Some food for thought
"The first step on the way to victory is to recognize the
enemy."
—Corrie Ten Boom (Dutch Author, 1892-1983)
Word for the day
Gabelle (n)
A tax; Excise duty.
First thought this morning
Travelling from Ghaziabad to NOIDA yesterday with a friend was a
true revelation. The friend lives in Ghaziabad right on NH24, and works in NOIDA.
He drives a total of 78kms to and from his office every day. His daily travel
time ranges between 2-4hrs, besides 10-11 work hours. As I understood from him,
there are more than 100 thousand people like him, who daily travel from
Ghaziabad to NOIDA and Delhi. My friend does not have access to any mode of
public transport from his home to office.
The conversation during our two and half journey covering 39kms
was obviously about the current political landscape. To begin the conservation,
I asked a staple question, "who would you vote for?"
"None", he replied without a blink. "Why?" I tried to prod.
"Wait till we reach NOIDA, and you'd find yourself", he replied
sarcastically.
To make life easier for the people travelling daily from NCR
towns like Merrut, Ghaziabad, Hapur, etc to Delhi and NOIDA, the government
started the project to widen NH24. The construction work has transformed the
30kms drive from Pilkhua to UP Gate on NH24 into Temple Run (popular mobile
game). In a hurry to meet deadline (revised many times) the work is being
executed in a perilous and haphazard way. There are number of ominous
diversions, dark spots, mud piles on the way. The operating lanes are narrow
and unplanned. You find pedestrians, bikers, autorikshaw and large dumpers appear
right in front of you, literally from nowhere. People unapologetically drive on
wrong side to see eye to eye with the oncoming vehicles. To make the matter
worse, stray cows, cranes and excavators used in construction stop at will in
the middle of the narrow operating roads.
"I, and many like me, live by the day. We thank our stars
if we reach home alive at end of each day", my friend quipped after
showing me all this. "No politician thinks about us. They think, they are
constructing this road to make our life easier; but by the time this road will
get completed, many lives would have already been ruined. I have no family
life. By the time I reach home, I just want to sleep. I have developed a back
problem that perhaps will never be cured. My young child has got asthma. My
father, who used to run a big bath linen shop in Pilkhua (a small town of
weavers in Ghaziabad) is virtually out of business. And I am not alone in this
mess. This road may get completed in 4-5years, but the damage to my life would
be permanent", he lamented profusely.
The solution, of course is not stop building roads and other
infrastructure for public good. The solution is to plan and execute these
projects in more human way. Making a proper operating service road, deploying
adequate number of traffic Marshalls and evacuation cranes, pre defining the
time slots for moving construction material, prompt removal of waste material
and debris, can relieve significant amount of pain. It may lead to 5-7% rise in
cost of projects, but that would be totally worth it. Anyways, the cost
overruns of 25-75% are not uncommon in infrastructure projects.
To assimilate fully what I am trying to say, please drive to
Pilkhua from UP gate on NH24 between 5-8PM on any working day.
"Ease of Living", after all is not only a slogan to be
put in election manifestoes. The politicians must know what does it actually
mean. Next time someone digs a road near you, and leaves without restoring it
to pre digging condition, don't suffer in silence. Raise your voice. Hold the
municipal authorities, elected representatives and the contractors accountable
for adding inconvenience and stress to your life. Please be intolerant.
Managing change - a political perspective
I am completely perplexed by the election narrative of Prime
Minister Modi. I fail to understand why he has chosen to make "national
security" and "nationalism" his primary election campaign,
instead of the issues like faster development, inclusiveness, sustainability,
probity in public life, equal opportunity, etc. which won him massive majority
in 2014.
Have these issues lost their relevance? - No one would agree to
this.
Have "national security" and "nationalism"
issues become more pertinent and/or urgent compared to important socio-economic
issues, than these were in 2014? - There is no material evidence to suggest.
Has the incumbent government failed in pursuing the agenda of
development, inclusiveness, sustainability, probity in public life and equal
opportunity etc., and hence it is using 'national security" as a
distraction to retain power? - This is debatable. But in my view, terming the
performance of the government in past 5years "a failure" would be
totally unreasonable. "Partial success", in my view, is more
appropriate grade.
Even more interesting is the fact that the report card of 5yr
BJP is presenting to the electorate is mostly focused on the doles and
subsidies (Free LPG connection, farm loan waiver, housing and toilet subsidy,
Rs6000/yr cash dole to small farmers, etc.) The party usually refrains from
mentioning abolition of planning commission, demonetization, changes in
government procurement procedures, changes in defense procurement policy,
changes in road construction model (from PPP to HAM), collapse in wind and
solar power tariffs, etc amongst its major achievements. Even GST is mostly
mentioned as a passing reference.
Searching for answers to my inquisition, I stumbled upon an
article in McKinsey Quarterly Magazine, titled "The irrational side of
change management". (Read
here) I find it useful in analyzing the 2019 election strategy of BJP.
"In 1996, John Kotter published Leading Change.
Considered by many to be the seminal work in the field of change management,
Kotter’s research revealed that only 30 percent of change programs
succeed." "In 2008, a McKinsey survey of 3,199 executives around the
world found, as Kotter did, that only one transformation in three succeeds.
Other studies over the past ten years reveal remarkably similar results. It
seems that, despite prolific output, the field of change management hasn’t led
to more successful change programs."
The article cites that McKinsey’s Emily Lawson and Colin Price
provided a holistic perspective in “The
psychology of change management.
Applying their theory to current political conditions, I can say that
the following four basic conditions that must be met for the voters to accept
the changes introduced by the government:
(a) A compelling
story, because public must see the point of the change and agree with it;
(b) Role modeling,
because public must also see their leader and his team they admire behaving in
the new way;
(c) Reinforcing
mechanisms, because systems, processes, and incentives must be in line with
the new behavior; and
(d) Capability
building, because public must have the skills and resources to adopt and
the desired changes.
To analyze the performance of the incumbent government, and thus
its 2019 election strategy, it is critical to ascertain whether Team Modi
followed these principles in introducing the changes, it wanted everyone to
accept......to continue tomorrow.
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