There are certain industries where the fundamental configuration of the product is extremely difficult to change. Ever since the first true automobile was invented by Karl Benz in Germany in 1985/86 and the first mass scale production of the automobile was undertaken by Henry Ford in USA in 1910, the automobile technology has steadily reached new frontiers but the fundamental product characteristics of the automobile, from the shell and power train to the exteriors and interiors, remained the same. Somewhat wrongly, some technical experts attribute this to the conservative nature of the automobile designers, citing the developments such as supersonic aircraft and bullet trains in the adjacent segments of transportation, or the various other electronic products like smart phones and tablets that changed the lifestyles. That indeed is an uncharitable view.
The reason is that the automobile has to reckon in its design with a fundamental and immutable enabler as well as a constraint called road. The challenge and opportunity of an automobile is the existence of the road or the highway in which the automobile has to transport its passengers or cargo (notwithstanding the limited need for off-road transportation, which also only the basic design of automobile must satisfy). One may hypothesize a flying automobile but with automobiles being required in millions it simply is not an option. The automobile industry, willy-nilly, is the prototype of an industry where continuous improvements in product and process technologies rather than breakthrough transformations in product configuration set the tone for industrial progress. That said, continuous enhancements from the materials to product value chain, and transformational developments in other industries do offer synergistic opportunities for innovative product development in the automobile industry.
Product development
The passenger car has seen many product developments such as more powerful, fuel-efficient engines (from popular in-line to V engines, and relatively unsuccessful rotary engines), more seamless gear systems (from constant-mesh to synchromesh to automatic and continuously variable transmissions), more comfortable ride systems (from coil springs to parabolic springs to hydraulic and independent McPherson systems), less resistant drive systems (from manual to power steering), more safe and secure passenger environment (from seat belts to multiple airbags), more sturdy chassis (from welded constructions to pressed or hydro-formed monocoque construction) and so on. The engines have become versatile to accept virtually every kind of fuel (be it petrol, diesel, CNG or bio-fuel) or tandem with electric or hydrogen engines.
Simultaneously, significant changes have occurred in styling, from aerodynamic shapes to fluidic designs and from protective grills and bumpers to signature frontages and rear protectors. Optimized spatial designs, ergonomic seats, elegant trim, navigation systems, sensing systems, entertainment systems and connectivity options are seen as differentiators providing diverse value statements. As a result of all of the above, some of them driven by advances in electronics and telecommunication systems, cars began to be developed from sub-compact to super sedan as well as on-road and off-road as well as crossover options, with differentiated features. The world has today at least 40 major global manufacturers with a combined output of around 80 million vehicles. The population of vehicles on road is estimated to be around 1.1 billion.
Visible manufacturing processes
The process development paradigm in the automobile industry has both visible and invisible components. What is visible is the magnificent scale of changes in the shop floor technologies. The epoch making conveyor belt assembly of Henry Ford now looks basic compared to the impressive developments in flexible machining centers, robotic welding, mammoth presses, multi-level, synchronized sub-assemblies and assemblies, all in the umbrella of the famed Toyota Production System for reduced takt time, enhanced quality and optimized inventory. The design philosophy optimized manufacturing in terms of ladders of platforms that could support multiple overlapping models. It also epitomized a global manufacturing philosophy of multiple counties supporting globally unified products customized for diverse markets through innovative internal components.
As a result of such above approaches, the global automobile industry has become the text book of contemporary manufacturing management and a showcase of operational excellence practices. Manufacture of automobiles is seen as the seamless integration of planning, execution and delivery, across the entire value chain, from local to global centers of development and manufacture. This unique paradigm coupled with practices such as concurrent engineering which are uniquely developed and refined by the automobile industry to manage multi-year product development programs gave rise to the view that manufacturing efficiency is the essence of process development in the automobile industry. This visible part of process development is supported by a completely invisible component of technological process development that has changed the way components, aggregates and systems of an automobile are made. Automobile as a contemporary product is a resultant of the invisible process refinements, across the entire industrial value chain.
Invisible technological processes
While the manufacture of automobiles has many visible features as above, there exist several more invisible process innovations that are triggering product development in the automobile industry. For example, the process of combustion of fuel, be it petrol or diesel, in the internal combustion engine is at the heart of enhancing fuel efficiency and reducing environmental pollution. Fuel injection, sparking and combustion systems are continuously being developed to achieve the objectives. Complete heat recovery from the engines further optimizes energy consumption and usage. This paradigm is further supplemented by design of key components such as piston, crankshaft, camshaft and connecting rod to achieve lower weights, better balance and reduce frictional losses. In addition, the engine block itself provides, through superior boring and honing as well as liner technologies, potential to eliminate frictional losses, and also extend the life of components in the high temperature environments.
Matching innovations in manufacturing processes help optimize the rest of the aggregates too. Aluminum is now an integral part of chassis and body design and is helping reduce weight and enhance agility of an automobile. Gears and axles come with stronger basic materials and superior finishing and hardening processes to ensure smoother drives and longer lives under multiple conditions. Nanotechnology has been finding enhanced applications in a number of components and systems such as fuel cell catalysts, fuel cells, batteries, catalytic converters, polymer nanocomposites, electroceramics, nanoparticled tyres and other materials. Nanotechnology is also enhancing the life and elegance of bodyworks through better coatings, glazings, shields and in the overall, corrosion protective nanotechnology processes. More extensive use of nanoparticles and manufacture of nanomaterials and nanocomponents faces another process challenge; the extent to which nanoparticles can be contained in manufacture and the exposure limits to humans would determine the extent to which nanotechnology can be deployed.
From telematics to robotics
Processes of operating and benefitting from an automobile have seen, and will continue to see the integration of technological advances in electronics and telecommunications. In-vehicle telematics provides drivers with instant safety, security and communications services. Practical applications include global navigation systems, voice assisted driving directions, parking, acceleration and vehicle failure detection. Telematics-driven infotainment services include Bluetooth wireless and satellite radio. Future applications will include vehicle-to-vehicle communications to ensure vehicles keep a safe distance from each other to avoid and perhaps eliminate collisions. Automakers will be pressured to develop a global platform upon which vehicles are designed, engineered and produced, to leverage the most capital-intensive equipment and resources initially, and then customize and accessorize later for regional preferences. Perhaps most critically, car manufacturers and suppliers will need to embrace a long-term consumer vision to succeed, in the same way in which Apple has done with its iPod, iPhone and iPad products.
The future promises to be even more exciting. The car as known today and driven by a human being would be supplemented by video cameras, radar sensors, laser range finders, program logic controlled and software integrated driving systems to become a robotic car requiring no human intervention. Apart from enhancing seating capacity, robotic car technology when perfected would bring orderliness to roads and highways, enable productivity while on drive and eventually enhance safety by reducing accidents dramatically. Self-driving robotic cars will save time, fuel, cut traffic jams and prevent some of the estimated 1.2 million deaths that occur globally every year due to car accidents. “Safety is definitely the number one benefit,” says Sven Beiker, the executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University. “ In 95% of accidents, human error is at least a contributing factor.” A self-driving car on the other hand cannot become distracted, take a phone call, fall asleep, or drive under the influence of alcohol.
Synthesis: process over product
Automobile as a product may not have changed so far, and may not be changing in future too in terms of a basic product structure. However, as a human-driven automobile has revolutionized transportation by substituting animal driven carriage, the existing human-driven automobile would in future be substituted by a self-driven robotic car. Such a car may include additional enhancements such as hybrid (oil-electric) engines, solar powered heating and cooling systems, and lighter but stronger materials. At the core of the product transformation is not a new product per se but a host of visible and invisible process innovations that change the specifications and operability of each component, aggregate and system of an automobile. Process innovations dictate the emergence of new materials even as new manufacturing processes enable the use of new materials on the shop floor.
The automobile industry has several interesting lessons for product designers, who have passion for new products and newer market ecosystems. When limitations on fundamental product transformation exist (as in the case of automobile) designers would do well to extend themselves as backward as possible to integrate process improvements. The smallest of the components can be redesigned to use newer materials, and render them stronger but smaller. The most complex of the systems can be reengineered to use electronics and telecommunications, and render them more efficient and seamless. Process improvements, integrating technologies from other domains could dramatically improve the product usage functionality and redefine the consumer ecosystem. Research and Development establishments must have exceptional process depth, for in several cases process could be a determinant of product!
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 19, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Management and Leadership: More Than a Semantic Difference!
It is very often asked: “what is the difference between management and leadership?” One established concept has been that managers are found up to certain midrange hierarchy levels and leaders are found at the levels of heading functions, locations, businesses and organizations. This question has become even more confounding with a liberal use of the term leadership in organizations. Many times such organizations use the terms manager and leader interchangeably. The concept of grassroots leadership which implies that leadership can be found even amongst the frontline employees or public at large adds an intellectual red herring in the debate. On the other hand, the law usually considers officers, managers and directors as legally and operationally relevant terms. Leader is not a legally or administratively practical term.
For all the extensive, often liberal use of leadership as a term, even corporate organizations do not accord a formal recognition to leadership as a title. Organizational nomenclature includes titles such as executive, manager, president and director (with all the prefixes such as junior, senior, general, vice and a few others as applicable) but never a title that has the term leader in it. Even the acknowledged leader of a corporation is called the chief executive officer, managing director or chairman but not the chief leader, so to speak! Does that mean that leadership is a qualitative and ubiquitous concept that cannot be formally assigned? Or, does it mean that leadership has such deep undertones and person-to-person variations that the concept cannot be adequately framed in a formal title? If so, why does so much rhetorical debate exist around the terms management and leadership and why does the term leadership get used (or misused so much)?
Semantics of differences
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, management is the act of running and controlling a business or similar organization, and a manager is a person who is in charge of running a business or a similar organization, or a part of one. The dictionary also defines a leader as a person who leads a group of people, especially the head of a country or an organization, and leadership as the state or position of being a leader. The definitions are semantically similar in terms of the domain of operation, that is, a business, organization or a part of it. The fundamental difference is that a manager is expected to “run and control” while a leader is expected to “lead”. The former gives a profile of acting within a boundary while the latter provides a flavor of defining a boundary. In a simple but elegant manner, the behavior with reference to a boundary sets the tone for the qualitative difference between a manager and a leader.
Much has been said by management experts to delineate the differences. In his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader,” Warren Bennis composed a list of the differences. Some of these are: the manager administers while the leader innovates; the manager maintains while the leader develops; the manager focuses on systems and structure while the leader focuses on people; the manager relies on control while the leader inspires trust; the manager has a short-range view while the leader has a long-range perspective; the manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line while the leader’s eye is on the horizon; the manager accepts the status quo while the leader challenges it; the manager is the classic good soldier while the leader is his or her own person; and the manager does things right while the leader does the right thing. Other viewpoints are that management is all about efficiency while leadership is all about effectiveness, and management is about planning, executing and controlling activities while leadership is about inspiring, motivating and leading people.
Beyond semantics
Leadership and management must go hand in hand. While they are not the same thing, they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Not all efficient managers can be effective leaders while a leader cannot be effective unless he is an efficient manager too. Clearly, leadership has a wider canvas than management. Every manager has the opportunity and challenge to demonstrate leadership while every leader has the responsibility not to disown his or her managerial legacy. While the concept of “born leader” reflects a hypothesis that leadership characteristics tend to be intrinsic to an individual, an overwhelming proportion of leaders would perforce have to take the managerial route to becoming a leader. This is true to the core with professional leaders. On the other hand, entrepreneurial leaders who forget their managerial basics create a shaky short term that fails to support the distant long term vision, however appropriate it is.
