In my previous post I introduced the discipline of Nemetics.

But what is a Neme around which the discipline is evolving?

To be fair, a Neme or more appropriately called a NemeSphere is not any physical object like a ball or a computer or an apple.

It may be aptly described as a bundle of moving relationships an object or event contains within it and the many other moving relationships such events/phenomenon have with other objects and events operating in a shared space at a given time.

That brings us to the first principle of nemetics that helps us view the world and nature in a different way. Simply stated -- there are no objects. Or in other words there is no self in anything. So a self is not a self (though it often appears as a form) but only an entangled bundle of moving relationships in a given space.

Isn't that true? Each one of us is only an entangled bundle of relationships, feelings, perceptions, understandings and our own mental constructs. Likewise every family is a entangled bundle of relationships, perceptions, understanding, unique behaviors and mental constructs. Similarly, every organization is an entangled bundle of relationship of policies, rules, human behavior, quality of performance, perceptions, feelings, mental constructs etc. Though there is a visible form in most cases the real self or rather the non-self remains invisible though constantly at work. This is therefore, the essence of the reality, the non-self full of moving relationships in space, in everything that we see or feel around us.

Note for the sake of simplicity we can group together similar relationships and imagine them to be contained within a tube, which we call a NemeTube. For instance Management of any organization takes various actions and frames many policies, rules etc. We can then club all these similar actions of the Management into one tube, which for example might be named as Management NemeTube. Similarly we might have something called Employee NemeTube or Customer NemeTube or Supplier NemeTube. 

In Nemetics, we happen to see such moving relationships in the form of NemeStrings and NemeTubes existing between lovers, parents and their children, organizations and their employees and customers, government and their subjects. To have a simple physical understanding each moving relationship within a possible NemeTube is represented as a string or NemeString, though invisible to the naked eye. There can be a number of such similar strings (like we see on a violin or on a guitar) clubbed together within a NemeTube. And the movement in the relationship is represented by vibration. 

To summarize till this point:

1. There is no self. Whatever exists is Non-self that contains dynamically changing entangled web of moving relationships continually at play. Not to focus on an object but to focus on moving relationships is the new world view Nemetics takes. 

2. Nothing exists independently. There must be at least one moving relationship within and without of a non-self.

3. These moving relationships are not only interconnected to each other but also interdependent and therefore continually change over time.

4. While the relationships are represented as 'strings' that connect, the movement is represented as vibration. The relationship and the associated movement give meaning to create understanding.

However, since all interconnected 'moving relationships' (henceforth only referred to as 'relationship') are continually at work in a dynamic and interdependent fashion the relationships do not stay the same over time. They change over time. So what we understand at this point of time might not be the same the next moment. It would become different. How does that happen? It happens because these relationships have energy content in them. We are fortunate since energy content in such relationships might be represented as vibrating strings (NemeStrings) sustained by continual exchange of energy (Nemex) with losses and addition to the energy content over time (the entropy function). 

Since relationships vibrate continually (having different characteristics like resonance, damping etc) the nature of the vibration characteristics change over time, i.e. both frequencies and amplitudes might change in a given space. In other words, though on the whole, vibration in a given space exhibits a pattern at any instant of time the probability that the pattern would change over time is 1 (one), which means it is certain.

That is true in every case. On a personal level my ideas, thinking, perceptions, understanding continually change over time being influenced by various energy exchanges (Nemex) when I am subjected to new experiences, new thoughts, new perceptions, new dialogs, new actions, new mental images, etc.. On an organizational level things are changing too. The relationships with various customers change over time. The demands change over time. The suppliers change over time. The processes change over time.... The same continually happens in nature.

However, for vibrations to happen we need Space and Energy exchange. Obviously, the space would contain many such vibrating strings dancing at different frequencies and amplitudes. But what keeps these vibration (or motion) going? 

Every relationship to remain as a relationship must enjoy the 'struggle' between opposites a characteristic inherent in every relationship - all of which are continuously in motion to survive. It is a paradox. Without this constant 'struggle' of opposites there can never be any motion.

Though it appears paradoxical it is relatively simple to understand. Think about our walking, a common experience for most. As we walk, different pairs of opposites immediately come into play. The first is 'friction' opposing the muscular energy that we spend in moving forward. Next, is the way the muscles release energy -- contraction and dilation of the energy flow. We can see that physically through the stretching and folding of our legs. Then the very act of walking involves 'falling down' and then trying to 'get up'. So we see that reality exists in different planes. It is upto us to discern and discriminate these. Note, that the different sets of opposites exist in every single event or phenomenon. Needless to say that understanding relationships and their own internal struggles immediately triggers off cascades of higher cognitive learning, which I call learning through moving meditation.  

So we may say, every relationship being exposed to the inherent 'struggle' continuously tries to 'balance' its position somewhere in between the opposites but never quite in the middle for any point of time. This act of automatically trying to balance between two opposites and changing automatically at the same time so long a motion is sustained through energy exchange (Nemex) is what we understand as self integration and self organization behavior.

This in-built feature in every relationship that enables a relationship to maintain balance in motion brings out another two interesting phenomena, which are 'chaos' and 'complexity'. How is that?

It is rather interesting that all such 'struggles' can be physically represented as acts of 'stretching' and 'folding', which is the typical generic pair of opposites that gives rise to chaos. In other words, the surprise possibility known as chaos is present in every relationship we come across. Chaos, apparently a disorder, is triggered by a small change in the relationship in its effort to maintain balance and change between two opposing tendencies.

But what happens when many relationships are entangled and play at the same time? It gives rise to complexity out of which something that we know as 'emergence' appears, seemingly out of thin air. How does that occur?

It is not surprising to find many entangled co-existing and interconnected and interdependent relationships within one phenomenon or event, where each exhibits its own element of chaos. When number of such 'chaos' possibilities get together or play out together a new phenomenon appears -- something we know as 'emergence'. Such 'emergences' might take different forms. They may exhibit as failures, surprises, problems, opportunities, threats, value, and even our own creativity, which we exchange for something (Nemex).

