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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CBM - Useless - Why? Useful - How?

Introduction

Condition Based Maintenance as the name implies is a tool and strategy to improve Maintenance. The basic philosophy is that we respond as per actual needs and not carry out activities as per a given plan or idea that forms in our heads. It does not depend on abstractions of any sort.

No doubt it is a fantastic concept.  I hesitate to call it a tool to solve our problems. What is the minimum it might achieve when used properly? It is known to reduce maintenance downtime by 50% (since we can plan the activity) and reduce surprise failures by 25% from a previous level of maintenance when CBM is not taken up as a strategy.

 

This is not a mean achievement. This is the minimum CBM can do. Properly utilized it has the potential to do much more. But as I look around I see industries after industries failing to achieve this minimum level of benefit.

 

Why does it not Work?

 

Naturally, it is time that we ask why?

 

First reason that comes to my mind is the level of difficulty to master the different techniques of CBM, which are becoming more complicated by the day. Whether there is a need for such complication is not known to me. But it takes time and effort to master the most valuable techniques we have and most industries aren’t quite willing to spare the time, effort and costs in order to achieve that mastery. The point is we master the techniques or the functioning and design of the machines. Obviously, it must be both. Without a clear understanding of the laws by which machines move it is not possible to make any headway through the use of techniques. Mastering techniques is more of mastering information. There is lot of information. But information alone can’t help us. Bits of information must be stitched together to weave a story. It is story that makes meaning and the story can only be told if the machine or the system is understood better. Unfortunately, machines do follow the laws of nature and the problem is we have till date understood a small and rather insignificant part of the inner working or Nature.

 

The second reason is improper understanding of the word ‘problem’. Most practitioners aim at finding problems. Is there something called a problem? Most fail to realize that the word problem is an ‘abstraction’ of the mind. It is rather funny that we even give names to different problems. We say mechanical problems, electrical problems, quality problems, operation problems etc. We don’t stop at that. Then we further classify the problems as bearing problems, coupling problem, unbalance problem, etc. That makes it pretty useless. Why? We are always looking at a part of the system and never the entire system as a whole. All problems are systemic. There is no such thing as a problem. The machine does not know of one. Nature does not know of one. How come we know of problems? And that is precisely the problem. And more we trying to qualify and define a problem more complicated it becomes, which itself becomes problematic.  

 

The third important reason is the application of the concept. To start with we buy some equipment. We then buy some software to go along with it. Have a list of ways we can detect possible problems. And lastly pick up some young boys & girls who have very little experience with machines and operations. Then we start with rotating machines. And then we tell that the objective is to find when a bearing would fail. It simply does not work. Why? This is simply because the ‘map is not the territory’. Having the infrastructure in the form of instruments, software, and people forms the ‘map’. The territory is improving Reliability of the system, Availability of the System and the Overall Performance of the System. Or in other words improving the system is the territory to be won. That is not what actually happens. The work design is grossly wrong leading to unacceptable results.

 

How Useful is it?

 

What happens when we correctly apply the deep conceptual understanding of CBM in a proper way? I would like to highlight three important cases from the real world. I would show you examples from process industries like steel, cement and chemical because in these industries the concept of ‘territory’ is vital for the survival of the industry. .

 

Case 1 – Chemical Industry

 

In a chemical factory, they were having 24 breakdowns a month. Obviously this was a pain. Pain was not only in trying to restore the system back but the pain was in loss of costly material and the time it took to restart the system. This was making them uncompetitive.

 

When they applied CBM in the proper way the results were amazing.

 

1. Breakdowns reduced from 24 failures a month to 1 (one) failure a year.
2. The annual consumption of spares reduced by 50%
3. Productivity improved by 30%
4. Profitability improved by 20%

 

Case 2 – Cement Industry

 

One of the well known Cement factories in India had a full fledged sophisticated CBM system in place. In addition, they were the first plant in India to have achieved the coveted Japanese TPM award.

 

But even after all these they were having around 57 breakdowns a year. After proper implementation of the CBM concept, the results were more than wonderful.

1. Number of breakdowns reduced to 1 in a year.
2. Longest kiln run hours in India
3. Maintenance costs reduced by 2/3
4. Profitability up by 15%

 

In fact they still win the international prize for the best overall maintenance performance amongst cement industries in the world. This is the 10th consecutive year they won the prize. That is not a mean achievement.