Leadership and management are not necessarily hierarchical even though the way businesses and organizations are run allows for only a few leaders while it requires scores of managers. This is also the reason why corporations and groups which design their strategies and structures to facilitate many leaders are visibly more expansive and successful than those which have unitary and constraining organizational strategies and structures. A leader’s role is primarily transformative in that he or she constantly makes change happen; discovering and actualizing new boundaries is a critical aspect of leadership. A manager’s role is primarily focuses on execution in that he or she constantly converts plans into reality; that said, planning and controlling are a critical aspect of management. An effective manager demonstrates a potential for leadership every time he or she encounters a challenge or an opportunity. An efficient leader demonstrates a flair for management every time he or she seeks to convert his vision into strategy, and then to execution.
Measure and listen
It is often stated that what is not measured cannot be managed. It is not surprising, therefore, that managerial performance is often linked to measurement. Whether it is physical or financial performance, metrics are the key to management. Meaningful metrics which are benchmarked with internal and external best practices help demystify performance. At the same time, metrics that are not perceptive and are not benchmarked provide an illusory feel of management, in terms of planning, execution and controlling. An ability to understand the lead and lag effects of a metric is an essential component of managerial competence. A diligence to recognize the story behind the behavior of a metric is, however, reflective of managerial maturity. An organization which has a managerial bench that appreciates and implements a forward looking metrics based paradigm is likely to be efficient and effective, relative to its peers in the industry.
If metrics are the bedrock of management, listening is the hallmark of leadership. A leader’s communication skills help the leader to present his vision to the people he or she leads, inspiring them to execution. A leader’s real communication skills are, however, rooted in the complementary arm of communication, namely listening. A true leader listens as much as he or she is listened to. There have been exceptional leaders who listened to their inner voice and developed industry leading products, be it Henry Ford in the case of automobiles or Steve Jobs in the case of consumer electronics. Most successful leaders stay tuned to developments in the marketplace, customer feedback, employee expressions and stakeholder expectations to work proactively on industry leading concepts. The successful leader, therefore, creates an organizational ecosystem by which not only the leader but also employees stay connected to the external environment and with internal customers for transformative performance.
Development options
Given the importance of efficient (and effective) management as well as effective (and efficient) leadership, the development of a robust managerial and leadership talent pool with the right attributes is a key talent task. Education and experience need to be synergized to achieve expertise that can lead to superior managerial efficiency and effectiveness. Connectivity and communication need to be institutionalized to achieve an ambience that can lead to superior leadership effectiveness and efficiency. Each organization would need to develop its own talent models that would meet the twin objectives. Leadership is a qualitative and ambient motivational drive of an organization while management is a tangible and visible dimension of performance of an organization. In virtuous organizations both leadership and management work as institutionalized concepts enabling the organizations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 12, 2012
For all the extensive, often liberal use of leadership as a term, even corporate organizations do not accord a formal recognition to leadership as a title. Organizational nomenclature includes titles such as executive, manager, president and director (with all the prefixes such as junior, senior, general, vice and a few others as applicable) but never a title that has the term leader in it. Even the acknowledged leader of a corporation is called the chief executive officer, managing director or chairman but not the chief leader, so to speak! Does that mean that leadership is a qualitative and ubiquitous concept that cannot be formally assigned? Or, does it mean that leadership has such deep undertones and person-to-person variations that the concept cannot be adequately framed in a formal title? If so, why does so much rhetorical debate exist around the terms management and leadership and why does the term leadership get used (or misused so much)?
Semantics of differences
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, management is the act of running and controlling a business or similar organization, and a manager is a person who is in charge of running a business or a similar organization, or a part of one. The dictionary also defines a leader as a person who leads a group of people, especially the head of a country or an organization, and leadership as the state or position of being a leader. The definitions are semantically similar in terms of the domain of operation, that is, a business, organization or a part of it. The fundamental difference is that a manager is expected to “run and control” while a leader is expected to “lead”. The former gives a profile of acting within a boundary while the latter provides a flavor of defining a boundary. In a simple but elegant manner, the behavior with reference to a boundary sets the tone for the qualitative difference between a manager and a leader.
Much has been said by management experts to delineate the differences. In his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader,” Warren Bennis composed a list of the differences. Some of these are: the manager administers while the leader innovates; the manager maintains while the leader develops; the manager focuses on systems and structure while the leader focuses on people; the manager relies on control while the leader inspires trust; the manager has a short-range view while the leader has a long-range perspective; the manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line while the leader’s eye is on the horizon; the manager accepts the status quo while the leader challenges it; the manager is the classic good soldier while the leader is his or her own person; and the manager does things right while the leader does the right thing. Other viewpoints are that management is all about efficiency while leadership is all about effectiveness, and management is about planning, executing and controlling activities while leadership is about inspiring, motivating and leading people.
Beyond semantics
Leadership and management must go hand in hand. While they are not the same thing, they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Not all efficient managers can be effective leaders while a leader cannot be effective unless he is an efficient manager too. Clearly, leadership has a wider canvas than management. Every manager has the opportunity and challenge to demonstrate leadership while every leader has the responsibility not to disown his or her managerial legacy. While the concept of “born leader” reflects a hypothesis that leadership characteristics tend to be intrinsic to an individual, an overwhelming proportion of leaders would perforce have to take the managerial route to becoming a leader. This is true to the core with professional leaders. On the other hand, entrepreneurial leaders who forget their managerial basics create a shaky short term that fails to support the distant long term vision, however appropriate it is.
Leadership and management are not necessarily hierarchical even though the way businesses and organizations are run allows for only a few leaders while it requires scores of managers. This is also the reason why corporations and groups which design their strategies and structures to facilitate many leaders are visibly more expansive and successful than those which have unitary and constraining organizational strategies and structures. A leader’s role is primarily transformative in that he or she constantly makes change happen; discovering and actualizing new boundaries is a critical aspect of leadership. A manager’s role is primarily focuses on execution in that he or she constantly converts plans into reality; that said, planning and controlling are a critical aspect of management. An effective manager demonstrates a potential for leadership every time he or she encounters a challenge or an opportunity. An efficient leader demonstrates a flair for management every time he or she seeks to convert his vision into strategy, and then to execution.
Measure and listen
It is often stated that what is not measured cannot be managed. It is not surprising, therefore, that managerial performance is often linked to measurement. Whether it is physical or financial performance, metrics are the key to management. Meaningful metrics which are benchmarked with internal and external best practices help demystify performance. At the same time, metrics that are not perceptive and are not benchmarked provide an illusory feel of management, in terms of planning, execution and controlling. An ability to understand the lead and lag effects of a metric is an essential component of managerial competence. A diligence to recognize the story behind the behavior of a metric is, however, reflective of managerial maturity. An organization which has a managerial bench that appreciates and implements a forward looking metrics based paradigm is likely to be efficient and effective, relative to its peers in the industry.
If metrics are the bedrock of management, listening is the hallmark of leadership. A leader’s communication skills help the leader to present his vision to the people he or she leads, inspiring them to execution. A leader’s real communication skills are, however, rooted in the complementary arm of communication, namely listening. A true leader listens as much as he or she is listened to. There have been exceptional leaders who listened to their inner voice and developed industry leading products, be it Henry Ford in the case of automobiles or Steve Jobs in the case of consumer electronics. Most successful leaders stay tuned to developments in the marketplace, customer feedback, employee expressions and stakeholder expectations to work proactively on industry leading concepts. The successful leader, therefore, creates an organizational ecosystem by which not only the leader but also employees stay connected to the external environment and with internal customers for transformative performance.
Development options
Given the importance of efficient (and effective) management as well as effective (and efficient) leadership, the development of a robust managerial and leadership talent pool with the right attributes is a key talent task. Education and experience need to be synergized to achieve expertise that can lead to superior managerial efficiency and effectiveness. Connectivity and communication need to be institutionalized to achieve an ambience that can lead to superior leadership effectiveness and efficiency. Each organization would need to develop its own talent models that would meet the twin objectives. Leadership is a qualitative and ambient motivational drive of an organization while management is a tangible and visible dimension of performance of an organization. In virtuous organizations both leadership and management work as institutionalized concepts enabling the organizations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 12, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
The Sublimity of Friendship: Redefining the Need Hierarchy
Today, August 5, 2012 is celebrated as the Friendship Day. As the dictionary defines, friends are those who are not connected by family relationships but who have mutual attachment and affection for each other. Every individual as he or she grows in life relies on friends and friendship to seek support, guidance and fulfillment beyond the family. Close friendship has a sublime and overarching impact on one’s life, with friends being relied upon for thoughts, actions and guidance which even the family members cannot offer. Friendship which starts from childhood tends to be a lifelong friendship. It is, however, possible that friendship between adults based on mutual respect, affection and caring could also emerge as a lifetime development. A true friend understands and fulfills the needs of the other, without the other ever having to express. True friendship never seeks reciprocity; it is also not an accounting transaction of give and take, in any dimension.
Need fulfillment is the key to one’s equanimity with life. Upbringing, education and experience teach one to seek needs, fulfill the needs and also to moderate them. The unpredictability and harshness of life, however, positions individuals to depend on his or her friends for need fulfillment. This could be as commonplace as material support, as appropriate as intellectual support, and as sublime as emotional support. The unbelievable growth of social networking points to the omniscience of friendship as a fundamental trigger of life. Not all needs can be easily and effectively fulfilled, however. Many times, they require extraordinary understanding, patience, persistence and courage. Need fulfillment by a true friend is, therefore, a selfless act that seeks no name or fame, and would even accept suffering and sacrifice. No wonder then that the old adage says that a friend in need is a friend indeed.
Maslow need hierarchy (or pyramid)
If need fulfillment is the basic foundation of friendship, one may be tempted to analyze the framework of human needs to examine the nexus between need fulfillment and friendship development. Amongst all the theories of needs, Abraham Maslow’s theory ranks high. In 1943, Abraham Maslow's article, “A Theory of Human Motivation” appeared in Psychological Review, proposing five basic sets of human needs, which were further expanded upon in his book, “Toward a Psychology of Being”. Abraham Maslow attempted to formulate a needs-based framework of human motivation and based upon his clinical experiences with humans, rather than prior psychology theories of his day from leaders in the field of psychology such as Freud and Skinner, which were largely theoretical or based upon animal behavior. Very quickly, Maslow’s need hierarchy became a major foundation of organizational motivation theories.
Maslow proposes the need hierarchy as comprising physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. This hierarchy is also proposed as a need pyramid with a large number of physiological needs serving as the base of the pyramid, and the self-actualization needs serving as the apex. Safety, social and esteem needs form the mid-tier needs. The basis of Maslow's theory of motivation is that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be addressed. Per the teachings of Abraham Maslow, the general needs (physiological, safety, love, and esteem) have to be fulfilled before a person is able to act unselfishly. He believed that once a lower level of need is fulfilled he seeks a higher level of need, and the lower level of need no longer motivates.
Friendship through inverted need pyramid
True friendship follows a inverted pyramid, wherein it provides self-actualization ahead of any other deficit need of a person. A true friend helps the other to realize his or her true intrinsic potential. He understands the capabilities of a person who could soar higher but needs support, and provides the needed encouragement and intellectual support to realize the full capability. In the good old days of school and college education, it was never unusual for the more endowed to help out the less brilliant classmate bridge the knowledge gaps. True friends also complement, synergizing each other’s strengths and helping each other overcome the respective weaknesses. Self-actualization in an ecosystem of friendship has been the foundation of many entrepreneurial journeys. While the stories of Microsoft and Sony friendship foundations are well known, there are examples in India too. In the South Indian movie industry, ace producer Nagi Reddy and creative writer Chakrapani were two friends who founded and nurtured the vast Vijaya production house.
True friendship seeks no esteem. There is perhaps no better description of esteem-free friendship than the friendship of Lord Krishna and the poor, humble Kuchela in the Indian mythology. A true friend never looks at his friends through a lens of esteem. Nor does he ever forget his humble origins or the friends of humble origins, as the case may be. In true friendship, material issues do not color or influence the approach towards each other. True friendship, as was known in earlier generations, was never viral; nor was it in the mode of mass socialization. The infectious friendship fever of today’s social network sites is an instantaneous enabler but lacks the core emotional connect of the yesteryears’ true and close friendship. Yet, there exist instances of instant social connectivity over Facebook and Twitter, which saved lives and promoted positive causes. Personal knowledge is not a sine qua non to help in friendly causes in these contemporary times.
