box बुद्धि, इंसान की बौड़मता

 इंसान बौड़म क्यों होता है?

इंसान की बुद्धि जन्म से ही box में बंद हो कर सोचने के लिए निर्मित होती है। यह box उसका जीवन रक्षक अस्त्र होता है और संग में यही उसके बौड़म होने का कारण भी होता है।

Box को खोल देने से इंसान को स्व-मूर्खता से मुक्ति मिलने लगती है।

मगर box को खोला कैसे जाता है?

आज मित्रों के संग बैठे बैठे बात निकल पड़ी कि अच्छे, गुणवत्तापूर्ण दीर्घायु जीवन का क्या कारण है- राज क्या होता है? बात आरम्भ हुई थी अर्जेंटीना के फुटबाल सितारे डिएगो माराडोना के निधन से, जो कि कल के दिन मात्र 60 वर्ष की आयु में हृदय गति रुकने की वजह से चले गये। तो प्रथम बात यह निकली कि एक खेल प्रतियोगी होने के वास्ते जहां उनकी चुस्ती-फुर्ती बाकी इंसानों से कुछ बेहतर अपेक्षित करि जानी चाहिए थी, उसके बावजूद उनके संग ऐसा हो गया।

यहां से किसी मित्र ने बात की दिशा यों दे दी कि शहरी जीवन थोड़ा कमज़ोर हो ही गया है, जहां अब अल्पायु आम बात हो चली है। मुझे अपना आभास यूँ था कि अगर हम दीर्घायु गुणवत्तापूर्ण जीवन की बात जनमानस के निवास क्षेत्र - शहरी अथवा ग्रामीण - के आधार पर ही करनी है तब शायद ग्रामीण जीवन ख़राब होता है शहरी जीवन से एक दीर्घायु, गुणवत्तापूर्ण जीवन दे सकने में।

मित्र मंडली के बीच अपने अपने कटाक्ष निकलने लगे थे शहरी आवास बनाम ग्रामीण आवास के पक्ष-विपक्ष में।

तभी मुझे हमारे एक विश्लेषण आधार के आसपास में एक box बुद्धि के होने का एहसास हुआ। box बुद्धि यह कि हम ऐसे विषयों के चिंतन के दौरान बारबार विश्लेषण के आधार को आवास क्षेत्र ही क्यों चुनते हैं? क्या कुछ भी मापन पूर्ण, meaningful निष्कर्ष अध्ययन हुआ भी है, इस दिशा से ?

नही, न?

तो क्यों न हम box बुद्धि को तोड़ देने की चेष्टा करते हैं? क्यों नहीं हम दीर्घायु, गुणवत्तापूर्ण जीवन के भेद को समझने के प्रति विश्लेषण का आधार बदल देते हैं - उद्योग स्वामी बनाम उद्योगिक कर्मी - का आधार चुनाव कर लेते हैं ?

आखिर इस आधार पर तो हमारे मध्य कोई मतभेद नही ही रहने वाला है कि अधिक पैसे वाले लोग शायद ज्यादा सरलता से दीर्घायु प्राप्त कर रहे हैं आजकल, और संग में गुणवत्तापूर्ण जीवन भी, बनस्पत कार्मिक जीवन वाले व्यक्तियों के।

कहीं हालफिलहाल की किसी whatsapp पोस्ट में यह सुझाव भी दिया गया है की जहां जहां retirement आयु कम है, वहां दीर्घायु जीवन औसतन बेहतर है।

पता नहीं की यह whatsapp पोस्ट सही है या कोई नया षड्यंत्र है जनमानस के मंथन को नियंत्रित करने का।

मगर एक बात तो है, कि शुद्ध वायु और स्वच्छ जल के आसपास में गुणवत्तापूर्ण दीर्घायु जीवन प्राप्त करना अधिक सरल है, बजाये दूर दराज क्षेत्र में रहते हुए, यदि वह दूर दराज़ क्षेत्र प्रदूषण के स्रोतों से विमुक्त नही हो सके तो।

दीर्घायु जीवन की एक कुंजी होती है अच्छे भोजन, शुद्ध वायु वातावरण, और स्वच्छ जल की सहज़ उपलब्धता । इस बात पर सभी में आम सहमति है। मतभेद सिर्फ यह है कि क्या यह शहर में आसानी से उपलब्ध होता है, या फ़िर कि ग्रामीण क्षेत्र में? क्या यह अच्छे धनवान लोगों को सहजता से उपलब्ध होता है, या कार्मिक middle class के व्यक्ति को?

