CL -- The Sage Entrepreneurs - Part 2

Now we shift focus to another pioneering, self sacrificing Entrepreneur Son of Mother India – Shri Ghanshyamdasji Birla (G.D.Birla).  He was born in Pilani and at the tender age of five he witnessed severe famine and whole families starving and bones of animals being picked clean in the desert.  His grandfather had started the family business of broking and trading in the then Bombay (now called Mumbai).  Sri Shivnarain Birla has also built a temple, a well for the use of all the villages and family Haveli at Pilani.

G.D.Birla’s early schooling was at Pilani and later he went to a city school in Calcutta.  The city slickers made fun of a rustic “bumpkin” for the village and the young boy preferred to roam the city streets to being teased and tormented at school.  The streets obviously were an educational forum of practical action for him for he developed into a keen sharp broker with strong nerves and skillful foresight.

He came under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi at the age of 19.  G.D.Birla’s life went forward on may traders – 1) Family life 2) Industrial 3) Political-Emotional-Spiritual 4) Philanthropic and Charitable.

1)     Family life at the age of 14 he married Smt. Durga Devi she bore him a son Laxminiwas (L.N.Birla) and died when he was 19.  He again married at the age of 19 to Smt. Maha Devi.  But after a number of children she too contracted tuberculosis and expired so he was a widower at 32.  His political mentor Mahatma Gandhi advised him to remain celibate and devote the rest of his life to the country and he followed the advice.

2)     INDUSTRIAL CAREER : Ghanshyamdasji had inherited the sharp business acumen of his grandfather.  He purchased a lot of jute in his younger days and held to make a huge profit by dint of economic foresight.  During the First World War his father and he made around Rs. 80 lakhs a princely sum in those days (if you adjust for inflation).  He advised his father to set up a jute mill.  But the venerable old trader cautious and conservative by nature refused to embark on a journey into uncharted territory.  But G.D. was determined.  His determination was sharpened by insults and jibes to Indians by the European Businessmen !  Once he was not allowed to board a life because he was a non European !  Also the officer who used to sell him jute called him a “black native.”  His ears burned with outraged nationalistic pride and shame.  He secretly bought a small piece of land from a zamindar and appointed a trusted aide J.P. Mandelia to look after operations.  The British Imperial Bank refused G.D. any loan so he issued public shares and his shares were oversubscribed.  The Scottish supervisor of the Mill refused to teach Mandelia the intricacies of jute processing so G.D. and Mandelia would watch him secretly and observe his action.  They also scoured the bookshops of Kolkata and Mumbai.  Mandelia found one second-hand book on jute Technology which they pored over and made themselves knowledgeable regarding the technology.  The British controlled Jute Mill Owners association refused G.D. entry.  This made G.D. sure that the British were scared of Indians and they knew if Indians broke free of their Economic Domination their Political Domination too would be strangled and eliminated so he fought them tooth and nail and set up more industries.  By the time G.D. died he had set up Hindalco, Gwalior Rayon, Kesoram, United Commercial Bank and many other Industries.  India too won freedom on 15^th August, 1947.

3)     Political – Emotional – Spiritual views Politically before coming under the spell of the Mahatma, G.D. was a friend of the revolutionaries and even hid some guns in his office, was raided and went underground.  But from the age of 19 onwards he was a devotee of Mohandas Gandhi.  When the boys of Kolkata opened the horses from the carriage and pulled Mahatma’s carriage themselves G.D. was one of them.  He may not have agreed with the theory of cottage industry but in obedience to Gandhian philosophy he practiced the Charkha daily.  Mahatma Gandhi pressed upon his consciousness the concept of trusteeship and the disciple responded sincerely.  Under the urging of Gandhiji G.D. became the President of the Harijan Upliftment Committee.  When C.V.Raman needed some money for experiments G.D. immediately sent him the required funds.  When he came to know that the Poet Rabindranath Tagore required around Rs.60,000/- for Shantiniketan, Vishwa Bharati University he anonymously sent a draft for the amount.  G.D. Birla’s philanthropic projects are numerous – Birla’s Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, BITS Mesra, the Laxmi Narayan Temple, New Delhi, Birla Science Museum-Kolkata, Birla Planetorium-Kolkata, B.M.Birla Hospital, Bombay Hospital – the list is too numerous to quote !  He also donated money to the Aligarh Muslim University.  There is a special Saraswati Temple in Pilani covered with statuettes of famous scholars and scientists.  At his mentor’s behest he started “The Hindustan Times” and English daily newspaper to counter the vicious, malicious propaganda that was put out by the British owned English Anti-Indian Independence newspapers – that paper is still flourishing today !

4)     A little known incident in G.D.Birla’s life is that the British Bulldog Sir Winston Churchill, at that time out of Political Power, invited G.D.Birla to his country home in England.  Filled with trepidation G.D. agreed to visit.  To his utter surprise, the staunch opponent of Indian Independence was a most hospitable host to the staunch follower of Mahatma Gandhi !  Needless to say both men probed each other’s minds to gather vital intelligence helpful to their opposing causes ! Mahatma Gandhi tragically was shot dead at Birla House while leading a prayer meeting.  He used to say at Birla House whenever in Delhi.

5)     If anybody is interested in reading about there 2 stalwarts I would recommend Amar Chitra Katha’s “Jamshedji Tata” and “Ghanshyamdas Birla”.  I have relied totally on there 2 publications for my factoids and pictures.  Thank you ACK, thank you Uncle Pai for such depth of research and infotainment !!

6)     In my analysis and study of these pioneering, entrepreneurial souls.  I stumbled upon one bright shining jewel of a fact – these two patriots had an overwhelming burning desire to serve the Motherland and that desire sharpened their Entrepreneurial skills to Excellence in the World of Business, Industry and Commerce ! Nisarga datta Maharaj has said “if you have a vast, deep and noble ambition to serve the world, the people, the country the Universe itself will help you – It will go out of its way to help you !” But the ambition should be noble and vast !

