As a young boy i did not read but learnt from people around me - the story of my experiments with truth.
in retrospect, the Mahatma has had a profound effect on me . Maybe not so much in being an ascetic but definitely in terms of beng foolhardly or having the courage to say the right thing sometimes even at the wrong moments. Also in terms of experimenting with life and its various facets only to learn more and more about it and myself.
I grew up constantly hearing people complain that the fast pace and eroding value system of life was rapdily transforming people into more inhuman mehcanical living beings rather than being emotinal beings with a quotient for societal and relational existence. I decided to experiment like Gandhi. Can one individual make a difference? The believers say Yes and the non-believers say Impossible and to me the confused individual it was a puzzle that i had to try to solve.
I put myself in the shoes of an individual everyone would judge. I became the experiment myself to reduce any side effects if any affecting anyone else who would be the subject to the minimum. I put myself on the anvil to be judged because that would reveal the true character of the people of the world in close measure to me.
I decided on a simple activity.. small to be almost unnoticeable and an optional activity for all of us and yet placed at a time of the day that it had the ability to impact manifold events of the day.
I decided to send "Good Morning" wishes to some individuals to see what happened. I chose this because since my childhood i like to wish people and i saw the incidence of wishing and greeting each other reducing around me and it is one small thing i want to revive around me.
At this moment many of those reading this can relate to my good morning and good day wishes that i send online or at times over the sms. Yes these small wishes are the treatment in the experiment. I started by wishing some people regulrly good morning and some also good night through emails. This was strange for many to receive nothing in an email apart from just "good morning have a nice day". It almost felt like spam for many. the responses to the wishes are interesting and make for a separate follow up blog on its own lest this on gets to be too long.
So after almost ten years of running this experiment what do i feel and how has it gone.. ? I wish this was an easy queston to answer.. the very fact that it has taken 10 years to answer reveals a lot. what started as simple wishes has seen many versions and multiple forms also.
The wishes can be sent online through email , through yahoo or gtalk messenger , through social network sites like facebook and twitter. The wishes can also take the mode of the mobile either from the handheld itself or through the internet through sites which give free delivery to mobiles for text messages within a limit.
Thus there are multiple people , multiple modes delivery, and one treatment .. and mutiple interpretations.. we will talk about each of these separately one by one in the following blogs..in the meantime feel free to send your interpretation of the wishes if you were receiving them.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
The need for Systems Processes and strong Institutions
Today Everyone is talking about the ouster of Mohd. Yunus from Grameen Bank. Most of the discussion is judging its righteousness or the lack of it. My thoughts drift to a different reality. What do i learn from this event? a learning that stays with me for long.
Most young entrepreneurs entering the development / social / rural space in emerging markets and economies rarely realise what it really means when they say that there are so many other factors apart from performance that matter in order to survive and be sustainable. Politics and the burden of history or morality might be the most frequent or they might not, however the events of Bangaldesh and Grameen Bank highlight the need for systems , processes and strong institutions to effect development (whatever your definition of development might be) and the amelioration of people and thier lives.
Assume that Grameen Bank delivered a required service to some people of Bangladesh. ( please not i have not even claimed they are poor or needy). Also assume that the need for the service remains. What do events like the ouster of Mohd. Yunus mean for these people ? you can make your choice out of the options given below
a) uncertainty of whether the services will be the same or not.. for some if the services will be continued at all.
b) uncertainty if Grameen Bank will remain afloat and if so the uncertainty if their own investment and activities with the bank are safe or not. its an uncertainty of both the future as well as the risk exposure.
c) Loss of an inspiring figure and strong brand ambassador for Grameen bank and its services. This is likely to lead to another agency to deliver the same services and in an emerging economy the search costs can be susbtanital and the chances of committing an error high.
Given these three instinctive reactions from people. Do we realise that the strongest human instinct will stem from uncertainty of Future and the Financial and business risk they are exposed to ( some can read business risk as livelihood risk depending on the dependance on microfinance and Grameen for the respective livelihood).
