing rather than helping individual gains?
Even very intelligent people sometimes mistakenly take culture of a country to be some sort of yardstick to measure other cultures. By doing so, they get utterly confused since they find most of it out of sync.
Then they commit another terrible mistake. They blame it on the culture for a country's failure to achieve economic progress or to raise their standard of living or something else by 'benchmarking' another country. Many organizations also commit the same mistake. They feel if only some cultural changes can be brought about everything would change overnight. And most of their ugly problems would never resurface. They believe that attitude of the people would change which would enable them to think differently, talk differently and work differently. Management of such organizations go about this task of conversion with the zeal of religious evangelists spending huge amounts of time, energy and money only to generate lot of confusion in the end.
Recently found an organization trying to implement Japanese culture in their manufacturing processes. After trying it out for a year they lamented, "We are nowhere near our desired target."
I asked them, "How does manufacturing effectiveness of your organization compare to the manufacturing effectiveness of the best in class, Japanese included."
They replied, "Well it is nearly same. The difference is negligible"
Pushing them further I followed up by asking "Then why do you want to bring about this cultural change?"
Obviously, there wasn't any answer to this.
Similarly, in a joint venture organization the Japanese who were partners blamed the culture of the other partner country for lack of productivity. The real issue lay in the cultural mismatch of the two partners working shoulder to shoulder in the same workspace. In another newly acquired plant in Chile, the Chairman who was an Indian, during a board meeting lectured the top managers, "I think the process you people are following is absolutely wrong. You must follow the unique process we have developed back in India. Some of you must visit to learn more about that."The top managers gently reminded him, "But what is wrong in the way we work? There is no quality rejection, no customer complaints, no productivity loss and to say the truth our productivity in this line of activity is best in the world."
Well, you know better. The better way might have been "Let me learn your methods and the ways in which you work to consistently produce high quality stuff and ship goods with the highest productivity"
But we simply can't shrug off this attitude of 'I am holier than Thou so I know better' simply because one has more money or more economic advantage or probably more educational certificates compared to another. The same mistake happens in the concepts of globalization and standardization. Ray-ban had to close shop in India. Their frames were simply out of proportion on an Indian face. Coke came to India secretly nourishing the idea that Indians would soon forget about drinking water. They would drink Coke instead.
Kellogg harbored similar ideas. They would provide more nutrition to wean away Indians from their traditional breakfasts.
Nothing of these ever happened. Indians did not forget to cling to water and anything other than traditional breakfast tasted bland or insipid.
We, more often than we suspect, fall prey to this cultural trap in our personal relationships too.
Are we suffering from this "epidemic of cultural blindness"?
I am a dreamer. And I love it since I dream lucidly. That is I actively participate in my dreams and changes happen as I go, which makes the whole thing so live, exciting & so unpredictable.
But I don’t dream of anything in particular. I don’t dream of ‘denting the universe’. I don’t dream of freedom of any sort. I don’t dream of money. Women – well yes, sometimes. I simply dream of ordinary and not so ordinary things coming my way.
I love dreams because they also tell me what to do, where to go, why I must do something and when, whom to meet – sort of a guiding hand gently nudging me along in my life’s journey. I have become so used to it that whenever faced with any difficult or intractable problem I don’t search for a solution. All that I do is to lie down and go to sleep only to be awoken with the solution clearly embedded in my mind. Every time I acted on those solutions I never went wrong.
But on 14th Feb 2011, Valentine’s Day, I dreamt something weird. I haven’t seen such a strange dream before and I woke up puzzled but acutely aware of the code the dream left me with.
I found myself in a dimly lit gloomy but big mansion full of old people of all ages, shapes, sizes and diseases. It was a sort of old age home. They were nameless. No one cared to know their names or the way to address them or had a record of their ages. They must be living here for ages, I thought.
There was an old shriveled man stricken with arthritis, who found it difficult to walk even with the help of his rather crooked walking stick. He kept forgetting what he said a few minutes back but loved to order people rebuking them for not understanding what he said. He would yell, ‘I asked for a bottle of coke at least half an hour back. What the hell is going on?” When reminded, “You asked for a glass of water” he would fume and retort, “You idiot!”