No IPO, NO Angel Investors, No Entrepreneurship Incubator can substitute for Vast and Noble Ambition.  Spectacular short-term burn outs like Enron or Satyam can never challenge an Arvind Eye Hospital, a Bharat Sevashram, a Wipro or an Infosys because when a mere Entrepreneur becomes an Ardha Sanyassin (sage) Entrepreneur like Jamshedji or G.D.Birla he or she becomes Unstoppable, Towering Dynamos for the Power of Good in the World !!! Here I would like to caution that smart Buzzwords may sound phonetically attractive but are actually useless in the Real World.  For instance in the environs of 5-Star Air Conditioned” comfort, a Seminar Speaker may very cleverly say “Bill Gates entered the Gates of the World Economy by selling Electronic Windows !”

But by repeating the saying a 1000 times one will not create even a mini-Microsoft !

Cleverness and Smartness can never substitute Hard Work, Self Sacrifice and a Vast, Noble Ambition !

I would like to close with a saying by Swami Vivekananda, “No Noble and Great Activity was ever accomplished by mere Cleverness !”

Jamshedji and Ghanshyamji would have heartily agreed on this.

 

This is the concluding portion of the two part series. Part 1 was published on 15th August on this blog site.

Ashesh Ghosh, FCA, CEO of RollPack Pvt. Ltd. is the author of this story. He lives in Mumbai, the commercial capital of India, with his wife and their son and daughter.

CL - stands for Creative Leadership

CL -- The Sage Entrepreneurs - Part 1

A ship “The Empress of India” set sail from the then Yokohama harbour to Vancouver, Canada in 1893.

On the upper deck two Indian met during their morning and evening walks and became fast friends.  One was a young unknown monk and the other was a rich Parsi trader from Bombay.  The monk and the Parsi businessman agreed starting some industry, not in mere cotton or textile but in the core sector e.g. Cement or Steel or Chemicals would help India progress from the coils of Foreign Domination !

The monk told the would-be industrialist there were 2 aspects to industry- the manufacturing aspect and the knowledge science and to run the Steel furnaces, plant and mill.  An institute had to be built for imparting knowledge in Science and Technology to Indians as the British were eager to teach Literature and Arts but not science to Indians !  Both also felt if a country has to progress the poor people can only be uplifted vide indigenous Industry and not Foreign Charity or the imaginary Benevolence of Colonial Masters !!!

The two men were Jamshedji Tata and Swami Vivekananda !!! Jamshedji was visiting the Chicago World Fair and Swamiji continued onwards to his historic address at the Parliament of Religions, Chicago but the burning words of the visionary monk left an indelible impression on his listener’s mind !

Jamshedji Tata set up India’s first Steel Plant in Jamshedpur, a hydro electric power plant at Khandala near Mumbai and the Indian Institute of Science of Bangalore.  In 1898 five years later Jamshedji requested Swamiji to head his dream “Monastery of science where in a spirit of asceticism students would worship Science !”

Reluctalantly Swami Vivekanand had to turn down the offer as he was then pre-occupied with the Ramakrishna Mission and Math Organisation.  The first Indian Director of the Indian Institute of Science was the Nobel Laureate Dr. C.V. Raman !

“Imbued with an intensely patriotic and enlightened spirit, Jamshedji started India’s first Provident Fund Scheme, 8 hours working day, planned township for workmen including hospitals and schools !!

When Jamshedji was refused entry to a hotel in Bombay as he was a non European, he built the Taj Hotel in Apollo Bunder opposite the Gateway of India.  His sense of patriotic Indian ness had been outraged at the incident but  in his magnanimity he allowed Europeans entry to his Hotel ! When it opened it was the best in Asia ! In his search for excellence Jamshedji imported pipelines from Germany, water wheels from Switzerland, Generators from America, Electrical machinery from Dusseldorf, Chandeliers from Berlin, cast iron pillars from Paris etc.

When he wanted to start the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, the British Viceroy Curzon opposed it tooth and nail saying “How can Indians learn Science and Technology and where will you find students ?”

Contrast Curzon’s sayings with US President Obama’s constant exhortations to American Children “Indian students are very good in Maths and Science – Americans should study hard and catch up with the Indians !”

Curzon’s racial arrogance and White European supremacism only spurred Jamshedji onto greater determination !”

Jamshedji duputed Prof. Burjor Padishah to tour all the great Universities of Europe and USA and suggest a model for the Indian Institute of Science.  Prof. Burjor recommended the John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA.

Nobel Laureate Sir William Ramsay, the inventor of neon, visited India at Mr. Tata’s invitation and recommended Bangalore as our ideal location vis-à-vis Mysore and Mumbai.  Mr. Tata said this will be a national monument & never tried to glorify his own name !

When the British Chairman of Indian Railways heard about Tata Steel he said “If Mr. Tata produces steel, I will eat up every pound of it !”

Despite such condescending attitudes and even Vice regal opposition Jamshedji’s dream projects – Tata Steel, Taj Hotel, Tata Power and Indian Institute of Science stand as magnificent monuments to his sagacity, planning, execution and team-building.

 This excellent Zoarastrian son of Mother India really lived up to the tenets of Humata, Hubhakta and H’varsta – Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Action !!!

 

Part 2 would be published on 22nd August on this blog site.

Ashesh Ghosh, FCA, CEO of RollPack Pvt. Ltd. is the author of this story. The next part would be published on 22nd August 2011. He lives in Mumbai, the commercial capital of India, with his wife and their son and daughter.