हम जब box बुद्धि से मंथन करते हैं, तब विचारों की गंगा का प्रवाह सिर्फ श्रेष्ठता सिद्ध करने में बहने लगता है - कि, शहरी जीवन अधिक श्रेष्ठ होता है, या की ग्रामीण जीवन। ऐसा करने में हमे एहसास नही रह पाता है कि हम box बुद्धि में फँस चुके हैं ।

क्योंकि हम यह भूल बैठते हैं कि वास्तविक मुद्दा यह है ही नही कि श्रेष्ठ जीवन कहां पर मिलता है! बल्कि तुलना करने का उद्देश्य है कि कम कुंजी या उन भेदों को चिन्हित करें जो कि दीर्घायु गुणवत्तापूर्ण जीवन देने में भूमिका निभाते हों।

Box बुद्धि अक़्सर यही करती है मंथन , चिंतन के दौरान। वास्तविक विषय से हल्का सा भटकाव आसानी से प्रवेश कर जाता है, क्योंकि लोग अभ्यस्त किये जा चुके होते हैं बारबार किसी एक विशेष दिशा से ही विषयवस्तु का दर्शन करते रहने के।

यह box बुद्धि ही इंसानो को बौड़म बनाती है।

Box बुद्धि में फँसा हुआ व्यक्ति बारबार एक ही आधार से तुलना करके बारबार उसी निष्कर्ष, उसी कुतर्क में धंसता रहता है। box बुद्धि से मुक्ति तब मिलती है जब हम कुछ नया आधार ले कर कुछ नया मत प्रस्तुत करना सीख जाते हैं, और फ़िर उस नये मत को सिद्ध करने के नये विद्धि भी हम ही प्रस्तावित करने लगते है, जो की सर्वसम्मति को प्राप्त कर सकें।

वास्तव में हमारे जीवन में ऐसे अवसर कम मिलते हैं जब हम box बुद्धि को तोड़ते हुए कुछ कर गुज़रे। हम सब box बुद्धि से ग्रस्त लोग है। box बुद्धि को तोड़ने वाला व्यक्ति अक्सर पहेलियों और रहस्यों को सुलझाने की अभिरुचि का व्यक्तित्व रखने वाला होता है। क्योंकि रहस्य और पहेली सुलझाने में भी ठीक यही मानसिक-बौद्धिक कौशल का प्रयोग किया जाता है -- सर्वप्रथम किसी प्रस्तावित प्रत्यय (hypothesis) को प्रस्तुत करना, फ़िर उसके परीक्षण या सिद्ध करने की विधि भी खुद से ही प्रस्तावित करना। और यदि परीक्षण विद्धि सर्वसमति प्राप्त कर ले, तब फ़िर प्रस्ताव को सिद्ध होने के लक्षण दे कर उसे प्रत्यय यानी theory में तब्दील कर देना। और फ़िर यदि theory वापस सर्वसिद्ध हो गयी, तब उसे एक नियम में तब्दील कर देना।

Box बुद्धि के टूट जाने वाली क्रिया हमारे इर्द गिर्द शायद ही कभी हमें घटते हुए देखी हो तो हो।

Advance automation work environments and the causes of failures of the conventional Indian managerial style

 Imagine working on a product-tanker ship , with slender crew on board , just 17 or so, and of multinational denomination.

In your understanding, what type of leadership and the management style will serve best to operate such a ship?

And now imagine if you have to do training and teaching all the time with those 17 crew instead of the regular Planned Maintenance Schedule jobs. How easy or difficult would it be to you?

_____________________________________________________________

The leadership and the management style of an Indian is usually derived, in my thinking , from the models of a tea-estate plantation manager .