For example, the economic downturn we experienced from 2008 is a simple case of 'emergence'. Though we might be led to believe that an 'emergence' might always be a sudden occurrence it is not so. The possible appearance of a growing 'emergence' can be spotted through a 'trend' over time before they finally manifest or emerge. A leader's role would be to spot such a trend over time in order to come to grips with 'emergence'. 

This brings us to the next set of principles involved in Nemetics, which are:

5. The whole of reality is nothing but Space and Motion. 

6. Relationships represented as vibrating strings (NemeStrings) change over time. That is everything around us is 'becoming' rather than 'being'. Believing something as being fixed is nothing but a mental delusion.

7. In every relationship there is a struggle of opposites where the relationship tries hard to maintain a balance between these sets of opposites and relationships do change automatically.

8. Within each event there is always a explicit possibility of experiencing more than one set of opposites at play.

9. The automatic tendencies of any relationship to balance between two opposites is known as self organizing and self integration.

10. The act of trying to maintain balance creates the 'stretching' and 'folding' effect

11. The stretching and folding effect gives rise to the inherent possibility of existence of chaos in every relationship, where even a small change in the relationship triggers chaos. Apparently chaos seems to be an act of disorder but the order is still maintained in a relationship's struggle to maintain a balance between opposing tendencies. 

12. When there are many interconnected and interdependent relationships entangled to each other & operating at the same time within a given space, the possibilities of chaos inherent in every interdependent relationship interact upon one another to manifest as 'emergence' in different forms.

Before we get any further it might now be important to consider as to how we learn. After we do that we then briefly touch upon as to how many events and phenomenon playing out in a given space might be represented to make our learning easier.

For this we need to consider as to how we discern and discriminate the various sounds emanating from various types of musical instruments we hear while attending a concert? For example, how do we discriminate between the sounds of a violin and that of drums? Obviously, this is done by our brain by a very clever trick. It does a Fourier Transform of all the sounds that enter through our ears (at the point of entry into our ears all sounds are sort of mixed up -- meaning all relationships are mixed and entangled together into an indistinguishable form).

What the brain does next is to split up the mixed up sound their distinct frequency components and the corresponding amplitude against each frequency. This splitting up process helps us to discriminate and distinguish the various chracteristic sounds coming from different instruments be it a violin or drums. What the brain did was to present to us a 2 Dimensional vibration frequency spectrum which is nothing but a plot of frequency vs amplitude that enables us to distinguish different frequencies and discern their corresponding amplitudes.

In fact the brain presents the direction of the sound too that gives us the 3 Dimensional effect of listening to live music.

However, the brain does something more. It also stores the vibration frequency spectrum as an image for future retrieval that might be used for various purposes. 

Same happens when we see something. The different frequencies of the colors we see are again split up into their various frequency components along with the amplitudes of the vibrations (intensity of the light emanating from the various colors in all their shades). The way it is done is exactly the same as described for sound. And the brain very easily stores the vibration frequency pattern/spectrum for our future use.

The same goes for all the other senses too.

So, when we have any new experience the pattern in form of a vibration spectrum is immediately generated and the brain then fetches out the other stored patterns for comparison, discrimination and most importantly connections. Our innate ability to make several connections at the same time and come up with a meaningful understanding is called 'insight', which I term as 'feelings' -- an important sense in a way -- making sense of the complex reality that surrounds and engulfs us.

The point I am driving at is all that we see, sense, stores, compare, create first through our minds and then through our bodies are patterns/spectrums in form of Fourier Transform (a plot of frequency vs amplitude).

If that be so, why the reality we experience every moment around us can't be represented as Frequency Spectrums (Fourier Transform in terms of plots of frequencies vs amplitudes)?

Fortunately, this can be done, more so since all relationships can be described as vibrating elements, vibrating at different frequencies.

For instance, let us take an organization. Different activities and events (motion) simultaneously go on within an organization under a given space. Management is busy framing rules, guidelines, policies, which we can club under Strategic decisions (a bundle of nemestrings called Management NemeTube). These strategic decisions taken by management from time to time affect human behavior of the employees, customers, suppliers and other stake holders. And these behaviors give rise to other activities like improvement activities that affect the performance, productivity and profitability of the organization on the whole.

Now we effectively have three sets of NemeTubes (each composed of several NemeStrings) -- all vibrating at different frequencies each having different energy content in form of amplitudes. While the Management NemeTube (A) has the lowest frequencies (activities over time are not that thick and fast as others) among the three NemeTubes. Human behavior as a result of Management NemeTube (interdependent) would be vibrating at a higher frequency than the Management NemeTube but not higher than the thousands of activities that are set in motion affecting Performance, Productivity and Performance. So while the Human Behavior NemeTube (B) has a frequency higher than Management NemeTube the Performance NemeTube (C) has the highest frequency (considering the number of activities over a similar period of time).

The relationship as it turns out is A < B < C. Therefore it is easy to have a frequency plot of the various NemeTubes operating in a given space and time. Obviously the amplitudes depending on the energy content in each would differ. But the advantage such a plot might offer is great. It immediately tells us which affects (since interdependent under a complex setting) what and how much and what we might do to improve the situation. Deeper attention would tell us that A, B and C are all fractals of the different events or motions playing in a given space. That makes it even more interesting.

I leave the discussion for now which I hope to continue in my subsequent blog posts.

Have you ever wondered that we face challenges, solve problems, design something new and create opportunities every moment in our lives without explicitly realizing that we do so? Yes, we use our own internal power, capabilities and resources to achieve such miraculous feats day in and day out.  

Why then we don’t think of using this normal and probably natural process to better understand the world around us, do our jobs better, face challenges more squarely, solve problems more effectively, design things with simplicity and beauty and also create new opportunities to not only improve the world around us but also improve our personal lives?