CL - stands for Creative Leadership

 

CL - Act Local: Feel Global!

Times have significantly changed.

A time has come when 'All thinking worthy of the name must now be ecological." -- Lewis Mumford.

We are now clear that the ecological balance of our planet is at peril and our modern way of living is no longer sustainable.

What might we do then?

a) Do something on the political front. Any positive result is very unlikely.

b) Do something to lift financially poor nations and societies out of poverty. Again positive results are very unlikely.

c) Stop wars. Not a likely thing to happen in near future.

d) Bring Nations under environmental agreement. Looks gloomy at its best!

e) Stop manufacturing plants coming up in China and India. Downright foolish idea

f) Use renewable energy. Not viable till date. As of now the cost is prohibitive.

g) Use public transport and cut down on car production. Good idea but can't be implemented. But this might hurt public and social vanity. And it might hurt companies too.

h) Change currency into something intangible. This idea is doing its rounds for quite sometime. But can envision how this is possible.

i) Reduce or check population growth. Not possible unless poverty is eradicated like small pox.

j) Do something at an individual or family level -- use less water to flush and bathe, recycle garbage, buy cars with better mileage, etc... Good idea to initiate some movement in this direction.

k) Campaign against anything obnoxious -- cutting of trees, toxic wastes in agricultural fields, killing of animals, growing crops not native to a particular place. Good idea again. But it needs a lot of leadership skills for people to voluntarily participate. Most of such campaigns have fizzled out unless backed by strong politicians (usually fighting for their personal causes) or backed by large and big corporations having vested interests who are sometimes economically more powerful than many nations. Hence unlikely! Or a Vinoba Bhave type of campaign that happens once in a century. Not very useful either. Or keep blaming others. That is a waste of time and effort since none would listen.

l) Feel what each of us can contribute from our own specific role in society constantly reminding ourselves of the question, "Within the given situation what may I do better to address the ecological issues of our times?"

This to me appears plausible under the given circumstances. It is simple indeed to ask, 'What can I do to promote both ecological balance and live in a better way as a businessman, architect, teacher, professor, engineer, worker, taxi-driver, bus-driver, designer, doctor, nurse, lawyer, prostitute, musician, student, husband, housewife, traffic policeman, employee, manager, politician or a farmer or an economist?

As soon as we ask this question or remind ourselves of it a whole new world opens up with zillion possibilities. That for me is creative leadership.

Let us take an example to examine how this might work.

I love this DIY site: Dornob. Let's see how they are answering the great question.

1. They use container pallets to design their furniture. It is basically a waste product after materials arrive at users' doors. Idea - recycling materials!

2. The pallets are then configured in various ways to create different types of furniture (modular in concept). That is you can take them off and choose to build something else or simply stack them away for some future use. Reusable!

3. The end products are not the most minimalist or fashionable works, but they show the marks of their origins and are certainly eye-catching in a raw and honest way. A good design approach without using additional materials!

4. The tables, chairs and lamps themselves are both playful and pragmatic. They use existing colors as accents rather than relying on additional paints or stains. Some use blocks while other employ slats, depending on the need. Straight lines and right angles make them look minimalist at a glance, but really just functional and easy to build on closer inspection.

5. The best part, though, is that you cannot buy their designs – these are not for sale. What is for sale, instead, are a series of instruction manuals, photo books and other related merchandise. This is not only a clever way to tap into a market of do-it-yourself customers who would rather be giving plans than a finished product, but also more sustainable (and perhaps less ironic) than simply boxing and shipping reconstituted containers that you could just as easily get locally. I love this idea!! It benefits ecology. It benefits business. It benefits local factories & warehouses. It benefits users who gets more for less.

What can I do to promote both ecological balance and live in a better way? This is the lead question one might embrace to restore  ecological balance in someway thereby prolong our existence on planet Earth and also live in a better way.

What a powerful story that would prove to be? Feel from the heart to reach and connect 6.4 millon hearts!

It is time for this Creative Leadership to take shape and form starting with every individual as a leader operating in his/her own sphere of activity/work --  Act Local. Feel Global -- What might I do to ... ?

 

CL stands for Creative Leadership.

The Sun Still Shines

While returning from the Sunday church services, Karan Hasda Francis passionately sees his plot of red soil land by the side of the national highway. Francis patiently waits for the monsoon to arrive. He has followed the newspaper. It has already arrived in Kerala and within a month it will reach here.

 Karan Hasda Francis’s forefathers came from a place near Ranchi, Jharkhand. Now they have 17 acres of land at Raghunathpur in Purulia district of West Bengal. For irrigation they have to depend upon the monsoons and the ground water which is depleting every year.

 They are converted Christians. Though the education of his four sons and one daughter had been taken care of by the church, his second son has mostly run away from schools. Eldest son is a local school teacher; second one does odd jobs; the third one has passed ITI examinations (skilled labour) and is looking for a job; the youngest one is still studying in seventh standard; his daughter has eloped with her love to Delhi.

Its very hard times for Karan Hasda Francis wife to make both ends meet. She had been struggling to feed her family. Whatever crops they have from their land is equally divided between them and the tillers. Added to this are the numerous crops failure, wild elephants coming out from the forests and smashing the crops, erratic rainfall and low quality of seeds.

Karan Hasda Francis was toiling in the July sun trying to grow some vegetables in his backyard.  A cavalcade stops near his house. People in designer suits come out from the cars. Maps were spread across the bonnet. Karan was curious. What was the motive of these people?

He runs to the church. He looks out for the father. He is the only person in the whole village who has some knowledge. A fear gripped him as he came to realize the real motive of the people who came from the big city. Is he going to loose his land again. Once his forefathers were driven out from the village by the upper caste community as they failed to pay their debts. Lands were taken away forcibly and houses were torched. The Hasda family was shattered. They crossed over to Bengal. They were given shelter by the church. They got back the will to live in this world.

