Green Taxes always hurt the poor & underprivilaged of the society

via green.in.msn.com

Few days back the Government of Maharashtra slapped green tax on old vehicles -(Green News - Article - MSN India).

What do they want to do? They want to abolish all the old vehicles plying in the state so that pollution levels decrease dramatically. That is of course a good idea or is it?

Who gets hurt in the process? The poorer section of the society are hurt most. These yellow and black taxis that we see in the picture are mostly owned and driven by poor people who just manages to eke out a living that allows them to live in slums and vulnerable shacks without access to any modern amenities of life like sanitation, water and electricity. Asking them to go for a new taxi is simply a torture and a burden.

The big assumption is that old vehicles pollute. This is entirely wrong. Pollution of any well maintained engine is certainly within the existing pollution norms. And if the norms get tighter then why not ask them to change the engine. No other part of a car actually pollutes. Throwing away a car only for an engine is simply a waste of good money.

Asking people to change old cars actually serves the hidden interest of the car manufacturers and nobody else. The number of cars that get added to the city of Mumbai is the highest in India. But that has now reached a limit of growth. Hence the well calculated move to further the interest of a few businessmen and business houses with an eye to increase car sales. In a way, the Government serves the interest of the corporations rather than the ordinary citizens of the country.

Let us take another example: The Green Tax on Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) in the UK -- An excerpt from Mr. Tim Henry of the UK who retired as Chairman of Wolfson Maintenance, formerly a industrial consulting wing the University of Manchester.

"We like many other people in the UK are being penalized for owning a SUV with about 80% tax on fuel and vehicle tax 10 times that of a minicar. This winter we had a long cold winter with temperatures falling as low as -18 deg C. We live in a hilly area- our house is at 800 ft and the hills rise to 2000 ft. Without our 4X4 we would not have been able to get out as the local authorities failed to keep the roads clear of ice. In Wales in the summer we live about ½ mile from the nearest surfaced road and contend with a rough track that floods in bad weather. We would love to be able to have an energy efficient vehicle but the current route of tax to dissuade is not helpful. It particularly penalizes the poor. Some route of incentives is needed once the energy efficient alternatives are provided.".

It is clear that Green Tax in any form is not helpful to make things greener. Taxing is not the preferred route to greening -- building awareness, encouragement and financial incentive are.

Governments all over the world are getting it wrong.

This reminds me of Peter the Great of Russia. He imposed a stiff tax on anyone wanting to sport a beard. Why? Simply because he did not like it and he wanted citizens of his country to look smarter and more modern like him. But the sad fact was that most of the poor citizens who actually wore a bread did not do so to start off a new fashion. They simply did not have the money to shave regularly. They just wanted to save whatever they could.

No amount of 'System Thinking' might help such Governments to see the light of the day. They already have a solid opinion about the whole thing.

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Jugaad: A New Growth Formula for Corporate America - Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, and Simone Ahuja - The Conversation - Harvard Business Review

via blogs.hbr.org

The 'Jugaad' culture of India is a splendid culture of the country that others might like to emulate.

From my personal experience I may say that many of the products of 'Jugaad' culture can really be patented, which Indians don't care much about (might not be required too for the collective good).

If one takes the cumulative effect of the Jugaad culture that goes on in any Indian industry one would see that it is applied R&D at its best but again not recorded or accounted for. If accounted it would be a substantial figure. However R&D and its spending are defined differently. And that is why such figures and efforts get hidden.

The point now is how to we leverage this excellent culture of 'making do with little', which is the need of the hour. For this 3 things might be needed:

1. Education & Propagation of System Thinking in schools, colleges and industries
2. Education & Propagation of Design Thinking (project based learning) and innovation rooted in System Thinking.
3. Achieve a balance between 'reliability' and 'innovation'; 'development' and 'growth'; 'sustainability' and 'profits'.

This I Believe (TIB): because I have the satisfaction of implementing and leveraging Jugaad culture in Indian industries (for products that address the 'bottom of the pyramid' concept of C.K. Prahalad) -- e.g: shampoos sachets, liquid cleaners, toilet cleaners & powders.

