Building Organisational Capabilities for Sustenance and Growth

History The Teacher

History talks of many an empire. What could be common to all the empires of the past?

The Mauryas, Guptas, Mughals, Romans, Persians, Ottoman, Hans, Spanish and the British, each one a powerful regime, held sway over vast swathes of land and had subjects across geographical boundaries we now recognise. Geographically and chronologically spaced well apart, each one tremendously influenced populace it ruled upon and made lasting contributions to virtually every aspect of contemporary culture.

Each came into existence and grew but couldn’t succeed in sustaining themselves to grow into perpetuity. Despite unquestionable powers, and repressive enforcement systems, perpetuity eluded each one of them. Having failed to sustain and grow beyond a time, they now remain confined to pages of history; their significance waxing and waning, at the mercy of contemporary political regimes in their attempt to attain perpetuity.

History is a great teacher. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

Study history and take a close look at current geopolitics and experience a sense of déjà vu.

Sustenance and Growth – An Entwined Pair

Sustenance is about finding fodder for existence whereas growth is an organic characteristic that enhances relevance of an entity to its surroundings. Growth is comparison, of an entity to itself or others plotted on a timeline. Thus, growth of an individual could be of about chronological age, biological and intellectual attributes, capacity to fend for oneself or contributions to the society.

For business entities, sustenance is about footing the bill of operations without going down under; whereas growth is multi-dimensional expansion, in areas of activity or structural architecture. Sustenance of business depends on its ability to generate return on investments. Growth depends on the share of ROI employed to extend the envelope of relevance and influence. Sustenance-growth combination dictates sustainability.

Though inseparably entwined, sustenance and growth have independent attributes. Continued sustenance results in growth. Growth demands new dimensions of sustenance. Demands of sustenance denied, entity dies. Bare sustenance stunts growth and stunted growth kills. Good sustenance nurtures growth.

Essentially organisational existence is an ever-demanding ever-expanding, never-ending cycle of sustenance and growth that can extend to perpetuity.

Perpetuity

Craving for perpetuity is hardwired into every species.

In the case of animals, limitations of perpetuity imposed by physiology is overcome by bloodlines called family. The evolved, ensure perpetuity through ideologies or lasting contributions to society.

Organisations, being nonbiological entities, differ. Organisations can subsist for a short while on minimal returns. But such existence does not promote growth. Absence of growth is atrophy. Atrophy eventually kills. Growth is inescapable for organisational existence. Therefore, perpetuity has to be designed and weaved into organisational architecture. Sustenance and growth into perpetuity is sustainability. Sustainability goes far beyond its recent self-limiting association with organisational performance in environmental social and governance yardsticks.

Existence in perpetuity is deemed when entities don’t plan to down shutters. Organisations born with predetermined life expectancy don’t visualise growth. Those which plan otherwise, are fly-by-night operations which loot and scoot. Perpetuity is not applicable to them.

Fuel for sustainability is profitability. So, prima facie everything about business sustainability is about financials, the bottom lines! Can abundant profits ensure sustainability?

Is Profitability Sustainability?

Abundant fuel assures extended cruise range. But the structure must be built to overcome turbulences, capture headwinds and negotiate crosswinds. Otherwise, sustainability, even with huge quantum of fuel could be port afar, because unmanaged inherent asymmetries exert exponentially increasing drag consuming all the fuel at one’s command.

History is replete with examples of companies with attractive balance sheets vanishing into thin air. Profits, real or cooked up, couldn’t prevent extinction. Satyam, Enron, Lehman Brothers and such others could teach us a lesson or two.

If profitability couldn’t guarantee sustainability, then what does?  Definitely there is something else. What is it?

Sustainability Models

Simplistically put, sustainability is the characteristic, of an organisation, which influences current operations to ensure existence in perpetuity. Sustainability is about future-proofing tomorrows, today.

Easier said than done, tomorrows of a business, is a complex amalgam of environmental, social, and financial diktats. Each one, an important capital, often at loggerheads with others, needs to be ‘relationally managed’ to ensure sustainability. Each one has to be nourished without compromising the other. Thus, sustainable growth of a business organisation necessitates creation of governance models (ESG Models) that ensure balance amongst the trio.