And then there was the old fat lady who shunned everyone to sit in one desolate corner of a spacious room speaking aloud her thoughts. She thought she was suffering from amnesia and was always trying to remember her past. She didn’t like anyone to disturb her. If someone approached and talked to her she would turn her head away with an angry frown on her face saying, ‘Don’t disturb me. I was just recalling something so important. I forgot about it for the past 30 years”.
Still there was another not so old man who had an opinion on everything. He would care less to listen to anyone. He just kept airing his views on practically anything he liked to, “Do you know why tsunami struck Japan?” Then he would wait for an answer with a wicked smile on his face. When the silence became unbearable he would opine in his professionally matured bass voice, ‘Well, no doubt I am living with fools. All this was caused by China and India. Their economies are heating up and that heat caused the tsunami. Now do you understand?”
Only another old lady could muster enough courage to challenge him. She had a fantastic memory and thought herself to be a proponent of scientific thinking. So she often retorted to his insane utterances, “Well, five days back you said something quite different to what you say now. Which one of your statements is true?” She was very happy to help everyone since she always had a solution for everything from her vast store of knowledge. “Well you seem to be coughing with a noise level of around 65 dB and you have a sugar level of 290 so you must take 500 ml of orange juice thrice daily or I can formulate a tablet for you, That is what modern research has come up with”
In spite of all their differences and individual idiosyncrasies they all had one thing in common. None of them liked physical work. They wanted all their work done in the most professional manner possible but only to be done by others whom they considered as ‘scum of the earth’. They refused to lift even their little finger under any circumstance.
Here I found myself a job catering to the whims and fancies of these otherwise rich but slightly ‘out of their minds’ people as a professional caretaker, which in more realistic terms meant running mean, inhumane errands and trying to satisfy their never ending demands and wishes. They all wanted their demands met ‘yesterday’.
By night I was dead tired and was restless to hit the sack. The thoughts of escaping this ‘prison’ did often come to my mind but I was stuck. The mansion was walled in by a fortress type circular 20 foot high wall and protected by trained tough looking gun trotting men and by big ferocious dogs. There was hardly any hope. And every time I stood on the wide marble balcony at dusk the sight of guns and dogs made my heart sink. Thoughts of raising a smoke signal for others to notice and rescue me from this dungeon or shout at the top of my voice for help or call God just remained tame ideas shy to see the light of the day.
Then one night the most unexpected thing happened. An eerie silence engulfed the mansion punctuated by, ‘Oh my God!’, ‘Wow, another great one, ‘Afridi out’, ‘Come on Sachin’. Hearing them shout, the dogs too joined the chorus with their growling wails and sharp barks at times. The guards were all engrossed in the Indo- Pak cricket match gluing themselves to the only TV the mansion had.
Well this was the time to escape. I didn’t care to pick up my rather simple belongings and rushed towards the gate. As luck would have it the guards have carelessly kept the small gate by the side of the main gate ajar through which they usually went out to smoke. ‘No Smoking’ signs were all over the place.
With my heart beating wildly I just ran out into the quickly enveloping mass of darkness pushing myself harder and faster away from the prison walls.
I had no idea how time flew by or how long I ran. I stopped panting at a place that appeared to be a crossroad shrouded by an early spring mist with the daylight just breaking in. The smell of salty air of the sea wafted through.
Suddenly my mind stopped racing. It was still but my body still shivered a little from excitement and my nostrils flared a bit. It was a moment to reckon with and be surprised. I wasn’t fleeing from anything anymore. I wasn’t searching for anything. I wasn’t anxious to do anything. I wasn’t curious to find answers to my unending questions. My mind was still, sharply focused and attentive -- prepared without a trace of anticipation to meet anything that might come up.
In that moment of singular happiness I saw a slender silhouette approaching in the haze of the gradually lifting mist. Second by second it was growing firmer and clearer. There was an unhurried gentleness in the movement. I was transfixed like a child firmly rooted to the ground.