Tea plantation was the first industrialized activity ever done by the mankind. It is to be remembered that  our country, India , is the biggest producer of Tea in the world. The European traders came to India as mariners, via sea route, for her riches of the spices. Tea, a small shrub, is also one such spices which caught the interest of the European traders, but at that time it would be found only as some wild growth in some remote forest place. The British, as they realised the potential profits that tea could bring to them, decided to grow tea as a domesticated farm product. That would mean that now the native indians were required to be domesticated too, to work as the Industrial farm labourers, who could be used for the growing of the tea. Indians , until then were casual "villagers"(the non-industrial persons) with their interest confined to the agricultural fields and the soldiery work. "Villagers" were the people who did not know what it was like to work for any interest beyond the service of the agricultural fields and the king, as his soldier . An industrial labour gives his service for the interest centering around money, whereas a casual villager works merely to fill his stomach and to save his life from the fury of the king,
It took the British to coin out the money and to cultivate interest of the villager type Indians in that money in order to make the Industrial labourers out of them. The domestication of the lifestyle and the cultivation of interest in money of the villager Indians was not an easy challenge before the British. The mechanics of domestication of the people was same as the sheep-and-the-dog tactics used by the shepherds. A more aggressive natured person was picked from the Indian people, and then reigned in , ridden like an young colt, who may in turn , use his aggression to control the large mass. This young colt was the classical tea-estate manager.

So, what kind of leadership and the managerial style leads to the production of the Tea in such large volume ?

A traditional Tea estate manager , in my views, was and is, a very cunning, deceitful, manipulative , exploitative person who abused the illiterate Tea plantation worker - physically, economically and even sexually at times, which perhaps led to the rise of the Marxist ideologies among the masses where ever Tea Plantation was being done at an Industrial scale. This observation may perhaps best explain the common factor in why the Left Ideology political parties are dominating in both , the West Bengal and Kerela. The common-factor reasoning is that both are the places where Tea Plantation at an Industrial scale was started in India by the British.

But my interest is to decipher the kind of managerial style - which I would call by a name-  the Conventional managerial style-  that one should expect from an average Indian. In my thinking Management and the Leadership is something that comes to man , both in the Natural format , and the school-trained polished format.

Therefore , even if a person is not exposed to any formal learning , it would be wrong of us to assume that the person doesn't have any managerial style of his own. Rather , the question we should seek to know is - what kind of managerial style should we expect from a person who has had no formal lessoning of the different managerial style and the Leadership courseware . This question is more important to be answered, because, as we can see, the informal (or the non-school trained) style or the the natural format style is what is more prevalent and is what is more regularly practiced by the people.

It is here that our Tea-estate managerial style model comes into picture, because this is the closest explanation of the informal model . A basic understanding of how a Tea estate worker accomplishes his task, and a model of how his estate manager deals with him - will give the best picture of what kind of managerial style one should expect from an average Indian . 

Indeed one may also explore , through this model, why the Nawabi - The Raja babu or the 'velvet gloves'" leadership style of a Lucknowi person may be loathed by the people of the Tea-estate regions .

Having worked on ships which had very lean level of manning , my views are that such ships can be handled only when the crew members are already well-trained , post-beginner level , whom I would like to refer to as the "professional". The idea in my usage of the word "professional" can be best understood by comparing it with the terms "amateur " or the "beginner".

So, these ships are the ones where a shipping company can obtain the best profits only when they have spent enough towards the crew salary so as to pick the most "professional" level crew members from the labour market.  

This theory about the selection of the crew for a slim-manned ship goes well with the level of automation that the ship has been provided with. The shipowners may never obtain profits from their spending on the automation technology unless they operate the ship as per the standards that they have conceived in the design and the construction of the ship . Advance level Automation is a very useful means of saving the potential losses to the ship owners from factors such as delays in time, improving the efficiency with respect to the manual operation. Automation, thus, saves losses to the ship owners from the crew inefficiency related causes. Such crew-inefficiency related losses occur  in terms of training of the crew, Supervision , the overtime component of their salary , and such on. 

But the Automation comes with another price tag of its own. That, the skill standards required of the crew  to operate the automation of ships must be of the "professional" level. Otherwise the Automation will start working just the opposite of what it is intended for.

