"Corporate" thoughts

I have often said that companies, especially large ones, are huge collections of lazy people staying on for salaries. Except for a few hard working folks scattered here and there, the rest do as much work as is sufficient and spend the rest of the time in activities which I categorize as waste. The value of most of the sufficient work that they do is also questionable. Even many of the hard working ones actually end up working hard on wasteful activities without realizing it, and often also feeling proud of their effort - which is sad coz the system has really cheated them or made fools of them.

Waste is of many types, and comprises much of what happens in companies.

Here are a few kinds:

• Process waste
• Reviews
• Documentation
• Accountability / Ownership overhead
• Blessing management
• Confused leadership generated waste
• Directionless tasks
• Top-down outcome push
• Reckless & Careless planning
• Poor communication
• Forced creativity
• Looking busy
• By doing meaningless work
• By lying, pretending, misreporting
• Laziness overhead
• No-Motivation / No-Interest overhead
• ... and so on

The fact that in spite of all this waste generation companies do get great things done is really commendable. It just means to say a mass can still achieve things of great value which a person or smaller groups of people cannot.

As I was sipping tea near my home during one of my tea breaks while I work from home, I was observing people from near-by offices, also taking their tea breaks. I felt amazed at how so many people are playing some roles in their companies and earning some money for themselves and their families - the money which then makes a lot of other things happen - the food and all the necessities, the stuff in their homes, the kids' schools, the medical bills, the vacations, etc. etc. Those were all middle-class white-collar workers. But isn't this true about all the billions of people of this world - they're all somehow making some money and making their families' lives happen! It's not at all a fair or equal system - especially if you for once look beyond the middle-class, both above and below - a lot of people do very little to earn disproportionately high amount of money, and a lot lot more can't make ends meet and many are even forced to die. Capitalism offers a way of distributing resources through trade and employment, it indeed claims to be fair theoretically, but is far from so, because the theory assumes humans far different from the real ones. But it does probably lead to a more efficiently growing system as compared to other alternatives. And yet, we see all this waste because of the human elements of power, politics, laziness, greed, varying levels of trust and varying levels of hope - and where an individual falls in the hierarchy affects which is the dominant human element that drives his/her actions. And then these very elements force companies to structure themselves, in ways that allow those on top to exercise control and have the companies somehow deliver outcomes.

There are 2 types of businesses in my view:

1. Volume focused - these are businesses that want to sell in huge volumes, and are typically not into high-end or high quality products. Their products are therefore not in the premium or expensive category. These businesses employ a lot of people with average to low skills - as one of my bosses used to call us - just hands & legs. As expected, the salaries of these people aren't great.
2. Quality focused - these are businesses that make really awesome products or deliver really amazing services - of the kind people are willing to pay a lot for. So obviously these products/services are expensive and can be placed in the premium category. These businesses employ a few but really good and highly skilled people, and pay them very well. Plus, the high quality also requires high level of mechanization, automation and state-of-the-art in terms of production or delivery techniques.

As volume-focused companies grow big, they often tend to forget which type of business they fall under or perhaps get carried away because of pressure to increase sales. For the sake of creating differentiation or for bringing more value to customers, they often try to shift their narrative to say things about themselves which actually belong to the other bucket. Although customers for these businesses do appreciate someone bringing greater value or better quality, they actually, really, want it cheap. So, the whole talk on high "quality" gets limited to the narrative and is soon forgotten. It's also not safe for the company to take it too far and imbibe much into its offerings - because (a) the customers don't want it, and (b) the company can't deliver it - especially at the price the customer can afford, and with the kind of people the company can afford.

Similarly, the quality focused companies should not deviate from their core business type, otherwise they'll lose customers for sure.

The issue, however, is  that companies need to constantly compete and evolve such that they are able to beat competition consistently, and are able to stay alive for long. Being creative by staying within the boundaries of the business type is the key, but it's important to keep in mind that the boundaries are not rigid. Yesterday's science fiction is today's reality. And yesterday's rocket science is today's everyday gadget. That's where companies need to be smart, so that they are able to identify the right envelopes to push and the right boundaries to adjust, determine their focus and set the right priorities.