This I Believe (TIB); because I have also effectively employed the Jugaad culture to improve the reliability and energy efficiency of industrial systems (capital intensive plants) with an eye to sustainability and affordability to great effect without sacrificing profit margins (in fact enhancing it) and improving 'standard of living' of the employees of the organizations.

But to leverage this excellent culture we have needs a systemic understanding and its application that is augmented by strong strategy, innovative business models, inclusive nature of the entire buyer-supplier-producer chain, & use of global collaborative resources for creation & diffusion of knowledge.

TIB: N = 1 & R = G, where --

N --> personalized & differentiated, co-created experiences &
R --> collaborative resources through global networks

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Wholophilia of the LIPS

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Essence.pdf (210 KB)

As human beings we all (well almost all) do the following:

1. Learn & Decide
2. Innovate & Play
3. Plan & Change
3. Create Systems

The beautiful and enticing acronym for this is LIPS (Learn, Innovate, Plan and Create Systems)

But are there methods to do these essential activities effectively on a regular basis?

The Principles of System Thinking and Design Thinking provide the way forward. For example, we can learn and decide about anything through System Thinking. Innovate and Play through Design Thinking. Plan and change through Design and System Thinking and then create new systems through System Thinking.

In this way Design Thinking and System are inseparably linked. One is rooted to the other. However, describing it in this way creates confusion as it appears rather paradoxical. My friend  Vlad (Vlad Kunko a great designer in his own right) actually helped me out of this confusion by terming this as 'Wholophilia' which is a great and appropriate term to use. It means that we explore any issue in a holistic manner but we do so in two different ways which are integrated. We do this by exploring the whole as a prerequisite for systems thinking, and as a manifestation of design thinking & action.

In other words, it focuses on design or creativity as the holistic unison of aesthetics and spirituality, beauty and structure, form and the essence, order and chaos, discipline and love and provides a context for rigorous inquiry into wholeness materialized into solutions through the act of design.

Vlad states this in his unique style (exactly as he wrote to me): "Co-evolution of understanding and meaning making / memory and concept / Enkidu and Gilgamesh / Dionysius and Apollo / yesterday and tomorrow / autopoietic immanence and enaction ... nicely done Dibyendu -- a Whole Person approach for living Whole Systems Design ... Wholophilia ... "

Let us make it simpler. Wholophilia helps us to understand problems as a whole and create new solutions that help sustain the purpose of the system without causing any short or long term unintended consequences for life and living.

The simplest way to apply Wholophilia is to think in terms of 'Emergence' and 'Essence'.

Emergence is what we can see and feel. It is the 'Shakti' or the 'Yang'. It is the manifested pattern in 'Space' and 'Time'.

Essence is the relationship that helps the manifestation or the Emergence to take place. Essence is invisible though one can feel it. It is the 'Shiva' or 'Yin' It is the energy that holds things together. It is timeless and not limited by 'Space' and 'Time'.

The play is between the Emergence and Essence. It is happening all the time and all around us, It appears as the play of opposites or appears as the paradox of opposite. But essentially there is unity & balance in this paradox of opposites. Or we can say that there is always 'UNITY IN OPPOSITES'.

This basic understanding helps us to LIPS.

A simple story would be appropriate here for clarity.

A modern and sophisticated chemical plant used an ultra modern state of art control system to control the operation of the plant. A strange phenomenon was happening there. One of the electronic control panel was blowing off frequently and rather randomly. It was a strange phenomenon since very reliable electronic control panels were installed. It was also strange that only one of them was behaving in this manner. Nothing happened to the similar electronic boards. Even the ones on the two sides of this particular board remained unaffected.

This caused sudden plant outages. This is not only costly but also dangerous in a chemical plant. It is costly because valuable productive time is lost with the subsequent loss of energy, material and human efforts in starting up again. That it is downright dangerous need not be emphasized. Bhopal, Alfa Piper and Chernobyl stand as living ghostly memories in the minds of all. It affects life and living for generations.

The cause of this strange but important problem was not apparent and people struggled with it for months till the 'Whophilia' was applied. 