Now that we know that the crew of leanly-manned automated ships is having the skill of the standards designated as the "professional" level,  try making a guess what leadership style should be the best style to be practiced on such ships ? 

To put the question more straight - which is the best style of Leadership to be practiced in an environment where the workers are suppose to be of "professional" level skill standards ?

I was working on ships where the Company , the ship owners, discouraged the practice of giving overtime related salaries altogether . 

Now, that makes the challenge of Managerial style even more straight . But this handicap on the manager gives a hint to our query of the working style of the manager .

When the crew is not expected to be given a reward in term of the overtime payment, the answer is that the shipowners want the crew and officer to work only within the defined framework of the the Standards Operation Procedure or the SOPs. The crew, whose skill level is Advanced enough , is expected to know how to execute out their task. The only issue is that they only have to do their tasks while keeping within the framework of the SOPs, which means without any expectations of the extraneous reward such as the overtime allowance. 

By the way, what does it speak about the ship owner's idea of what is the overtime payment ? 

 The shipowners think that the Overtime payment is a "rewarding and a punishing tool" given to the person in managerial role for no good reason because that way the overtime payment is often crookedly secured by the crew, but which is a loss to the ship owner's pocket. On ships where the crew is known to be of the skill level of "beginner /amateur "; and that the overtime payment system is practiced, it is observable that the overtime "reward/punishment" system works - more often- to destroy or damage the machinery ,  which the crew is habituated to do for creating an artificial justification ploy for not conforming with the pre-defined framework of the SOPs . 

Now that is a complex truth to understand. But we must take out time and apply our minds , to think it out.

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More about the tea-estate managerial style : -

The conventional , tea-estate style of person in a managerial role , has an in-built cultural attitude where a cat-and-mice game is played between the workers and the managers, somewhat like the tom-and-jerry show . The worker have a cultural skills to skive off the task, to fail the task and to blame the cause of failure to something that the manager is supposed to be responsible for. 

And the manager bear their cultural skills to identify some person whom he may put as a guinea pig - to send out his message of discipline. He knows it, culturally, to how to humiliate, insult, demoralize and to discipline the selected guinea pig person. 

The game sets on by itself in any work space where there are sufficient Indian people are around. It is during this psychological game that the human values, (the human considerations for a fellow human) are also used as a coin to hit out against each other . Within this managerial work environment, a manager who allows for the humane consideration to his worker is seen as emotionally weak to have succumbed to the coin  thrown by the worker at him.

Since, in the tea-estate managerial style , the human consideration are , inter alia, used as the attack weapons , therefore , the manager is expected  to be hardened , and often cruel or even inhuman in his ways. Obviously ,the Lucknowi style, where Tea is not grown, but merely sipped and enjoyed, such a  managerial style is loathed . But , in turn , the Tea-estate managers who are from the plantation regions of India, see the Lucknowi 'velvet glove' managerial style itself as impotent , powerless , and inefficient. 

However , the work environment that I am referring about --  the slim-manned ship having crew member of multiple nationality , a barriers come into play when a traditional tea-estate style manager is put into it. The ideal relationship between the worker and the manager must be centered around the willingness, and the sincerity of the commitment made to each other. But the cat-and-mice game tea-estate  managerial style is filled with insincerity. 

The tea-estate manager is not acquainted with the ideal of sincerity. Neither does he know how to honour the free-will of a person. Being crooked comes as naturally to the tea-plantation manager as is the poison to a serpent. But a lean-manned, hi automation level ship can hardly afford insincerity of the crew  and the officers. 