 

Case 3 – Steel Industry

 

In a Steel Industry their profitability was affected by the consistently poor performance of their equipment. The Availability stood at a maximum of 88%. Breakdowns were heavy and frequent. Their Yield was no better than 92%, 5% short of the best international standards. The Reliability was as poor as 33%.

After proper implementation the results were astounding.

 

1. Availability went up from 88% to 99%
2. Yield improved from 92% to 99.7% (presently the world standard)
3. Reliability went up from 33% to 96%
4. Profitability went up by 6%

 

The important thing is that they have been maintaining these standards for the last 6 years with the minimum of investment in CBM.

 

Conclusions:

 

1. Techniques & sophistication are secondary. The concept is primary.
2. Take time to learn the methods of knowing and reading reality.
3. There is no such thing as a problem
4. The map is not the territory.
5. Understand the ‘whole’ and not try to improve the system by parts.
6. Design the work system correctly to achieve the end.
7. To gain results invest in talent and less on techniques.
8. Solve all problems in one go to get ongoing benefits for years to come.
9. Learn from failures.
10. Induct people who learn from failures and have good idea of machines and systems.
11. Monitor what is going right not what is going wrong.
12. Aim at improving the Reliability Availability and Performance of the System to maximize your gains.

 

It is most interesting to find that the same concept of CBM can be applied to almost anything an organization does or any issue an organization is faced with.  The effectiveness of the concepts of other strategies for organizational improvement fade in comparison to the improvement concept embedded in CBM concept. Why? Because it is based on how Nature behaves not what we think the way it must behave. That is a natural advantage.

 

Should we go for it?

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The Latent Anger

Mrs. Patoliya was very happy. After a long ten years of their marriage, she was expecting. This was her eighth month. Her husband, Ramesh Patoliya is a middle level government officer hailing from a very small town called Radhanpur situated in the middle of the “great salt desert of India”—Kutch, Gujarat.  She fondly remembers those days when she got married and came to her husband’s house at Radhanpur. It was after a lot of visits to the doctors and temples she became successful in getting pregnant. She used to hate those stares and jibes from the elderly women of their family. She was intentionally boycotted and also prevented from attending any auspicious family ceremony. Her crime? She was supposed to be “barren”. To avoid his wife from getting into any of those uncomfortable situations Ramesh Patoliya voluntarily opted for a transfer to Jodhpur in Rajasthan. A wise decision and a new approach to find out a solution ---- it paid off. He was overjoyed.

Sardarji the Chief of the office at Jodhpur is anxious. Only ten more days left for his son’s wedding reception at Jodhpur. Many a rough notes have been made and thrown as paper bundles into waste paper basket. Sardarji’s chamber is now usually busy with his “advisors”. The whole government machinery has been put into action which otherwise remain idle. Two of Sardarji’s trusted lieutenants --- one middle level officer and another assistant have been working round the clock. They were preparing the list of invitees especially the special gentry of Jodhpur city. Two types of invitation cards were made. The costlier cards are for the nobles and the lesser ones for the lesser types who are below his rank and pay. But here the Sardarji has made an exemption ---- “Give the costlier cards to those who are rich and has social status”. His two lieutenants were in a fix. Now how to determine who is where in the social status.  A number of guest houses of different government departments were booked for the guests of Sardarji. After all he has to show his kith and kin what position and status he holds in Jodhpur as the head of a government Office. Sardarji was very much particular in inviting the erstwhile Maharaja of Jodhpur. He went to His Highness palace to invite the Maharaja and Maharani to his son’s wedding reception. Sardarji was very pleased but surprisingly none of his own staff members and their families were invited including his two trusted lieutenants.

The D day arrived. The whole campus comprising the office portion and the residential staff quarters were bedecked with the finest lighting. The army band was playing right from the morning. The whole residential portion was cordoned off from the rest by a bamboo made barrier. There were two main gates. One used for the office and another one goes to the residential staff quarters. Sardarji type V bungalow is in between the office and the staff residential portion. Sardarji bungalow has a spacious lawn enough to accommodate a basketball court. The lawn is being used for all the action. Sardarji went a step further. He issued an order to all his staff members and guards --- “No one should use the residential gate from seven in the evening   till the party gets over”.