Contemporary businesses have migrated en masse to ESG models for sustainable growth. ESG models are characterized by well-defined measurable yardsticks and tick-box adherences. There are highly evolved models that incorporate compliances and various business requisites. Business entities employ such models to evaluate organisational systems and processes. Unfortunately, even well-intentioned companies with well-defined, well-articulated policies and well prescribed methods and process fail.

Is the current ESG regime inadequate?

ESG Adequacy?

ESG is an unbelievably large canvas to draw from and therefore concept of sustainability cannot remain confined to any one approach or model. The number of approaches to adherence and compliances are varied and number of proponents of each model even more.

Businesses naturally adopt any one approach that suits their area of operations and gravitate to chosen areas to be in conformity with local laws. CSR activities, emission reductions, reusable energy, carbon audit and foot print reduction are some areas where companies evince interest. But most of them are compliance driven.

Some highly evolved ESG models incorporate business ethics and profitability into the monitoring and evaluation system. The choice, notwithstanding, each one ends in benchmarked processes with quantifiable and measurable parameters.  Does adherence to ESG norms alone ensure sustainability?

Processes have important role in sustainability so do people driving and operating it. Sustainability boils down to building organisational capabilities that encompass people and process.

Organisational Capabilities

The synergy cumulative of competencies of all individuals of an organisation and efficacy of processes is organisational capability. Accepted and collectively practiced value systems, that define and dictate how individuals and groups interact within and with the outside, represents organisational culture. Organizational sustainability is a derivative of organizational capability and culture.

When business entities succeed in creating and internalising a meaningful organizational culture that shapes strategic decision-making, define ethical boundaries for transactions, dictate operational activities and bind all stakeholders to it, it can hope for sustainability.

How does this brick-by-brick process happen?

Committed Competencies

Each organisation needs individuals with skills and competencies to achieve organisational aims. While each individual cannot be expected to possess all competencies required by the organisation, all individuals should have each competency required to discharge responsibilities assigned. Though onboarding would have been based on stipulated QR, it calls for continued refinement.

If organisational culture is conducive, each individual will excel not only in the core competency expected, but also acquit themselves well with additional skill sets, making them deployable in multiple area of operation. Presence of enlarged range and depth of competencies creates conditions conducive to sustainability. Chances of sustainability improves when competencies become commitments.

Organisational Agility

An organisation may come to existence to provide a specific product or service or a range of products or services. Unfortunately, demand for both products and services do not remain static in terms of nature, quality and content. The constant socio-economic-cultural flux that the world is in, demands consistently matching changes. While an existing product or service may be the toast of the time, it could be dumped at short notice.

The pandemic and associated unprecedented disruptions forced many a business to fold up. At the same time, new ones sprang up with unheard-of products and services. While those who reveled in the status quo were left to lament loss of opportunities, the agile ones seized opportunities the adversity provided. A whole new set of millionaires were created.

If an organisation can sense the need to change its product, service or process well in time and is agile enough to bring about changes in processes and methods, probability of sustainability improves.

The Fickle Capital

Businesses survive and thrive on stakeholder inputs. The promoter or equity holders alone do not dictate sustainability outcomes. The clientele, vendors, the society and all the elements of the value chain are important stakeholders in the sustainability matrix. Treating each one with care leads to brand loyalty. One-time creation of clientele and servicing them do not create brand loyalty. Loyalty comes from long time of pleasant association

A static loyal clientele does not guarantee sustainability. Unless an organisation continues to enlarge its loyal clientele, sustainability is a no-go. Loyalty, in times of aggressive market poaching, is a fickle attribute that succumbs to temptation. Disruptive pricing and alluring promises can lure away the loyal. Quality of product or service should be strong enough to resist brand credibility and loyalty erosion.

It is not the consuming clientele alone that matters. How an organisation treats its vendors and other elements of the supply chain, has a significant say in sustainability. When the going gets tough, it is the set of vendors, who render shoulders to the organisation. Unless stakeholders are treated well during harvest, sustainability will be the first casualty in adversity. Growing loyalty improves sustainability.