A little thought would show us that things like problems, challenges, opportunities are all “emergences” that appear in our lives constantly as things continue to change all around us.

The purpose of using Nemes and Nemetics is coming to grips with such ‘emergences’, which I believe is well within the reach of almost everyone on the earth. It helps us better understand events in our lives to take actions that change our future to a more ‘desirable’ one.

Let us start by understanding NEME. It is an acronym that stands for:

N = Notice

E = Engage

M = Mull

E = Exchange

And how do we use this in facing emergences that crop up in our lives?

Whenever we see or feel anything be it an object or an event or a phenomenon we use NEME. Hence any entity of our observation, mental engagement and action is a NEME or more appropriately called a NEMESPHERE (Nemesphere), which we may for the sake of convenience imagine it to be some sort of a spherical body that contains many other things like Nemepoint, Nemestrings, Nemetubes and even other Nemespheres – terms which we shall explain shortly along with their significance.Such Nemespheres move dynamically through space, time and energy fields inviting us to engage in its infinitely dynamic play with entangled nemestrings, nemetubes and other nemespheres - play that never ends but continuously evolves.

We know for certain that any object or an event or a phenomenon does not exist in utter isolation. It always exists as an entity that is not only interconnected to other entities (Nemespheres) but also interdependent on the functioning of other Nemispheres. Therefore, any Nemesphere exists in a holistic network fashion in relation to other Nemespheres.

So when we observe a point, seemingly in isolation it can be called a Nemepoint. Note as we zoom in on a Nemepoint it essentially becomes a Nemesphere. Alternatively, many Nemepoints might collapse together to form a Nemesphere, which obviously depends on our degree of abstraction or granularity that we use in our observation. 

Since a Nemepoint or Nemesphere cannot survive independently it must then be connected to at least one more Nemesphere (for sake of simplicity we would treat Nemepoint and Nemesphere as equivalent terms). The connections between two or more Nemespheres are achieved by connected Nemestrings, which might be imagined as strings having certain stiffness and matter. Interesting to note that each NemeSphere is also made up on numerous entangled NemeStrings.

However, when many Nemestrings are put together or organically bundle together (since Nemestrings are also connected to each other) they form Nemetubes which are nothing but a bundle of Nemestrings from which different characteristics might emerge.

But what we understand about NEME and how is it used?

N = Notice

So when we start to Notice (N) a Nemesphere we start paying attention to many issues like:-

a) Its movement in space, time and energy fields

b) The numerous relationships it has with other Nemespheres

c) The Dialectics or continual play of interdependence that goes on between different interconnected Nemespheres. Simply put the ‘struggle’ between opposite characteristics that goes on between two or more connected Nemespheres. The dialectics is experienced in the Nemestrings that create both patterns and non-patterns.

d) The history of its evolution over time, space and energy fields and the conditions that created the present state of existence.

e) The trends, tendencies, new possibilities, new developments (however weak or small), growth

This act of paying attention is done through the help of our five senses and feelings.

E = Engage

After our ‘noticing’ is complete we automatically move towards engagement or simply we Engage (E) in the following ways:

a) We discriminate each of the issues involved to find out how things are in reality.

b) We assess the quantities and qualities involved in the interconnections and interdependences through direct or indirect observations, tests, measures, estimates, analysis or through experimentation or doing.

c) We try to determine or trace the evolutionary history of the Nemesphere(s), i.e. what were its previous states and how did it evolve to its present state.

d) We also try to determine what might be the future evolution or development stages of the present Nemesphere since in the future the existing Nemesphere would evolve into a more complex plane of existence than its present form.

e) What would be the levers or triggers that might help accelerate its movement towards a future state of existence either ‘desired’ or natural.

M = Mull

The next stage is Mull. In this stage we enter into a more complex understanding obtained by placing the Nemesphere in its own sphere and environment of activity (authentic) that would involve the following:

a) Application of our power of feelings devoid of any emotional coloring of our thoughts.

b) Application of our power of insights obtained through intuition, analysis, synthesis, dialogs etc.

c) Application of our will and intention to do something about creating a preferred desired future, accelerate or decelerate its movement, maintaining or adapting to the present reality or destroying the present reality to release self organizing capabilities of the Nemespheres.

d) Communicating our insights, intentions and vision to others (Nemespheres connected to us).

E = Exchange

Now we come to the final stage of a NEME, i.e Exchange (E). We also term an exchange as Nemex

The final stage involves the following:

a) Design additional value that would help us create or co-create (through simultaneous resonance of NemeStrings & NemeTubes) the future, accelerate or decelerate the movement, maintain the status quo, adapt to changing realities, destroy the present stage allowing for a self organizing future.

b) Implement the action plan/design to create the value in reality

c) Exchange the value in terms of money/barter, learning, understanding, helping, sharing, dialogs & creating further opportunities for others & self etc.

d) Check back on the effect of the exchange for the next engaging with the next NEME since the dynamic play is continuously evolving.

I have tried to describe the discipline and practice of Nemetics very briefly.

We may use or apply the practice of Nemetics in the following ways (not exclusive):

1) Understand complex issues as much as we might use them to the depths of the essence behind simple issues

2)  Solve problems both simple and ‘wicked’.

3) Innovate to improve existing conditions with the least effort and resources.

4) Make present reality more relevant

5) Design goods, services, experiences, policies and the like.

6) Adapt, Maintain or increase our resilience

7) Use for personal improvement

8) Improve reliability or profitability of a desired future

9) Improve our existing relationships for robustness, productivity and reliability.

10) Create social value to meet ‘unmet’ needs (e.g. jobs, work, entrepreneurship, education, health, women welfare and material well being and comfort).

We may, therefore, use Nemetics in various fields of human endeavor like (not exclusive):

1) Organizational Development & Change

2) Social Engineering and Innovation

3) Engineering Design and Implementation

4) Other Design fields –, architecture, services, experiences, policies & entrepreneurship

5) Education

6) Personal lives

7) Health care

Nemetics as a discipline can be practiced as an individual or collectively by utilizing the internal powers, capabilities and resources that are ubiquitously found in every person around the world for the collective welfare of the human society without suffering from long term damages or consequences initiated by our actions.