That true friendship provides safety goes without saying. The assurance that friends provide often encourages talented and indigent people find their mark. The role of true friendship in looking after the needy in terms of their physiological needs is also remarkable. Sharing of what one has with the other provides pure joy to both the giver and receiver. Many movie moguls and business magnates passionately recall how the shelter and food provided by others provided sustenance and optimism to stay on in the pursuit of seemingly difficult goals. The ability to give a break to a friend in life is a vital characteristic of friendship. Instances abound of right introductions helping capable people achieve exceptional, yet highly deserved, transformations in life.
Friendship circles
Typically, friendship is an expanse of expanding and intersecting circles. One typically has in the outermost circle all the acquaintances. People feel obliged, rather than intrinsically motivated, to keep track of each other’s progress periodically. Many a time, they are connected through social networking sites, and the real emotions and the true vibes are never likely to be known. This may be called the acquaintance circle. The next inner circle is the circle of friends who have personally experienced the attributes of each other and had been part of life’s journeys in schools, colleges and professions. Typically, this circle is nurtured by a feeling of happiness with each other’s progress, and conversely unhappiness with any setbacks. This is the most visible form of friendship circle. The smallest circle, however, represents the core of close, lifelong and lifetime friends. Friends in this circle literally think and live for each other, with perfect alignment in intentions, thoughts, expressions and actions. One should be considered blessed if one has at least one friend in the lifetime friendship circle.
Ideally, the three circles should be concentric. This leads to an orderly development of friendship structures. Intuitively, introverts should have minimalist circles and extroverts expansive circles. However, in reality, an introvert could draw many extroverts into his fold, and vice versa. Also, friendship being a matter of heart and mind, and human heart and mind being capable of multiple emotions and intentions, it is possible for friends to be in multiple circles of multiple friends as they grow up in life, in any of the three circles. As one matures, however, life teaches that true friendship cannot be built on one dimension, and requires alignment on a number of human attributes, including values. The soft and sensitive attributes of pious, caring, compassionate, affectionate and positive living mark the ultimate definition of innermost lifetime friendship circle. It is an existence of sublime purity to discover the blissful joy of a blessed life.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 6, 2012
Need fulfillment is the key to one’s equanimity with life. Upbringing, education and experience teach one to seek needs, fulfill the needs and also to moderate them. The unpredictability and harshness of life, however, positions individuals to depend on his or her friends for need fulfillment. This could be as commonplace as material support, as appropriate as intellectual support, and as sublime as emotional support. The unbelievable growth of social networking points to the omniscience of friendship as a fundamental trigger of life. Not all needs can be easily and effectively fulfilled, however. Many times, they require extraordinary understanding, patience, persistence and courage. Need fulfillment by a true friend is, therefore, a selfless act that seeks no name or fame, and would even accept suffering and sacrifice. No wonder then that the old adage says that a friend in need is a friend indeed.
Maslow need hierarchy (or pyramid)
If need fulfillment is the basic foundation of friendship, one may be tempted to analyze the framework of human needs to examine the nexus between need fulfillment and friendship development. Amongst all the theories of needs, Abraham Maslow’s theory ranks high. In 1943, Abraham Maslow's article, “A Theory of Human Motivation” appeared in Psychological Review, proposing five basic sets of human needs, which were further expanded upon in his book, “Toward a Psychology of Being”. Abraham Maslow attempted to formulate a needs-based framework of human motivation and based upon his clinical experiences with humans, rather than prior psychology theories of his day from leaders in the field of psychology such as Freud and Skinner, which were largely theoretical or based upon animal behavior. Very quickly, Maslow’s need hierarchy became a major foundation of organizational motivation theories.
Maslow proposes the need hierarchy as comprising physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. This hierarchy is also proposed as a need pyramid with a large number of physiological needs serving as the base of the pyramid, and the self-actualization needs serving as the apex. Safety, social and esteem needs form the mid-tier needs. The basis of Maslow's theory of motivation is that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be addressed. Per the teachings of Abraham Maslow, the general needs (physiological, safety, love, and esteem) have to be fulfilled before a person is able to act unselfishly. He believed that once a lower level of need is fulfilled he seeks a higher level of need, and the lower level of need no longer motivates.
Friendship through inverted need pyramid
True friendship follows a inverted pyramid, wherein it provides self-actualization ahead of any other deficit need of a person. A true friend helps the other to realize his or her true intrinsic potential. He understands the capabilities of a person who could soar higher but needs support, and provides the needed encouragement and intellectual support to realize the full capability. In the good old days of school and college education, it was never unusual for the more endowed to help out the less brilliant classmate bridge the knowledge gaps. True friends also complement, synergizing each other’s strengths and helping each other overcome the respective weaknesses. Self-actualization in an ecosystem of friendship has been the foundation of many entrepreneurial journeys. While the stories of Microsoft and Sony friendship foundations are well known, there are examples in India too. In the South Indian movie industry, ace producer Nagi Reddy and creative writer Chakrapani were two friends who founded and nurtured the vast Vijaya production house.
True friendship seeks no esteem. There is perhaps no better description of esteem-free friendship than the friendship of Lord Krishna and the poor, humble Kuchela in the Indian mythology. A true friend never looks at his friends through a lens of esteem. Nor does he ever forget his humble origins or the friends of humble origins, as the case may be. In true friendship, material issues do not color or influence the approach towards each other. True friendship, as was known in earlier generations, was never viral; nor was it in the mode of mass socialization. The infectious friendship fever of today’s social network sites is an instantaneous enabler but lacks the core emotional connect of the yesteryears’ true and close friendship. Yet, there exist instances of instant social connectivity over Facebook and Twitter, which saved lives and promoted positive causes. Personal knowledge is not a sine qua non to help in friendly causes in these contemporary times.
That true friendship provides safety goes without saying. The assurance that friends provide often encourages talented and indigent people find their mark. The role of true friendship in looking after the needy in terms of their physiological needs is also remarkable. Sharing of what one has with the other provides pure joy to both the giver and receiver. Many movie moguls and business magnates passionately recall how the shelter and food provided by others provided sustenance and optimism to stay on in the pursuit of seemingly difficult goals. The ability to give a break to a friend in life is a vital characteristic of friendship. Instances abound of right introductions helping capable people achieve exceptional, yet highly deserved, transformations in life.
Friendship circles
Typically, friendship is an expanse of expanding and intersecting circles. One typically has in the outermost circle all the acquaintances. People feel obliged, rather than intrinsically motivated, to keep track of each other’s progress periodically. Many a time, they are connected through social networking sites, and the real emotions and the true vibes are never likely to be known. This may be called the acquaintance circle. The next inner circle is the circle of friends who have personally experienced the attributes of each other and had been part of life’s journeys in schools, colleges and professions. Typically, this circle is nurtured by a feeling of happiness with each other’s progress, and conversely unhappiness with any setbacks. This is the most visible form of friendship circle. The smallest circle, however, represents the core of close, lifelong and lifetime friends. Friends in this circle literally think and live for each other, with perfect alignment in intentions, thoughts, expressions and actions. One should be considered blessed if one has at least one friend in the lifetime friendship circle.
Ideally, the three circles should be concentric. This leads to an orderly development of friendship structures. Intuitively, introverts should have minimalist circles and extroverts expansive circles. However, in reality, an introvert could draw many extroverts into his fold, and vice versa. Also, friendship being a matter of heart and mind, and human heart and mind being capable of multiple emotions and intentions, it is possible for friends to be in multiple circles of multiple friends as they grow up in life, in any of the three circles. As one matures, however, life teaches that true friendship cannot be built on one dimension, and requires alignment on a number of human attributes, including values. The soft and sensitive attributes of pious, caring, compassionate, affectionate and positive living mark the ultimate definition of innermost lifetime friendship circle. It is an existence of sublime purity to discover the blissful joy of a blessed life.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 6, 2012
Random Monsoon and Sustainable Growth: Management of Power for Water
After a relatively long drought-free period, India is faced with the likelihood of a significantly deficient monsoon, if not a drought, this year. Coming on top of the slackening economic growth which is forecast to decline from a peak of around 9 percent reached in recent years to a current expectation of around 6 percent, the specter of drought is something which India could have lived without. In the past, declines in the initial month of June used to have been made up more than bountifully from the month of July. This time around, the deficit continues to be adverse even in the month of July, with the latest overall deficit forecast being placed at 15 percent by the India Meteorological Department. Not surprisingly, the common man and the businessman alike are worried about the likely impact of the truant monsoon on the economy.
Rains, the world over, have a significant impact in determining the quality of life; not merely for the farmers but also for the public at large, and the industries in particular. This is more so in emerging economies like India. The upstream and downstream linkages in terms of water for cultivation, drinking water, industrial water and electric power are substantial. While alternatives exist for generation of power, there is no alternative to water that is needed for irrigation, industrialization, drinking and household work. While groundwater serves to augment rain fed user needs, groundwater tables are highly dependent on copious rainfalls. Groundwater conservation and rainwater harvesting have helped in countering the rapid declines in groundwater tables but there has been no substitute for annual rainfall being timely and in adequate quantities for the health of the society and growth of the economy.
Forecasted, forewarned
The key to planning is forecasting. Despite the enormous technological development, prediction of monsoons is yet an imperfect science. The prediction of seasons is challenging mathematical modeling while prediction of seasonal or unseasonal rains is a proactive tracking science. More than that, in the context of global warming, the traditional seasons have been witness to unpredictable shifts, and the intensity of rainfall has been subject to much volatility. If the developed world has caused global warming, the developing world has borne its impact. Not recognizing the impact, however, the developing world has been following the earlier Western development path, with smoking factories and dated utilities, enhanced consumption of energy and reduction of green cover. Quite apart from a moderation of these trends, what is required is a robust globally integrated weather forecasting system, as opposed to India-specific weather tracking system.
The atmospheric and ecological variables that generate and influence the monsoons are far too many. While some of these such as natural solar heating, natural winter chilling, artificial atmospheric warming (real, man-induced!), draw of moisture from the seas, and other open water systems, soil conditions, plant conditions are visible they are so interactive, and are also so pervasive that they defy easy quantification. Over and above that, each severe weather phenomenon, be it a storm, cyclone, typhoon, hurricane or tornado modifies the cloud formation and travel, and accentuates or attenuates the monsoon seasonality and volatility. There is, therefore, a need for a concerted globally integrated research to identify appropriate primary and secondary variables and simulate predictive models. NASA and the US universities have invested, and continue to fund, millions of dollars to develop predictive models. In India, higher technological institutions (such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Indian Institutes of Technology through their specialized centers) conduct scores of projects to observe and conclude on these phenomena. The Indian Meteorological Department must explore how these scientific and technological initiatives can be better funded, better scoped, and better integrated to deliver more effective weather forecasts.
Declines, lagging growth
NASA has described the habitability criteria as “extended regions of liquid water, conditions favorable to the assembly of complex organic molecules and energy sources to sustain metabolism”. Clearly, monsoon and rainfall determines how habitats can form and sustain themselves. Yet, given that 70 percent of our planet is sea, and another 25 percent is either cold or hot deserts, and probably only 5 percent of the land is habitable, the rain-habitat nexus needs greater study. While 100 percent of rainfall occurs all over the planet, only 5 percent of the rainfall probably falls over the habitable region which has 100 percent of population. The need for rainfall to be adequate and predictable in habitable regions is self-evident. Yet, while the population has been doubling itself every four decades, especially in the larger and more populous countries such as China and India, the rainfall (or global precipitation) has at best been static, according to research studies. The need for the world to manage more of living with less of water is even more compellingly evident. It is, therefore, disturbing that all analysis of rainfall is carried out more in terms of historical trends rather than growth requirements.