A car manufacturing unit is going to come up at his village. Karan Hasda Francis heaved a sigh of relief as his land is not among the 400 acres of land as requisitioned by the car manufacturers. Though other land owners got huge compensation, Francis was thinking of other ideas. Political parties held rallies. They demanded more jobs for the locals. Seven Hundred jobs in a car making factory is just too few for them.

One and half years went by. The factory took its shape. It looked monstrous yet beautiful. Electricity came to Raghunathpur. The roads were widened. Potable drinking water was available. Satellite T.V made its entry. The Banks were desperate to open its branches at Raghunathpur. More ancillary industries came up in its surroundings. Prices of land shot up. People came from outside to work here.  The population of Raghunathpur rose by thirty percent.

Money was flowing. Raghunathpur, once a dead village came back to life. Karan Hasda Francis wife was busy making food for the workers in the factory canteen. His eldest son is busy giving private tuitions. Second son of Francis now days drive a three wheeler through out the day ferrying people from railway station and bus stand to the factory. His third son has got a job in the factory. Francis has opened up a motel by converting a part of his house. All the rooms remains booked throughout the year.   

The Francis family now days go to the church every Sunday morning in their new car.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

The Power of 3 - Changes in Management Thinking.

This great story demonstrates a fundamental emergence in our lives. The old ways of thinking and managing simply wouldn't work any longer.

The 'science' and practice' of management as we know of it today were originally invented to solve two very important problems, which were:

a) How do we get ordinary folks do complicated and repetitive tasks to achieve a standard of efficiency and standardization to optimize profits?

b) How do we make our way through a complex web of processes to deliver goods and services to our clients? The complexity arose from scaling up of operations meant to generate ever increasing volume of goods and services that could provide more profits and subdue competitors.

In order to do that we created lot many logical rules and regulations. The number of rules increased with the degree of operational complexity. Then we trained and made people follow those rules to achieve the magic numbers that could produce more profits that are constantly under squeeze. 

With our present thinking we understand that such management thinking does not work well beyond a certain degree of complexity. Why is that?

So far we focused on objects that played any role within business cycles of production and consumption. Sometimes we focused on machines while at other times we focused on people or customers. And yet on some other occasion we forced our attention onto suppliers and quality or we looked at increasing inventory levels. We never quite saw the whole in one breath. What we clearly missed out was to observe the relationships between objects in a given context. What we chose to do instead was to focus wholeheartedly on objects and their functions and properties without taking into consideration the context in which they operated. We failed to realize the importance of interdependent relationships between all things that simultanteously arise and abate in the system in a "wholistic" manner.

What happens when we fail to see relationships?

Let us take two objects that are related to each other. Then the possible relationships that can exist between them are four [2 to the power 2 gives us 4]. As we keep increasing the number of related objects it keeps following the same power law [2 to the power of n, where n = the number of related objects].

It is then easy to imagine the exponential rise in the number of possible relationships as the system becomes more and more complex. How can such exponential behavior be controlled and regulated by a set of linear rules and regulations? Since that is clearly not possible to do so it exposes the unscientific nature of our so called 'scientific' management thinking.  

This flaw is clearly depicted in the video. As the number of cars increased along with the rise in the number of pedestrians and cyclists the system soon reached a critical point of complexity beyond which it was not possible to regulate the traffic flow, reduce the number of traffic jams and keep accidents in check. Even the logic of operating traffic lights represents a part of the growing rules and regulations to contain the menace of slowing traffic, snarling jams and terrible accidents without much success ofcourse.

So, what did the new management thinking do? They drastically reduced the number of rules and regulations to one simple rule - "give way to pedestrians and cyclists first". The result of such a brilliant move is amply demonstrated in the video.

What lessons management can learn from this? Probably these:

1. As the system becomes more and more complex reduce the complexity of the jobs ordinary folks are called on to do in all possible ways. One of the simplest way to do that is to reduce the number of irrelevant rules and regulations that bind and blind people from performing better. Forcing people to keep their eyes on so many rules is enough to make anyone crazy and make mistakes. For example, by simply enabling drivers not to pay any attention to the traffic signals and policemen but to keep in mind one simple rule greatly simplified their job of driving safely. This then left the drivers free to focus on their goals without getting distracted by a host of unrelated issues. Ease of traffic flow, reduction of jams and elimination of accidents are few of the by-products of making jobs easier and free of unnecessary clutter. 

2. Redesign the system so as to reduce the number of relationships one has to negotiate in order to achieve the desired results. This was done by redesigning the roads at critical traffic intersections.  By reducing the total number of relationships within a system we can easily convert complex processes to much simpler ones. 

3. Managers are then left to keep healthy communications going within the system and focus their attention to fine tune the existing relationships and also think of simplifying the processes further through redesign.

Aren't these three universal management lessons simple enough?

Let me know what you think.

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

7:06

Sheila catches the 7.06 train every morning to Kolkata from Krishnanagar --- a small town in Nadia district of West Bengal. Her father was a jute mill worker. He has been retrenched. Now days jute selling is not a good business proposition. The mill owners have closed their unit. They have started to produce mobile phones instead.

Sending his only grown up daughter to earn some money was not to his liking. He wanted to marry off his daughter.  Marrying off would mean they would die in poverty. Marriage proposals were coming for Shiela. Why not? Shiela is educated, fair skinned, strikingly attractive though poverty has taken away the sheen.