Nemetics simultaneously serves as a discovery or exploration tool, understanding tool and a design tool to solve complex, difficult or 'wicked' problems to create new futures. And as a evolving practice it serves as one of the most fundamental design kata tool too.

Here is a video that tries to depict the movement of a Nemesphere through space, time and energy fields since the whole of reality is movement through relationships.

(download)

Click here to download:

FORCE.SWF (917 KB)

Acknowledgement:

I acknowledge with thanks @toughloveforx, for introducing his thoughts on Nemetics to me and my other peers on twitter like @ddrrnt @graingered and having @rotkapchen as an interested & perhaps curious observer with whom the discipline and practice is being developed through Action Oriented Research.

References:

1. Emergent Nirvana – The Manifesto of a New Movement: http://dibyendu.posterous.com/emergent-nirvana-the-dialectics-of-living-wit

2. Rapidinnovation – A Case Study on Organizational Development & Change: http://dibyendu.posterous.com/rapidinnovation-a-case-study-in-organizationa

3. Nemetics Part 1 (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60scxxspFw&feature=youtu.be

4. In Search of the Elusive Truth: http://discoverwithin.blogspot.com/2011/12/in-search-of-elusive-truth.html

5. Finite & Infinte Games - John Hagel: http://edgeperspectives.typepad.com/edge_perspectives/2012/01/finite-and-infi...

What is so New about the New Year?

1st Jan 2012. We call it a start of a New Year. But I can't understand what is so new about it? I can't feel the coming of a New Year. It is so disconnected from Nature. Nothing much has changed in Nature. I still feel the cold. I don't see new leaves bursting forth to clothe the naked trees. The sun is still mellow in the northern hemisphere. The days are still shorter than the nights that induce me to sleep more than I do in summer.

But the darn clock on the wall would not let me do any of that. I would have to get up and run and rush playing our daily games by the rules that we (my friends and I) have set up. I would have to adapt to the timepiece and all the other routines that are entangled with it. I am continually caught out of breath in the vortex of meaningless rituals into which we are desperately trying to breathe life into to create the inauthentic lives we lead. I am not allowed to adapt to the rhythm of nature as per my own natural tendencies and inclinations. But still we keep shouting hoarse asking people to follow their hearts and save Nature and adapt to her ways to prolong our continuation of life on earth.

Wonder as to why we have gradually synchronized with thousands of mental concepts and constructs that we formed with impunity and fancy aided by a system called formal education much of which goes against basic human rights that might have otherwise allowed us to live like members of the human race. For whom? For what? For whom the bell tolls? What is so special about the human race that makes us believe that we are separate from nature?

Do we exist as individuals?

What made us follow thinkers and leaders who till date haven't been successful to create the 'desired future'. Are we still continuing our nomadic journey through the heavily inhabited deserts of our unkempt minds in search of the 'Promised Land'. Where might be this land? Whose land is that? The Capitalist got it wrong. The Communist got it wrong. The socialist did not get it any better. The religious teachers got it wrong. The scientists got it wrong. The Gurus got it wrong. The Governments got it wrong. The lives of common men and women continue to be crushed and even the thin line left behind after their death is mercilessly obliterated by the grinding wheels of our 'structured civilization' that takes no cognizance of such events and phenomenon. We are still no where. Our food, clothing, shelter, living, meaning in our lives are all threatened. That surely isn't civilization.

Where did they all go wrong? I think it is our ritual of honoring the false concept of 'rise of the individual' based on the belief of a 'self identity'. Therefore, we want to improve ourselves. Therefore, we search for definite traits of a creative mind. Therefore, we are madly searching for so called 'leadership traits' that make us better leaders to lead organizations and masses. Therefore, we define ourselves, the things that we see around us, the factories, the organizations, our love or sense of belonging, in fact everything around us. And then we define what is good and what is bad and what is desirable and what is not so desirable and what we must do to improve ourselves and what we must do to get richer and better. And then think as to how we might teach others the same thoughts that formed our clever mental constructs. We are so concerned with being an individual. All these are simply 'false'.

This is a lie that can never be supported. We simply can't live alone. We are never ever alone. We live in relationships -- with other humans, animals, plants, objects, the energy fields that fill up the cosmos or the universe itself. And as the nature of our relationships changes we evolve in terms of strength, quality and complexity. Caught in the web of numerous relationships we are constantly being modulated and changed. Our choice, therefore, lies in the way we pay attention to those various relationships, constantly responding to the pulls and pushes of those relationships, living for those who bring meaning into our lives and learning from those modulations that move our relationships. It affects our collective mind, health, learning and living. Death is experienced in the closure of a relationship giving birth to a new one or strengthening an existing one.

Dialectics of Relationships is the Secret Key

These relationships are teeming with thousand possibilities of every kind that we need to care about, provided we learn from the continuing dialectics contained in each relationship. It allows us to see truth in different perspectives and dimensions -- all valid but never totally encompassing. It brings in the possibility of the 'excluded middle' as the real possibility of creative living or living as a real member of the human race. 

Since it is all about relationship in the dialectic mode it is not about improving ourselves and making ourselves better, stronger or richer independent of everything else. It is all about improving one or many relationships that entangle us. We are as good as the web of relationships itself. The individual improves through the dialectic motion exhibited by the relationships one is entangled in.

We can't live the path unless our web of relationships becomes the path itself. There is no shame, guilt or fear of being such a changing path informed by the nature, quantity and quality of the connected and interdependent relationships. This is because the path is constantly evolving to new states of becoming through its constant movement shaped by dialectics of the relationships. The path goes nowhere in any linear fashion but evolves to the subsequent complex stages. We can only ride the change by remaining open & attentive. There is no manipulation. We don't play a zero-sum game. We don't need Gurus. There is no need for any personal ambition to excel since all improvements are matter of co-creations. The relationship evolves or gets stuck.