राजनीति अस्त्र और कूटनीति अस्त्र अलग होते हैं

 राजनीति अस्त्र अलग होता है, और कूटनीति अस्त्र अलग। ये दोनो ही अलग किस्म के  अस्त्र होते हैं।

मगर शासन शक्ति तक पहुंचने के लिए दोनों अस्त्रों का प्रयोग करने में महारथ चाहिए होती है। 

 राजनीति अस्त्र का प्रयोग होता है जनता को लुभाने के लिए । कूटनीति का प्रयोग होता है विरोधियो को हराने के लिए। 

चुनाव प्रक्रिया आजकल कूटनीति अस्त्र का मैदान बन चुकी है। evm के प्रति लोगो की आशंका  कूटनीति का पायदा है। फिर,  वोट की गिनती की प्रक्रिया, vvpat की गणना, चुनाव अधिकारीयों के राजनैतिक झुकाव, ये सब कूटनीति अस्त्र का अंश बन चुके हैं। मीडिया से wave बनाना,court से अपने पक्ष के फैसले दिलवाना, यह भी अंश है कूटनीति अस्त्र के।

भूखी,गरीब, अल्प पढ़ी लिखी समर्थक भीड़ इन सब कूटनीति अस्त्र को कटाक्ष करने के लिए तैयार नहीं होती है। वो सिर्फ नारेबाजी करके, और या फ़िर मोटरसाइकिल पर पार्टी के झंडे लगा करके काफिले बना कर रैली करने के ही काम आ सकती है। 

जबकि भाजपा के समर्थकों में बुद्धि से ताकतवर sales और marketing रणनीति में महारथी भीड़ है। कभी LED टीवी बेच कर, और कभी मोटरसाइकिल बेच कर वोट कमाए जाते हैं।

विपक्ष कूटनीति अस्त्र में बारबार कमज़ोर पड़ रहा है।

Exit Polls चुनावी प्रचार का हिस्सा ही होते हैं

 ऐसा कैसे की बिहार चुनावों में exit poll के नतीजे राजद को बहुमत होने का इशारा कर रहे थे, भाजपा गठबंधन को अल्पमत, 

मगर जब असली नतीजे आये तब उल्टा ही हो गया। जबकि ज्यादातर राज्य चुनावो में exit poll उल्टे ही रहे हैं, भाजपा गठबंधन को ही बहुमत मिलने की भविष्यवाणी करते रहे हैं।

दरअसल, इस बार exit poll भी चुनाव प्रचार का ही हिस्सा है, जो कि वोट पड़ जाने के बाद किया जाता है। exit poll का प्रयोग बिहार चुनावों में लोगो को डराने के लिए हुए है कि यदि राजद आ गई तब भाजपा समर्थको के संग क्या सलूक हो गा ! चुनाव अधिकारियों में भाजपा के समर्थक अधिकारी लोग हेरफेर करके भाजपा को जिताने में लग गए।

बाकी हर बार दूसरे राज्यों में exit poll का प्रयोग होता है भाजपा के हक़ में wave बनाने के लिए कि यदि बहुमत कम पड़े तब आसानी से पार्टनर मिल जाये।

राजद के पास समर्थक वैसे भी गरीब, भूखी जनता थी, जबकि भाजपा ने तो शासन शक्ति के भीतर अपने समर्थक बैठा रखें हैं।

The problem with the courseware on Managerial Leadership

 The single biggest problem that I see in the courseware on leadership and managerial style , particularly the caselets type, like "Capt Dayal- old man with valve gloves" and "Chief Engineer Swamy , man with iron fist" , is that these caselet studies entrap the minds of the learners instead of helping it to open out.

How ?

The courseware captivates away the thinking of the learners to see the leadership roles from the two frames alone -that of 'velvet gloves' attitudes and that of 'iron fist'. 

Many uninitiated learners will get induced through the courseware , to think that the Motivation, which is an important role in the leadership, is done by way of acting soft and Humane, which then is the way to get the job done .

Here lies the trouble.

The courseware tends to send a message that behaving human considerate should bear a selfish motive -  that of getting the job done . A shallow thinking learner may fail to see that the human-considerate behaviour is expected to be done without selfishness, by all  the sources of moral values - the religious philosophies and the society. And as a result , the uninitiated learner may cultivate a kind of a highly sophisticated but pathological mind within himself wherein he would start to  conduct his considerate, human-side  with another  person  in a very selfish manner , that  the receiver must reciprocate in terms of his sweat.