Rainwater conservation and optimal utilization of water are the twin parameters of sustainable habitability expansion in future. The real challenge lies in retaining and harnessing the millions of cusecs of water that is showered in the catchment areas of rivers and their tributaries as well as the smaller rivulet and lake systems of the country. The largest dam in India is the Indira Sagar Dam in India which has a capacity of 12.22 billion cubic meters. In contrast, the Three Gorges dam in China has a capacity of 39.3 billion cubic meters! Before 1949, there were only 22 dams of any significant size in China. But now China has more than half of the almost 50,000 dams in the world that are classified as "large" because they have a height of at least 15 m or a storage capacity of more than 3 million cubic meters. In contrast, India has less than 2000 large dams today, though it had probably 300 of them (15 times more than in China) in 1947! Evidently, India has had a large lag in dam construction vis-à-vis China, and with a renewed determination of the governments, hopefully has still a huge unexplored potential, given the saying that India is a land of rivers. Not that dams do not come with their formidable financial and human costs and the tragedy and trauma of human resettlement. The benefits probably outweigh the costs to a significant measure, if the human elements and ecological protection are taken care of. The dependence on water in dams should not lead to any slackening of use of water in irrigation, industries and living. Given that 70 percent of fresh water usage is for irrigation purposes, low-water irrigation is a model that India needs to vigorously pursue. Israel is a role model in this context. Israel’s agricultural sector turned out a sustained growth in agricultural production based on close cooperation of scientists, farmers and agriculture-related industries. Israel has developed advanced agricultural technology, water-conserving irrigation methods, anaerobic digestion, desert agriculture and salinity research. Greenhouse technology ensures instant, year-round supply of high quality produce, while overcoming the obstacles posed by adverse climatic conditions, and water and land shortages. Technologies include computerized greenhouse climate control, greenhouse shading, drip irrigation, fertigation, water recycling, and biological control of plant disease and insects. Control of production parameters and titration of water use is the primary strategy.
For other industrial uses, several measures such as substitution of water cooling by air cooling, reduction in use of water for cleaning without compromise to quality, use of dry methods and delivery systems in water intensive industries, and water-efficient industrial processes (for example, low solvent manufacture of bulk drugs and low coolant usage for metal cutting) support water conservation. Metered usage of water, and evaluation against best practice requirements should be part of performance management of any industrial operation. Researchers in such industries must also aim at water efficiency in product and process development. For domestic, commercial and public uses, municipal utilities must aim at supply and regulation of high quality water to ensure public health. It is possible to conserve rain water in urban habitats with determination. In Tamil Nadu, mandatory rainwater harvesting in urban dwellings has resulted in a 50 percent increase in groundwater table. This strategy and achievement is a role model for other parts of the nation, and individual dwelling units. In India, this needs to be supplemented by enhanced availability of water for sanitation. The efforts by Bill Gates Foundation and others in this area must be supported and supplemented by the governments.
Power for water
India has nearly 20 percent of its total power requirement drawn from hydro-power. While hydro-power is an optimal solution when rainfall is copious, it risks both agriculture and industry in drought years. In fact, the power cuts routinely applied in India in summer months is solely related to the drop in hydro-power generation in water-starved summer months. India would do well to enhance its share of safe nuclear and clean thermal power, leaving water to largely its irrigation course. Hydropower in such instance would be the bonus and insurance. India’s total installed power generation capacity is reportedly 205 gigawatts (GW) while the expensive captive back-up generation capacity is another 60 GW (about 30 percent). The power blackouts that have happened in most parts of the Northern India on July 30 and 31, affecting over 670 million people in total for about 22 hours, are indicative of the urgent need for a steep increase in power generation capacity in India. However, in the new strategy, rather than depend on conventional hydropower generation as an adjunct newer and innovative methods have to be explored.
Given India’s long coastline of around 7500 kms there is a significant scope to pursue tidal and wave power projects and reduce the dependence on rain water power generation. Researchers believe that there exists enormous potential for non-conventional hydroelectricity generation from tidal and wave projects, as well as from small in-stream projects that will not require new dams. Thus far, few of these hydrokinetic projects have reportedly been realized. France’s La Rance Tidal Barrage, with a 240-megawatt maximum capacity, was the first large tidal power plant. It began generating power in 1966, and is still operating today. In South Korea, a 254-megawatt project was completed in August 2011. Now the world’s largest tidal operation, it has the capacity to provide electricity for half a million people on the country’s west coast. New Zealand also recently approved a coastal hydropower project. Wave power is also drawing the attention of both engineers and investors. Firms in France, Scotland, and Sweden, among other countries, are working to capture this emerging market. Estimates from the World Energy Council indicate that worldwide, wave energy has the potential to grow to a massive 10,000 gigawatts, more than double the world’s electricity-generating capacity from all sources today. India can take the lead and demonstrate how innovative hydro-kinetic (wave and tidel) power generation can conserve scarce rain water for the more important uses, including building an insurance for other non-power uses, and in any case, conserving water in the scarce months.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 5, 2012
Rains, the world over, have a significant impact in determining the quality of life; not merely for the farmers but also for the public at large, and the industries in particular. This is more so in emerging economies like India. The upstream and downstream linkages in terms of water for cultivation, drinking water, industrial water and electric power are substantial. While alternatives exist for generation of power, there is no alternative to water that is needed for irrigation, industrialization, drinking and household work. While groundwater serves to augment rain fed user needs, groundwater tables are highly dependent on copious rainfalls. Groundwater conservation and rainwater harvesting have helped in countering the rapid declines in groundwater tables but there has been no substitute for annual rainfall being timely and in adequate quantities for the health of the society and growth of the economy.
Forecasted, forewarned
The key to planning is forecasting. Despite the enormous technological development, prediction of monsoons is yet an imperfect science. The prediction of seasons is challenging mathematical modeling while prediction of seasonal or unseasonal rains is a proactive tracking science. More than that, in the context of global warming, the traditional seasons have been witness to unpredictable shifts, and the intensity of rainfall has been subject to much volatility. If the developed world has caused global warming, the developing world has borne its impact. Not recognizing the impact, however, the developing world has been following the earlier Western development path, with smoking factories and dated utilities, enhanced consumption of energy and reduction of green cover. Quite apart from a moderation of these trends, what is required is a robust globally integrated weather forecasting system, as opposed to India-specific weather tracking system.
The atmospheric and ecological variables that generate and influence the monsoons are far too many. While some of these such as natural solar heating, natural winter chilling, artificial atmospheric warming (real, man-induced!), draw of moisture from the seas, and other open water systems, soil conditions, plant conditions are visible they are so interactive, and are also so pervasive that they defy easy quantification. Over and above that, each severe weather phenomenon, be it a storm, cyclone, typhoon, hurricane or tornado modifies the cloud formation and travel, and accentuates or attenuates the monsoon seasonality and volatility. There is, therefore, a need for a concerted globally integrated research to identify appropriate primary and secondary variables and simulate predictive models. NASA and the US universities have invested, and continue to fund, millions of dollars to develop predictive models. In India, higher technological institutions (such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Indian Institutes of Technology through their specialized centers) conduct scores of projects to observe and conclude on these phenomena. The Indian Meteorological Department must explore how these scientific and technological initiatives can be better funded, better scoped, and better integrated to deliver more effective weather forecasts.
Declines, lagging growth
NASA has described the habitability criteria as “extended regions of liquid water, conditions favorable to the assembly of complex organic molecules and energy sources to sustain metabolism”. Clearly, monsoon and rainfall determines how habitats can form and sustain themselves. Yet, given that 70 percent of our planet is sea, and another 25 percent is either cold or hot deserts, and probably only 5 percent of the land is habitable, the rain-habitat nexus needs greater study. While 100 percent of rainfall occurs all over the planet, only 5 percent of the rainfall probably falls over the habitable region which has 100 percent of population. The need for rainfall to be adequate and predictable in habitable regions is self-evident. Yet, while the population has been doubling itself every four decades, especially in the larger and more populous countries such as China and India, the rainfall (or global precipitation) has at best been static, according to research studies. The need for the world to manage more of living with less of water is even more compellingly evident. It is, therefore, disturbing that all analysis of rainfall is carried out more in terms of historical trends rather than growth requirements.
Rainwater conservation and optimal utilization of water are the twin parameters of sustainable habitability expansion in future. The real challenge lies in retaining and harnessing the millions of cusecs of water that is showered in the catchment areas of rivers and their tributaries as well as the smaller rivulet and lake systems of the country. The largest dam in India is the Indira Sagar Dam in India which has a capacity of 12.22 billion cubic meters. In contrast, the Three Gorges dam in China has a capacity of 39.3 billion cubic meters! Before 1949, there were only 22 dams of any significant size in China. But now China has more than half of the almost 50,000 dams in the world that are classified as "large" because they have a height of at least 15 m or a storage capacity of more than 3 million cubic meters. In contrast, India has less than 2000 large dams today, though it had probably 300 of them (15 times more than in China) in 1947! Evidently, India has had a large lag in dam construction vis-à-vis China, and with a renewed determination of the governments, hopefully has still a huge unexplored potential, given the saying that India is a land of rivers. Not that dams do not come with their formidable financial and human costs and the tragedy and trauma of human resettlement. The benefits probably outweigh the costs to a significant measure, if the human elements and ecological protection are taken care of. The dependence on water in dams should not lead to any slackening of use of water in irrigation, industries and living. Given that 70 percent of fresh water usage is for irrigation purposes, low-water irrigation is a model that India needs to vigorously pursue. Israel is a role model in this context. Israel’s agricultural sector turned out a sustained growth in agricultural production based on close cooperation of scientists, farmers and agriculture-related industries. Israel has developed advanced agricultural technology, water-conserving irrigation methods, anaerobic digestion, desert agriculture and salinity research. Greenhouse technology ensures instant, year-round supply of high quality produce, while overcoming the obstacles posed by adverse climatic conditions, and water and land shortages. Technologies include computerized greenhouse climate control, greenhouse shading, drip irrigation, fertigation, water recycling, and biological control of plant disease and insects. Control of production parameters and titration of water use is the primary strategy.
For other industrial uses, several measures such as substitution of water cooling by air cooling, reduction in use of water for cleaning without compromise to quality, use of dry methods and delivery systems in water intensive industries, and water-efficient industrial processes (for example, low solvent manufacture of bulk drugs and low coolant usage for metal cutting) support water conservation. Metered usage of water, and evaluation against best practice requirements should be part of performance management of any industrial operation. Researchers in such industries must also aim at water efficiency in product and process development. For domestic, commercial and public uses, municipal utilities must aim at supply and regulation of high quality water to ensure public health. It is possible to conserve rain water in urban habitats with determination. In Tamil Nadu, mandatory rainwater harvesting in urban dwellings has resulted in a 50 percent increase in groundwater table. This strategy and achievement is a role model for other parts of the nation, and individual dwelling units. In India, this needs to be supplemented by enhanced availability of water for sanitation. The efforts by Bill Gates Foundation and others in this area must be supported and supplemented by the governments.
Power for water
India has nearly 20 percent of its total power requirement drawn from hydro-power. While hydro-power is an optimal solution when rainfall is copious, it risks both agriculture and industry in drought years. In fact, the power cuts routinely applied in India in summer months is solely related to the drop in hydro-power generation in water-starved summer months. India would do well to enhance its share of safe nuclear and clean thermal power, leaving water to largely its irrigation course. Hydropower in such instance would be the bonus and insurance. India’s total installed power generation capacity is reportedly 205 gigawatts (GW) while the expensive captive back-up generation capacity is another 60 GW (about 30 percent). The power blackouts that have happened in most parts of the Northern India on July 30 and 31, affecting over 670 million people in total for about 22 hours, are indicative of the urgent need for a steep increase in power generation capacity in India. However, in the new strategy, rather than depend on conventional hydropower generation as an adjunct newer and innovative methods have to be explored.