Teams and Networks

Organisations thrive on teamwork. Unfortunately, the concept of team seems to get confined to silos within organisations. In fiercely competitive organisations, teams are confined to verticals or less. Sadly, with raging cutthroat competition and interpersonal one-upmanship fostered by competitive comparisons, verticals shrink to segments, segments to groups and groups to individuals who don’t trust each other. Trust deficit is paramount and resultant dwindling retention, an epidemic. Teams do not live long enough to foster esprit-de-corps.

This is the ultimate recipe for disaster for organisational sustainability.

If an organisation can enlarge definition of ‘teams’, operationalise it to be more inclusive, and establish bridges of operational and non-operational relationships long enough to create kinship that can endure turbulences, probability of sustainability, improves tremendously.  It’s the strength of the network that helps identify, handle and overcome individual and organisational challenges.

Team longevity enhances organisational sustainability.

Leadership

Quality of leadership influences sustainability. Leadership is associated with vision and decisions.

It is the ability the leadership, individually or collectively, to define the desired organisational trajectory, understand the socio-economic, politico-cultural and environmental situations currently obtaining and likely to evolve, design interventions and apply course corrections that influences sustainability.

It involves predicting turbulences and generating a range of likely responses to negotiate and overcome challenges. It’s a risky affair. Unkind, but casually called ‘sound decision-making’, organisational leadership dictates sustainability.

It is only history and hindsight that can judge strength and weaknesses of decisions.

Operational Efficiencies     

It is not only people that matter. Processes have an important role in dictating sustainability. The bottom line is about operational efficiency, which encompasses a large array of activity. It encompasses technology adoption, obsolescence management, market dynamics and interior economy.

Local civil laws and norms may exert pressure, forcing changes that involve capital. Decision on how long to continue with existing technology or process and when to dump those in favour of the newest technology doesn’t come without pressure on capital. Capture of new markets and retention of existing ones may need capital infusions. Delay in infusion may be suicidal whereas untimely intervention could even be counterproductive.

Dilemma of contesting existing profit margins with infusion of capital to stay ahead is not new to leadership, but every time it's a challenge. That is when leadership and decision-making become demanding and exiting.

Sustainability Mantra

Without right leaders and led and without right processes, business can neither sustain nor grow. There is no single mantra to achieve sustainability.

Sustainability is like riding the high seas. Neither two waves nor two storms are same. Every calm is a whisper of an impending storm. It is for the captain and crew to negotiate waves and ride out storms. 

Leaders must foresee waves and storms and prepare the led to take on the fiercest. The led must relentlessly press on. Only then can they triumph.

Sustainability isn’t easy, else empires would have persisted.

 

THE ULTIMATE SECRET OF ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS

 

Truth Not always Obvious 

Prima facie, M[1] is ‘just another’ employee of the firm. He was one amongst the 20, I was hired to train. Outwardly shy, to the point of being withdrawn, he spoke only when asked to.

But, as the session progressed and activities rolled out, I saw him, a different person. He was the natural ‘centre of gravity’ and literally made group activities come through. Though everyone in the group was individually brilliant and did their very best, both individually and collectively, his sense of commitment to the group and accomplishing the task was palpable. He was commitment personified. As I stood watching the group[2] strive and accomplish various tasks assigned, I realised I was witnessing a group’s success mantra unfold at work. 

Profitability and Productivity 

Profitability is an inevitable survival-ingredient for organisations involved in commercial activities. Business strategists consider productivity and profitability as inseparable Siamese twins and spin survival and growth strategies around the dictum ‘higher the productivity better the profitability’. Most fly by night operators and even some mega brands pitch all their efforts only for profits in sight. They never realise that profits alone don’t define brand value. 

Confined to productivity-profitability linear relationship, management machinery gets down to the act of conjuring numbers, which if achieved would ensure bottom-lines that is ‘owner’s pride’[3] and graphs that could be ‘competitors’ envy’. Such numbers, once approved are driven down the hierarchy. However, in its journey downstream to the foot soldiers, the numbers start bloating up unrealistically. Everyone in the chain generously adds his or her bit of cushion. Managerial activity becomes creating, crunching and controlling numbers, accompanied by carrots and sticks. Fudging and cheating is common in such an environment. 