To tie the 3 aspects I've talked about here - I think a truly successful business leader needs to get the following right:

• Eliminate all kinds waste
• Build an efficient, motivating and fair organizational structure and work environment
• Ensure the business focus is rock solid, and the leaders are capable of imagining the future without deviating from what the business fundamentally stands for.

Need for overhaul in how we learn

The way we educate our children in schools and adults in colleges and beyond is largely based on a teacher delivering a lecture, and asking questions intermittently to gauge the level of understanding of the knowledge recipients. There may be a test during this lecture or later on to further assess the learning outcomes. A few teachers use props and simple experiments to elaborate topics further - like the famous demonstration of swinging pendulum and its amplitude by Walter Lewin (click here) - but they are still largely just transferring knowledge from teacher to student and then using some means to confirm it happened to a satisfactory extent. This methodology has always been a topic of debate among educationists, and there has generally been a consensus that such instruction-based teaching and learning methodologies are not the most effective. Yet it's the most commonly used method because of 2 reasons: (1) It's the most convenient form of knowledge delivery for a teacher, and (2) It's the most convenient way of knowledge reception for the student, although highly passive and lacking any real-time processing of the information received. "Convenient" here means that it doesn't require any major effort or challenge for the teacher or student beyond the transaction of information transfer; it involves minimal consumption of energy to validate the information, relate it to something known or taught before, process it to draw insights beyond what is said, even think it over to an extent that the mind starts having questions (rather than the students "coming up" with questions for "class participation").

Now, it's the whole system designed in a certain way. And breaking out of it completely is not possible as parts of it require mandatory adherence. For example, school education has to end compulsorily with the students clearing the "board" exams conducted by authorized agencies of the State, and which becomes an eligibility criteria for college admissions. And colleges need to have their own mandatory affiliations. So we basically have an education system that is forced to adhere to specific syllabus and testing methodologies. The State would always want such a control, not only to ensure a certain standard of education in the country, but also to drive a certain form of content and thought process that is in its best interests. The latter has been a tool of the ruling class for ages, and the access to the kind of information like we have today hasn't lessened its impact. We've only ended up with people becoming agents for propagating their kind of information further. Being part of this world and yet breaking out of this carefully crafted model is impossible. Even if you start from scratch in an unknown colony in Mars, you would ultimately end up with the same power games and someone wanting to control how the others learn.

I started writing this article hoping to stress the need of taking educational institutions out of the frameworks of boards/affiliations and authorized syllabus. This, I thought, would open doors to creativity in how education is imparted and learning is approached. But I've realized there will always be someone who'll decide what's in the interest of the student to learn. Given that we can't totally break out of this human element, we could still aim at designing a system that ensures better learning and that builds smarter and wiser individuals who can not only think right, but also learn about everything from different angles, are able to build the right correlations, reach in thought where nobody has, imagine what nobody has and together be more creative and empowered than what the current approach allows. And also pass the exams and get the degrees they need to, but really understanding their true worth.

Techniques like peer instruction seem quite effective, especially - and this is my view - among more disciplined and mature students. It also requires that the teachers be trained to execute it effectively. And to draw most from peers, a student needs to be an extrovert to a considerable degree; and so do teachers; and that's a problem. Introverts have a tough time everywhere! Is it that majority of professional teachers are introverts and are more comfortable at delivering a lecture rather than creating a more communicative, participative and indulgent form of learning?

Would love to know what others think.

Here's Eric Mazur talking about peer instruction and how he thought about it:

के उजाला कम भाता है अब हमें

शनिवार की शाम का सुकून
और साथ में हल्की सी बारिश
ठंडी हवा का खिड़की से आना
मौसम की कोई मदमस्त साज़िश
गर्म चाय की चुस्की लेते हुए
नेटफ्लिक्स का पहला मुफ़्त महीना
बड़ी अय्याश हो गई है ज़िन्दगी
कोई लौटा दे वो ज़माना बोरियत का
फिर नज़र डालें मौसम पे
फिर निहारें चाँद तारे
सूरज को फिर भी न देखेंगे
के उजाला कम भाता है अब हमें