Given India’s long coastline of around 7500 kms there is a significant scope to pursue tidal and wave power projects and reduce the dependence on rain water power generation. Researchers believe that there exists enormous potential for non-conventional hydroelectricity generation from tidal and wave projects, as well as from small in-stream projects that will not require new dams. Thus far, few of these hydrokinetic projects have reportedly been realized. France’s La Rance Tidal Barrage, with a 240-megawatt maximum capacity, was the first large tidal power plant. It began generating power in 1966, and is still operating today. In South Korea, a 254-megawatt project was completed in August 2011. Now the world’s largest tidal operation, it has the capacity to provide electricity for half a million people on the country’s west coast. New Zealand also recently approved a coastal hydropower project. Wave power is also drawing the attention of both engineers and investors. Firms in France, Scotland, and Sweden, among other countries, are working to capture this emerging market. Estimates from the World Energy Council indicate that worldwide, wave energy has the potential to grow to a massive 10,000 gigawatts, more than double the world’s electricity-generating capacity from all sources today. India can take the lead and demonstrate how innovative hydro-kinetic (wave and tidel) power generation can conserve scarce rain water for the more important uses, including building an insurance for other non-power uses, and in any case, conserving water in the scarce months.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 5, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Management of Loneliness: The Successful Leader’s First and Last Frontier
Leaders are those at the apex of an organization or a movement. Leaders lead, transform and manage their organizations and movements to achieve national wealth or national good, as the case may be. We have probably several thousands of leaders who brought corporations to great heights, from humble beginnings, either as professional leaders or entrepreneurial leaders. Similarly, we have several hundreds of leaders who inspired and led several social, religious, political and national movements. While corporate leadership tends to be a singularly recognized effort, leaders do need teams to strategize, execute and deliver results. Even leadership of movements of whatever nature requires a close group of stalwarts on whom the leader relies on to create the organizational vehicles, channel mass energy, manage controlled behavior and finally deliver results. Just as leadership is indispensable for directed and inspired growth, leadership team is indispensable for structured and focused delivery.
The leader and the leadership team share a unique thesis of oneness and collaboration, and yet a disturbing antithesis of divergence and conflict. The history of corporations as well as movements clearly points out to the essential feature of leadership. Several corporations lose their path of growth and talent excellence even after spirited unison of leadership teams because resonance of shared vision is diluted by dissonance of individual ambitions, of either the leader or the leadership team members. Several national movements fail to consolidate the harnessed energy of the masses once a major milestone is achieved because the leader and the team members become occupied with supra-national and sub-national considerations respectively. Leaders and the leadership teams would never want their goals and successes defeated by their own goals and successes, but ironically that seems to be a reality that the universal history teaches us.
Lonely at the top
It is often said that it is lonely at the top. It is certainly true of leaders who are at the apex positions in the organizations. While they may have closely aligned leaders at the helm of functions, business units or regions, the inner motivations as well as the intrinsic challenges are never shared with anyone. The several biographies of corporate chieftains reveal how both the types of corporate leaders, the effusive ones as well as the reclusive ones, had aspirations and agendas that had to remain embedded within them, at least partially. Interestingly, it appears as if this is not so true in the case of leaders of movements. This is attributed to the fact that movements typically require their leaders to maintain mass contact to sustain energy and support. On a closer review it would emerge that even the leaders of movements tend to be lonely, unable to share their inner visions and turmoil with their close followers. The reasons for loneliness at the top have, therefore, merited much analysis and discussion. And much of this would also be applicable, in some form or the other, to leaders of strategic business units, heads of global functions or regional heads working with the global apex leaders.
In a recent article, Harvard Business Review summarized how lonely it would be as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a corporation. Echoing what every leader felt, it also said such a feeling could be especially unsettling for new leaders. More troubling is the finding that 60 to 70 percent of the CEOs find such isolation affecting their performance adversely. As leaders move up the hierarchical ladder, they have fewer touch points within the organization with staff at senior and junior levels, and in spread out locations. This distancing becomes especially true in rapidly grown start-ups. The leaders thus get drawn into a vicious cycle where it is easy to lose touch with reality. In professionally managed organizations, this risk is ostensibly somewhat mitigated, but is never eliminated as direct reports often nurture strong business unit, functional or regional perspectives with overlays of aspirations on getting to the top position based on performance differential of the respective businesses, functions or regions. Within the alignment at the top, this induces a level of latent misalignment. Leading management institutes such as Harvard, Stanford and Wharton are therefore involved in strategic management research in this important area.
Pro-dotes to loneliness
Leadership loneliness has a strong organizational logic. The CEO is charged with the responsibility of fulfilling multiple stakeholder needs, including those of investors, employees and communities. Typically, that responsibility is fulfilled through being unbiased and proactive and leading growth oriented strategies and execution, creating wealth for all the stakeholders. This requires that the CEO is equi-positioned and equi-distanced with all business units, functions and regions, deciding on inter se priorities in an objective and clinical manner. This requires that the CEO is not seen as being close to either high-performing reports or protective of low-performing reports. Much as the CEO knows that today’s stars could turn into tomorrow’s laggards, and today’s losers could be transformed as tomorrow’s winners, the dynamics of organizational visibility makes the leader maintain an equidistant position within his or her leadership team.
The other cause of loneliness is the bet on the future of his organization that the CEO, and the CEO alone, can take. While there could be in the contemporary organizations a host of departments and consultants to analyze, chart and script future options, it is typically the CEO who needs to exercise his judgment based on intrinsic intuition, experience and expertise as well as extrinsic empathy, sensitivity and responsibility. The decisions a CEO takes are, therefore, not always the ones his leadership team appreciates, individually or collectively at times. This adds to loneliness at the top. Many times, it is assumed that the board of directors helps a CEO overcome the loneliness with its sage counsel and shared vision. While such a proposition is true, the very same considerations that influence the CEO to be equidistant with his team members typically also cause the boards to exercise independence and objectivity of equidistance and equal diversity.
Antidotes to loneliness
Contemporary management thought suggests several ways to reduce the loneliness at the top. Some of these could be options to convert the disadvantage of loneliness of the apex position into an advantage of organizational transformation. Probably, the first and foremost is the recommendation for a CEO to connect with other CEO peers and like-minded leaders through appropriate national or global business forums. Interaction in such forums not only leads to sharing of mutual knowledge but also enables benchmarking of his organization in a broader environment. In India, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is a perfect forum for that. The second approach would be to build an aligned, trusted and trustworthy leadership team which not only assures him of collaboration but also inspires positivity across the organization. The third approach would be to connect and network with the corporation’s ecosystem as much as possible. Regardless of the functional or business specialization one comes from, the CEO could benefit from connecting with all the internal and external stakeholders, employees and customers being the primary respective ones periodically. Annual dealer conferences, supplier meets and employee get-togethers could be a great way to accomplish that. I had, in recent times, at firsthand, a remarkable example of a global leader spreading positive vibes and boundless energy across the organization through networking by various means. The same leader demonstrates how nurturing and leveraging the charismatic side of one’s leadership personality could eliminate loneliness not only at the top but across the entire employee team.
Notwithstanding the equidistance characteristics of the Board of Directors, the Board could be a great instrument of togetherness for a CEO. The value the Board brings as a springboard to support the CEO passions and to evaluate the strategic options developed by the CEO could be immense. By building a Board whose members represent multi- industry, multi-regional and multi-cultural expertise, and engaging the Board in formal and informal meetings beyond the needs and requirements of corporate law and governance, the CEO would be able to fend off the top level loneliness syndrome. Some literature also suggests having an industry veteran, management guru or leadership philosopher as a coach or mentor, especially for the first-time CEOs, entrepreneurial CEOs who grew their organizations rapidly and to CEOs who are required to take complex and painful decisions. The later class of coaches also help the leaders overcome their frailties if any, resolve the conflicts that are inevitable and explore the latent strengths for the common good. Balancing professional and personal life as well as harmonizing business and social responsibilities are two other powerful ways to reduce, if not eliminate, the top level loneliness.
Success mantra
Apex leadership has in its control, by and large, the greatest antidote to loneliness. Success of the corporation or the entity the CEO heads, or articulating the pathway to success, is the most effective way to inspire, and interact with, the larger organization. Great leaders who prime success are unlikely to be lonely as they share their success with the teams and followers. Great leaders also do successful things with, rather than without, the followers; they typically invite and motivate, rather than force and control the teams on the journey - as a result they are unlikely to be lonely. Great leaders grow the businesses continuously with their reports, ensuring that there is always room at the top for capable and successful potential leaders. Great leaders also do not let success become the barrier between them and the broader organization; they are always humble and curious, and continuously find ways and means to stay connected and inspire as well as get inspired by the rest of the organization. And finally -this is the most difficult part - great leaders display focus and courage unequivocally and take gutsy but calculated risks for their organizations and own up for the executing teams, while ensuring high level of competency and commitment in the organization.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 29, 2012
The leader and the leadership team share a unique thesis of oneness and collaboration, and yet a disturbing antithesis of divergence and conflict. The history of corporations as well as movements clearly points out to the essential feature of leadership. Several corporations lose their path of growth and talent excellence even after spirited unison of leadership teams because resonance of shared vision is diluted by dissonance of individual ambitions, of either the leader or the leadership team members. Several national movements fail to consolidate the harnessed energy of the masses once a major milestone is achieved because the leader and the team members become occupied with supra-national and sub-national considerations respectively. Leaders and the leadership teams would never want their goals and successes defeated by their own goals and successes, but ironically that seems to be a reality that the universal history teaches us.
Lonely at the top
It is often said that it is lonely at the top. It is certainly true of leaders who are at the apex positions in the organizations. While they may have closely aligned leaders at the helm of functions, business units or regions, the inner motivations as well as the intrinsic challenges are never shared with anyone. The several biographies of corporate chieftains reveal how both the types of corporate leaders, the effusive ones as well as the reclusive ones, had aspirations and agendas that had to remain embedded within them, at least partially. Interestingly, it appears as if this is not so true in the case of leaders of movements. This is attributed to the fact that movements typically require their leaders to maintain mass contact to sustain energy and support. On a closer review it would emerge that even the leaders of movements tend to be lonely, unable to share their inner visions and turmoil with their close followers. The reasons for loneliness at the top have, therefore, merited much analysis and discussion. And much of this would also be applicable, in some form or the other, to leaders of strategic business units, heads of global functions or regional heads working with the global apex leaders.
In a recent article, Harvard Business Review summarized how lonely it would be as a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a corporation. Echoing what every leader felt, it also said such a feeling could be especially unsettling for new leaders. More troubling is the finding that 60 to 70 percent of the CEOs find such isolation affecting their performance adversely. As leaders move up the hierarchical ladder, they have fewer touch points within the organization with staff at senior and junior levels, and in spread out locations. This distancing becomes especially true in rapidly grown start-ups. The leaders thus get drawn into a vicious cycle where it is easy to lose touch with reality. In professionally managed organizations, this risk is ostensibly somewhat mitigated, but is never eliminated as direct reports often nurture strong business unit, functional or regional perspectives with overlays of aspirations on getting to the top position based on performance differential of the respective businesses, functions or regions. Within the alignment at the top, this induces a level of latent misalignment. Leading management institutes such as Harvard, Stanford and Wharton are therefore involved in strategic management research in this important area.