The residential quarters wore a deserted look as if a curfew has been clamped. The music was playing in the Sardarji lawn. He wore a Jodhpuri suit with a crimson turban eagerly waiting for His Highness to grace the occasion.  The Maharaja arrived along with his security. High ranking army generals, police officers, bureaucrats, businessmen all of them arrived but no staff members were seen. Only Sardarji’s 2IC (second in command) came with his spouse.

Mrs. Patoliya suddenly felt an uneasy pain. She told her husband. He ignored her. The pain was coming in quick succession. Not knowing what to do Patoliya rang the intercom to talk to his colleague. They decide it was better to shift her to a nearby hospital. They put her into a colleague’s small car and headed for the hospital. They were stopped at the gate by the armed guards. It’s an emergency. What orders? I care a damn of Sardarji’s orders. They just drove away. Mrs. Patoliya was in great pain.  At 2.15 AM Mrs. Patoliya gave birth to a girl.

The wedding reception was over. Sardarji arrived late the next day to the office. He ordered his PA to take a dictation. It was a transfer order of Ramesh Patoliya to Shillong with immediate effect and in public interest.  In the evening every staff member was given a packet of sweets one by Sardarji and another by Ramesh Patoliya. 

The next morning the residential waste collection dustbin contained all the packets of sweets given by the Sardarji. After eight months Sardarji went on superannuation. None of the staff went to the airport to bid farewell, including his two trusted lieutenants.

 

Lessons Learned:

1. More than skill or competence any Leader worth his salt needs a great character to lead. Otherwise followers desert.

2. A leader quickly loses integrity by differentiating amongst his people. He/she then loses the right to lead.

3. Without empathy one can't lead. Empathy brings Respect and Respect brings with it Trust. These would be the keywords in leadership of the 21st century where more and more people would participate and contribute to the economic and social development.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

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The Throne

The chief’s inspection was due next week. He is going to come from Jodhpur (Rajasthan) for the inspection. Rani Dhan Singh Bhatti looked with eagerness at the planner in front of him and started pondering. Sardarji, the Chief is going to inspect all the four units under his control which means he is going to stay at Barmer for all the four days.  How to make the chief comfortable? He should not be annoyed and avoid making any adverse comments in his inspection report. Rani Dhan Singh Bhatti conveyed the dates of inspection to all the officers-in-charge of the four units’ which are under his control.

Bhatti has grown up in these golden sand dunes of the Thar Desert. He was born in a Rajput Royal family at Jaisalmer. The things which he inherited from his forefathers were his huge, intricately carved “haveli” (ancestral house), some cultivable lands and a throne. He prides himself when villagers still hail him as the “Prince”.  Bhati still gets the agriculture produce from his village. The millet, corn, wheat and a substantial quantity of lentils supplements Bhati’s expenditure on his yearly food budget.

Bhatti took a calibrated step after he reached his office. He plans to organize a big party for the chief on his last day of the visit. The show must be of a very grand scale. The Sardarji should feel that Bhatti also holds on to his rich traditions of royal hospitality specially given to a guest of honour. Bhatti calls the police band, the folk singers and the best chefs in the town. He ordered plenty of scotch and invited all the top government officials in the town. He caparisoned the throne and placed it on the makeshift stage.

Bhatti was very pleased with the arrangements. The enchanting sound of “padharo mhare desh” (welcome to my country) reverberated through the huge hall. The Rajasthani folk singers were singing mystically and wore their traditional dress complementing the atmosphere of festivity. The top government officials came with their spouses in tow. Mrs. Bhatti wore the traditional “langa-choli” and was welcoming the females. The police band started to play a traditional British tune as soon Sardarji arrived. Bhatti rushed to receive him.  After all a lot depends on the inspection report.  Scotch flowed uninterrupted. Every one seems to be enjoying the grand party. It was truly in a royal style. The traditional Rajasthani mutton dish was the most sought after.

Sardarji was too pleased with the whole show. He showered praise on Bhatti as he addressed the guests. After the brief speech Sardarji headed for the throne to sit. Bhatti rushed towards Sardarji and said “It is the host who sits on the throne”.

 

Lessons Learned:

1. If one thinks 'red' is 'blue' then it is extremely difficult to change his/her idea. Evidences and Logic don't seem to work well.

2. Such mental models can't be changed by force. It might only be changed through one's internal refection of the reality and struggling to make sense of it.

3. Since traditions and emotional attachments are very difficult to be done away with all change methods must acknowledge and reflect the reality of such attachments and work with it.