Wholophilia in action:

The ambient temperature of this place in summer is around 42/47 degrees C while the room temperature of this modern control room is maintained at 22 degrees C. It is also necessary for people to constantly get in and out of the control room, which they did through the glass door as shown in the slide show (attached).

So the 'Wholophilia' understanding is as follows:

Emergence --> Frequent failure of the electronic panel. (visible pattern manifested in time and space -- the Shakti or the Yang)

Essence --> 'Thermal shock' owing to sharp temperature difference between the outside and the inside initiated by frequent ingress and egress of people through the nearby door. (Invisible energy that creates the relationship between the Emergence & the Essence -- the Shiva or the Yin).

The connection between the Emergence and the Essence completes our understanding of the issue in 'whole' in the simplest possible terms.

This same understanding of 'wholeness' also helps us to materialize the appropriate solution (sustains the purpose of the system without giving birth to unintended consequences to life and living) through the act of design (decision, creation, ...).

The simple solution was to lock the door permanently and use another door at the other end of the control room (where it is not possible to generate thermal shocks).

The other associated solutions were to put sun film on the doors to cut out unnecessary radiation and trapping heat in the room that would lead to increase in air conditioning load.

Increase the temperature of the room from 22 degree C to 24 degrees C. It helps in three ways. First, less energy consumption by decreasing the air conditioning load of this fairly large control room. Second, it provides better effectiveness of the electronic components and their functioning since these function best between a temperature of 24 to 27 degree C. Third, the thermal gradient is reduced for any possible thermal shocks in the future.

The result: The strange problem vanished for good. No failure observed in the next 4 years. 

This simple solution illustrates the power & application of Wholophilia of the LIPS.

It helps organizations to learn, create and implement changes effortlessly and effectively.

The existing systems gradually transform to more sustainable solutions.

Ref:

The accompanying slide show. (Wholophilia of the LIPS)

http://dibyendu.posterous.com/connecting-emergence-essence-to-innovate (Connecting Emergence to Essence to Innovate)

 

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The strange case of the electrical panel burnout

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Electrical.pdf (301 KB)

This was a very 'naughty' or 'knotty' problem that almost tripped me over.

This strange case of electrical panel burnout happened in one of the most modern, sophisticated and well maintained chemical plant I have ever set my eyes on.

A particular set of electrical panels was burning out year after year. It was impossible to predict when it would burn or say as to why would it burn out so randomly?

However, there was a common pattern in all the failures, which was made up of the following components:

a) Whenever the panels got 'shorted' and failed the engineers opened up the panel to find dew like shining droplets of water hanging precariously from the top of the panel.  

b) The failures always happened in a particular period of the year (April to September).

The engineers & managers were at their wit's end not knowing how exactly they can overcome this problem.

They questioned, 'How can water seep into the panels?'

They took all possible precautions like

a) sealing the 'supposed' gaps in the panel door so that even a tiny drop of water can't enter

b) maintain and clean up and dry the panels every six months or whenever they had an opportunity

But nothing helped. It kept happening year after year.

They almost decided to go for a new design of panels.

Fortunately that was not needed. And they have lived happily ever after.

So, how do we connect the Emergence (the problem) to the Essence (the relationship)?

What might be the approach to do so?

What we need to avoid to really understand 'emergence' that continually floods our lives?

The extremely brief presentation reveals the interesting answers.

Hope you would enjoy it.

References:

a) the post: http://dibyendu.posterous.com/connecting-emergence-essence-to-innovate (Connecting Emergence to Essence)

b) the post: http://dibyendu.posterous.com/illustration-of-the-4th-design-thinking-princ (Illustration of the 4th Design Thinking Principle)

c) the post: http://dibyendu.posterous.com/general-principles-of-design-thinking (General Principles of Design Thinking)

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Connecting 'Emergence' & 'Essence' to Innovate

All systems, whether simple or complex, exhibit 'Emergence'. In plain terms, we may say that 'emergence' is the problem that we can sense with our senses and is usually undesirable. However, most systems produce more than one problem. The usual strategy is to take up one problem at a time and deal with them individually. However, experience shows that this is not a very effective strategy since the problems keep repeating. Why is it so? This is because the problems are somehow connected to each other. One problem creates the next and have a cascading or ripple effect to produce multiple problems. In this case the reliability of a system over time would exhibit a negative exponential (negative exponential pattern). That would mean that we would continue to work harder and harder and struggle but would never be able to bring the system back to its desirable purpose. So, system 'emergence' gives rise to 'uncertainty'