Pro-dotes to loneliness
Leadership loneliness has a strong organizational logic. The CEO is charged with the responsibility of fulfilling multiple stakeholder needs, including those of investors, employees and communities. Typically, that responsibility is fulfilled through being unbiased and proactive and leading growth oriented strategies and execution, creating wealth for all the stakeholders. This requires that the CEO is equi-positioned and equi-distanced with all business units, functions and regions, deciding on inter se priorities in an objective and clinical manner. This requires that the CEO is not seen as being close to either high-performing reports or protective of low-performing reports. Much as the CEO knows that today’s stars could turn into tomorrow’s laggards, and today’s losers could be transformed as tomorrow’s winners, the dynamics of organizational visibility makes the leader maintain an equidistant position within his or her leadership team.
The other cause of loneliness is the bet on the future of his organization that the CEO, and the CEO alone, can take. While there could be in the contemporary organizations a host of departments and consultants to analyze, chart and script future options, it is typically the CEO who needs to exercise his judgment based on intrinsic intuition, experience and expertise as well as extrinsic empathy, sensitivity and responsibility. The decisions a CEO takes are, therefore, not always the ones his leadership team appreciates, individually or collectively at times. This adds to loneliness at the top. Many times, it is assumed that the board of directors helps a CEO overcome the loneliness with its sage counsel and shared vision. While such a proposition is true, the very same considerations that influence the CEO to be equidistant with his team members typically also cause the boards to exercise independence and objectivity of equidistance and equal diversity.
Antidotes to loneliness
Contemporary management thought suggests several ways to reduce the loneliness at the top. Some of these could be options to convert the disadvantage of loneliness of the apex position into an advantage of organizational transformation. Probably, the first and foremost is the recommendation for a CEO to connect with other CEO peers and like-minded leaders through appropriate national or global business forums. Interaction in such forums not only leads to sharing of mutual knowledge but also enables benchmarking of his organization in a broader environment. In India, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is a perfect forum for that. The second approach would be to build an aligned, trusted and trustworthy leadership team which not only assures him of collaboration but also inspires positivity across the organization. The third approach would be to connect and network with the corporation’s ecosystem as much as possible. Regardless of the functional or business specialization one comes from, the CEO could benefit from connecting with all the internal and external stakeholders, employees and customers being the primary respective ones periodically. Annual dealer conferences, supplier meets and employee get-togethers could be a great way to accomplish that. I had, in recent times, at firsthand, a remarkable example of a global leader spreading positive vibes and boundless energy across the organization through networking by various means. The same leader demonstrates how nurturing and leveraging the charismatic side of one’s leadership personality could eliminate loneliness not only at the top but across the entire employee team.
Notwithstanding the equidistance characteristics of the Board of Directors, the Board could be a great instrument of togetherness for a CEO. The value the Board brings as a springboard to support the CEO passions and to evaluate the strategic options developed by the CEO could be immense. By building a Board whose members represent multi- industry, multi-regional and multi-cultural expertise, and engaging the Board in formal and informal meetings beyond the needs and requirements of corporate law and governance, the CEO would be able to fend off the top level loneliness syndrome. Some literature also suggests having an industry veteran, management guru or leadership philosopher as a coach or mentor, especially for the first-time CEOs, entrepreneurial CEOs who grew their organizations rapidly and to CEOs who are required to take complex and painful decisions. The later class of coaches also help the leaders overcome their frailties if any, resolve the conflicts that are inevitable and explore the latent strengths for the common good. Balancing professional and personal life as well as harmonizing business and social responsibilities are two other powerful ways to reduce, if not eliminate, the top level loneliness.
Success mantra
Apex leadership has in its control, by and large, the greatest antidote to loneliness. Success of the corporation or the entity the CEO heads, or articulating the pathway to success, is the most effective way to inspire, and interact with, the larger organization. Great leaders who prime success are unlikely to be lonely as they share their success with the teams and followers. Great leaders also do successful things with, rather than without, the followers; they typically invite and motivate, rather than force and control the teams on the journey - as a result they are unlikely to be lonely. Great leaders grow the businesses continuously with their reports, ensuring that there is always room at the top for capable and successful potential leaders. Great leaders also do not let success become the barrier between them and the broader organization; they are always humble and curious, and continuously find ways and means to stay connected and inspire as well as get inspired by the rest of the organization. And finally -this is the most difficult part - great leaders display focus and courage unequivocally and take gutsy but calculated risks for their organizations and own up for the executing teams, while ensuring high level of competency and commitment in the organization.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 29, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Specification Envelopes and Industry Frontiers: The New Drivers for Business Unbounded
For several decades, the products to make and the markets to serve have been the bedrock of all strategic plans. Strategic decisions of integration and diversification have, for long, been triggered or supported by individual product-market decisions. Four megatrends have, of late, been queering the pitch for simplistic product-market analysis, and conventional strategic planning. These are: enhanced level of competition marked by expanding number of entrants, rapidly saturating markets, exponentially evolving technologies and increasing desire of customers for differentiation. These four megatrends have rendered conventional methods of strategic planning, and functional cascading of strategies inefficient and ineffective, relative to the futuristic competitive requirements. This is mainly because of the structural rigidity and financial conservatism that drive most strategic planning processes, despite the desire of the firms to practice game changing theorems.
The conventional strategic planning is, in many ways, dictated by the state of a firm’s evolution in terms of the maturity and competitiveness of its core functions, and the visionary drive in the apex and functional leadership. More often than not, however, individual functional brilliance cannot by itself drive strategic brilliance in terms of handling the megatrends. It verily requires a corporate culture which always looks for the first opportunity to proactively raise barriers to entry, the next boundary to expand the markets, the likely future of technological innovation and the eagerness to serve its customers in a differentiated manner. These four capabilities together are the new competencies required of a firm to successfully ride the megatrends. As with everything, actions of the individual firms that are aimed at managing the megatrends constitute also the industry maturity, dictating in turn newer strategic actions to handle the megatrends more successfully.
Obsolescence redefined
The conventional strategist made his strategic choices on two fundamental parameters of obsolescence and innovation; both of these typically being the same side of the coin. An essential question for the new age strategist is whether the concept of obsolescence exists any longer. The question may appear counterintuitive but is very relevant given that the fundamental ways in which most products serve their customers have not changed. For example, a pen continues to be a writing instrument to capture one’s thoughts, a suitcase continues to be the travel companion to hold personal effects, a house continues to be a dwelling unit to provide shelter, an automobile continues to be a mover of people and cargo, a boiler continues to generate steam and a television continues to broadcast images. There can be scores of such examples that establish that nothing has indeed changed in fundamental product drivers. On the other hand, several products that are expected to become obsolete have made a strong comeback, be it a radio, watch or camera, each of which continues to fulfill the original purpose of invention.
One way to address the apparent enigma is to postulate that products may become obsolete but human needs will never. As long as a human being is governed by the five fundamental sensory attributes (see, hear, touch, taste and smell, that trigger human experiences) and certain gross and fine motor skills (such as movement and coordination that need to be enhanced or utilized) all product development will continue to cater to these fundamental human attributes and skills, satisfying as well as leveraging them in an increasing measure. As new technologies get developed and integrated into product design and manufacture, the way the products fulfill the human needs becomes more evolved. At an extreme, new technologies would mimic the fundamental human attributes and skills to achieve certain fundamental shift in the manner how humans would put their faculties to use. Pilotless planes, driverless cars, robotic surgical knives, and completely automated factories are some examples.
Specification envelopes
Working from the previous postulate, the follow-up question is whether the industry boundaries are changing or whether the product specifications are getting merely upgraded or expanded, all the while seeking to meet the established needs individually or in combinations. The answer to the question is a clear positive, whichever way the product-need combinations are analyzed. A watch whose goal at one time was merely to provide current time through mechanical movements has undergone tremendous change in specifications to include battery and solar drives, dual and multiple time zones, and chronograph and compass to achieve enhanced functionality. With newer materials and precious metals incorporated, the watch has also moved from being a functional accessory to becoming an accessory of esteem and prestige. Similar analysis can be made of any product which, while fulfilling several of the previously individualized needs in contemporary combinations, have also become lifestyle statements of human, business or industrial life.
It would appear, therefore, that a concept of ‘specification envelope’ is a well- validated hypothesis of what drives industry evolution and corporate strategy. The more are the technologies integrated in a product the more would be the customer needs that can be catered to in combination. The larger the specification envelope of a product or a firm, the greater would be the capability to serve the customers better (both in terms of sharpness and diversity), the ability to deepen and expand markets and, as a consequence, drive up scale and scope of the business for a firm. There is one pitfall, however, in assuming that determination of the right specification envelope (many times assumed to be simply a larger envelope) would be a surrogate for the right industry to operate in. This is because consumer needs are no longer fulfilled as a point of use; these are fulfilled as part of a systemic transformation of the paradigm of need fulfillment for better consumer satisfaction on one hand and better business efficiency on the other.
Industry frontiers
The typical firm is now required to take the concept of specification envelope as a given essential. The firm, however, is also required to constantly redefine the industry in which the firm should seek to operate. This strategic decision is larger than the strategic decision of product upgradation, market segmentation or market aggregation, typically addressed by the specification envelope concept. This strategic decision is also larger than the strategic decision of which businesses to operate in and how to operate, typically addressed by integration or diversification analysis. Rather, the question is whether the strategist would need to be constrained (or empowered) by his or hers firm’s functional or cultural thought processes so much so that he or she fails (or, succeeds) to recognize the megatrends. The answer to this lies in the firm viewing need fulfillment as an ecosystem phenomenon rather than as a customer-firm transaction. Megatrends, typically, overwhelm the firms when they spread across a social, industrial or economic system. The conventional view of strategy that it should be confined within the well-defined boundary of the industry needs to be challenged at least annually by the chief executive officers, functional leaders and strategic heads.
It is quite possible that multiple firms could view the same industry from different perspectives. Becton Dickinson (BD), the world leader in syringes, needles and insulin pen micro needles has thought it fit to remain as a component and an accessories player for injectable drugs, more so for specialized and increasingly popular insulin pens. BD has never thought it appropriate to move into the sourcing, manufacture or marketing of insulins. On the other hand, Novo Nordisk (NN), the world leader in injectable insulin drugs has thought it appropriate to have its own insulin pens and needles. Neither BD nor NN has deemed it appropriate to be in the business of diabetes diagnosis or blood sugar measurement devices, which is left to the likes of Johnson & Johnson (J&J). In the context of the topic of industry definition being discussed in this blog post, the issue is not how the industry to operate is defined by firms. In this case, the industry to operate in is defined in three different ways by the three leading firms, although anchored around in one area of diabetes management. The submission of this blog post is that such industry definitions miss the megatrend that could be emerging in total diabetes management, from genetic marking and stem cell treatment to day to day diabetes diagnosis and management by all ways that are possible. As a start, the phrase ‘industry boundary’ would need to be replaced by the phrase ‘industry frontier’.
Business unbounded
Once the human needs are viewed from a systemic perspective, it becomes easy to appreciate that the traditional industry boundaries are resultants of tunnel vision and structured strategies laboring under the constraints of past capabilities. On the other hand, a systemic view unleashes the imagination to seek new frontiers of industry, and eventually an industry and a business that are unbounded. The current wave of integrating computing devices, communication devices, cloud storage, cloud computing, application development and social networking is a vivid example of how several industries hitherto seen to be different are brought under one mega industry of seamless computing, connectivity, communication, entertainment and socialization. From education to employment, many others also get added to the paradigm. As a result of taking such an approach, Apple has been able to gain distinct competitive lead in the journey of unbounded business. And, a few others including Microsoft are seeking to share such competitive lead. In this journey of unbounded business, what were once supportive or unrelated technologies tend to become related, and even core technologies as firms move forward on their “business unbounded” mission.