If the unceratinty is about the future and the risk.. due to the sudden change in leadership..Do we need more evidence to see that leadership alone is not the best form of governance. It is clear that a governance system which survives beyond the individual leader, the larger than life founding father is an absolute must. How do we generate such non-indivudal leadership and directioning capability in an institution?
The answer is in making the Institution adaptive - capable of absorbing shocks like a crisis of individual leadership and resilient to be efficient and reduce the risk exposure of the clients. My Thesis is about creating such adaptiveness in institutions. ( you can get the same from this link...http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/library/ )one of the points that i highlight is the need for complete structures so that there is not one leader but more individuals are forced to come together and collectively work for the institution.
The open processes provide both flexibility and continuity by defining the routine procedures and leaving the speical requests to discretion. The binding force is nothing but a strong institution which is larger than the founder or the paternal / maternal individual leader. Suddenly the conclusion flows , to me at least smoothly.
To the youngest of entrepreneurs there is an important lesson - if you operate in an emerging economy or an environement where politics or some such external environmental force matters .... it is not a choice but an imperative that you need robust systems, superior processs and a strong institution to continue delivering services to those who require them.
The moral implication of this monologue is .. if the systems and processes are not in place and the weak institution crumbles - you might have to be ready to take the blame for breaching the faith of people twoards fulfiling their needs.
Most young entrepreneurs entering the development / social / rural space in emerging markets and economies rarely realise what it really means when they say that there are so many other factors apart from performance that matter in order to survive and be sustainable. Politics and the burden of history or morality might be the most frequent or they might not, however the events of Bangaldesh and Grameen Bank highlight the need for systems , processes and strong institutions to effect development (whatever your definition of development might be) and the amelioration of people and thier lives.
Assume that Grameen Bank delivered a required service to some people of Bangladesh. ( please not i have not even claimed they are poor or needy). Also assume that the need for the service remains. What do events like the ouster of Mohd. Yunus mean for these people ? you can make your choice out of the options given below
a) uncertainty of whether the services will be the same or not.. for some if the services will be continued at all.
b) uncertainty if Grameen Bank will remain afloat and if so the uncertainty if their own investment and activities with the bank are safe or not. its an uncertainty of both the future as well as the risk exposure.
c) Loss of an inspiring figure and strong brand ambassador for Grameen bank and its services. This is likely to lead to another agency to deliver the same services and in an emerging economy the search costs can be susbtanital and the chances of committing an error high.
Given these three instinctive reactions from people. Do we realise that the strongest human instinct will stem from uncertainty of Future and the Financial and business risk they are exposed to ( some can read business risk as livelihood risk depending on the dependance on microfinance and Grameen for the respective livelihood).
If the unceratinty is about the future and the risk.. due to the sudden change in leadership..Do we need more evidence to see that leadership alone is not the best form of governance. It is clear that a governance system which survives beyond the individual leader, the larger than life founding father is an absolute must. How do we generate such non-indivudal leadership and directioning capability in an institution?
The answer is in making the Institution adaptive - capable of absorbing shocks like a crisis of individual leadership and resilient to be efficient and reduce the risk exposure of the clients. My Thesis is about creating such adaptiveness in institutions. ( you can get the same from this link...http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/library/ )one of the points that i highlight is the need for complete structures so that there is not one leader but more individuals are forced to come together and collectively work for the institution.
The open processes provide both flexibility and continuity by defining the routine procedures and leaving the speical requests to discretion. The binding force is nothing but a strong institution which is larger than the founder or the paternal / maternal individual leader. Suddenly the conclusion flows , to me at least smoothly.
To the youngest of entrepreneurs there is an important lesson - if you operate in an emerging economy or an environement where politics or some such external environmental force matters .... it is not a choice but an imperative that you need robust systems, superior processs and a strong institution to continue delivering services to those who require them.
The moral implication of this monologue is .. if the systems and processes are not in place and the weak institution crumbles - you might have to be ready to take the blame for breaching the faith of people twoards fulfiling their needs.
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