Then as if by magic the veil of mist lifted to bring before me the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Her moist eyes glistened with the warmth of kindness. The slender sharp nose stood in sharp relief against the soft tone of her fair face. Dark hair softly rustled on her yellow chiffon dress like gentle waves caressing the shores.
Was she a Goddess or an Angel? “Beautiful”, I barely gasped. Hearing that, she let out an inviting mystic smile. In that slightly chilly air I was basking in the glow of her magical presence.
“Come with me” she signaled.
“Where”, I hesitantly asked.
“Don’t ask. I am with you. Let’s keep walking.” Arm in arm we started walking down the deserted road. The dust laden brown crisp leaves left behind by winter crackled under our feet to break the monotony of the unearthly silence. We walked as one; melting into each other.
Inexplicable joy swept through me like lightening. I never felt like that before. In a flash, I felt fresh, undiluted, bubbling with ideas, free, unbridled and merging with everything around me. I lost myself.
I have met my muse.
I am a dreamer but I am not the only one… to live dreams of creative freedom in reality.
The continuing Global Economic meltdown and Japan's nuclear mishap are clearly man made disasters that caused lot of pain and agony to humanity as a whole.
How are we to come out of this crisis? Do we find a new way to survive? How do we stop environmental degradation? How do we build sustainable societies?
These important questions are not new. Even Neil Bohr expressed concerns on such issues back in 1950. Of course people did not care to listen then. They could afford not to listen. However, such questions were vigorously followed up by many activists and serious champions for the past 30 years or so.
Most predicted doom for the earth and humanity. Some thought that nothing might possibly be done unless individual consciousness or the way we think and act change for the better.
Nothing happened. Perhaps there was no need to. Critics were harsh when they sneered by saying that more than 95% of humanity suffers the 'boiled frog' syndrome. Others were frustrated and almost gave up. Still some wanted to find the culprits and punish them.
But there are new signs of change. Harsh economic reality has rudely shaken us up from our deep slumber. It is like pouring ice cold water on our face on a winter morning.
What are these signs? More visible of these that catch our attention is the dramatic and swift wave of revolt sweeping over Middle East. People can't go hungry for sure.
However, there is another vital sign that is virtually going unnoticed -- sort of happening very quietly away from the glare of the media. And that is Culture Based Design (CBD) as I would like to call it.
In essence it is simple indeed. Look around what is unique in the culture of the land. Build up the economy through products and services based on the uniqueness of such culture. This is indeed a far cry from the standardized offerings being pushed around the globe by fairly large corporations who have no other business but to grow and keep growing richer at the expense of everything (champions of the old Industrial age thinking) only to flatten the earth.
Now this small but vital sign of Culture Based Design (CBD) might be a clue to greater unfolding possibilities to answer those serious unresolved questions humanity has been asking for the past 60 years.
Some examples might be in order:
1. Chinese are deeply studying the culture of India to design products that match the cultural traditions of India and her sensitivity. Recently during Holi (a spring festival in India) they did care to provide the accessories needed for the event -- designed and manufactured in China and sold in India at affordable prices. A win win situation for both countries.
2. Iceland whose economy was virtually wiped off by the Great Recession in a matter of days is hobbling back on its feet through intense design activity. They have tapped into the country's Nordic/Viking cultural heritage for their economic revival. As of now Iceland occupies the number 1 slot as the innovation champion displacing the mighty USA (as per ISEAD)
3. India is yet to leverage this idea as Chinese and Icelanders have done. But a new generation of entrepreneurs, mostly trained in the West, is successfully exploiting traditional culture and techniques coupled with narrative marketing (good old storytelling) in areas like jewelry and ornaments.
What possibilities might unfold from this new phenomenon?
1. A paradigm shift from globally imported cultural criteria to more local home grown products and services based on traditional culture.
2. A sustainable economy that would look more distributed than unified and based on local needs and aspirations.
3. More job creation. People would have a choice to either work as laborers in dark and damp factories or in more exciting fields touched by the glow of human creativity. Education and knowledge gained through the traditional environment would be enough to create most jobs -- a far cry from Obama's urgent plea of 'go to college again or starve'.