 

 

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On more time -- How the heck do we read Vibration Signatures!

Ask that question to any vibration specialist worth his salt and he would

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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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The Anonymous Letter

Raghubir Singh Rathore zipped his travel bag and buckled his bedding, ready to join his first place of posting at Banskata in Rajasthan and Gujarat border and also not very far from the Indo-Pakistan border. Rathore will be heading a Government of India unit at Banskata. The place is famous for smugglers and also for government officials who regard it as a prize posting but considered a hard posting. A lucrative posting for some and a place to show one’s caliber and mettle. Banskata was famous for smuggling of acetic anhydride (generally used for processing of heroin) from India to Pakistan and narcotics from Sindh (Pakistan) to India.

Rathore was briefed by his immediate officer Mr. Madhab Singh of what he is expected to do. Rathore just out from his college with high ambition and morality loved to live in a utopian world. He was an upright person and hailed from a royal family from Ajmer in Rajasthan.

The five hour journey from Barmer town through the sandy terrain to Banskata had Rathore’s face caked up with the tiny sand particles. Rathore felt irritated, he never lived in this kind of hardship. His clothes smelled of the “beedi” smoke generated by his co-bus passengers. He was received by his colleagues at the bus stand. He went to his office cum residence. He slowly surveyed his new home. The rooms were plastered with mud and were tinned roof. His only companions were the squirrels. He headed for the bathroom to have a shower. He found two earthen pitchers and a mug. He was told by his cook that water is scarce here and one has to use it judiciously.

Rathore has a seven member team which includes four individuals who are above fifty five years old and suffer from various age related diseases. The other three are below thirty years old whose main objective in life was to get a government job which they got. Most of them got posted at Banskata as “punishment posting”. They are inefficient and trouble makers so no officers liked them. They were shoved to a place where there is hardship though the place was very good in terms of work output.  Rathore thought how to get work from these deadwoods. He must do something to motivate his workforce.

The next morning he called a meeting. He addressed his team members and urged them to put in their best and make use of their experience they have gathered over the years. Rathore’s tried his best to motivate his dead army. His predecessor   had never gone out of his way to show his output. He just completed his tenure and played cards with other government officials of different agencies operating in the area.

Six months passed, Rathore was working almost single handedly. He believed in “The leader shows the way”. He did achieve some good results which were appreciated at his Headquarters. Rathore was called for the half yearly progress meeting. He went to attend the meeting at Jodhpur. He was felicitated by his senior officers. He was buoyed by his achievements.  He started to apprise his senior officers of the HR problems being faced by him, but no one was ready to listen to his problems. “Your problems will be taken care of” was the pet reply from the officers.

One year had passed. Rathore was working well but the rift was widening between him and his subordinates. His staff asked him to pass their false Travelling Allowances bills and Medical bills as they thought it is was a rightful compensation from the government and a prerogative for making them stay in a hardship area. It was also the time for Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs). Rathore gave very low assessment marks to most of his subordinates. The ACRs were accepted by the reviewing officer also. Most of them got “bad remarks” which were conveyed to the staff individually.

The senior officers in Jodhpur were in a huddle. They watched wide eyed. The anonymous letter contained vivid details of how Raghubir Singh Rathore made huge money through smuggling of narcotics from Pakistan. The phone rings. The PA transfers the phone to his boss, the call was from the head of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). The NCB officials were after Rathore like a pack of hungry hyenas. The officers were desperate to save Rathore. They knew the anonymous letter was the handiwork of those deadwoods posted at Banskata unit. A special SUV was sent to Banskata immediately with the direction to move Rathore to Jodhpur.

Next morning Rathore signed the attendance register at Jodhpur. A new team was formed at Banskata unit.

Lessons learned:

1. The management saying 'that all progress is done by the unreasonable man' doesn't seem to work on all occasions and the probability of the 'unreasonable' man being hurt by the system is high.

2. The management concept 'of working at the fringes to create results' also seems suspect.

3. One is limited by the constraints imposed by the system. 'Free will' can only be exercised within the given circumstances and the state of the system.

4. Doing something out of the context always produces disasters. One has to understand the context and work accordingly. That is what is actually meant by 'going with the flow'.

5. A collapsing system can't be revived by bringing in an effective and efficient leader. The only  effective way is to totally restructure or revamp the system.

 

Mr. Sitendu De is the contributor of this post.

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