Sheila was good at sewing clothes. She used to fashion her own “salwar suits” and also used to stitch clothes for other neighborhood girls. But of course at a price. Her earnings used to rise during the festive seasons. Sheila once had a dream of going for a fashion designing course. But it remained a dream.  Now she only dreams of owning a boutique. Her family will not be able to afford the fees. To supplement their family income Sheila started to stitch shopping jute bags which the shop owners give it to their customers on “heavy purchases”. Every morning she goes to the different shopping malls and collects orders for the number of bags to be stitched.

Today also she rushed to catch the 7.06 train. She had a bundle of jute bags with her, ready to be delivered to the different shops. As the local train gathered its momentum Sheila got lost in her thoughts. How much she owed and the amount she has to give to her raw material supplier. She was woken up from her make believe dream world by the sound of a crying baby. She saw a woman trying to pacify her one year old child. The compartment was packed and the weather was hot and humid. Everything was so discomforting. Sheila saw the baby crying profusely. The baby was wearing diapers and a hooded jacket. She smiled and thought --- “the woman is so stupid to dress the baby in a hooded jacket and put on a diaper--- just imitating from the western world. “ The hot humid weather in India which last for eight months in a year makes life miserable for grown ups leave alone the babies. She got her next business idea.

She started stitching triangular shaped cotton diapers for babies. These cotton made diapers could be locked by strings or by Velcro tapes. This became an instant hit. Sheila was flooded with orders. Bulk orders came around from hospitals, nursing homes, maternity centres, individual young mothers and shop owners selling infant garments.

Sheila now has two bank accounts. Her father is now free from depression. Her mother now wears silk sarees. They have fish everyday for lunch. Sheila got back her sheen but she still wants to complete a course on fashion designing.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

Posted via email from dibyendu's posterous

From Post Offices to Social Media #SM

Let us examine how Nature's Model as presented a week back, is applicable for understanding changes happening in any social phenonemon and its transformation. For the sake of discussion let us take the most common social phenomenon 'communication' (the complex phenomenon that distinguishes human beings from other animals) and let us trace its development and transformation from the system of Post Office to the current status of Social Media. The central question in this quest would be: how did it all come about? Did it come about by some external forces or by some extremely clever and futuristic thinking of some bright individuals or did it come into being on its own "self-movements" and the gradual development of the enveloping field that motivated the 'self movement' the eventual collapse to take place. Once we trace the development through the model we would then try to draw an outline, however faint, of the next possible phase that would inevitably replace the present phase of Social Media.

To reiterate, the essential features of the Nature's Model are the following:

1. Any phenomenon takes place under the interaction of a pair of opposites. "Self-Movement" occurs when two opposites interact. For movement to take place it does not need any external force.

2. At the inital phase of development we innovate to give the new development a push.

3. During the development state we improvize to sustain the process till it reaches the highest possible potential. The quantity of improvizations changes the quality of the transformation.

4. There is always a field or flux enveloping the development process.

5. Soon the development reaches its maximum potential limited by the field and remains steady for a while.

6. This steady state is quickly transformed into a rapidly 'collapsing phase' where the field triggers the collapse. 

7. The system collapses quickly and tends to come back to the intial phase of its development but one level higher that is inherently more complex than the previous phase giving birth to a new system. 

 

With these features in mind we set out to examine the transformation that has taken place in 'communication' starting with our ubiquitous Post Offices.

System 1: Post Offices

Purpose: How two people communicate in details with each other in a written format?

The pair of opposites for 'self movement' to take place: Service Provider and the Consumers (one service provider vs millions of consumers).

Innovation during the Initial state of development: Set up of costly infrastructure by the Service Provider.Only a few service providers could afford to set up the infrastructure and therefore ruled the market through monopoly.

Improvizations: differential trariffs, telegrams, book posts, air-mail, postcards, inland letters, speed post.

Field Strength: The growing strength of the enveloping field that leads to collapse: Time delays in communication, Costs controlled by service provider and Growing Cost of operation of the service provider trigger the collapse of State 1 to State 2, which is one level higher and more complex.

 

State 2: Land phones (a level higher than State 1 and more complex)

Purpose: How two people communicate quickly over long distances in the spoken format?

Interaction of the Pair of opposites leading to self-movement: Service Providers (usually one) vs millions of Consumers. 

Innovation during the initial state of development: Set up of costly infra-structure, signal processing, cabling, routing, etc. Only a few service providers could afford to set up the infrastructure and therefore ruled the market with their monopoly.

Improvizations during development phase (change in quantity leading to qualitative differences in service and utilization): Differential tariffs for local and long distance calls. type of signal processing, interconnectivity, etc.

Growing Field Strength to dislodge a stable system into a quick collapse: Cost to the consumers, unreliability, inability to communicate through written format, loss of mobility and precise connectivity and complete monopoly of the service provider trigger the collapse of State 2 to State 3, which is one level higher and more complex.

 

State 3: Mobile phones (a level higher than State 2 and more complex built on the back of internet technology, the transition technology between Phase 2 and Phase 3, which I have intentionally not described since we would discuss the social media which is intenet based technology).

Purpose: How two people communicate quickly over long distances in the spoken format with mobility and precise connectivity?

Interactions of the Pairs of opposites leading to self-movement: Service Providers (many) vs millions of Consumers. Note the change from usually one Service Provider to 'many' Service Providers in this phase of development.

Innovation during the initial state of development: Set up of costly infra-structure, costs sharing and collaborating between different service providers, better signal processing, cartel, advertisements, etc..

Improvizations during development phase (change in quantity to qualitative difference in service and utilization): different strategies to pull customers, dropping prices in response to competition, mobile phone designs (one device multiple functions, like camera, sketch pad, dictaphone, etc), text messages, design and development of user interfaces, different types of services, touch screen, later provision of web facility, 3G with voice and image facility, conference calls (from one to one to one to two), number portability etc.