4. Solve the nagging problems of environmental crisis since such efforts are not energy intensive and have been around for centuries when issues of global warming were nonexistent.
5. Cultural preservation is also ensured.
Hence Culture Based Design would need more serious attention and development if it were to become a part of the integral solution to sustainable livelihood and economy. New internet based social learning technologies would surely come to great help in this endeavor.This would be closely coupled to the Observation Based Learning (OBL) as proposed in my earlier posts. My guess is that CBD along with OBL would be evident in every sphere of a local economy even worming its way into traditional brick and motar companies barring major infrastructural activities.
A seriously inward looking world is unfolding its still rough and jagged edges poised to draw in lots of creative energy to throw up possibilities that would impact the way we live and think.
We shall live by design -- by the people, of the people and for the people!
There is an old saying in Bengal, which runs something like this: One person is insignificant; Two together make something creative/worthwhile: Three persons collaborating make things complicated: When four get together things turn chaotic.
Needless to say governments, parties, organizations, teams, communities, online communities are complicated and chaotic. So, what do we do? Naturally, organizations are always wary of chaos and therefore want to bring in order through rules, regulations, regimentation, hierarchies etc. This is the common way.
But even with all that in place, leaders still want to feel the pulse of their people, want to keep a tab on what is going on around them, listen to stories, build culture and many other things. How do they do that?
They dance with Complexity as a partner. They keenly listen to its music. They follow its steps. They feel the passion and sense its self organizing movement. Then they either copy the steps of complexity. Or they take charge to lead complexity. Or improvize and innovate on the way. But in no case they try to overpower complexity or play rough or be sly about it or ignore it. They dance cheek to cheek with complexity.
Let us see how great and good leaders go about befriending complexity,
Here Mr. Bill Gates and his wife are seen in one of the remote villages of Bihar, India. Both of them are now highly involved in philanthropic work in India. However, as expected, they know very little about the country and its culture, which they must learn so as to bring meaning to what they are doing. Hence, they immerse themselves in that learning environment.
In Bill Gates own words, "learning from partners and community members in Patna, Bihar. Incredible start to the day…"
And why in the world is he doing that? Could he not have asked his well paid people to do that for him? They would have loved to send him a detailed report complete with facts and figures supported by photos, videos and what not. Obviously that would not work for him. Human interactions are very complex in nature and that complexity can't be fathomed to any degree of reality without deep observation and learning through direct experience such as this.
Is Mr. Gates alone in such Observation Based Learning through deep immersion?
No, it seems that other great business leaders keep doing this on a regular basis trying to learn within a given context.
Here is another photo that shows Sir Richard Branson practically doing the same thing with his staff located at various offices.
The idea is not to straighten out complexity. The idea is not to find order in the complexity or avoid complexity or formulate rules to bring about simplicity. The idea is to befriend complexity to grow and develop by learning from it through direct experience gained through deep immersion and observations.
This brings us to another idea: How do organizations build upon such direct experiences of learning? They can do so through sharing such experiences on a common platform for others to learn and develop on the ideas gained. We call this social learning which uses Enterprise 2.0 platforms to harness the power of complexity and chaos to drive the organization in a self organizing and may I add creative manner.
Best platforms are those which are run on this idea of building on observations, ideas, deep immersions and learning not those who focus narrowly on retaining the heirarchical structure of work as the meaning of work is now undergoing a serious redefinition, the most useful I find is 'observable work'. Such platforms enable Culture Based Design for long term sustainability of an organization.
We now have another name for it. Seth Godin calls it Idea Tourism.
And why would this be so important?
Because money hardly brings in good ideas to sustain but good ideas rake in a lot of money to progress and sustain.
So, we need not be afraid of complexity anymore. Complexity is our partner in our progress not an impediment. So,....
Complexity, Shall We Dance.... since the 21st century belong to the tacit. Or is it?
I think Design Innovation matters in everything we do as human beings. In fact, Design Innovation Rules the World!
It is the fundamental tool we have to create competitive impacts, improve the performance of companies, create wealth, create jobs and improve the society as a whole.
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