Be the Path & Live it

The co-creation would depend upon recognizing reality through detached application of discrimination.

Such co-creation would be creative only when it flows from insights gained from a situation.

Such co-created evolution would be about actions that spring from the depth of choices made by the elements within the web of relationships fuelled by the collective will power of the relationships.

It is about harmony, melody, dancing to the rhythms of nature and enjoying the freedom of flow that comes from being centered in the middle of the dialectic play of energy fields within relationships.

Our collective ability to negotiate increasing complexity of such collective evolution would depend on whether the relationships bounded by space, energy fields and time acquire the --

1. Right Dialectic Mindset of viewing reality

2. Right Centering, Attention & Intention

3. Right Will and the power of communications

4. Right Practice

5. Right effort to co-create, design and facilitate the higher and complex evolution of relationships

6. Right Learning

7. Right Living

8. Right Actions to bring forth into reality the lessons learned from living the relationships

Emergent Nirvana

I call this "Emergent Nirvana" that has a rhythm of a collective moving through cycles and exhibiting patterns, which gives us the power to design our own lives centered on co-evolving relationships developed through co-operation, collaborations and co-creation.

To be this path of Emergent Nirvana and to live this path we would be our own Gurus where the existing relationships would offer us the necessary lessons of Relevance, Resilience and Reliability to be the change and evolve to increasingly complex planes of a fulfilled existence.

Conclusions

1. The secret of all improvements lies in the dialectic stuggle experienced in all relationships.

2. The web of relationships that entangles us determines the way we live, work, build, engage, design, exchange values and evolve to improve our living conditions.

3. There is no need to follow this path or that; we can create our own path and be it to live it properly. Freedom or Nirvana lies in our attentive engagement with continual emergences such a path throws up. Such emergences offer us the possibilities to learn, adapt, create and design our future without fears or doubts. All that we need to learn and do would come from our life's emergent experiences. Therefore, Nirvana is never a one time experience. It is a continuous experience of life itself in its true dialectic form. Hence the power of Emergent Nirvana unfolds the joy of living with honor.

The Backdrop:

A ductile iron pipe factory operates in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. It is a joint venture between the famous Tatas and Kobutu Pipes of Japan. This factory is run by Japanese managers and supervisors and even some Japanese operators. They provided the technology, set up the plant, run the operations on a day to day basis and guide the Indian workers, supervisors and managers too.

The problem:

Ever since the Japanese installed their plant, 3.5 years ago, productivity never went beyond 50% of the rated capacity and quality rejections hovered around 10%, which they wanted to bring down below 5% level.

The approach taken by the Japanese managers:

They took their usual approach to analyze problems one by one. For that they employed all of their famous quality tools plus a mix of TPM and TQM approach. Huge amount of data were collected, to which one executive jokingly commented that data collection has generated so much paper that it could possibly cover the whole of Kharagpur

They tried their methods for the last 3.5 years without any success. Neither productivity nor quality improved by even 1%.

That is when the Chairman of the company invited me over to show him some 'magic' (he always jokingly refers to me as a 'magician', since he experienced my method 7 years back as a MD of another company)

Application of Rapidinnovation

My approach to the issue, that is application of Rapidinnovation, ran something like this:

Step 1: create an internal team focused on improving reliability and resilience of the organization to face this challenge. The team was a mix of junior, middle and high level executives. Fortunately I found this combination has an advantage of accelerating change.

Step 2: was to initiate them in the new thinking process and solving problems. Taught them my all time favorite method of Improvement through design, named Rapidinnovation -- a) make them see the connection between all problems. Obviously, not all problems are to be tackled one by one. Only the critical nodes are to be address to resolve the issue holistically b) Show them the unity of the opposites to take the "creative middle" c) Minimal invasion or change based on the principle that a small change creates the desired change in the system both quantitatively and qualitatively. d) How all processes and phenomena would naturally negate their present existence to go back to the previous one hence developing a method of spotting changes and adapting quickly in a given situation. The focus was to creatively strike a balance between 'reliability' and 'resilience'.

Two significant ideas of the approach were.

a) The design changes appeared seemingly insignificant. Extremely small changes (pivot points or lever points -- a lesson I learned from Judo). Now I call this Minimalist invasion surgery.

b) No specific attention was given either to improve productivity or quality. In fact not a single quality problem was addressed in the entire engagement. The changes had a holistic effect -- i.e. small changes had their effect on the whole (principle of interdependence)

Step 3: was to work out a few problems directly for them to believe that the method of problem solving and improvement works. That is what I term as the Non-Process in problem solving i.e. -- Examine things in isolation and then see them in their own environment (interdependence, interactions and the 'struggle'). Objective is to help things continue their 'struggle' to be in the 'creative middle' of everything.

Step 4: was to encourage them to apply the method themselves and gain internal confidence and esteem. Here my role was that of a facilitator and a critic.

Step 5: make them think about quickly spotting changes to quickly adapt to improve resilience within the organization.

Step 6: walk the creative middle.

The Results

The results were astounding: Productivity increased by 100% to reach the 100% of rated capacity and quality rejections reduced and came down below the 5% level (i.e. by 100% from former levels) in just under 5 months and the results are consistent over the past 4 months at the time of writing this event. This innovative intervention left the organization with on going benefits for possibly years (that has been my intention in all my previous engagements, which were so far successfully achieved barring a negligible few, 2 out of 50 to be precise).

Appreciation & Comments

a) This is what the Chairman of the company commented:

"Thanks Dibyendu;

I am keeping track of the developments – and the results a lot of confidence that TMKPL would be ranked as one of the best performing cos. in DIP business in the world.

Thanks for accepting the challenge and carrying it forward well.

I had asked Somenath to get across to you about BF opn. ; did he get across to you?

