COVID-19: Postscript

During the Pre-COVID days, most of the people attributed positive meanings to the word ‘Western’ and would not believe that black people are getting beaten up in America. COVID era has shown that people in the west were dying because of a lack of care, their economies face financial ruin and their people are caught in a wave of violence, gang warfare and toppling of statues.

Post the pandemic, the world will stop looking at the US and West-Europeans to learn how to live properly, how to govern, and how to run a democracy. Countries will come down heavily on foreign funding of civil groups because such funds will be seen as attempts to apply a form of “liberal imperialism” to “force their worldview onto countries that think differently.” Even the courts will begin to realise how they often get involved in such subversion of national goals in the name of freedom and liberalism advanced before them by people who have ties to such international networks. Political groups masquerading as NGOs, GROs and VOs, which mobilise public opinion and public action without participating in electoral processes, will face regulatory heat.

The Chinese LAC trouble of 14-16 June has established beyond doubt that even when the government stood for Indian sovereignty and national consensus, it faces a “constant struggle” with “internal agents” doing anti-national bidding and with people abroad. All Indians must demonstrate the same position on certain issues, and this entails forming a national consensus on how to handle any national issue – a cross-border problem with China, Nepal or Pakistan, a pandemic or the rebooting of the economy. Nationalism movement will be strengthened.

Experience over the last five months in terms of how the world has dealt with the pandemic has exposed the hubris of populist politicians and the  complacency of scientific ‘experts’ who work as the  government’s scientific advisors. Time was squandered resulting into thousands of lives being lost.

This pandemic, which has killed nearly half a million people out of nearly nine million people already infected so far will leave humanity transformed; with new norms of individual and social interactions, increased pressure for universal vaccination and a new shape of the modern  world. Tensions will arise over the interests of communities versus individuals. The vast number of deaths will precipitate new waves of xenophobia against the Chinese and also the French and the Italians.

Governments and scientists will be accused of not doing enough and an intellectual crisis may ensue.  People will notice a striking gap between the extravagant claims for 21^st century medicine and the dismal reality. The sense of scientific and medical failure will lead to a growth in alternative medicine, back-to-nature movements, spiritualism, and new prophets for a post-COVID age.

A new era of research into the control of viral diseases will be born. Alternative ways of looking at causation of diseases will emerge. Scientists will break away from the present thought that simply knowing the identity of a pathogen and the aetiology of a disease is sufficient to bring an epidemic under control. Community mitigation of disease, cutting across poverty and inequality will be embraced with new political energy. The success of such mitigation will be possible when designed on “military logic” of discipline and unity. After poverty and hunger, health will become the next political slogan. A new public discourse on themes like pessimism, irony, and absurdity will become common.  Societies will thrive after the COVID pandemic subsides.  The 2020s will see a period of flourishing economic growth.

It is to be hoped that, after Covid-19, no one will be foolish enough to make the same mistake again though it seems to be characteristic of human behaviour that, indeed, we are foolish enough and we will repeat our mistakes. COVID-19’s effects will be profound and long-lasting; how profound and long-lasting will be up to us.

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Management Trimurti (Trinity or Trilogy)

MANAGEMENT IS OMNIPRESENT - Nobody needs a licence to practise management

MANAGEMENT IS NOT EASY – It is much more difficult than merely understanding it

MANAGEMENT IS THE CONNECTOR – of interests of business and society, and government

THREE TRAJECTORIES FOR MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

CONTINUALLY EVOLVING – experience to insights to social capital;

Becoming MORE EXPERIENTIAL - constant practice, reflection and feedback;

SUITABLE DRIVING FORCE for positive change in business and society

THREE HINTS FOR LEADERS OF MANAGEMENT EDUCATION

EMBRACE DIVERSITY in all its forms.

Build and leverage PLATFORMS THAT CONNECT people, organisations and ideas.

Provide LEADERSHIP FOR THE INDUSTRY as well as management education 

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Inspired by: Dan LeClair, “Where is Management Education Going” Global Focus: EFMD Business Magazine, October 2019

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Much Cry and Little Wool – Private Deliverance of Higher Education

Since a substantial portion of higher education’s benefits accrue to students personally, it makes sense that students should bear some or most of the cost. If higher education does create social benefits in addition to personal ones, there is an argument for some sort of government subsidy. But there is no economic argument for direct government provision of college at no charge. College is not a public good and never will be. Since higher education is not a public good, it does not follow that access to college should be universal and free of charge. But that has not stopped advocacy organizations from labelling college a “public good” to make the argument that it should be free.

Educational landscape is now characterised by an increasing involvement of non-state actors, including for-profit organizations. The rising implication of non-state actors in education takes a large variety of forms, such as private operation of public schools (contract schools), private sector supply of inputs into the education process, education vouchers and scholarships, delivery of education by private providers. These multiple situations are generally considered as types of public-private partnership (PPP), a term that holds a host of definitions but can be loosely defined as a public and private interaction to deliver a service. This results into a shift from government to governance in policy-making in Higher Education

While perusing websites of private universities, engineering colleges, and MBA institutes, one will inevitably find an “About Us” page featuring the origin story of the establishment together with a vision and a Mission statement. No one would ever know how good those stories or statements are until one travels to visit some of them.

It is shocking to see how these institutions operate in such sad conditions that at times one wonders how could such institutions be established and approved in the first place. Sometimes one meets students, who, despite not having the wherewithal of any amenities and methods for any realistic teaching and learning activities, smiled all the time. Their stories are so inspiring that no one would escape noticing at once about each one having in them the attitude, aptitude, hunger and a dedication to succeed.