Such an immature learner, through the courseware , may be tricked to think that if his human-considerate side is not being reciprocated properly by the crew members though his labour, then it would put a black mark on his leadership abilities . And in such a situation , he would need to switch to the iron-fist conduct , wherein , in future  it would become legitimate for him to stop granting the human considerate  needs to his crew , no matter how grave the situation may be.

The course material may bear impact on the mind of the crew as well in their off-classroom learners role , wherein they may become immunized to the grants received of Human-value considerations.  The crew may start to  think that every time a master or a Chief Engineer is acting with a velvet glove, then there is a "leadership"-related selfish motive hidden underneath it. The mere knowledge that this the course material on the leadership has these contents will be enough to set a psychological "insincerity" game between the active learners of the course and the off-classroom learners !

The biggest victim would be the humanity itself , wherein , many of the the unmindful active learners may become truly transactional while giving human consideration to each other.
And a large part of the off-classroom learners may begin to objectify the grants that they may have received.  and then act psychopathic on occasions .

The insincerity may become a cultural-attitude , between the classroom-learners and the off-classroom learners. The transactional type relationship would pervade through the society all over.

In my views , the caselets should also send out the lessons that leadership should not cultivate a highly transactional relationship lesson within the learners, in regard to conducting oneself with human consideration with the fellow seaman . One must not forget, in his haste to practice his leadership courseware , to act human with the subordinate in a genuine and sincere manner.

Also, the Motivation function should be prevented from becoming trapped with the 'velvet gloves'" conducts and the "iron fist" conducts .

In my own experiences at sea, where i have worked with slim-manned crew, just around 17 or so , on product tanker ships, and of multinational denomination, I believe that cultural barriers , understanding the cultural Mooring of the people , is more important knowledge in order to get the tasks onboard the ship accomplished .

In my thinking , a free, willing and a submissive person is the best type that we can have on board , both in the leadership roles and the followership roles.

The common mis-knowledge that courseware on leadership and the managerial style brings about with it is that it teaches that the leadership personality should be dominating type , and the followership personality should be submissive type. Consequently, the courseware advocate and promotes the proverbial   wolf-and-lamb combination , wherein more mishaps occur on ships , misconducts and inter-personal troubles are reported on board, and the unwilling , reluctant crew is seen on ships which results into more of Machinery failures due to improper maintenance, under the effect of crew or the officer Playing truant from work.

The real challenge on board , in my view, is to get the free-willing persons on board, those types  who would be ready to contribute their sweat on their own motivation . Towards this, a soft natured officers are important to be present in the senior capacity whose conducts with the submissive crew should not put off the latter.

Filipino crew, i see, are more submissive and high -rated in their sincerity towards work . This is perhaps because of the religious -cultural upbringing that they receive.

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By pitting the humane behaviour of the velvet gloved Captain Dayal against the cause of his self-anxiety that he is losing grip over the crew,

The caselet has done a huge damage to the society because the society is induced to think that IN A good , balanced leadership even the humane consideration should be used with transactional motives !

That is a huge , irreparable damage done to the social and moral values of the  society, by such caselet studies.

The effect that the study material being around is somewhat like it immunizes the population to view even the human consideration acts with suspicion. Thus  , in our society the well is dried up from where the genuine motivation could have been drawn. 

Plus, the caselet, by using the humane conduct as a weak sign of leadership , weakens the case of using human behaviour for the purpose of inspiring and motivation in the situations where the  Transformational leadership is required. The caselets , unbeknownst, promotes the Transactional leadership as the only and the best style.

It so happened that in the past that one Changez Khan, the greatest conqueror of Human history , and therefore undeniably a great leader of his time, made his military achievements by way of establishing a fear among his rivals and his own armies alike. The fear was showed by acting too cruel and inhuman with the enemy whom he attacked as a looter and a plunderer. He is know to straight off behead the innocent people in large hordes overnight , which established his strongly fearful image in the population.  It thus came to be understood within the military that fearful image is the best source of motivation and therefore the leadership .

The caselet studies promotes the case but the a convoluted angle. It advocates that the being human is a weak leadership . 

But the truth of the modern democratic society is that Fear cannot and should not be given any place for exercising of the Control within the business organizations in order to be a genuine achiever.