Harsh"

(now he wants the magic for another plant focusing on operation)

b) This is what a senior team member had to comment. I loved it since they see the approach as something that changes 'culture'. (His reference to Reliability Management is the name of my consulting firm RMCPL, solely engaged in problem solving.)

Quote

...RELIABILITY MANAGEMENT is not a problem solving tool, its more of OBSERVING THE PROBLEMS IN A DIFFERENT FASHION AND TOTALLY A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS. It has changed the mind set and APPROACH towards solving problems amongst the team members. RELIABILITY MANAGEMENT IS A TOOL FOR CULTURAL CHANGE throughout the organization which is reflected not only in availability increase of the equipment but also in reduction in the percentage of Rejection and other improvements.

More success will come if we can deploy and involve more people across the organization into this approach.

G Dhar, Manager, TMKPL, Kharagpur

Unquote.

Lesson learned:

Organizational Development and Change Management must always be centred around the reality of problems, challenges and threats an organization suffers from. Then only changes to the way people work happen. Similarly, innovation is also centred around unexpected events that happen in an organization.

On the evening of 10th of December 2011, I was suddenly presented with a rather unusual vision just after my regular meditative session that slowly and carefully unfolded before me.

At first it presented me with pictures of the present reality where a human being controls and captures another and everything he/she has by manipulation of minds. Once the captive's mind is confused and muddled the captor constantly sucks out the life force from the generally helpless captives turned into willing slaves surrendering all they have to offer to serve the ulterior motives of their captors.

The usual attitude that helps such manipulative captors are any of the following:

'I am holier than thou'

'I can have you because of who I am and what I can pay'

'I know more than you do'

'What I am telling or asking you to do is for your good'

'God wants this to happen to you'

And many more of such...

Though the words change, the underlying attitude of 'captors' remains the same. In some way a captor feels superior enough in some way compared to the captive and therefore reserves the unquestioned right to dominate, control, exploit and manipulate their captives forcing them to live a life of real and imagined 'fears'.

We are also constantly confronted by theories of all kinds framed not only to inform us but guide and rule us even through moments of personal crisis. It happens all the time. Whether it is a decision on where to park your money or your car or what to do after marriage or what to eat or how to work, play, live or die or what to study, take care of one's health or how to treat women in our society.

We are surrounded by theories, opinions, ideas of someone or a group of people forcing us to join this group or the other or forcing us to believe in this theory or that or forcing us to become capitalist or socialist or forcing us to be this or that. It is as if we have just surrendered our spirit and will to a conqueror. We have no time to feel, reason and experiment with what we are offered with before we accept it to be helpful or good to us. In most cases we are not presented with alternatives. It appears that we aren't left with any choice of our own. And the truth is nothing has worked well for the majority so far. 

In brief, this is the age where a small set of people take on the responsibility to decide for the majority through their usually deft and disguised manipulative moves. People must be free to decide their own lives and how they want to live it in the way they like to live it owning the consequences of their actions themselves.

Why can't we stay right in the middle of opposing tendencies and opposing currents of thoughts where possibilities of all creative movements unfold?

The vision had more on offer.

It revealed to me that the new age would be the age of the 'personal educator'. Learning anything from practical situations would be a matter of personal choice where deep learning that moves from essence to deeper essence would emerge to inform our mindful actions shaping our way of life.

If this is to be so, the teacher and the student would be the same. It means everyone must invoke the spirit of the 'teacher' and the 'student' in oneself. While such a journey might be helped by other educators or teachers who have walked the path authentically, their help and support would be restricted to sharing the learning process illustrated by their real live examples that incents and initiates similar feeling-thinking-learning process in others.

Understanding and imbibing the process of feeling-thinking-learning and using the process recursively to reach deeper and deeper essence of the interconnected but changing whole in order to find solutions for oneself would be more important than relying on the understanding and wisdom of others however lucrative or brilliant they might seem to be.

Soon this turns into a movement that leverages ones strength, which liberates oneself and others to live a live free of fear. How? The personal power of such 'self educated' men and women would attract similar men and women to walk the same path or make the same personal journey. And the process can be passed on from one to the other. 

Other than the process no more principles are to shared or information need to be passed on. Everything has to be learned 'just in time', 'in its own environment' and 'holistically'. No generalizations. No old formulae. No blazing ideals. No constant guidance of enlightened gurus. That is what a liberated fearless self educator would do. Once done, a liberated non-fearing self educator would not hold anyone captive in his/her influence by any means. No domination by any physical/psychic/sub-conscious devices. Each live by his/her own perceptions along with the responsibility of facing the consequences such perceptions bring about. 

It would be a age of infinite collaboration based on mutual respect and trust, self organizing in nature where means of living are self designed based on learning and understanding of one's own 'moment to moment' experience thus enriching the ever changing, connected and interdependent whole of humanity.

However, this would also need a disease free body, a trained mind and a healthy self esteem born out of mindful actions and helped by a learning process to discern the changing reality and acting upon it to live and enjoy a life of 'non-fear'.

What a life that would be -- a life contextually designed (life centric design) by an individual's learning helping him/her to lead a life free of fears.

This is what the splendid vision was....The Creative Middle -- A Life of Non-Fear!!

Is it time for action????

“Your father is in the hospital”. He was playing caroms with his friends. Bappa was trying hard to put the “queen” into the pocket. His fingers became numb. He eased the fingers. The striker ricocheted at the corner rather directionless. He rushed to the hospital. He was late. He is only twenty years. He saw his mother sobbing. His sister was still in her school uniform.

Bappa got twenty lakhs rupees as life insurance coverage of his father. How to run the family? He sat at the locality roadside tea shop --- wandering what to do. Some construction workers asked him the way to a particular construction site. Bappa murmured something incoherent. They laughed. One of his friends joined. “I won’t stay in the house.  My mother has made my life miserable. Is it my fault if I do not get a decent job?’