Sometimes one would meet teachers, who neither have the knowledge nor the perseverance to teach and enable learning. During such meetings, most of them would want to keep their heads low to duck any queries thrown at them. They are all grateful for the job they had, usually under qualified, more often than not paid less than the statutory wages, with no aspirations to thrive and grow professionally.

The owner/proprietor of these institutions would always be there to receive and garland a visitor of high academic credentials, vociferously express embarrassingly false admiration for the achievements of the visitor and bend over their backs in being pleasant and welcoming. Slowly but with certainty, they would narrate stories of the commitment of their ancestors to the cause of education and how, as the most worthy progeny, they are working very hard to fulfil the dreams of their ancestors.

Most of these institutions also flaunt a signature statement on their logo, in Sanskrit, simply ripped out of 700 holy verses of the भगवद गीता (Bhagwad Gita). The sense of discovery, purpose, and heroism on these institutional websites would feel impressive if it weren’t such a cliché.

    "भोली सूरत दिल के खोटे, नाम बड़े और दर्शन छोटे

    Bholi surat dil ke khote, Naam bade aur Darshan chote"

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From Spiral to Circular Innovation

The Spiral of Innovation has been a “buzz phrase” in the business world. Idea of “New Product Development” was described according to the pace of bringing in the NEW – Continuous New Product Development, Dynamically Continuous New Product Development and Innovation (now also described as Disruptive).  

The process centred around the concept of improvements; incremental or radical; over the previously developed products and thus there was a screw-pitched, spiral like developmental graph in three-dimensional modelling which would show up as a linear growth model in two-dimensional graphics. This worked well, so much so that businesses could lead the market through planned obsolescence.

The iPhone 6s is the perfect example: In spite of the revolutionary design that introduced us to the 12-megapixel camera and 3D Touch technology, its disappearance from the Apple store is enough to render it obsolete in the minds of consumers. Apple, the world’s second-largest Smartphone producer, signed the death warrant of the wildly popular iPhone 6s with the launch of new models iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, X, 8, 8 Plus, 7 and 7 Plus last quarter. This is planned obsolescence.

Very little has changed in the twelve months since the launch of the iPhone X.  The release of a new iPhone model marks the disappearance of the iPhone 6s from Apple’s catalogue — a mere three years after a release with so much of noise and fanfare. This well-oiled mechanism has been in place since the very first iPhone and Apple has conditioned its consumers to happily accept this pace of obsolescence.

In spite of Apple’s “psychological warfare against their common sense,” the iPhone 6s still retains the qualities that have made it one of the most popular smart phones ever, with over 80 million sold worldwide. These 80 million phones still have good years ahead of them. In its three years in the market, the iPhone 6s has taken the lead in the marketplace.

A linear “take-make-dispose” economy, which has been the most popular economic models around the world, since the industrial revolution, is largely wasteful because up to 90% of the raw materials used in the manufacturing process end up as waste even before leaving the production line. In addition, 80% of goods manufactured are eventually thrown away within the first six months, which translates to an unsustainable rate of wasting fast-diminishing natural resources.

Produce, use and dispose-off? No, reduce, reuse and recycle. The current paradigm of lineal economic model could be coming to an end and its place will be taken by the circular economy. Fortunately, a circular economy that is based on regeneration and restoration can help solve almost all the problems associated with a linear economy. More specifically, a circular economy aims to keep raw materials, goods, and product parts at their highest value and utility levels all the time. This is in addition to differentiating between biological and technical cycles.

As more ideas come about, more principles for circular innovation will emerge; but there are at least ten principles that define, as of now, how circular economy should work:

1. Waste as a resource: is the main feature; all the biodegradable material returns to the nature and the non biodegradable is reused.
2. Use: reintroducing those products that no longer correspond to the initial consumers needs back and once again in the economic circuit.
3. Reuse: put to reuse certain products or parts of those products that still work to elaborate new artefacts.
4. Reparation: give damaged products a second life.
5. Recycle: make use of materials discarded as waste.
6. Valorisation: harness energy from waste which can no longer be recycled.
7. Sell functionality not ownership: eliminate sale of products and transfer of ownership. User rents the product and returns it to the company after using it, where it is put through use/reuse/reparation principles as may be possible.
8. Switch to renewable Energy: eliminate use of fossil fuels to produce, reuse and recycle the product.
9. Eco-design: considers and integrate the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of a product.
10. Ecological Management: establish optimized management of stocks and flows of materials, energy and services by industry and by geography.

The world is changing and there are campaigns to convince consumers to stop systematically turning to new models. This fight against a fetish, where new models are gobbled up and then soon enough purged, is an effective way to combat the overproduction of electronics, the over-exploitation of natural resources, and the explosion of e-waste.

Certified refurbishing is one proven and reliable way to extend the life of electronics, keeping them out of the landfills. Fearing a social and market backlash, Apple has taken recent steps to improve the sustainability of its devices. It has committed to develop a closed-loop model for its supply chain by focusing on using only renewable resources and recycled materials and eliminating conflict materials from its value chain. The tech giant has already incorporated artificial intelligence, a robot called “Liam” to aid in the disassembling of products and recovery of components that can be recycled; and hopes to encourage more consumers to return products to be recycled and made into new equipment through its Apple Renew recycling program. 

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