Carrot and Stick 

Organisations, to ensure productivity and profitability, arm themselves with sweeping powers to reward performers and weed out non-performing assets. Those who manage to reach stipulated targets survive to struggle the next quarter or fiscal, those who don’t, end up being discards. However, magicians who tame the unassailable, with numbers beyond targets are differentially rewarded. 

Crunch numbers right, convert it to targets, assign it to people, get them to achieve it. Reward those who comply, jettison non-performers overboard and ride to eternal profitability! It sounds almost like a fail-proof strategy? No. Companies fail, flail and vanish. Even ruthless titans have bitten dust! 

Compliance Don’t Guarantee Success? 

Stipulated outputs demand compliance with instructions on standards, procedures and all aspects of roles assigned including targets to be achieved. These are arrived at after due deliberations. If compliance was the key to success; then operational viability and profits should have lasted till eternity. It doesn’t happen. If retrenchment was a remedy, human resources discarded based on competence should not have found acceptance outside and head hunting would cease to exist. 

Clearly there’s something more to success or failure than compliance; something not very obvious yet existential. It is commitment. Commitment of individuals to the cause of the organisation is the soul that keeps entities going. Close look at the trajectory of organisations that have survived adverse conditions like recessions wars and political witch-hunts, reveal that there were more than a handful of committed individuals who stood firm and steered it through rough seas and storms to greater glory.   

Incidentally, that sense of commitment I witnessed playing out as the group I was training, attempted to complete the task assigned. Seeing them operate, I knew this company is bound to make waves. 

Compliance versus Commitment 

Adhering to instructions and standards is what compliance is all about. It is merely execution of what is expected. Compliance has a legal connotation and brings along accountability, mostly legal. Compliance is closely associated with rewards and individual growth in hierarchy. It is a demand that has to be met and failure has a cost associated. Commitment goes far beyond compliance. 

Commitment is all about ownership and sense of belonging. It instils an additional sense of responsibility. It elevates individuals from being mere employees to being owners. The committed need mentors not supervisors. Commitment is an attitude that breeds a two-way trust system and often considered a personal trait. 

Cultivating Commitment 

Commitment, though an inborn personal trait, can be cultivated and nurtured by organisations to reap dividends. But for that to happen, organisational culture must be holistically conducive. Functional and progressive organisations invariably have few committed individuals spread across verticals. They are Islands of ownership and cannot be considered as products of organisational culture. 

For an organisation to be reap rewards of employee-commitment, majority of its employees must feel and shoulder ownership. Many companies allot shares to its employees to inculcate ownership and ensure retention. However, equating ‘sense of ownership’ with ‘owning shares’ is the biggest fallacy in vogue. This model of lured allegiance is being aggressively propagated. Unfortunately, ‘commitment on sale’ will move towards better prices. After all, that was not commitment to start with. Monetising everything and handing over a document to establish claim on the company's assets and profits do not instil or cultivate commitment. 

Commitment is a sublime, amorphous entity that commences existence beyond lure and monetary rewards. It starts and ends with emotions. It defines how central an organisation is to the individual’s existential wellbeing. The easiest and the surest way of cultivating commitment is recognition of an individual as the organisation and driving home, his irreplaceable role and impact on organisational goals. When an individual feels his relevance in an organisation, commitment is mostly the outcome. Yes, there would be some who may ride it rough. But those would be exceptions and can be taken care of.

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[1] Real name of the individual kept guarded for sake or privacy. My enquiry about him later revealed that he is a very valuable asset of the company and makes his presence felt across verticals. 

[2] The dreamers’ group, design and convert our fantasies into working electronic devices! 

[3] Inspired by the tagline from an advertisement of a Television that has become extinct. Ironic though!

OVERSIGHT: ALL ABOUT CONTAINING OVERSIGHT

Contranym

Oversight is an interesting contranym! Too many incidents of oversight prove absence of oversight!

