Zen and the Art of Strategy

Ufff! It has been one boring week at work here... All I have had to do is to wait for people to meet me so that I can get my project going once more. Here the people are willing to talk to me, but only when they get time, which is rarer than my getting my full 8 hours of sleep at IIMA. In the meanwhile I keep thinking of ways to pass time.

One common way of doing that is introspection. I have learnt many new things during my summer stint here and the free time I get allows me the opportunity to reflect on my experiences here. I want to put them down, but am unable to assemble a cogent paragraph now. Maybe my philosopher's block will be removed soon in another entry.

Another excellent way of passing time is for me to read books once I get back to the hostel. I am currently reading a book called "Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy" by Partha Bose (formerly of McKinsey and Co.)... a very interesting read...however the author does sort of spoil the excellent historical parallels he draws and the effect he creates by summarising key learnings from each chapter towards its end. Overall, though, It is well researched, well written and offers some memorable and interesting insights into the minds of various characters from history and politics. As always, the foundation of a good strategy is a clarity in terms of goals and the key to good execution of a strategy lies in thinking through the pros and cons of the decisions and, like a good chess player, playing out the consequences of each decision under various circumstances in order to achieve the desired effect during execution.

Talking about decisions, if there is one thing that is absolutely critical for arriving at an 'informed' decision, it is the avaiability of relevant and reliable information. Often we are faced with either an overload or a sickening lack of information. But in today's world, the former case is more common. This is where a clarity of goals helps bring clarity of thought, which is so crucial to separate the chaff of data from the wheat of useful information. I have mentioned clarity of thought in some earlier posts as well, I guess, but probably this context is different. There are interesting parallels between the strategies of Alexander and Lord Hanuman in the Ramayana-Sundara Kanda. Both people had admirable clarity of thought. Both had amazing presence of mind and the ability to convert thought into action and the enviable ability to foresee what exactly the enemy would do/feel. A difference, however, lies in the fact that Alexander had to communicate his ideas to his army and commanders whereas Lord Hanuman had no such requirement. hmmm...this has set in train an interesting line of thought. Maybe there can be more on this topic soon.

Another thing with the information that floats around so freely is that very few people actually bother to assimiliate it and use it to their advantage. The differing abilities to assimilate leads to what is now famously known as "asymmetry of information". Often, exploiting asymmetry of information is often the very basis of modern commercial existence. Joseph Stiglitz's pioneering work in this area has often led me to ponder on the dynamics of information flows. Not that I have read his works directly (yet), but I have come across his references in so many contexts that I have come to form a deep admiration for his work. Information asymmetry crops up in the oddest of places and converts life into one eternal search for more information. More importantly, the communication process of humans is often so inefficient that it is one hell of a fight to extract information through conversation/questioning.

Take the role of a consultant, for instance. He has to approach the client with an open mind and needs to figure out what the client wants purely through skilful questioning. The problem arises when the client is not able to assess the extent of knowledge possessed by the client and vice versa. Each party sets out with a set of assumptions about the other's state of knowledge. Often, overcoming the barrier created by the initial assumptions is the key to a successful engagement. There are probably millions of instances of such assumptions caused due to asymmetry of information, but I can think of only one now... be sure that I will blog my next interesting instance of information asymmetry faithfully :-).

Enough for now, rest in next

Ranga