A Team; a race

“For peace of mind, we need to resign as general manager of the universe.”
- Larry Eisenberg

This quote made me sit back and think for a while of how involved I was with the world around me and how little time I managed to spare for myself.

But the last few words of the quote caught the attention of the curious child in me. And while wondering who and how our universe is managed, I discovered I could look at the world from a totally different perspective.

THE PERSPECTIVE

A business is where the entrepreneur(s) allocate the limited resources available to them as efficiently as possible to get maximum returns.

Now let’s look at human beings as a species – as one entity. We have only one planet (as far as we know). Broadly, this planet – including all that it holds – is our only resource. It may not be apparent, but all the essential resources (except the sunlight) come from the earth. For example: food, minerals, oil, water, etc.

We virtually exercise full control over these resources. And knowingly or unknowingly, we manage these resources.

Also, like in any organization, these resources are not unlimited. They renew themselves but the time-span for renewal of the most essential and indispensable resources like land fertility, minerals, oil, is very high compared to human life. Most of the resources get renewed only after a few generations.

Human beings have to allocate the resources in the most efficient manner in order to get maximum returns which will in turn lead to maximum welfare – the returns.

THE PROBLEM

We, human beings have divided ourselves into groups and work for the betterment of those ‘groups’ which may be regions, religions, nations, blocs, cartels, interest groups and numerous other groups. We differentiate amongst ourselves. We compete.

From a macro point of view, when these groups compete, there is a lot of stress on the overall resources.

This then becomes the classic case where the focus of each department (group) is on their own productivity at the cost of overall organizational productivity.

To cite an example, in 2005, at the G-8 meet, the US tried to pressurize India and China to cut down their carbon emission levels. To that, the Indian Prime-Minister replied saying that you do your best to cut emissions, we will match your standards in terms of per capita emissions. Obviously, owing to the population of India and China, per capita emission standards are already being met. The politics behind this dates back to the industrial revolution. It has been accepted that the developed countries are responsible for the global warming. Therefore, following the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, India maintains that the major responsibility of curbing emission rests with the developed countries, which have accumulated emissions over a long period of time. It may seem very fair on the part of developing countries to say that, as they too have a right to development. But, from the perspective of human beings as a race, it would really be stupid to think of anything like this. Even after knowing its implications, every country is finding excuses to avoid cutting on the emissions. This is creating a lot of stress on the environment which is the most endangered resource right now.

Also, every other resource like land, labor, capital and entrepreneurial innovations are being under-utilized because of our division in groups.

A very simple example of wastage of land is that the concept of ‘no man’s land’ on every country’s border. If there were no divisions, this land could have been used for various purposes – who knows maybe a large oil reserve lies under the Indo-Pak border or a very fertile patch of land lies untouched at some other border.

We have also created barriers on free movement of men. Visa restrictions stop free movement of labor. For example, there is a limited number of Visas that Indians get for USA every year. Now, the result is that there is a huge technically qualified labor force (For example: Doctors) which is being stopped from working there. The result is that there is scarcity in USA leading to people paying more and the same service of a doctor is available at one-fourth the cost in India. This results in an imbalance. But like consumer markets even labor markets tend to move towards equilibrium. So, there is this concept of Medical Tourism. Medical tourism means that the cost of a by-pass surgery in America is more than the combined cost of travel, stay and the surgery in India. Here, one may not find any problem, but from the perspective of an organization (our planet), the material, the surgery equipment and hospital infrastructure required at both the places is the same – in real terms like medicines, injections, blood, manpower time, etc. and not in terms of monetary value that we associate with it. But there is one significant cost to our organization if the surgery takes place in India, viz. consumption of precious oil during travel and the pollution that it would create, the noise that it would generate. From an individual’s point of view, India is economical; from a country’s point of view, Indian labor is a threat; but from the planet’s point of view, all these are resource wastages because each group thinks of itself and not of the organization as a whole.

No example is needed to say that there are various barriers in the flow of capital.

But, surprisingly, even entrepreneurial innovations face barriers. After the industrial revolution USA was the leader in development and application of scientific management. It is an acknowledged fact that the export of this field was very slow from the USA. Similarly, after the World Wars the USA led the development and application of computer applications whereas Japan led the developments in the field of production. Combined, these technologies would have provided tremendous boost to productivity of various resources. But it took a long time before the technologies were exported and adapted.

THE POINT

A 2002 government survey concluded that 48% of children under five years old are malnourished. At the same time, India made a donation of one million tons of wheat to a World Food Program project in Afghanistan.

“There is plenty of supply on hand to meet global demand. Over the past 35 years, the world’s food production has expanded faster than its population. In 2002, according to the United Nations World Food Program, farmers produced enough food to provide every person with 2,800 calories a day. That’s equivalent to the general daily requirement of teen boys and active men, according to the U.S. government’s dietary guidelines. The WFP’s feeding programs aim to provide 2,100 calories a day to their recipients”, says an article by ROGER THUROW and JAY SOLOMON / Wall Street Journal 25^th June, 04.

The point that I want to convey by these examples is that we have all the resources we need to be in a good state of living.

They are just not being “managed” as they should be.

All I say is that there should be no economical or psychological barriers to their trade or free flow.

It is high time we stop romanticizing with the concept of a country, being patriotic, being proud to come from a particular region, religion, etc.

To get a holistic perspective, we could see our planet as an organization that we all are running. We all are working in various departments and we have certain resources. Our goal is to maximize return on those resources on an organizational level (planet level).

We need to think of how we can use American research in computer applications in production with the Japanese techniques of production like Just in time and Total quality management.

One last analogy will explain it all. Let’s imagine we form two teams consisting of the best 22 cricketers in the world – keeping aside our patriotic emotions. Those teams would make the most interesting match of all times!!! Instead of competing amongst ourselves, we could join together and manage this organization as a single body of people – as mankind.