Contranym?

A contranym is a word with the same spelling but the opposite meaning. In other words, it’s a homonym that’s an antonym. A homonym is a word spelled like another with a different meaning while an antonym is a word with the opposite meaning, context in which it is used deciding the meaning.

Oversight, in the context of ‘overseeing’, is about supervision but in its contranym context, it’s about errors unintentional or otherwise. Frequent incidents of oversight indicate systemic rot in the system due to ineffective oversight; disastrous and fatal for organisations.

I can't help but narrate such a story I witnessed being scripted! 

Sun Like Nowhere Else

The story unfolds in the most unbelievably beautiful settings of the backwaters in God’s Own country. To believe, one has to experience the morning sun, reflecting itself in grandeur over the still waters of the Punnamada, an extension of Vembanad Lake. It is refreshing to the soul, like nowhere else. As the dusk cloaks the lake, flares of the refinery in the far distance, a stark reminder of the pollutants we spew, gives another side of life.

The Front Office

I arrived at the front office of the reputed resort after prior intimation and having provided the required documents online. I reached as per the schedule intimated. However, the front office was vacant. I had to look for the executives. Little while, not one but three of them emerged from the room behind.

Once they arrived, they asked me for my documents. I replied that I had already forwarded those except photo ids which I had refused to give online. While the executives busied themselves rummaging through a pile of documents, I went off to park my car as valet parking facilities had been discontinued due to covid. It took me a while to find space and park. Though I was the only guest to check in at that time, it still took them time to successfully ‘excavate’ my documents and complete the formalities of check-in. Clearly all that pre-check in calls and intimation of arrival time for fast smooth check-in remained on paper. 

Their inefficiency, cost us the customary reception and our welcome drink.

Was it an oversight; an inadvertent error of a few youngsters enjoying themselves at the cost of work or deeper malaise, deteriorating work ethics; lack of oversight? 

The Restaurant

The most important element of any vacation, after 'location', is dining experience. Thus, one of the key departments of any resort is the food and beverage Department, visible to all as the resort restaurant.

A good restaurant stands out from others with its range of spread, quality of food, hygiene, ambiance and the quality of service. Each good restaurant develops a consistent signature quality. Over time, this signature becomes its USP.

Punctuality is a key element of service. When the board outside clearly indicates that the restaurant will be open from 7:30 AM for breakfast, it requires the first batch of the mandated spread laid out and the staff to be at station, ready to receive the first guest latest by 7:30 AM. The room should have been aired well, lights and fans or air conditioners functional. Tables should have been laid with clean tablemats, cutlery and crockery and stewards of the morning shift at stations with welcome smiles.

Incomplete spread even at 8:15 AM and staff trickling in well after 8 o'clock, as a matter of practice, for breakfast engagement at 7:30 AM and no one to question is clear indication of deep-rooted rot. An order from the live kitchen counter when served dead cold and flies perched fearlessly on the platters say a lot about the management. Coffee in burnt milk clearly shows the quality controls in place. The extent to which the rot had already been internalised became evident when concerned individuals did nothing about the issues flagged. 

No attempt to correct it and not even an apology! Surely these just couldn’t be random instances of oversight. The rot was real. 

An Oasis

It is not that everything was bad. There were oases in the desert of insensitive incompetence.

The ‘activity department’ seemed to be purpose driven. They made sure anyone who came around was engaged.

Housekeeping did justice to the brand image. The efficiency with which issues brought to their notice was attended to is commendable. Once the issue was settled, feedback from the guest was taken by those higher in the chain of housekeeping. It clearly showed that the organisational system caters for oversight and redressal mechanisms. Some seemed to hold it dear, while others had no fear. 

Oversight Mechanisms

All organisations create oversight mechanisms to promote functional efficiency and organisational growth. Oversight structures are subsumed in organisational hierarchy and come with clear enunciations of authority, responsibility and accountability. When effective, it reduces the probability of instances of oversight, builds better controls and improves productivity. 