Growing Field strength to dislodge a stable system into a quick collapse: Inability to network with different people in a cost effective way. harmful radiations that affect health, cost of service, inabilty to strike parallel dialogues simulataneously with many people, inability to collaborate, inability to learn from a wide variety of people, ineffectiveness of branding and advertisement through word of mouth....

 

Phase 4: #Social Media or #SM (a level higher than Phase 3 but more complex)

Purpose: How two or more people can interact, share, learn, collaborate, express themselves in variety of ways.

Interaction of the Pairs of opposites leading to self movement: Consumers to Consumers through participatory approach. Interesting to note that there is no governing body for the Internet system. The consumers create provide and consume the content.

Innovation during the initial state of development: Set up of various forums, platforms and complex network of networks for people to get together and communicate in various modes and methods. The cost of set up of such infrastructure is extremely small when compared to earlier forms of communication where the service providers effectively barred the entry of competitors through the high cost of investments needed for setting up the infra-structure.

Improvizations during the development phase: integration of various modes of communication -- emails (various), short messages with searchable tags (Twitter), photos (Flicker), blogs (posterous), wikis (e.g. Wikipedia, Ning), niche groups, networking and job searches (e.g. Linkedin), sharing and dialogs between group of friends (e.g. Facebook), question and answer groups (e.g. Quora), audio and video (Skype, Youtube) -- all enabling dialogs (both prolonged and short) and all rolled into one (e.g. E2.0 like Traction) and digital book publishing platforms (Amazon). The ongoing development is fast and furious and not yet mature enough. 

Growing Field strength to disloge the system into a quick collapse: Most of the social media is about networking amongst known people and group of friends and professionals. Less opportunity to collaborate for making a living and does not provide an efficient method of offering one's services around the world in a reliable fashion, more specific local needs, inability to cater to physical needs, .... As the strength of the field grows it would trigger the collapse of the present stable state of affair with Social media (or #SM) to give brith to the next phase, i.e. Phase 5.

We have, in brief, looked at the transformations and traced the development of our communication system from the good old Post Offices to present day use of Social Media by applying a the underlying rules of Nature's Model.

The nature of the development is quite fascinating. In brief, the interesting changes are the following:

a) From a single service provider we slowly moved towards having multiple service providers to having millions of service providers. .

b) In the early stages of development consumers were the underdogs. From that position they have now moved on to occupy the role of the virtual service providers.

c) Furthermore, the role of the consumers have changed from being a mere consumer of the service provided to that of being both the provider and the consumer.

d) The cost of providing the service to that of consuming the service has come down multi-folds to something quite insignificant thus making it affordable for millions of people.

e) From strong central regulation to virtual deregulation with no centralized governance.

f) It is providing for the first time in human history the opportunity to millons of people to dream of engaging into dialogs with total strangers, getting to know them and collaborating over brief duration of time to create new businesses (I term them as social businesses) at fraction of the previous costs enabling them to make an independent living without having to depend on jobs that were only created by the thinking and policies of the industrial age.

g) Again for the first time over the last 400 to 500 years of history, the relevance or importance of nation states is being fragmented into more community based living and working (including virtual societies and communities) who are trying to customize their offerings for the consumers by dipping into the pool of the best available global resources. It gradual development in Phase 5 would give a bodily blow to mental abstraction that we hold in our minds that wealth and happiness of a nation rests on existance and effectiveness of large corporations built and managed with the old industrial mindset and globalization. 

h) So far corporations existed with the mantra of competition. Within the next few years they would have to think totally differently for the survival and sustainabilty. They would have to somehow network with communities to produce, provide and consume the offerings (products and services) they would care to produce. The competion they would have to contend with would be from the consumers who so far were more than incapable to fight the might of the corporations or the producers.

h) We would also be moving away from the present economic models of capitalism and socialism to give birth to a different type of economy that would be more participatory in nature catering to the specific needs of the local communities.

i) As the new participatory economy develops the economic cycles that we have of boom and busts or recessions and inflations would minimize to a great extent since the money that would be produced in society would be based on value and not speculation on some financial bubbles. And it is also expected to level out economic disparity within communities and nations.

It clearly showed how Nature's Model helps us to not only examine the nature of the phase of a current development and what decisions we might take at different stages of its development but also helps us to understand the nature of the successive states that would appear in ever increasing levels and nature of complexities and what triggers such possibilities for self emergence.

The model also informs us that older modes of communications would virtually be wiped out with time. It would then be useless trying to fight hard to retain old positions in the face of current development. Organizations that are determined to fight back with the natural process are bound to be extinct or decimated to inconsequential existence. The best response they have up their sleeves is to adapt and to reinvent themselves in light of new changes that appear on the scene.

 

 

 

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Nature's Model to Harness Uncertainty for Performance

Uncertainty & its Importance

In business, as in life, we are always faced by uncertainty. That not only puts us into a tight fix but also makes our lives extremely difficult to live. This is because it is difficult to make sense of what is going on around us, how the future would unfold and what we are supposed to do now. It is difficult to think why things are the way they are and what steps might prove appropriate to tide over uncertainty to survive and improve performance.

Higher the degrees of uncertainty bigger are the risks and the problems. Over the years we have therefore searched for models, theories, 'five best ways', best methods practices, rules of thumb and techniques to tackle such uncertainty so as to act in a sensible manner. But we are always unsure about the effectiveness of our decisions and actions. Only after an action is taken we might get to know through hindsight whether it proved effective or useless.