Therefore, a better way to deal with this issue is to consider all the problems in one go or in other words deal with them as a set of problems. This set is what we call as 'Emergence'. It might be weak or strong but it actually does not matter when we would have to solve them simultaneously. Once done in this manner, the reliability of the system over time would be more or less constant (constant pattern) over time, which would enable us to maintain the desirable system behavior over a relatively longer period of time. 

But how do we go about tackling a set of problem or 'Emergence'?

We know that parts of a system are connected by various relationships. We may have two types of relationships -- the strong and the weak. If there is a strong (undesirable or having an imperfection)relationship it causes an emergence. Whereas weak (desirable or perfect harmonious) relationships do not produce emergence. So, the relationship(s)that causes emergence are called the 'Essence'.

The job then boils down to connecting the observable 'Emergence' to the generally invisible 'Essence'. Once we find out such connections we can do a number of things, which are as follows:

a) The risk of the uncertainty reduces. Note that 'risk' and 'uncertainty' have different meanings. While uncertainty represents the unknown that usually gives rise to fear; risk expresses our degree of confidence in having a qualitative or quantitative understanding of the unknown.

b) Simultaneously solve a set of problems by first understanding the connection between Emergence and the Essence and then changing the quality of the Essence. Changing  the quality of the essence is basically done by converting the strong relationships into relatively weaker relationships or eliminating the undesirable essence or by modifying relationships or amplifying certain relationships or creating new ones. By this we get rid of the undesirable Emergence of a system.

c) This leads to smart innovation. Innovation resulting from changing the quality of the essence. A very small effort that results in dramatic changes. In most cases such changes are also cost effective. This is because what actually lies behind an 'essence' are our own thought waves. Changing a thought wave actually does not involve any cost. However giving a form to a new thought wave might involve certain cost, which can be minimized through design choices from a number of possibilities. 

d) Improve the reliability of the system through systemically planning to weaken the relationships

e) We can then observe the changes in the essence over time (i.e. the relationship changes from weak to stronger relationships) and predict the onset of emergence to take timely action to avoid failure of the desirable function or purpose of any system.

 

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Why Would an Elephant Waltz?

Once upon a time a large industrial group wanted to set up a large, modern and efficient cement plant as a greenfield project. It was an ambitious plan that would help the company capture a big untapped market. Hence, they wanted to bring up the plant as fast as possible.

So, first things first. They got the land and the limestone mine of relatively good quality. And they also got a CEO who they thought would deliver the project on time. Since it was a greenfield project they thought that a very disciplined person would fit the bill nicely. Therefore a senior retired army Colonel was selected for the purpose.

As soon as he was appointed, he set about the task with all seriousness of an army officer. He understood about projects and engagements. He has done that all his life in the army. He understood command and control very well. That was his forte. But though he was an engineer by training he had absolutely no idea what a cement plant was made of.

Hence to deliver a quality project in time, he hit upon a splendid plan backed up by an 'infallible' logic. The logic was that he would get the best machines or sub-systems of the plant from the best suppliers of the world and then he would just put them together so that the plant performs the best right from the first day. But how would he understand what was the 'best'? He would survey the existing plants go through their records of performance and reliability, collect data to find out what part or sub-system of the system worked best for Plant X and then what worked best for Plant Y and so on. Reliability would be his benchmark and vision.  

So he decided that he would buy the kiln from supplier A and the cooler from supplier B and the hammer crusher from supplier C and the conveying system from supplier D and the cement mill from supplier E and so on.. When he placed his ideas before the board they found his ideas to be wonderful. They were convinced that it would take the minimum time for procurement and set up since they would avoid lengthy negotiations and hassles if they decided what to buy and from whom to buy these from. After all it would not pose any problem. They were buying the best things from the best possible suppliers around the world. 