Process of oversight normally involves continuous evaluation and periodic reviews of performances against standards expected and well-defined parameters, by and through channels of reporting. It includes aspects of organisational feedbacks that finally result in differential growth amongst employees. Customer feedback, especially in hospitality and service organisations, is one tool that oversight mechanism heavily relies upon, but often distorted.  

Eliciting Feedback

It has become a practice to elicit favourable feedbacks at the time of check out. The process is so well ‘crafted’ that the guest checking out is ‘subtly managed’ into giving ratings better than what he or she would have given, if left free. This practice has become rampant amongst almost all service providers. 

This actually is the “most unkindest” cut that can be inflicted by employees on the organisation. It actually destroys from its very roots, any meaningful feedback from patrons. A managed feedback not only hides systemic flaws, it reinforces failure and accelerates disintegration. Unfortunately, when quality is blindly quantified and wilfully distorted at source, the soul of true feedback is dead; buried alive. 

Modern Don Quixote

Leader of an organisation who insulates himself or herself from flaws and problems, relying on manufactured feedback is like the foolish captain of a ship, happy seeing the bow rise, ignorant of the stern taking in water. Elicited feedbacks can bloat egos, but do little to stem the rot. Leaders, who create and perpetuate such an organisational culture and thrive on such make-believe spectacles are modern-day Don Quixotes busy transforming their organisation into ‘Rocinante’ the half-starved horse.

As incompetence becomes the norm, discontent ripples over and organisations disintegrate. Don Quixotes can feign gallop on the gasping Rocinante  till the ground gives way.

Once More, One Last Time

 

The Last Run

The aircraft had been on the search and rescue mission for quite some time. The sailor ‘over board’ had still not been spotted. The crew had done whatever they could have, but to no avail. The weather wasn’t great and the sun, too was about to drown. The captain could feel the knots in his stomach. A sense of defeat filled the cockpit. It was time to call off  the mission and set course for the base. 

He took a hard look at all those dials in front. The fuel onboard could hold them up a little while more. Something within told him, “May be, one more run, One last run…”

He then took a long deep breath and spoke into his radio "Running once more, One last time”.

The aircraft banked and turned right back into search and the crew pressed itself to the mission one last time, It was now or never.

Suddenly, as if from nowhere appeared, someone, bobbing in the seas below.

'One last time' and a life saved. A decision that snatched life from the jaws of death. 

 

Neither Fiction Nor Miracle

In fact, it’s a story often witnessed, albeit in different forms by almost anyone who has been part of extreme search and rescue missions. Good or bad, the outcome, it is only the headlines that remain in our memory. The superhuman efforts that made it possible, is invariably overshadowed by euphoria around victorious rescues.

“Baby saved alive from rubbles after twelve days”. “Children saved alive from flooded cave after 18 days”. There are so many such headlines across the world every day! Nobody talks of the one who 'decides' to stick on and if at all done, not for long.

Such rescues are not just miracles but the end pieces of ‘never give up’ acts of dedication. When conditioning and conditions compel almost everyone to give up, there could be one, just one, who refuses to give up; the one, who wants to take ‘one more run, one last run’. 

It is the courage of that one person, who calls for that ‘one more, one last attempt’ and his/her will to push the envelope of hope beyond the normal that forces victory. Hope, is the most valued asset, in the midst of despair

But does every such ‘last run’ yield results? Sometimes, yes. Certainly not always.

 

The Web Not Attempts That Matter

Our elders told us the story of King Bruce and the spider and taught us that perseverance produces success". We were told to attempt and reattempt, so that one day we could succeed. 

Success doesn't necessarily come from repeatedly attempting something that we have repeatedly failed in. It is foolish to reinforce failure. It is worse to persevere with repeated failures, for each failure dents self-esteem and ebbs the will to go forward. It kills us from within and pulls us down in our own eyes and others too.

There is none yet born who hasn't failed. He who claims having not tasted defeat ever, is a liar. Preceding every success, would be innumerable failures. The ability to, draw lessons from each failure, identify own flaws and challengers’ strength, understand situations and its demands, see and seize opportunities besides capability and willingness to rework strategies separate the successful from others. Failure offers us the chance to reattempt and win, provided we are willing to learn and course correct.

