We have been witnessing whimsical power-cut schedules (there was no electricity even when I was writing this piece). One online news portal reported that power-cuts would reach as much as 21 hours a day. My office is less than 5 kilometers away from my home, but I have to allocate 45 minutes for the drive there, and I am sure many identify with my story. Could these be a few reasons—among others—for our youths to want to settle abroad?
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell emphasized the importance of context. He used the phrase ‘Power of Context’ to describe how people fail to use their cognition in difficult contexts. He discussed the ‘theory of broken window’, according to which, if a window is broken in a neighborhood, there is possibility that other windows will be broken as well. He clarified his theory with an example of New York’s Metro Train, in which cases of vandalism and looting were common. New York Police Department (NYPD) implemented strict rules to control it, which were ineffective. Then, NYPD started cleaning the graffiti on the walls of trains. Every time a new picture was drawn, it was cleaned immediately. The clean walls reduced the cases of vandalism and looting. The police were not taking direct action, but rather tampering with the context. According to this theory, if we immediately repair a broken window, the possibility of finding another broken window will be less.
I found a similar outlook in Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, where he explains how one habit, be it positive or negative, leads to another. I had a childhood friend, Suraj, who started smoking at an early age. After our school, Suraj did not attempt to go to college, but started working. Along with smoking, Suraj also started drinking. After a decade, I stumbled across the news that he had been hospitalized due to a liver dysfunction. Here, my point is the link between two habits—one leads to another. If Suraj had quit smoking, the likelihood of his starting alcohol would have been less.
Let us come back to the importance of context. If Bill Gates was born in Nepal—or in any other least developed country—would he have had the illustrious career that he has now? I doubt it. Dan Ariely, in his book The Upside of Irrationality, discusses a series of experiments about the meaning and motivation of work. He writes: “If you take people who love something, and place them in meaningful working conditions, the joy they derive from the activity is going to be a major driver in dictating their level of effort. However, if you take the same people with the same initial passion and desire, and place them in meaningless working conditions, you can very easily kill any internal joy they might derive from the activity.” The context where you work matters to what you do, and apparently, where you are determines who you are.
Context not only affects individual performance, but also communal performance. From 2008 to 2010, I worked in two different communities: Kirtipur Village of Nawalparasi district and Swargadwari Village of Chitwan district, on a livelihood improvement project. Both the communities rely on agriculture for their livelihood. Improved income generating activities were initiated in both communities with the same intensity and magnitude. At the end of the project, an end line survey was carried out in both the communities. I was astonished by the result. The outcome of the project was far better in Kirtipur than in Swargadwari.
Later, we realized that not just our project, but also the context was important in generating the result that we ended up with. The two communities differ in several factors like caste, ethnicity, geographical location, accessibility, and population size. Swargadwari was composed of heterogeneous castes, whereas Kirtipur consists of only one caste. Kirtipur dwellers had unwritten rules, and a sense of belonging with each other. They took decisions collectively and came to consent easily, while coming to consensus was an uphill task for the residents of Swargadwari. They lacked cohesion. What I learned from the above experience is that, for successful outcomes, understanding the local context is pivotal before initiating any projects.
While context is important, abandoning the context that you are in is often not an option. In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg gives an example of Alcoa, an Aluminum Company of America. The company took many missteps during its expansion into new areas, which noticeably decreased the company’s profit. Then, newly appointed CEO Paul O’Neil took charge of the company. He shifted the company’s priority from making profits to creating a safe working environment with zero human injury. The working context changed dramatically. The more senior management prioritized workers’ safety, the more workers gained a sense of ownership of what they did, and the more quality products were manufactured. This led to a development of more trust among the consumers. Ultimately, the profit of the company increased exponentially. What Paul O’Neil did is change the context to favor the workers, which subsequently favored the company. The intention of the above example is to point out that it is better to improve the available context to favor ourselves, instead of abandoning it.
Therefore, the context where we are living guides us, and certainly determines our success or failure. If the available context is not right, we should not eschew our plans, but instead, try to transform it as per our necessity. It may not be easy, but it is not impossible either.
uanumalakar@gmail.com
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