Whats my priority
There’s so much common in how different companies are in terms in process efficiencies to how different countries are in creating and maintaining infrastructure, to how different people are in dealing with issues in day to day life. I have a friend who paid a visit few months back to my home I bought last year. He owns one as well for a long time. As a good friend, he advised me on a few tips on how to improve the energy efficiency of my home, by replacing the glass door, having a cavity wall insulation done etc. I listened in agreement, but haven’t done any of that. Mainly because, I had bigger issues to address i.e. change the central heating system, buying energy efficient appliances, etc. Clearly, we were at different stages of the maturity curve of house improvement.
Lets come to organisations now. Organisations are always solving problems and tackling issues to grow and maintain growth. Often there is whole gamut of problems that may be common for all organisations in a particular sector. However, the management of such problems may be very different. Some organisations may tackle problems that it deems are more important to itself. Again, these organisations are on different points of the maturity curve.
Lastly lets talk about countries. Whether it is building a nuclear arsenal, or cutting carbon emissions, some organisations are ahead in the curve in terms of self defence and industrialisation. Hence, these countries tend to take the lead on these initiatives, be it nuclear disarmament, or cutting carbon emissions. Not surprisingly, emerging economies resist this. It is always going to be a problem to materialise world initiatives because the priorities are so different for every country. Take infrastructure. FIIs investing or keen to invest in India having been crying for years together that India must focus on infrastructure, however in almost every budget, the Government of India capitulates, trying to address the immediate priorities of its masses.
So where do we go from here. Well, first, lets simply acknowledge that everyone has different priorities, and it is not inappropriate to have different priorities. Secondly, lets not be shy of expressing what your priorities are. India does so to its middle-class, reminding them of the 80% of Indians who live close to or below the poverty line. There seems to be some shyness in toe-ing the same kind of line with countries making demands on nuclear disarmament, or carbon emission cuts. Leads me on the third recommendation, lets understand that other countries have other burning priorities. This recommendation may specifically apply to countries who are perceived as world-leaders. When they make demands that other countries act prudently on world initiatives, their business case must address how the problems of the other countries could be addressed in alternate ways. Often, world leaders just talk about the drastic negative implications if their priorities are not acted upon: sometimes the drastic negative implication is natural, such as floods because Antartica would melt, sometimes the drastic negative implication is man-made, such as we will attack your installation if you continue to build arsenal. Is this the right way to run the world?