We were told that King Bruce, motivated by his ‘spider guru’, vanquished his enemies in his seventh attempt. We were never told nor did we ever bother to see through, that the story was less about the number of his reattempts but more about the craft of creating better webs (traps) to lure the enemy into his chosen killing fields.

Our story should be less about repeated attempts and more about pursuit of our aims with better preparation after every failure.

Ignorance and Perseverance

Known or unknown to us, there are many factors that influence the course of our daily lives. We have control over few. We have no control over many. But worse, we think we have no control over very many. Here lies the catch.

Awareness about our strengths and weaknesses helps. We naturally associate limitations with expectations and therefore tend to pitch our aims low. It is terrible to be held back by awareness of our weaknesses. Unfortunately, we are conditioned to under- pitch and so underperform once we become aware of our limitations. Knowledge of own weaknesses must not result in lower aims and expectations, but propel us to address and find ways to overcome those limitations.

Not every limitation originates within. Many are passed on to us by beliefs and practices. These are yokes that bind us to the millstones of poor expectations. It takes a lot of courage to break free of such shackles.

On the other hand, one could be blissfully unaware of such constricting norms. It is then heroes like Cliff Young emerge. Such ignorance doesn’t bleed one’s efforts to push oneself far beyond the normal and set standards for others to follow. Ignorance is bliss only in such cases.

 

The Inner Voice

To expect all labour to bear fruit, is vanity. Not to attempt for fear of failure is foolishness. It’s only by committing and persisting can one achieve success. Failure is an omnipresent truth. The knowledge, where, when and how much to labour is wisdom. To rise from failure is courage.

The wise and mighty too, are not insulated from failure. Each failure comes with innumerable valuable lessons. It is important to see lessons in failure and learn from it. Ability to learn from others’ mistakes is a divine gift and learning from own mistakes, human yet wise. Perseverance is not just about being at it. It is more about relentless application with continuous learning, course corrections and choice of appropriate means. There is a voice within us that tells us where and when to stop.

Listen carefully.

The voice, even when faint, is felt by the wise. Many remain deaf even when it is loud enough to be heard by everyone else.

Fortunately, one can easily train oneself to be wise!

PS:

1.     Articles on this blog deal with everyday life issues, that each one of us encounter irrespective of what we are and where we are placed in the society. These deal with human issues.

 2.     The author welcomes discussions on line on this article or those published earlier. The idea is to generate meaningful ideas that can be of use to anyone amongst us.

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Watch Out! This Solution Too Could Be A Problem Soon!

 

Solutions! Really?

The earth is infested with discarded PET bottles and plastic carry bags. Bobbing along waves, choking waterways and making up most of landfills, each piece a folly of mankind. Micro plastics have invaded potable water and aqua marine food source and our existence contaminated. Plastics, once touted as the solution to many a problem, have become the most pervasive environmental risk! Solution becoming a problem?

Computers determine how we live, whether we use it ourselves or not. It is deployed even to influence our thoughts and emotions, thereby dictating our choices and actions, in ways beyond what we can fathom. Nothing is beyond the reach of these binary logic machines. While we enjoy benefits of information technology applications, we also suffer unstoppable loss of privacy and hopeless dependence. Control of mankind is slowly coming to rest at the mercy of these machines. Once purely meant for mathematical applications, they now evoke both awe and shock with what it can do. Just one machine and a pair of mad hands, things could truly go haywire! Another solution becoming a problem?

National and international politics, business, economics, science, governance, in fact every possible field relevant to human existence has a history of problems incarnating as solutions.

You think it is restricted only to such mega issues?

Take a close look at one’s personal life!  

Many current problems might have roots in those very solutions that one might have adopted. Toxic relations, broken marriages, financial losses, stress and strain and maybe every personal problem could be the by-product of a ‘solution’ adopted.

Can’t find it? Maybe one is not looking close enough.