Use of Models

To lessen the risk of such uncertainty we tend to use models. There are different types of models. Most models present us with calibrated yardsticks that try to tell us what is going wrong with the present operation and how much off we are from the ideal target or plan. There are some that try to tell us what and how to predict the future while others tell us what is the ideal thing to do (does not quite matter what we do -- growing a business or raising a child) and how that might be done best. And there are models that inform whether we are on the right track and how to monitor so that we don't slip or accidentally fall off the edges. There are still others that tell us what others are doing and how we might catch up with the best in the field. The range and gamut of the models are mind boggling. For an organization juggling with so many models some of which might be in conflict with each other and tending to them can prove to be a bewildering task with the limited manpower they always like to have.

In spite of so many well meaning models for monitoring, growth and performance enhancement we have seen businesses fail miserably, economies collapse all of a sudden and nations going bankrupt overnight. That is unfortunate. But why is that?

Why Models Fail?

Is there something common that runs through all these models? Most models that we presently have are a sort of idealistic abstractions of the human mind. That is we first think of an ideal that we hope to achieve and then find ways and means to achieve that without considering the ground reality the organization, society or a person is in. We then try to impose that 'ideal way' to deal with a current situation with all the techniques and methods outlined in such and such model. The focus is to neatly fit the model onto a given reality without even trying much to understand what gives rise to that reality.  Naturally, the model would refuse to fit.  But we don't give in. We then measure what or how much of present situation goes outside the boundaries of imposed model and try to trim the excesses or eliminate them so as to forcefully fit the model or framework to comfort us that everything is going smoothly as it should if the model is to be applied.

For example, most economists think that having a huge population would only make a country poorer. The leaders in India were concerned. They found that on an average most Indian families have around five children. That they thought is way above the ideal level of two children. The current reality wasn't quite fitting into their economic model. So they went about sterilizing people by force. People reacted to this and in the next election overthrew the government. If they took time and effort to understand the underlying reality of the present situation the solution would have been rather different. Indian parents tend to have more children, especially boys, as an insurance to support them in their old age. If only the leaders understood this reality the huge sums of money they spent on 'mass sterilization' would have been well spent to start old age pension and medical schemes. That would have been more beneficial to assure Indian parents to limit the size of their families.

Similarly, great efforts are underway in the Indian manufacturing sector to enhance quality and systems mostly through Japanese models of improvement. There is nothing wrong with the models as such only that these are applied to completely different context. As a result they simply produce poor cosmetic output that does little to help a business in the long run. The workers don't understand what is going on and why they are being asked to do things which they think are queer. The underlying reality is that the workers are mostly poorly paid and undereducated. So, would it make more sense to put efforts to educate the workforce rather than thrusting upon them methods which they can't make any sense of? For example, if the worker does not know how to estimate the volume of fluid he regularly handles how can one stop him from wasting material? 

So, 'idealism' is a basic flaw in all the existing models that we have seen till date. It is this all pervading idea of idealism that transforms all these models into highly abstract and arbitrary ones. Hence, these models suffer from the disease of an 'absolute idea' and everything is forced to fit into that 'absolute idea'. It simply does not matter whether we are fitting that 'absolute idea' onto nature, societies and organizations or onto our personal lives without taking into account the current realities and how these have come about.

Therefore, we are confronted with the classic 'To be or Not to be' case. The question is whether we construct a theory in our minds based on some 'abstract ideal' and apply it to a given situation or do we gain insights and understanding of a given situation and then think of what best can be done or achieved under the given circumstances and what might be the consequences of our designed actions? In other words, do we arbitrarily foist our 'idea' on the world to forcefully bring about a change or do our minds reflect the world and translate the reflection into actionable thoughts and designs to adapt and change the world or ourselves?

Obviously, the first method hasn't worked well enough and clearly isn't going to work at all. The alternative is to look at the other approach.

Nature's Model - The Alternative View

The difference between the two approaches lies in the perspectives they take. The 'Absolute Idea' model is a static framework to achieve an ideal irrespective of the given circumstances. Since the alternative approach is grounded in understanding 'movement' it is then akin to developing a model based on the reality and modulating it as changes take place. The advantage of doing so is obvious. Nature moves. So having a model that faithfully reflects and replicates that movement is advantageous than having to fit a pre-formed 'idea' model to the reality of movement, which simply wouldn't match. We would call this the 'Nature's Model', which is a context specific model that can be applied to various issues as opposed to 'Absolute Ideal' model, which is an 'idea' specific model looking for applications. 

What would this 'Nature's Model' involve? When we consciously contemplate about the world around us, we see an immense and amazingly complex series of phenomena, an intricate interrelated web of seemingly endless change, cause and effect, action and reaction -- in short we see 'Uncertainty' enveloping us. The motivation to construct a contextual Nature's Model is based on our desire to obtain insights into this bewildering labyrinth of uncertainty, to understand it in order to harness it for the collective good without unintended consequences to Nature and our future generations. We would then look for laws which can separate the general from the particular, the accidental from the necessary, and enable us to understand the underlying themes that give rise to the phenomena that envelope us. We would do that by considering motion or movement as the basic underlying characteristic of all phenomena.

Why would we consider 'movement' to be the basic characteristic of any phenomena? This might be best answered by the words of David Bohm the celebrated physicist and philosopher:

"In nature nothing remains constant. Everything is in a perpetual state of transformation, motion, and change. However, we discover that nothing simply surges up out of nothing without having antecedents that existed before. Likewise, nothing ever disappears without a trace, in the sense that it gives rise to absolutely nothing existing at later times. This general characteristic of the world can be expressed in terms of a principle which summarizes an enormous domain of different kinds of experience and which has never yet been contradicted in any observation or experiment, scientific or otherwise; namely, everything comes from other things and gives rise to other things." 

The fundamental proposition of Nature's Model is that everything is in a constant state of movement and developing new states. Even when it appears to us that nothing is quite happening, in reality, matter and things are always changing. Molecules, atoms and subatomic particles are constantly changing place, always on the move and always developing new states -- always in a state of becoming something else than what it were. Thus Nature's Model is essentially a dynamic interpretation of the phenomena and processes which occur at all levels of both organic and inorganic matter to help us take critical decisions about adapting and/or changing and living moment to moment to survive and perform.