The Colonel went about the task with gusto, precision, efficiency and great care carrying just the right attitude of going to war. None needed to teach him what 'war footing' was.

Soon, the best pieces of equipment and sub systems were purchased and erected. Time flew past quickly. In no time the modern cement plant was set up. His bosses were extremely happy with the good job done and awarded the Colonel a good bonus and a promotion for completing the project much before time and within budget. Everyone was happy and the plant began operating much before the planned starting date. It was key to capturing the untapped market before others got in.

But very soon a problem emerged. The plant was unable to produce the designed capacity at all. They kept trying harder and harder but the plant refused to change its behavior. They coaxed people to work smarter and come up with good ideas. Nothing happened. They called in experts. The experts took their fees but the system did not improve. They started training people to no good effect. Then they brought more or the best people to leadership positions. But they also could not make the desired change. People were sacked. New blood was inducted. The system did not budge an inch. 

In addition to this another problem surfaced. The plant suffered innumerable breakdowns. One after the other. People were busy fixing things up as soon as things failed. And they kept doing this for years.

12 years passed. The fate of the plant was sealed. Or so it seemed. People were blamed and they were demoralized. The President of the plant was sacked. New leaders took over. A time came when people stopped talking about this plant about which they were so proud of a few years back. People fought. Blamed each other. Worked hard. And prayed often. 

What was happening? What went wrong?

The problem precisely lay in the interaction of the parts of the system. They did not 'dance in harmony' or simply did not match or fit together as one whole. Why was that?

For example, they had the best kiln. Now this best kiln retained more heat than other kilns and therefore was energy efficient and reliable. It meant that the kiln lost less energy and most of it was used to form the clinker. That was good news. Then what was the bad news...?

The clinker that came out of the kiln went over a 'cooler' whose function was to cool the clinker. Now this cooler was not designed to match the performance of this kiln or in other words the cooler was not designed to handle the temperature of the clinker that came out this kiln. So by the time the clinker passed over the cooler it did not cool sufficiently enough. After the clinker passed the cooler it entered the hammer crusher. With more than the expected temperature of the 'cooled' clinker the hammer crushers performed badly. This was because the hammers wore out in no time owing to the 'hot' clinker. They were not designed to handle these 'hot' clinkers. The clinkers were still hot enough after being broken into smaller pieces. Now the broken clinker traveled over a rubber belt conveyor (RBC) to the silo for temporary storage. The RBC wasn't designed to handle the additional temperature and the rougher edges of the clinkers (produced by the bad performance of the crusher). So they often went down necessitating frequent maintenance and replacement and stoppage of the entire system. 

Since the production pressures were up the clinker did not stay in the silo for a long time (that also caused defects in the silo) the clinker was taken out in relatively hot condition to be fed to the cement mill. And surely there too, it produced frequent problems. The ripples of the systemic problem was felt right up to the bag house (pollution control mechanism). In fact it was everywhere and the whole plant looked so dirty and dusty that people often did not like to work in such places.

So, in short, every part of the system got affected and strange system behaviors abounded in plenty (emergence). Such emergence inhibited production and the plant could never run as desired. Everyone was busy looking at the parts of the system and trying to improve the parts and make them very efficient. And as expected it never worked. The Elephant refused to dance.

Till a time came when a very talented engineer was placed as the head of the plant. He kept looking at the system for days and started to understand the 'strong' relationships between the different parts that caused the problems. He then systemically tackled the issue with lot of patience and right motivation. He started changing, modifying and replacing the parts of the system as needed with the eye to match them well. His focus was not on purchasing the best things or the best parts. He simply went on matching one part to the other so that they can 'dance in harmony'. So after a time, he transformed the 'strong' relationships into 'weak' relationships.

And the plant started performing extremely well. It started winning prizes for best productivity, least energy consumption, best quality, etc. etc. People were again proud and happy to work. The top corporate management was so pleased with the sudden change in performance that they decided to expand the capacity of the plant by putting up a new system along with a new limestone mine.

From then onwards there was no looking back for this plant -- sorry the 'Elephant' ...

The Elephant danced after a long time and continues to waltz merrily.

But is that so? For how long would that be?

