47 Incremental, cumulative change or drastic disruptions?

It’s common to hear that things need to be changed drastically, that the whole existing structure has to be thrown out, a whole new generation of people has to be brought in, and so on. This attitude developed especially during the 1980s onward, when leaders like Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the US attacked the entrenched interests and structures that were resisting the open or liberal economy. With the  collapse of the soviet socialistic bloc and the exposure of the weaknesses of centrally planned economies, many other countries, even communist China in the 1980s and quasi-socialist India in the 1990s, decided to switch to less controls, more free market in their economic systems. The initial success of this change-over encouraged people to search for those critical ‘game changers’ that were required to set them on a totally different growth path. Thus the tendency during the recent decades for the drastic transformation as the spirit of the times, bolstered by ideas such as the American economist Schumpeter’s concept of the ‘destructive creativity’ of capitalism.

But here’s the thing: in our daily lives, we may not have such opportunities all the time. There are some situations in which, perhaps, a sudden and drastic change of the set up is possible and even desirable (my favourite example is using a change of place to stop habits like smoking!), but mostly drastic changes are a big challenge and an imposition in themselves, rather than a boost to a whole new trajectory. So much of the average person’s effort and ingenuity has to be dedicated to just arranging matters again after a change The transactional costs, in other words), that little is left over for a grand new venture. Indeed, one has to use all the strengths and resources garnered in the old system to stabilize the new structure, so there is no thought of jettisoning the old completely. The more the change, the more of the same thing, as the wag so wisely remarked (I think it was Oscar Wilde, in French). As we grows older, the range of possibilities also contracts inevitably and inexorably, so once again we’ve got to work with what you have rather than dream of starting afresh on a clean slate.

Each one of us has a severely limited scope of drastically transforming our circumstances. Mostly, the external world is a given, and we have to settle for some idea of our place in it and the extent that we can draw support from it. It may appear that a drastic change of job, or place, or spouse, would open up our lives, but it may be more resource-effective to instead list out the positives in our exiting situation first ‘before giving up our day job’, as the saying goes. This does not mean that we should never embrace change; the point is that we should check first whether we have really extracted all that is possible from the existing situation, and whether we honestly expect something more or better in the new situation. If we have been ineffective or neglectful in addressing difficulties and bottlenecks in the past, how are we sure that similar obstacles will not crop up in the future scenario as well?

That is, we should avoid the blunder of comparing the worst of our existing situation with the best of another (mostly) imagined set up. A sober analysis should include both potential losses and gains, the ‘pros and the cons’ of each alternative, and then strike a balance. Unfortunately, as societies modernize, the individual is freed more and more to pursue their individual, private search for the best deal, leading to such social changes as higher divorce rates and lower commitment to others’ interests, and so on. Psychological disorders, stress, suicides, and so on  are often indicators of this (futile) quest for the ‘pot (of gold) at the end of the rainbow’. Alas, there is no end of the rainbow, not pot, no gold, but perhaps beneath your feet at the very place you are standing on, there is something, a possibility of improvement.

I can cite a couple of examples. A new ruler, they say, starts by rearranging his generals. A modern state does not have this luxury of seeming action, but there is a great temptation to start ‘new’ institutions. I put that in quotes, because, as Oscar Wilde hinted it’s very often the same old same old, just dressed up in new colours to fool a believing public. A classic example (for the Indian context) is the winding up of the Planning Commission of India by the Modi  (NDA) government, maybe because the new PM felt that the Commission’s petty functionaries had exercised too much budgetary control on the elected state political leadership. But here’s the irony: they went ahead and set up a new institution called the National Institute for Transforming India (acronymed NITI, which means ‘policy’ or ‘strategy’ in Hindi/Sanskrit), but with the same staff and infrastructure. They could as well have saved themselves all the trouble and bad press, and just clipped the mandate of the original Planning Commission -- an incremental change (see this article of mine on forestry in the Planning Commision). Of late, the ruling party has come round to the realization that they can’t bulldoze through drastic changes without taking the opposition along, and they seem to be climbing down from a ‘game-changer’ to an incremental mode! The previous UPA government, too, was a captive of the ‘game-changer’ syndrome, as they tried to repeat the success of the 1991 liberalisation strategy in the 2000’s; the tendency was to berate existing institutions like the existing civil services, the research institutions, the public sector undertakings, the existing infrastructure, schools, colleges, and so on, trying to shift much of this to the private sector and NGOs, and so on. The constant criticism of existing structures only served to spread a pall of gloom about the country’s situation, so that indeed the UPA government could be said to have snatched a resounding defeat from the jaws of victory in the 2014 elections.