Bappa and four of his friends pooled in all their resources. They decided to become builders. They started looking for joint families who on  the verge of breaking; dilapidated old buildings – crumbling due to lack of maintenance; land owners – tenants ever sour relationship; Novo rich trying to sell off their ancestral property and settling at a “posh” locality. Bappa had his hands full. He found a lot of people wanting to sell of their property. In other words handing over the old building and building a new one for them with some extra flats.

“Paramount Constructions” in which Bappa is one of the partners has constructed ten projects so far. Bappa has earned an epithet for him--- “building shark”. He has amassed a lot of money but still he buys his jeans from pavement shopkeepers at Esplanade. He does not own a car and prefers the public transport. His wife feels like a piece of furniture in the home. Bappa comes late. Eats quietly and retires to bed. Sometimes wakes up, scribbles something in the pad and goes off to sleep. Wakes up early before other members get up, rushes to the construction site to oversee the work. 

Those who had purchased flats from Paramount Constructions have a lot of complaints. Bappa has promised the moon to the prospective flat owners but did not keep his ever flowing promises. Bappa intentionally forgets simple things like fixing a letter box, an extra circuit breaker, installing outside lights; gates in the entrance of the building. These small things irritate the flat owners. Many a time people are seen quarreling with him. No one recommends his name. Once bitten “thrice” shy.

Bappa works on a ‘forward integration plan’. He had teamed up with a furniture making shop, an electrician, a painter and an interior decorator. People buying flats often look for these things to complete their “decoration “of the flat. He supplies the men and materials on an agreed commission from them. Bappa is quite popular among his peers. He gives business to them and they are happy.

Bappa’s excellence in work has diminished over the projects. The materials, workmanship, architectural style has all nose dived but still his flats are being sold. Other builders are more than willing to create a market for themselves in the upcoming middle class locality but couldn’t find success. The recession did not have an impact on Paramount Construction. They trudged on. It is a riddle which remained unsolved.

Note:

This is really an intriguing case so wonderfully told by Mr. Sitendu De. Thanks, Sitendu, for your your contribution of this lovely story. Hugs!

In Greek a 'Kaleidoscope Mind' means an observer of beautiful forms.

What if we have a mind that is agile, flexible, self aware and informed by a diversity of experiences and constantly unlearning and learning?

What if we have a mind that is able to perceive at will any given situation from a multitude of perspectives; selecting from a rich repertoire of lenses and frameworks?

What if we have a mind that is playful with the ability to see patterns and no-patterns, connections and relationships?

What if we have a mind that can simultaneously think the causal and effectual point of view?

What if we have a mind that can rapidly switch from parts to whole and whole to parts again?

What if we have a mind that is robust and resilient at the same time, can solve problems of any kind, squarely face challenges without being overwhelmed and create new opportunities through designs by giving birth to new ideas?

What if we have a mind that can see through facades of falsehood to lucidly touch the reality, understand what must be done and then generate the will to do it?

What if we have a mind that understands the unity of all things, changes constantly and is free from the pains arising from rigid attachment to all ideas, notions, construed imagination, opinions, concepts, theories and beliefs?

No doubt it would be truly wonderful. We would be then a liberated human becoming, free to flow in any frame of time and space and without.

But the question is whether it is possible to achieve such a state?

Think of a Kaleidoscope. The various arrangement of tiny pieces of colored glasses reflect and refract light into various forms and patterns that emerge suddenly from nowhere. As we slightly move or shift the tiny glass pieces rearrange themselves to generate new rapidly emerging patterns.

Is it then possible to move these tiny pieces of glass in a self organizing manner?

It is possible when the mind is still and clear like a mirror composed of tiny mirrors that allows 'light of reality' to reflect and refract on various self organized arrangements of tiny glasses for new patterns or solutions or answers to emerge on their own. The important thing is not to consciously search for an answer from an object of observation but to consciously allow answers to emerge from the reality exposed by our observations to be reflected and mirrored through a self organized mind for new understanding to emerge so that meaningful actions can be taken for better living. 

For this to happen the following practices are essential.

1. Practice of controlling the mind to one's will without subjecting our will and spirit to be controlled by the mind.

2. Practice of self healing & evolving self esteem

3. Practice of inspired living by being with inspired persons

4. Practice of self study to reach the heart of understanding of present reality.

5. Practice of peer learning through observations, dialogs and collaborative exchanges

6. Practice of learning by doing and designing changes that adapt to present reality and beyond.

7. Practice of practical learning from all that happens to & around a person through mindful awareness of NEME an acronym that stands for Notice (observation of present reality through forms and feelings), Engage (see through and perceive reality and create mental constructs) Mull (over new understanding of reality and lessons learned through skillful actions), Exchange (of consciousness, maintaining balance without losing the ability to change again).

Such a body of practices surely gives rise to a self organizing and attentive Kaleidoscopic Mind leading to true liberation and evolution of the human spirit to face life boldy, think differently and live life effortlessly.

Ref: Rapidinnovation - The Non-Process

For quite sometime I was trying to find an appropriate 'metaphor' for 'mentoring' till I found the cock, hen and a chick foraging for food at the backyard of a common marketplace.

The picture immediately struck me as the perfect 'metaphor' I was in search of.

The cock is busy pecking the ground for his own food and is quite unmindful of what is going around him; much less others.

But then I see the hen feeding herself in a very mindful manner. She is not only finds food for herself but also periodically scratches the ground to turn up food for her chick to feed on. Thereby she is busy creating opportunities for herself and others.

She was acting like all mentors do. Mentors are busy with their work in such a manner that it creates opportunities for others under their wings to learn, feed upon and grow.

Bosses are like the cock -- always busy with themselves.

Mentors are like the hen -- also very busy with themselves but with an eye for others too!

The task of an owner of any 'robust' business is to simply count money at the end of each working day.

This is because the resource that primarily fuels such businesses is 'money'.

Therefore, the health of such businesses is measured by 'grades' or 'rankings within peer group' and hard financial numbers and quarterly profits.

However the owners of 'resilient' business and entrepreneurs count on a different resource.