 

Longevity of Solutions

Solution is an answer to a problem, the means chosen amongst available or generated choices to mitigate a situation. Both, the process of generating choices and choosing one amongst them, are input dependent and time relevant. To a large extent it depends on our understanding of the problem, its root causes and implications. Longevity of the solution’s relevance depends primarily on the designer’s ‘etiognosis - diagnosis- prognosis’ skills.

Change inputs, solutions differ. Change time coordinates solutions become irrelevant. It is impossible to create fit-all solutions relevant for all times to come. Does it mean that, there are no perfect solutions? Yes; almost impossible.  Then what?

 

Designing Solutions

There is always the probability of having missed an input or a chance to get more inputs about the problem at hand. Waiting for all possible inputs to emerge for designing solutions could indefinitely delay finalising solutions and render it irrelevant. Inadequacy of inputs and urgency of situations are challenges to finding solutions. Securing acceptance and implementation is no less challenging.

Ability to diagnose problems and pinpoint causative factors help understand situations. Most have it in fair measure, or so we think. Prognostic skills help visualise how situations unfold in time. Most claim to have it, so they think. Application of the three skills helps us design practical solutions. Solutions that transcend time make visionaries out of mortals who designed them. But, not even the best solution is timeproof.

Solutions that reap instant relief, receive instant traction, wide acceptance and garner followers to defend. But over time, popular support notwithstanding, efficacy of solutions diminishes and flaws become glaring and undefendable. Even the best thought solution could sometime become a problem by itself.

Why do solutions become problem?

 

Confirmation Bias?

A solution becomes a problem, when it has lost its relevance but is still allowed to continue its redundant existence. Circumstances that necessitated its birth would have long ceased to exist but solutions continue to persist. Local, regional, national and international landscapes are littered with such solutions.

Persistence to continue with it rather than discarding it might be due to economic, political administrative or other compulsions. The whole world knows about plastic-contamination. Yet, we continue producing it by the tonnes each day. Why? Economic and political reasons? Greed and inability? Inertia or fear? Personal problems likewise have definite reasons. Why not reconsider? Ego or inability? All listed and unlisted reasons are fuelled by confirmation bias, cognitive in nature.

Prevalent all over and residing in all of us, confirmation bias is powerful enough to create and sustain disputes and misunderstandings. We tend to favourably reason for what we, believe in, are used to, support or hold sacred. Though there could be serious flaws in what we believe in, support or practice, we tend to be blind to its cons and deaf to reasons against, often knowingly. Confirmation bias lethally compromises our etiognosis-diagnosis-prognosis skills. Since society, as a matter of contemporary practice responds aggressively to opinions that do not conform to those held by the voice of the powerful, confirmation bias, the easy safe way ahead, thrives.

 

Beat The Bias

Success of the Wright brothers is attributed to their ability to endlessly argue, but constructively, about what each thought and believed in. This essentially snuffed out confirmation bias. Ruthlessly contested ideas gave wings to their dreams.

Ideation unless vigorously contested, tend to be short-sighted, flawed and hence hopelessly short-lived. Allurements or fear of repercussions keep things going till they can persist. Eventually they fall apart. Ideologies, and empires have fallen.

The best way for a solution to remain relevant for long is to remain linked to times. That necessitates changes as per diktats of changing inputs. Solutions are mere inanimate processes. The key lies with the man behind it!

 

Give It Up

It is human to be emotionally attached to ideas and decisions, though it may not be the best way forward. Normally we don’t take kindly to criticism of our ideas. It is often considered a personal affront. With career, livelihood or even existence at stake, most do not express reservations. Many use the opportunity to curry favours and harvest benefits by singing praises. Wisdom easily differentiates!

If one is willing to throw ideas to the wolves, the best would survive. The easiest way is to detach oneself from one’s own ideas. Willingness to accept existence of better view and perception helps everything but ego. It needs us to tune into actively listening without being hurt. It needs us to dissent without hurting. Craving for success and its ownership is better served if solutions emerge post contest.  

It can happen, only if we are willing to give up ownership of our ideas!

Points to Ponder

Why do societies continue with  discriminative practices although everyone speaks against it? 

Why do people preach but not practise?

Inability? Convenience to few  at the cost of others?

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