Unless you’re a leading business magnate who can hire and fire regardless of other considerations, you will have to pursue change within the constraints of keeping the existing institution going --  it may be a corporation, a lab, an academic institution, or anything. Take a research institute: you may think this one has to be closed down and a new one started ithout all the baggage, but there is no doubt that the new institute will also suffer from the same problems, whether it is budgetary support, or recruitment of the best personnel, or lack of financial delegation, or interference from others, or whatever. Much of the administrative effort   in setting up a new institution – getting the statutory clearances, finding land, finances and other resources, setting up a management structure, procuring hardware, and so on – would be a waste of time, as you would only end up again at the beginning, at ground zero, as it were, and would have to face all over again all those problems that bedevilled the old institution.

It might well be a much wiser use of the limited managerial resources, and your own limited time and tenure, to actually deal with the real problems in the implementation of the ongoing programmes of the existing institution, in an incremental fashion. Trying to wind up the old institution would not only sap your own energies and waste your own time and talents, but also create a huge hostile force that would have a stake in your failure. The corrosive effect of the negative ‘narrative’  required to trash the existing institution would also have far-reaching, and damaging, effects on the credibility and morale of the new set up as well.

Of course, if you are mentally decided on  a change, then perhaps no rational analysis is going to slow you down; but would be advisable to limit such impulses to the relatively minor decisions like getting a new car or computer or smartphone!

24 Invest in a number of small things…

Here’s a ploy to beat the demons of boredom and greed:  frequent the altar of the God of Small Things!

First, let’s take boredom: it’s in the nature of human beings to take up things with great enthusiasm, but lose interest rapidly. Being a species characterized by intense curiosity and  a drive to go out and explore,  humans hanker after novelty and variety. In our humdrum lives, there’s very little of that (unless it is driving on a city’s mean streets), and even on our infrequent holidays, we are shepherded and cosseted by tour operators and hotel staff. When we are relatively young and unfettered, we can risk going out to undeveloped places without assured accommodation or return bookings, but when we have families, jobs, and taxes to pay, these things are pretty much decided beforehand, especially now that communication is instantaneous and almost universal.

What’s left is then, to explore the world of ideas and things around us. Fortunately, there’s unlimited opportunities for the first, through books, internet, and the media. The second costs money, so my suggestion is to get hooked on things which are cheap, rich in variety, and moderately difficult to get. That’s why collection of sets, whether it be of stamps (very old-fashioned!), or cinema posters (very retro chic!), or LPs (also old-world), or jazz CDs, or tea-cozies, or china figurines, or coffee mugs, or botanical specimens, and so on, is an excellent option.  Not only do they give the opportunity for search, stalking, and capture, but they also absorb hours of your spare time arranging, cleaning, cataloguing, and admiring them. And they need not cost an arm and a leg, provided you are not into collecting really costly antiques, vintage cars, or the like.

There is a link between this approach and the stability of systems. They used to say, in the 1970’s, that complex ecosystems are more stable, for instance.  The interaction of large numbers of different species, predator and prey, eater and eaten (phagal relations!), pests and victims, and a variety of specializations and adaptations to specific ecological niches, and complex symbiotic interdependencies, leads to a community that has many stabilizing mechanisms, many checks and balances. Tropical forests are like this. In contrast, we have ecosystems that have very few ecological niches, very few species, and simple interactions, which have few checks and balances, and are therefore relatively unstable. One species may expand so fast that it eats itself out of food, and then there is a population crash. The temperate forests are supposed to be like that, characterized by epidemic diseases and violent population fluctuations and cycles.

I’m not sure whether ecologists still swear by the complexity-begets-stability hypothesis nowadays, and it may just be one of those fanciful thoughts, like the end-of-history and the dawn-of-equality theories we had at the turn of the century. But where it concerns consumer behavior, it seems to be spot-on, as we all know that more and more of the same stuff bores us to tears. So my way is to get some small thing to keep the interest in life and living, alive!

There is another aspect to this type of ‘retail therapy’ for a sense of well-being. I know many people, good friends and relatives, who swear by the latest and best. They believe in going to the top of the market. Well, a choice has always to be made between costs and benefits, as the best usually costs the most. Firstly, we need to be sure that it’s really the best, and not some market hype. Secondly, we need to be sure that we really need that level of quality, or durability, or finish. Technology is changing and developing so fast, that very few consumer products remain useful or relevant more than a couple of years. Indeed, you can’t even get older things serviced or supported any more.  Sometimes the less costly choice may be more practical and useful if you take into account its useful life.

Thirdly, there is the blessed 20:80 rule again, which means that most of us do not even want to use all the options available, since we are quite satisfied by a small sub-set of them. In cameras, or computers, or cell phones, we don’t really want much beyond the basic operations; who has the time anyway! If you can’t understand how to open the case or switch on a system (it’s happened to me and a friend on top of a mountain range!), what’s the use of all the bells and whistles? What’s the use of all those gears and levers if you need to study a 200-page manual to operate it? So are we paying for the inventor’s fulfillment, or for our satisfaction? Indeed, we can even leave it to other, richer and braver, souls to forge ahead on the cutting edge of technology, and we can get by quite well on a slightly older model. Upgradation need not be done at every new release or model, and we can safely wait for two or three generations to pass by before our old model becomes useless. I’m thinking of computers, cameras, music systems, and the like.