Would the Elephant continue to waltz so gracefully even after say five years?

Lessons learned:

a) It does not matter whether each part of the system is strong and reliable. What matters is how well they harmonize to produce the whole. The 'relationship' must 'dance in harmony'.

b) Strengthening parts individually does not help a system to perform at its best.

c) Strong relationships between parts cause strange emergence, while 'weak' relationships between parts provide stability and reliability. 

d) When people work too hard or fight or blame each other or pray too often it simply shows that the system is broken and needs attention.

e) Lever points can be used to effectively to change system behavior.

f) System behavior or emergence changes over time. It is difficult to predict but we can certainly watch when the Elephant starts showing the first signs of strain.  

g) One can't create a splendid design for the future by analyzing past records and data. 

h) To make an Elephant waltz look at the big picture and the relationships between parts of the system and never at the parts. 

i) Anything more...?

 

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System Thinking -- Emergence to Essence - A Case

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The case of the Fan NDE Brg 2.pdf (710 KB)

Nothing in existence exists independently. Everything is interconnected and interrelated. And all that we see happening around us are due to such interconnectedness and interrelationships. How is this understanding helpful?

It helps us to correctly explain what is going on around us. But we do so in a completely different way. We don't look at an object or an element to understand why it is behaving in a particular manner. We look at and examine the relationships between the objects and elements to find the answer to vexing questions of why things behave the way they behave and how both problems and desirable properties emerge out of such relationships. We call this set of relationship 'a system'. This method of enquiry also helps us to uncover the simplest solutions and take the right decisions to 'make things happen' that helps us, our societies and our development.

Of course, this knowledge is not new to us. As human beings we know of this at least for the last 5000 years. Today we speak of this method of thinking and enquiry and finding effective solutions as System Thinking. It is also known as holistic thinking.

But why don't we apply this concept regularly? Surely, it would have made life much easier for all of us. The difficulty lies in understanding as to where to start our mental enquiry, how do we proceed and explore and how far and deep we must go to understand the relationships (the boundary of a system) that would be sufficient for our purpose.

These are of course very tricky issues that certainly can baffle us more so because the entire method of enquiry is mental.

The paradox is: 'What we see is not what we wish to find and what is to be found is not what we can see'.

Therefore, my method is to start off the enquiry by understanding the 'emergence' of a system. In plain terms 'emergence' is a set of behavior a system exhibits. This set of behavior would then contain two subsets. One of these subset would contain a set of desirable behavior; that which makes us happy. The other subset is a set of behavior that is undesirable or behaviors that make us very unhappy. We call this as a 'set of problems' or a 'mess'.

So, we start our journey by examining this 'mess'. We then proceed cautiously to find the existing relationships till we find the essence (a particular relationship or a set of relationship) that explains the 'mess' and helps us find the easiest and simplest solution.

Let me illustrate this exciting journey through an example.

In a certain power plant the non-drive end bearing of an ID(Induced Draft) Fan was failing quite often. It was intriguing since other bearings of the fan were not failing at all. What was more intriguing was the fact that right next to this ID fan there was another ID fan, exactly similar, doing exactly the same thing, operating exactly under the same conditions, but was not failing at all.

All efforts to examine in depth the failed bearings to find out the causes and the probable solutions failed. No wonder it did. In system thinking this is the basic principle. We cannot explain a phenomenon or find the right solution to a problem by looking and examining a part of the system. This is simply because the part doesn't exist by itself. In other words, the principle might be expressed as the 'whole' is greater than the sum of the 'parts'.

However, finding a solution in this way also excites me. Why? Because we not only find the most effective solution but also the SIMPLEST one that might be implemented quite easily. So, till I find the simplest solution I know that there are more relationships in the system to be uncovered and therefore I keep extending the system boundary till I find the essential relationship (essence) that provides us the cause of the 'mess' and also the simplest solution.

In this case you would find how a strong but invisible relationship (essence) was causing the 'wicked' problem (emergence) and once found how amazingly simple the solution was! Find it exciting? Click the presentation (attached below) to enjoy this case of finding the invisible link to find the simplest solution to a very baffling and wicked problem that could be easily implemented...

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