Platts Commodity Week Interview

A clip of my intervview at Platts Commodity week at Mumbai in Sep`13.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPSMkI2vBKY

Limitations of Brain – how critical are human attitudes?

A July 2011 Scientific American article” The limits of intelligence” by Douglas Fox, claims that the human brain has reached its limits of intelligence from both a physical as well as structural point of view. The basic premise of the argument is based on the movements of the neurons which as claimed by the author has reached its practical limits.

If the brain gets bigger in size to accommodate more neurons and hence more processing power, the brain would need higher energy as the neurons would need to would need to travel more distance and hence brains can actually become slower. Secondly, if the connection wiring between the neurons is increased or if the neurons are made thicker to increase processing power, this will also lead to more energy consumption and hence would not add to the processing power of the brain. Coincidentally, a newspaper article (TOI dtd. 7^th Oct`13) reported, that a physician who studied the structure of Albert Einstein`s brain after his death found that the wiring between the various parts of his brain was exceedingly high and proposes this as the reason for the Einstein`s brilliance. Thirdly, if structurally more neurons are packed in the same brain area and hence decreasing the size of the neurons, the author claims in this scenario that the interactions between the neurons would be destructive and would not lead to a better output from the brain.

If the human brain can`t get any better then how do we better the human output in this age of “innovation” driven age. Douglas Fox says that one way is by better social interaction leading to a collective pooling of human brain and the second way is by use of technology (viz. internet). Thus social interaction i.e. culture and technology can actually reduce the need for greater individual smart brains!

To understand the ramifications of the article, I tried to look at the ecosystems for the culture and technology angles as raised in Fox`s research.

From a business perspective, the global business scenario too has been consistently changing over the past few decades. From the post-world war 2 physical infrastructure build-up in western nations, the rise of the competitive and efficient Asian economies in the 80`s, the IT and internet boom in the 90`s and to the rise of India and China, in the last 15 years, as the global back office and manufacturing base respectively, the scenarios have constantly evolved based on the business requirements. The next decade will be dominated by countries and organizations for which “innovation” is at the core of the business models. 

Better output from social interactions can happen in an ecosystem which encourages more interactions between the people. Apple and Microsoft are designing offices in which people bump into each other more and exchange ideas. Yahoo has banned employees from working from home so that employees work more effectively by more face to face interactions rather than the more efficient means like email, phones, etc. Jack Welch, as GE insiders say, would look at the body language and commitment exuded by the manager presenting new ideas rather than look only at the details of the plans.

The society culture also plays an important part in social interactions. Typically family driven social systems like Indian, Chinese and Japanese tend to have more social interactions. However this trend has changed thanks to the advent of electronic gadgets, internet (strangely yes!), increase in nuclear families and increased urbanization. In India we have seen lesser number of kids preferring to come out to play and be confined to home playing with gadgets. In public transport people are stuck to their phones, tablets, kindles, etc. rather than talk with their fellow travellers. Another aspect to consider is the work culture of the society. Team driven cultures like Japanese have achieved more thanks to their collaborative attitude while the Indian culture of individual brilliance but poor team works skills have impeded the output.

The American system and the European systems have able to drive innovation with the help of the educational and legal frameworks.  These systems driven culture have enabled collaboration between various people by encouraging out of the box thinking and risk taking. The education system too plays an important part in this process. The Western education system and some other education system like the Japanese system focuses on building up specific skills and concept learning which fosters a culture of innovation and higher productivity while some rote based systems like in India and some Asian countries only churn out educated coolies. The legal system too, is protective of original pieces of work e.g. protection of patents, trademarks, strict laws against plagiarism. Etc.

One of my senior business acquaintances who hails from Korea told me that 2 things are very important to succeed and drive changes and innovation in an organization – team work and passion. While passion comes from within, people who can work and contribute to a group effort are very important to organizations which in turn have to build up ecosystems to nurture group efforts. He also mentioned that humans who can use their left and right brains equally well are more productive than single brained humans. The left side of the brain is used in structured and analytical work while the right side of the brain is used for instinctive work like arts, sports, etc.

This information based on the research has very important ramifications for organizations, institutions, societies, etc. which are highly influenced by human behaviours.

1.      One man army teams, teams with rock stars and high calibre people who can`t gel in a team will have limitations beyond a particular point. As the saying goes – “the whole is better than sum of the parts”.

 

2.      Well rounded personalities would be preferred as compared to uni- dimensional personalities in managerial positions. In an organization a person with high IQ but average – low EQ would be a disaster. Highly left brained or right brained people would find it difficult to contribute to an overall case beyond a limit.

 

3.      To identify the correct people, organizations would need to have robust recruitment and training processes. People in managerial posts would need to have interests in varied activities like sports, arts, music, etc. to be effective managers.

 

4.      The education system would need to be modified to stress not only on academics but also in extracurricular activities and sports. Rote based systems need certainly to undergo rigorous changes to suit the new challenges in a global system.

 

5.      Women managers would be find more and more chances as generally they are better off in team work and more well-rounded and balanced personalities as compared to men.

As my Korean friend said “Team work” and “Passion” are the one of most important aspects in life. Very true!!