The potential for the concept of business unbounded is simply enormous. A seemingly worrisome threat of saturated market can be converted into unbounded business potentialities by firms. For example, L&T which is a construction giant of India executing all types of infrastructural projects, from highways to metro rails, and from residential townships to industrial parks can discover unbounded business through an innovative goal of building integrated intelligent cities of the future. In the ultimate analysis, all mega corporations would have only one goal – that of serving life. It is no wonder, therefore, that Toyota sees as much future in building intelligent and ecologically friendly homes as in maintaining its global leadership in automobiles, the latter increasingly through environmentally friendly electric and hybrid vehicles. Similarly, Samsung could be foreseeing a merger of all of its electronic device and chip technologies with healthcare, among others, leading to an apparently surprising foray by the firm into biologic drugs. While all firms may not be able to pursue exotic frontiers dedicated to total life management, virtually all firms can discover huge untapped potentialities in the domains and markets they serve by opting to drive for specification envelopes than getting limited by specification updates, and more fundamentally by seeking to pursue broader industry frontiers than getting constrained by established industry boundaries.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 15, 2012
The conventional strategic planning is, in many ways, dictated by the state of a firm’s evolution in terms of the maturity and competitiveness of its core functions, and the visionary drive in the apex and functional leadership. More often than not, however, individual functional brilliance cannot by itself drive strategic brilliance in terms of handling the megatrends. It verily requires a corporate culture which always looks for the first opportunity to proactively raise barriers to entry, the next boundary to expand the markets, the likely future of technological innovation and the eagerness to serve its customers in a differentiated manner. These four capabilities together are the new competencies required of a firm to successfully ride the megatrends. As with everything, actions of the individual firms that are aimed at managing the megatrends constitute also the industry maturity, dictating in turn newer strategic actions to handle the megatrends more successfully.
Obsolescence redefined
The conventional strategist made his strategic choices on two fundamental parameters of obsolescence and innovation; both of these typically being the same side of the coin. An essential question for the new age strategist is whether the concept of obsolescence exists any longer. The question may appear counterintuitive but is very relevant given that the fundamental ways in which most products serve their customers have not changed. For example, a pen continues to be a writing instrument to capture one’s thoughts, a suitcase continues to be the travel companion to hold personal effects, a house continues to be a dwelling unit to provide shelter, an automobile continues to be a mover of people and cargo, a boiler continues to generate steam and a television continues to broadcast images. There can be scores of such examples that establish that nothing has indeed changed in fundamental product drivers. On the other hand, several products that are expected to become obsolete have made a strong comeback, be it a radio, watch or camera, each of which continues to fulfill the original purpose of invention.
One way to address the apparent enigma is to postulate that products may become obsolete but human needs will never. As long as a human being is governed by the five fundamental sensory attributes (see, hear, touch, taste and smell, that trigger human experiences) and certain gross and fine motor skills (such as movement and coordination that need to be enhanced or utilized) all product development will continue to cater to these fundamental human attributes and skills, satisfying as well as leveraging them in an increasing measure. As new technologies get developed and integrated into product design and manufacture, the way the products fulfill the human needs becomes more evolved. At an extreme, new technologies would mimic the fundamental human attributes and skills to achieve certain fundamental shift in the manner how humans would put their faculties to use. Pilotless planes, driverless cars, robotic surgical knives, and completely automated factories are some examples.
Specification envelopes
Working from the previous postulate, the follow-up question is whether the industry boundaries are changing or whether the product specifications are getting merely upgraded or expanded, all the while seeking to meet the established needs individually or in combinations. The answer to the question is a clear positive, whichever way the product-need combinations are analyzed. A watch whose goal at one time was merely to provide current time through mechanical movements has undergone tremendous change in specifications to include battery and solar drives, dual and multiple time zones, and chronograph and compass to achieve enhanced functionality. With newer materials and precious metals incorporated, the watch has also moved from being a functional accessory to becoming an accessory of esteem and prestige. Similar analysis can be made of any product which, while fulfilling several of the previously individualized needs in contemporary combinations, have also become lifestyle statements of human, business or industrial life.
It would appear, therefore, that a concept of ‘specification envelope’ is a well- validated hypothesis of what drives industry evolution and corporate strategy. The more are the technologies integrated in a product the more would be the customer needs that can be catered to in combination. The larger the specification envelope of a product or a firm, the greater would be the capability to serve the customers better (both in terms of sharpness and diversity), the ability to deepen and expand markets and, as a consequence, drive up scale and scope of the business for a firm. There is one pitfall, however, in assuming that determination of the right specification envelope (many times assumed to be simply a larger envelope) would be a surrogate for the right industry to operate in. This is because consumer needs are no longer fulfilled as a point of use; these are fulfilled as part of a systemic transformation of the paradigm of need fulfillment for better consumer satisfaction on one hand and better business efficiency on the other.
Industry frontiers
The typical firm is now required to take the concept of specification envelope as a given essential. The firm, however, is also required to constantly redefine the industry in which the firm should seek to operate. This strategic decision is larger than the strategic decision of product upgradation, market segmentation or market aggregation, typically addressed by the specification envelope concept. This strategic decision is also larger than the strategic decision of which businesses to operate in and how to operate, typically addressed by integration or diversification analysis. Rather, the question is whether the strategist would need to be constrained (or empowered) by his or hers firm’s functional or cultural thought processes so much so that he or she fails (or, succeeds) to recognize the megatrends. The answer to this lies in the firm viewing need fulfillment as an ecosystem phenomenon rather than as a customer-firm transaction. Megatrends, typically, overwhelm the firms when they spread across a social, industrial or economic system. The conventional view of strategy that it should be confined within the well-defined boundary of the industry needs to be challenged at least annually by the chief executive officers, functional leaders and strategic heads.
It is quite possible that multiple firms could view the same industry from different perspectives. Becton Dickinson (BD), the world leader in syringes, needles and insulin pen micro needles has thought it fit to remain as a component and an accessories player for injectable drugs, more so for specialized and increasingly popular insulin pens. BD has never thought it appropriate to move into the sourcing, manufacture or marketing of insulins. On the other hand, Novo Nordisk (NN), the world leader in injectable insulin drugs has thought it appropriate to have its own insulin pens and needles. Neither BD nor NN has deemed it appropriate to be in the business of diabetes diagnosis or blood sugar measurement devices, which is left to the likes of Johnson & Johnson (J&J). In the context of the topic of industry definition being discussed in this blog post, the issue is not how the industry to operate is defined by firms. In this case, the industry to operate in is defined in three different ways by the three leading firms, although anchored around in one area of diabetes management. The submission of this blog post is that such industry definitions miss the megatrend that could be emerging in total diabetes management, from genetic marking and stem cell treatment to day to day diabetes diagnosis and management by all ways that are possible. As a start, the phrase ‘industry boundary’ would need to be replaced by the phrase ‘industry frontier’.
Business unbounded
Once the human needs are viewed from a systemic perspective, it becomes easy to appreciate that the traditional industry boundaries are resultants of tunnel vision and structured strategies laboring under the constraints of past capabilities. On the other hand, a systemic view unleashes the imagination to seek new frontiers of industry, and eventually an industry and a business that are unbounded. The current wave of integrating computing devices, communication devices, cloud storage, cloud computing, application development and social networking is a vivid example of how several industries hitherto seen to be different are brought under one mega industry of seamless computing, connectivity, communication, entertainment and socialization. From education to employment, many others also get added to the paradigm. As a result of taking such an approach, Apple has been able to gain distinct competitive lead in the journey of unbounded business. And, a few others including Microsoft are seeking to share such competitive lead. In this journey of unbounded business, what were once supportive or unrelated technologies tend to become related, and even core technologies as firms move forward on their “business unbounded” mission.
The potential for the concept of business unbounded is simply enormous. A seemingly worrisome threat of saturated market can be converted into unbounded business potentialities by firms. For example, L&T which is a construction giant of India executing all types of infrastructural projects, from highways to metro rails, and from residential townships to industrial parks can discover unbounded business through an innovative goal of building integrated intelligent cities of the future. In the ultimate analysis, all mega corporations would have only one goal – that of serving life. It is no wonder, therefore, that Toyota sees as much future in building intelligent and ecologically friendly homes as in maintaining its global leadership in automobiles, the latter increasingly through environmentally friendly electric and hybrid vehicles. Similarly, Samsung could be foreseeing a merger of all of its electronic device and chip technologies with healthcare, among others, leading to an apparently surprising foray by the firm into biologic drugs. While all firms may not be able to pursue exotic frontiers dedicated to total life management, virtually all firms can discover huge untapped potentialities in the domains and markets they serve by opting to drive for specification envelopes than getting limited by specification updates, and more fundamentally by seeking to pursue broader industry frontiers than getting constrained by established industry boundaries.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 15, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
From Incremental Growth to Breakthrough Development: A Paradigm Shift for Indian Economic Planning
Post-independence India has been a pioneer in establishing a cycle of five year national economic planning which spelt out a strategic approach to allocation of resources by the Central and State governments on various projects, including their execution and review by various governmental agencies. The five year planning process is managed by the Planning Commission. Starting in 1951, the five year planning process has so far seen eleven cycles, with the eleventh five-year plan (2007-2012) having just concluded. The economic planning process has been helpful for the Indian economic planners in the socialistic command economy regime that prevailed till 1992, the year of economic realization which ushered in massive increase in private and foreign investments. From a total budget of Rs 23,560 million that the first five year plan entailed, the plan budgets, central, states and union territories, steadily grew over the decades to reach Rs 36,447,180 million, constituting nearly 14 percent of GDP.
Despite the steady growth in the profile of financial investments under the economic planning process, the economic growth and infrastructure development have failed to lead the kind of quantitative and qualitative development that are required of India’s emergence as an economic superpower. One of the reasons could be the anxiety of the Planning Commission to view egalitarian issues through economic lenses and vice versa. In the eleventh plan document spanning 386 pages, only 11 pages were devoted for infrastructure development while thematic issues such as employment, social justice, innovation, technology, spatial development, regional imbalances, environment, climate change, governance, consumer protection and competition policy were covered in about 200 pages. This cannot be faulted per se; probably needs to be even welcomed as the Commission’s commitment to inclusive growth. Without getting biased by the current planning paradigm, however, we need to analyze why the economic planning process is yet to deliver resoundingly for India an assured measure of global competitiveness across the board and a quality of life that is sustainable even for indigent sections of the population.
The long project cycle
Economic planning for a country is not the same in scale or scope as strategic planning for a firm. It may be appropriate to visualize a firm’s transformation in five year cycles but it is probably inadequate to visualize an economy’s progress in five year cycles. The fundamental lacuna in India’s economic planning process relates to the incremental visualization in steps of five years. Some State governments have, in fact, been quick to recognize this and launch 10, 15 or 20 year visions. A durable framework for strategic economic development and asset creation can emerge only when the central and state plans are synchronized in a much longer time frame of at least 10 to 15 years at least. The strength of today’s developed world would lie in their development of infrastructure projects that would take a decade or two to build but would last several generational lifetimes. Whether it is the labyrinth of highly intricate and synchronized underground and on or over ground metro rail systems of Tokyo and London or the elaborate national and state highway systems of the USA, the ability to visualize breakthrough projects of benefit for future centuries is the hallmark of enlightened economic planning.
Given India’s aspirations, and potential, for emergence as the third largest economic power, planning cycles have to be reasonably long. This, coupled with the fact that public sector and infrastructure projects in India are beset by significant delays, dictates the need for planning with at least a 15 to 20 year planning horizon. It is not unusual in India for projects taken up under the aegis of a five year plan remain not only incomplete at the end of the five year plan but also found to be insufficient in the context of population and economic growth dynamics. Airport modernization in the four metropolitan cities is a classic example of development being too little in scale and scope and too late in completion, and necessitating in all cases the need to commence work on new airports. The advantage of a really long range planning framework is that economic projects which are to meet the requirements of future generations are conceived with appropriate scale and scope as well as investment, and understanding of the payback periods.