Their primary resource is humans.

When the resource is 'human' the currency involved is made up of a basket of stories, narratives, ideas, dialogs, engagements.

Therefore, they count human 'participation' and 'contributions' and at times they count the money gained from such human 'contributions' for a more equitable distribution. 

The health of such enterprises is measured by 'comments' users make about their experiences with owners of resilient businesses and entrepreneurial firms.

This is a story of social innovation that became a part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of Tega Industries, Kolkata, India.

Workers' Training is the theme of the story, which started out as an experiment, maturing into a full grown CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activity.

What prompted the Experiment?

For years we have been led to believe that workers are to be trained in the work they do in the factories. The concept is based on the inaccurate understanding that both work and workers are something similar to machines since a factory tends to work like a machine day in and out. Therefore, their work can be reduced to some simple steps and techniques that are teachable through standardized methods.

Therefore, the courses and training so far imparted to workers have been very dry, technical and often boring in nature, for instance, how to operate a lathe or a press or how to weld and cut etc.

No doubt it is important for a worker to learn the basic tricks of the trade. But somehow on the way we forgot that a worker belongs to the human kind and is not a robot designed to perform boring and repetitive work hours on end. The worker like most humans would want to know the why, what and how of most things and thereby derived the necessary self esteem to live, respect others and understand the interdependent connections they have with others. 

We also forgot that with the growth of technology and innovation humans have become appendages to the machines they work with. That is the design of the machines slowly and surely over time evolved to be free of human interferences operating with some sort of machine 'intelligence'. Examples abound. Humble lathes have transformed into CNC machines. Welding is no longer dependent on human skills of weaving, moving and lifting but on fine controls of welding pugs and automated machines, and so on...

What does that mean?

It means that the tedium of repetitive work has now been taken over by machines liberating the human spirit in search of something beyond themselves. They can now create value through various interactions and dialogs created in the context, employ technology in more skillful ways and understand the why, what and how of things to improve further.

It also means that never before in the past 200 years of our industrial age society, workers got opportunities to raise their real self esteem, respect the skill and contributions of others and realize that they and their work are all interdependent part of something much bigger than what they can individually produce.

Issues considered in design of Social Innovation

There were four more issues that informed our design of the new approach to educating workers in the context of of present reality. These were:

a) People learn best from each other and through their own work than they ever learn through teachers. In this process only skillful 'facilitation' helps. For example, in the initial years of computer literacy in India, people learned from each other not from established institutions and officially designated teachers. This is the single most important factor that helped fuel the computer revolution in India till the "burden" of making people literate has now been hijacked by mushrooming technical colleges imparting computer education.

b) At no point of time in the last 20 years has foreign investment – direct and portfolio – exceeded 10 percent of our domestic investment. Our growth is due to our domestic savings which is again predominately household savings. Our housewives require awards for our growth not any western fund manager. It means that if the earning capacity of the workers can be increased in real terms then a company actually contributes to the national growth in ways apparently unseen. To my mind this is the real cost benefit of conducting a CSR activity where for a very small cost both the company and the nation benefit multi-fold.

c) In India, families are organized while governments disorganized. Organized family has been the mainstay of Indian civilization, culture and national wealth. So, can our course be designed to strengthen familial bonds to strengthen the economic base of the nation.

d) As a civilization, Indian culture places a lot of importance on 'learning' to the point of reverence and considered as a prime component of life and living.

With these in mind we set about designing an appropriate course for the workers with an eye to life long learning supported by the company.

The Practical Solution

The structure as it evolved centered around 4 main subjects, which were the following:

a) The practical applications of Science and Maths with an aim for self discovery by the participants in their daily work.

b) The practical application and use of English language with the objective of enhancing self esteem and understanding issues involved in their environment much of which were built on the use of English.

c) Skill enhancement to not only apply computer applications in a practical manner in their field of work but also to assist their supervisors in computer related work.

d) Personality and attitude improvement through understanding and discovering the self and eliminating weakness in personality and attitude through self rewiring of the brain. For this the method of 'graphology' was introduced and applied. 

Anyone willing to undergo the course was registered for the course. The company provided the necessary space and resources. However, each worker invested two hours of their own time for five days a week to undergo the program. The program has three levels of difficulty to master where a year for mastering each level was given to the workers. 

Four skilled facilitators leading 'authentic' lives took up the challenge to engage in movement.

Results

This pilot course is now two years old and the results have been more than astounding. Some of which are the following:

a) The workers self organized themselves to install a new machine in three days time before the engineers of the manufacturer could arrive at site for installation. When the service engineers arrived on the scene they were taken aback by the accuracy of the installation, which would have normally taken them five days to achieve.

b) All the workers showed marked improvement in their performance and quality as evidenced in structured surveys conducted by the company to monitor the progress and effectiveness of the training.

c) Many were found to operate computer applications to keep track of their own work and assist their supervisors in creating and maintaining production records.

d) Many found themselves in the permanent role of the company thus enhancing their pay and benefits that largely contributed to enhanced savings for their families. For some workers the average household 'savings' have doubled in two years time.

e) Large number of small innovations were done by these workers in a self organizing manner.

f) Many reported improved marital and family relationships that enhanced their internal motivation at work and living. There were many specific cases where participants were able to come out of emotional confusion, depressions, emotional distress and stress, migranes, effects of traumatic childhood expriences and personal limitations thereby leading more happier and productive lives.

g) Over 60% of the participants reported increase in household savings in real terms as compared to previous years without any real increase in wages compounded to an average inflationary rate of around 10%. 

h) And 100% wanted to continue the education for more years and even thought of converting it into a personal life long effort.

The moral:

Traditional workers’ training is 'physical' in its form and function. This new program addresses the issues of learning and improvement of work, life and living from the 'mental' and the 'spiritual' planes of human existence. If the results are any indicators, the way it has unfolded; the approach of addressing human issues and problems from the human spirit holds promises to redesign for the better many of our human activities in the future.