Observations from the Ranking task in Big Boss 11 - Episode 92, 1 January 2018

Big Boss Season-11 ended last weekend with Shilpa Shinde winning the show this season. I am one of those dimwits who followed the show this year, no kidding. While we often hear that a major part of these reality shows is scripted based on the show-makers' idea of what the awaam wants to see, there must still be the larger part left untouched as most of it perhaps looked unimportant. And often, scripting is not as efficient as natural course of events in increasing the overall entropy - and so by the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the shit you see gets more chaotic than intended and more in line with nature. You see how matured and scientific my analysis has become after watching this shit!!!😄😄😄

This post is to point out specifically to one task which was assigned in the 1st Jan 2018 episode. The housemates were supposed to discuss and arrive at a consensus on who stands where in the show; and then accordingly stand on the steps marked with the ranks - 1 was the highest and 6 was the lowest.

Out of the 6 guys, 3 -Shilpa, Hina Vikas - were so-called celebrities, and 3 - Puneesh, Akash, Luv - were so-called commoners. Now let me tell you about how the personalities of these 6 contestants appeared to me in the show; and you may disagree with me. Vikas - rightly called the mastermind, was always very calculative, strategic in his actions and decisions, and mature in his conversations. Shilpa - the oldest of the lot, was very hard-working in the kitchen, very natural in her behavior and presented an innocent disposition that was very difficult to not fall for. Hina - proved repeatedly that she had limited intellectual abilities and wisdom, and yet she thought the fame and face she carried justified her self-importance; and because of her profile, even the audience burdened her with lot of expectation. Luv was an average good-looking dude you see in posh areas of cities like Delhi. Puneesh was a rich desi kind of guy, not a huge show-off in his mannerisms but confident enough to take on anybody. Akash was a total nutcase, part-crazy, part-psycho, and eerily delusional about himself. These are just impressions these guys left on me during the show, and may be far from reality.

Now... the task! Arriving at a consensus on where one stands is a tricky task, especially when you are in front of the camera, and at stake is winning the show, while everyone has his/her own ideas on what would be perceived by the audience as "good" behavior in such a situation. I am sure each one wants to go on top, but then, if one wants to be seemingly "good" as well, one would not necessarily be rigid about wanting to be there for the task. So, as the task began, everyone eyed the number one spot. But as the process of consensus started taking shape, they took different approaches. The biggest idiot - Akash - made the loudest noise about being on top, and he wouldn't listen to anybody. The rest of the weaklings - Puneesh and Luv - tagged along as they saw an opportunity to somehow make it higher. The stronger 3 let them move up, perhaps coz they were or wanted to seem:

• Giving: As the weaklings were all commoners, it would look nice to let them take the higher spots for the task, as this probably couldn't mean (they thought) that they would actually win the show.
• Avoiding ugly fight: Akash was in his craziest avatar. Although everyone else is equally capable of ugly verbal fights, they wanted to avoid fighting with the mad man on this, as it wouldn't have looked nice at this stage of the game, more so just for the spot, which may have made them look selfish. Interestingly Akash didn't think that way.
• Under-confident: This might have been the reason to some extent, and they perhaps didn't want to seem stupid by pushing for something which may be the audience didn't think they deserved.
• Unwilling to compete: One may not be sufficiently powered to compete, especially when the perceived stakes aren't too big. This can easily happen in a constantly competitive environment, where competition fatigue sets in.

The more I think about it, I realize we come across this task in various forms and its outcome very commonly in our lives - companies, families, societies, democracies, ..., everywhere. We tend to let the crazy and incompetent guys go up, just to avoid being bothered by their tantrums, and end up having much more competent people taking orders from them. The reasons may be the ones listed above, and more.

I hadn't thought of this before, but it occurred to me just now as I was writing the previous paragraph - a similar observation, although more in the corporate context, was made by Scott Adams who went ahead and defined what he called The Dilbert Principle, which states that "companies tend to systematically promote their least-competent employees to management, in order to limit the amount of damage they are capable of doing". There is much more to the Dilbert Principle, and I'd strongly recommend the book of the same name by Scott Adams, where he has expanded the principle in very funny and thought provoking ways.