Fourthly, there is the good old minimax principle, which dissuades us from putting too many eggs into one basket. If you put your entire savings into one big thing, like a house, it may be the last thing you will be able to do; the rest of your life may go in paying the mortgage and interest.  So prefer to divert your mind with a multitude of small things, and leave the big ones to the movers and shakers of the world!

23 The Parsimony Principle in the decision process

Here’s a very interesting take on the decision process: the Parsimony Principle. Parsimony, without referring to the dictionary, is the art of making more with less, of extracting the last bit from a thing or activity, of achieving the most with the least resources. In this respect it is not different from the efficiency principle or maximizing returns and minimizing costs. But it goes beyond that; it implies, in life decisions, the principle of reducing the demand for resources, and is concerned with avoiding needless activity. It therefore refers not only to the ladder (the means), but also where you put it, the wall you want to climb (the end)!

I heard a very instructive story from an associate of yore (he retired to farm pigs, and I’ve not been in touch for some years!) that nicely illustrates the Parsimony Principle. I may say, in fact, that I owe this insight to his story. He was a man who liked to befriend judges, and they depended on him to sort out things with officialdom. One such exalted personage asked him to get an exemption from octroi payment (that’s the taxes they levy on the border between states or provinces of a country) for a new fridge he was getting from the neighbouring state (to take advantage of a lower sales tax, perhaps). My friend’s reaction was: Pay the five dollars! To get the octroi waived, he would have had to approach every rung from the State headquarters down to the guard at the last gate, and the personage’s name would have had to be dragged through the mud and muck of all these offices. So, just pay up, and do not grumble! This is an admirable application of the Parsimony principle: keep your influence and contacts for the big things, don’t fritter it away for a trivial matter!

 One aspect of the way this principle works itself out is in getting things done:  go to the lowest level feasible. People often pride themselves on ‘going straight to the top’, for instance if your coffee is not piping hot, you will phone up the Chairman of the airlines or hotel chain. This only establishes your own inflated sense of your self-importance, and not your importance as such. I once overheard just such a self-important bozo berating a girl on the ground staff of the airlines for a 15-minute delay in the flight: he was asking her the telephone number of her Chairman to complain. I remember one of the things she said: I work in this job because I love to serve, and not just for the pay. Going to the top, or threatening to do so, only exposes  you as a jerk, and does not elicit better service! An honest approach to the guy (or gal) on the spot usually works better.

Another story illustrating this principle: as the police verification for my wife’s passport was taking time, I was tempted to go over the head of the police constable responsible for this right to the Police Superintendent. To tell the truth, I wanted the certificate without my wife actually being in that place (in station, as they put in official-speak). The top man, far from expediting the certificate, hauled up the constable for taking up the case without the physical presence of the subject! The constable later came to me and reproached me for going over his head; for showing extra smartness, when he was doing it his way and would have got us the certificate on his own time. It’s a different story that we finally got the passport with the help of a Foreign Service uncle; but at the field level, it doesn’t pay to be too smart, or ‘over-smart’ in the local idiom!

These are just stories, but the principle is that you choose a solution that makes maximum use of existing resources before going to new resources. Often, we want to change the whole system, instead of tweaking the offending small portion of it that is causing the problem. Ever since the economy was given a fillip by reducing tariffs and liberalizing the issue of licenses, people have started asking for major ‘structural changes’ rather than ‘business as usual’. But this may be enormously wasteful of resources, and play into the hands of those self-interested persons who want to milk the system for their own windfall gains. If there is a damp patch on your wall, for example, you will investigate its cause and perhaps realize your drains need cleaning, rather than breaking down your whole house and rebuilding it. Your contractor may, however, like to inveigle you into scrapping the whole structure: beware the slippery slope of home improvements! Similarly for other things in life.

The 20:80 'rule' (post #11) is in fact another nice illustration of the Parsimony principle. If we can make do with that 80% of what we want out of something, we need only invest 20% of the resources that would be required to satisfy all our imagined wants. As Gandhi said, we have enough to satisfy all our needs, but not our greeds. The cost of satisfying all our greeds is a whopping 80% of our resources; a parsimonious approach would satisfy 80% of our desires (by no means a self-denying satisfaction level) with one-fifth the resources! Who said you cannot have it all and retire to a happy holiday home?

To summarize, search for the simplest explanation and try the simplest fixes that will demand the least resources. Go to the lowest level at which your work can be done. In science, also, those hypotheses have the greatest chance of persisting that require the least number of special assumptions and can explain the largest proportion of cases with the least number of exceptions. It is termed ‘Occam’s Razor’, I believe, in the jargon of the logic of scientific thinking.