Incremental versus breakthrough
In economic planning of developing economies which requires allocation of scarce resources on a number of conflicting priorities across urban and rural spectra it is easy and even often compelling to spread resources on projects that meet pending needs, not even current needs. Incremental growth, which mostly is also inadequate often, is the usual prescription. The golden quadrilateral of highways is a good example of how long term planning can create economic assets useful for generations. Yet, when it comes to bullet trains not more than two inter-city sectors are being considered as opposed to the need for a national bullet train grid which could dramatically transform the social, industrial and economic connectivity in this vast nation. There are several areas which lend themselves to the incremental versus breakthrough dilemma, with ideal choices needing to be in favor of breakthrough development. Examples abound not only in infrastructure like roads, ports, airports, railways, airways, shipping and highways but also in social sectors such as healthcare, education, irrigation, public distribution and housing, to name a few.
Breakthrough development requires, fundamentally, modeling of future population and demographic trends and economic parameters that can support the GDP growth targets in time spans ranging from ten to twenty years. In the healthcare sector, for example, the current network of government run general hospitals would be grossly inadequate when the rapid extension of metropolitan areas is factored in. Breakthrough development would require not only doubling or trebling of bed capacity in the existing general hospitals but also potentially setting up of at least four new general hospitals in each of the northern, southern, eastern and western peripheries of each expanding city. Similarly, each of the economic and social infrastructure sectors requires breakthrough concepts. In the infrastructure area, projects must be set up to lead economic and social development. In the field of ports, for example, it could be setting up of a port for every 200 kilometers of coastline. In the field of education, for example, it could be a Kendriya Vidyalaya in each town, an institute of higher research in each state and as many IITs and IIMs as there are states of India.
Breakthrough is a mindset
Breakthrough is essentially a matter of mindset. I can recall a day two decades ago when I was asked to mention, as a strategic planner, what I would do to reverse the low market share position in truck segment of my firm. I said that the firm should offer air-conditioned factory built cabs. Obviously, the suggestion was received with shock given the reluctance of the firm to be able to offer even a front-end structure. Today, twenty years later, most truck majors are willing to offer fully-built trucks with air-conditioned cabs as a competitive offering. In a similar manner Volvo rewrote the nature of inter-city passenger transport diligently over two decades through its high performance buses. These are just two examples of how proactive and innovative mindset would advance progress through breakthrough concepts. Planners, in terms of choices, may simply wonder at the amazing progress of Tokyo, Shanghai or Dubai but conclude it as inappropriate for India, or create our own tapestry of Chinese type urban development and Japanese type rural development. Whichever route is taken, it is the passion and commitment of the decision makers to progress that determines how differentiated the future would be.
An essential component of the breakthrough mindset relates to the deployment of advanced technology and innovative ways of execution. India has been a pioneer in the use of electronic voting machines in the highly spread-out national and state elections, at a global level even compared to advanced nations. India has been implementing a project of ensuring a UID to all of its 1.3 billion plus population, which are no mean examples of deploying technology. This progressive mindset with interconnectivity across all regions and sectors needs to be deployed in all aspects of infrastructure. Given the will, superior technology with lower costs can be achieved by India. The CEO of Renault-Nissan, for example, had gone on record that he had come to establish car manufacturing plant in India not merely for market but more for the capability of engineers to design and engineer modern projects at lower costs. This competitiveness should be applicable to a host of sectors as well. There should be a technology planning cell as part of the planning commission infrastructure in India to be able to integrate technology in national projects.
Collaboration is the key
Epoch-making transformation needs total alignment in the national setting. It is not sufficient to conceive of individual projects and hope that they would deliver as uncoordinated initiatives by Central or State governments and in public sector or private sector. Spatial planning, connectivity planning, services requirements analysis, and infrastructure development must be undertaken as a prior condition of any development. If political and regional differences are overcome asset creation of the best standards can take place to cater to the needs of current and future generations. Collaboration should also include arrangements with foreign governments and entities to bring the best of technologies and processes as well as expertise to India. Policies related to induction of the best of technologies in uncovered sectors such as airways, retail, insurance, and several other infrastructure sectors need to be formulated.
Moving from incremental growth to breakthrough development requires all-round collaboration amongst all stake holders. The first step is to move from a five year planning concept to a fifteen year (if not a twenty year) planning concept and also expand planning commission as a collaborating body of all stakeholders, central and state governments with expert support from public and private sector corporations and linkages with new technologies and expertise of whatever origin, not found but required in India. In doing so, however, the dilemma would be the classic choice between centralization and decentralization of planning. From the perspectives of the big picture visualization, strategic direction, center-state coordination, integration of technologies, resource mobilization and allocation, external collaborations, definition of strategic projects and thematic goals centralization is required. From the perspective of state level value propositions, detailing of projects and their execution, people and skill development, leading social infrastructure and customizing various initiatives to the specific needs of the individual states, decentralization would be required.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 8, 2012
Despite the steady growth in the profile of financial investments under the economic planning process, the economic growth and infrastructure development have failed to lead the kind of quantitative and qualitative development that are required of India’s emergence as an economic superpower. One of the reasons could be the anxiety of the Planning Commission to view egalitarian issues through economic lenses and vice versa. In the eleventh plan document spanning 386 pages, only 11 pages were devoted for infrastructure development while thematic issues such as employment, social justice, innovation, technology, spatial development, regional imbalances, environment, climate change, governance, consumer protection and competition policy were covered in about 200 pages. This cannot be faulted per se; probably needs to be even welcomed as the Commission’s commitment to inclusive growth. Without getting biased by the current planning paradigm, however, we need to analyze why the economic planning process is yet to deliver resoundingly for India an assured measure of global competitiveness across the board and a quality of life that is sustainable even for indigent sections of the population.
The long project cycle
Economic planning for a country is not the same in scale or scope as strategic planning for a firm. It may be appropriate to visualize a firm’s transformation in five year cycles but it is probably inadequate to visualize an economy’s progress in five year cycles. The fundamental lacuna in India’s economic planning process relates to the incremental visualization in steps of five years. Some State governments have, in fact, been quick to recognize this and launch 10, 15 or 20 year visions. A durable framework for strategic economic development and asset creation can emerge only when the central and state plans are synchronized in a much longer time frame of at least 10 to 15 years at least. The strength of today’s developed world would lie in their development of infrastructure projects that would take a decade or two to build but would last several generational lifetimes. Whether it is the labyrinth of highly intricate and synchronized underground and on or over ground metro rail systems of Tokyo and London or the elaborate national and state highway systems of the USA, the ability to visualize breakthrough projects of benefit for future centuries is the hallmark of enlightened economic planning.
Given India’s aspirations, and potential, for emergence as the third largest economic power, planning cycles have to be reasonably long. This, coupled with the fact that public sector and infrastructure projects in India are beset by significant delays, dictates the need for planning with at least a 15 to 20 year planning horizon. It is not unusual in India for projects taken up under the aegis of a five year plan remain not only incomplete at the end of the five year plan but also found to be insufficient in the context of population and economic growth dynamics. Airport modernization in the four metropolitan cities is a classic example of development being too little in scale and scope and too late in completion, and necessitating in all cases the need to commence work on new airports. The advantage of a really long range planning framework is that economic projects which are to meet the requirements of future generations are conceived with appropriate scale and scope as well as investment, and understanding of the payback periods.
Incremental versus breakthrough
In economic planning of developing economies which requires allocation of scarce resources on a number of conflicting priorities across urban and rural spectra it is easy and even often compelling to spread resources on projects that meet pending needs, not even current needs. Incremental growth, which mostly is also inadequate often, is the usual prescription. The golden quadrilateral of highways is a good example of how long term planning can create economic assets useful for generations. Yet, when it comes to bullet trains not more than two inter-city sectors are being considered as opposed to the need for a national bullet train grid which could dramatically transform the social, industrial and economic connectivity in this vast nation. There are several areas which lend themselves to the incremental versus breakthrough dilemma, with ideal choices needing to be in favor of breakthrough development. Examples abound not only in infrastructure like roads, ports, airports, railways, airways, shipping and highways but also in social sectors such as healthcare, education, irrigation, public distribution and housing, to name a few.
Breakthrough development requires, fundamentally, modeling of future population and demographic trends and economic parameters that can support the GDP growth targets in time spans ranging from ten to twenty years. In the healthcare sector, for example, the current network of government run general hospitals would be grossly inadequate when the rapid extension of metropolitan areas is factored in. Breakthrough development would require not only doubling or trebling of bed capacity in the existing general hospitals but also potentially setting up of at least four new general hospitals in each of the northern, southern, eastern and western peripheries of each expanding city. Similarly, each of the economic and social infrastructure sectors requires breakthrough concepts. In the infrastructure area, projects must be set up to lead economic and social development. In the field of ports, for example, it could be setting up of a port for every 200 kilometers of coastline. In the field of education, for example, it could be a Kendriya Vidyalaya in each town, an institute of higher research in each state and as many IITs and IIMs as there are states of India.
Breakthrough is a mindset
Breakthrough is essentially a matter of mindset. I can recall a day two decades ago when I was asked to mention, as a strategic planner, what I would do to reverse the low market share position in truck segment of my firm. I said that the firm should offer air-conditioned factory built cabs. Obviously, the suggestion was received with shock given the reluctance of the firm to be able to offer even a front-end structure. Today, twenty years later, most truck majors are willing to offer fully-built trucks with air-conditioned cabs as a competitive offering. In a similar manner Volvo rewrote the nature of inter-city passenger transport diligently over two decades through its high performance buses. These are just two examples of how proactive and innovative mindset would advance progress through breakthrough concepts. Planners, in terms of choices, may simply wonder at the amazing progress of Tokyo, Shanghai or Dubai but conclude it as inappropriate for India, or create our own tapestry of Chinese type urban development and Japanese type rural development. Whichever route is taken, it is the passion and commitment of the decision makers to progress that determines how differentiated the future would be.
An essential component of the breakthrough mindset relates to the deployment of advanced technology and innovative ways of execution. India has been a pioneer in the use of electronic voting machines in the highly spread-out national and state elections, at a global level even compared to advanced nations. India has been implementing a project of ensuring a UID to all of its 1.3 billion plus population, which are no mean examples of deploying technology. This progressive mindset with interconnectivity across all regions and sectors needs to be deployed in all aspects of infrastructure. Given the will, superior technology with lower costs can be achieved by India. The CEO of Renault-Nissan, for example, had gone on record that he had come to establish car manufacturing plant in India not merely for market but more for the capability of engineers to design and engineer modern projects at lower costs. This competitiveness should be applicable to a host of sectors as well. There should be a technology planning cell as part of the planning commission infrastructure in India to be able to integrate technology in national projects.
Collaboration is the key
Epoch-making transformation needs total alignment in the national setting. It is not sufficient to conceive of individual projects and hope that they would deliver as uncoordinated initiatives by Central or State governments and in public sector or private sector. Spatial planning, connectivity planning, services requirements analysis, and infrastructure development must be undertaken as a prior condition of any development. If political and regional differences are overcome asset creation of the best standards can take place to cater to the needs of current and future generations. Collaboration should also include arrangements with foreign governments and entities to bring the best of technologies and processes as well as expertise to India. Policies related to induction of the best of technologies in uncovered sectors such as airways, retail, insurance, and several other infrastructure sectors need to be formulated.
Moving from incremental growth to breakthrough development requires all-round collaboration amongst all stake holders. The first step is to move from a five year planning concept to a fifteen year (if not a twenty year) planning concept and also expand planning commission as a collaborating body of all stakeholders, central and state governments with expert support from public and private sector corporations and linkages with new technologies and expertise of whatever origin, not found but required in India. In doing so, however, the dilemma would be the classic choice between centralization and decentralization of planning. From the perspectives of the big picture visualization, strategic direction, center-state coordination, integration of technologies, resource mobilization and allocation, external collaborations, definition of strategic projects and thematic goals centralization is required. From the perspective of state level value propositions, detailing of projects and their execution, people and skill development, leading social infrastructure and customizing various initiatives to the specific needs of the individual states, decentralization would be required.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on July 8, 2012
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