Richard Feynman had this to say, "To our eyes, our crude eyes, nothing is changing but if we could see it a billion times magnified, we would see that from its own point of view it is always changing: molecules are leaving the surface, molecules are coming back." It is the flux of movement that surrounds us creating the 'uncertainty' that we hope to harness for our betterment. 

However, this idea of motion and change as the fundamental characteristic of Nature is not new to human understanding.

Aristotle wrote: "Therefore…the primary and proper meaning of ‘nature’ is the essence of things which have in themselves…the principle of motion."

This is not the mechanical conception of motion as something imparted to an inert mass by an external "force" (Newton Laws) but an entirely different notion of matter as 'self-moving'. For them, matter and motion (energy) was one and the same thing, two ways of expressing the same idea. This idea was brilliantly confirmed by Einstein’s theory of the equivalence of mass and energy.

The germ of this ideas of self movement and self creation or self organization can also be found in ancient thoughts of Hindus through their metaphor of Shiva (chaos), Vishnu (order) and Brahma (self creation) and in Chinese thoughts captured through their metaphor of the Yang-Yin and the Buddhist thoughts of Flow, Change and Interdependence of all matter and phenomena.

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Therefore, the model presented reflects this reality of movement and change in Nature. Matter flows from one state (State 1) to another state (State 2). The path is both linear (ordered) and non-linear (chaos) to reach its highest potential. This is done through a series of internal self-movements and self creation (or self organizing) through a number of internal contradictions or paired opposites helped by a series of interdependences. While this goes on, the quality of the state of matter continually changes. Once it reaches its highest potential (when the number of interdependences are the highest the system becomes too rigid to hold on by itself and loses its resilience to changes) there is a sudden change and collapse of the state (releasing energy) and the highly interdependent state changes to a new state which rushes back to the previous state from where it started out but at one level higher and more complex in nature and behavior. A number of such spiral transformations of 'uncertainties' are going on simultaneously in a system at any point of time. It is a combination of slow gradual changes, medium short term changes and quick and rapid changes.

How is the Model Useful?

But what useful thing can happen by understanding movement and change of state? It simply helps us to think about the decisions we might take to flow with the changes and not resist them to self destruct ourselves or make things better.

So when the system collapses our decision would be to innovate and restructure the system based on its present level of complexity and behavior. We would have to carefully look for the smallest favorable movement the collapse has brought about that might take us forward or change course in a new direction. For example, if the new state of communication is 'social media' then businesses might do well to think how to innovate to change their brand images through social media. There would be little point in sticking to the older forms of brand building exercises, which are bound to prove futile or counterproductive with the sudden change of state of communication.

Similarly, when the system starts its upward movement our decision would be to institute a number of small changes to help the growth and development towards the new state, if desirable. Such an effort would be a summation of numerous micro changes to boost self organization or self movement to its desired potential (the maximum the state might reach before it collapses again and tries to go back to its previous state).

But when the state matures to its highest potential then our efforts might be directed to maintaining the state as long as viable without being blind to the fact that all that stability that we enjoy would soon collapse to a new state. Hence our decision might be to maintain stability and prepare for the collapse at the same time. 

So our decisions would change as per the circumstances we are in. Broadly there would be four states -- initial, growth, stability and collapse and creation of a new state. In each case the type and quality of decision to be in the flow would be different. Accordingly the quantity and quality of our efforts would also change depending on the state we are in.

However, it is important to assess the situation as accurately as possible. This can be done through insights that can be gained through our observation of the reality. Gaining insights of the reality (mistaken as uncertainty) has another advantage. Gaining insights from the present movement would also help us to assess how the movement would change within a given time and space and whether it distorts them. Having said that we must implicitly assume the fact that accuracy of such assessment might be off by a wide margin since it can not be predicted accurately. Nonetheless it would be useful to have a general idea of the movement and about what time the collapse might take place.

It is important to remember that our insights would always be context specific and therefore ever changing. Previous insights wouldn't hold true as soon as the context or the movement changes. That calls for mechanisms to have snapshots of the present reality and monitor the changes with respect to previous states. It would always be a work in progress.

Limitation & How do we overcome that?

There is one inherent danger in gaining insights. Gaining insight starts with observation. And that is where the potential difficulty lies. Observing is a state where the confluence of  time, space and observer' mind take place. And there seems to be no guarantee that the mind of the observer would faithfully reflect the state of the reality. The mind of the observer might change the reality instead of faithfully reflecting it leading to distorted understanding and insights. Such irrationality of the human mind is expected due to the interaction between the characteristics of the mind and reality. One way to get over this difficulty is to cultivate the discipline of an open, supple but critical mind. The other way would be to expect and allow failures, be responsive to it and instantly learn and correct the mistake so that reality is not reflected in a distorted manner. Of course the best way forward would be to follow both ways.

Conclusions

We might now conclude that 'uncertainty' is only a delusion. Movement is real and that is the truth behind every phenomenon that we encounter. There is nothing like an 'Absolute Idea' or 'Absolute Ideal'. So, by understanding and gaining insights from 'movement' we can change and adapt to the flow of movement in forms of appropriate decisions and actions. But that would call for understanding the laws of Nature to interprete reality as accurately as possible. That is what Nature's Model hopes to achieve. The leverage that might be gained is enormous. Since the model replicates the movements in Nature it can be easily applied to a host of issues in organization development, business performance, economic viability, sustainability, personal growth and development, design and thinking. One model serves different roles and purposes. Aren't we fortunate? Perhaps!

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