on working with people

madwind

It is all too easy to forget that what people publicly espouse publicly is often quite different from the views they privately harbor. In order to better understand the motives of people we work and live with we should us multiple formal and informal ways of gathering information and opinion.

This approach can make us more aware of how people feel, their stakes, the expectations they have to respond to and the politics of their situation. Since most often than not we aspire to create consensus decisions we should go out of our ways to actively solicit and surface every stake holder’s point of view. By being able to see across the board we can recognize common ground and conflicting interests across disparate pieces of information and viewpoints. This will enable us to distill complex signals into its key messages

Then we can take decisions that are balanced and hopefully that most people were happy to live with. I cannot overemphasize how important it is to listen actively, take the perspective of others, encourage the expression of diverse opinions and withhold judgment. An important lesson I have been learning is the power of developing both formal and informal relationships with people. In yahoo groups I have seen people often change their views and it is important to build a broad coalition of support.

By being able to empathize with people's vested stake makes it a lot easier to make our thinking clear to others. We can then be better able to persuade others to consider ideas and proposals that find favor to negotiate win-win solutions.

GDP vs happiness index

madwind


I was struck by an index they seem to use in Bhutan called the 'happiness index'" . I suppose it stems from a strong Buddhist tradition. One can say it is a 'flawed' measure for it conveys 'nothing' that can be used as basis of planning., or resources allocation etc. But then one can say the same for other measures such as GDP which we all love to gobble up.

Why I say that is the GDP measure too is somewhat flawed .There are many other parameters of economic welfare that are not included in the GDP. Because these are omitted from the overcall contribution to national welfare they may understate the extent of the true well being of a country. Some of these are :

- the work that people in households do. This is not included as part of market transactions and is treated as Zero for purposes of GDP calculation

- sometimes GDP over adjusts for inflation. When we over estimate the rise in prices we may understate the extent of the increase in physical production.

-many economies have large amounts of ‘illegal’ activities which are not included in the GDP..India has a parallel economy almost

-qualitative factors such as the quality of social benefit, healthcare, education etc. are not included in the calculation of GDP. Another Thing that does not show up in GDP is leisure time. These improvements in life quality for an entire society do not show up in GDP calculations and may bias the GDP calculations downwards.I guess Bhutanese people may agree here with me ..tee heee

-developed countries are beginning to accord significant resources to maintain the environment, enhance safety standards and pay a high social costs. This investment ( or the pernicious effects of the lack of them) do not show up in GDP

I am struck that despite these shortcomings GDP remains as the most attainable compromise measure to reflect the overall degree of economic development in a nation. I guess it gives a good sense of changes in the business cycle – and measuring that relative change is important for policy makers.

Fluctuations in real GDP tell a lot about how the factors of production have been used, the state of unemployment and in general the overall health of an economy.But ofcourse GDP is not a measure of welfare of a society or its people. (it values a dollar spent on education the same as a dollar spent on alcohol.) Instead it provides the information needed to track the performance of the economy. Without this information, policy makers would not be able to adopt corrective economic activities.

So I cna live with GDP but i see more informational content in GDP changes than the absolute figure itself.