Vax Morality and Novak’s Morality

Champion tennis player Novak Djokovic has been in the news during the Australian Open tennis championship in January 2022. Not for winning the championship, but for not being allowed to play. He reached Melbourne for the tournament on invitation and was later forced out of the tournament and was deported without playing a game as he was unvaccinated. Djokovic has now publicly announced his decision not to take the Covid-19 vaccination. He is deeply convinced about the decision and is willing to bear the costly consequences of even missing the upcoming French Open and Wimbledon Championships where he is the defending champion.

This is a very interesting development as the decision comes from an illustrated world champion with 20 Grand Slam trophies in his showcase or wherever he has kept them. He has been world No.1 for a record 360 weeks and still has more tennis in him to reach or break new world records. It is interesting that Djokovic is not making an emotional spot reaction but a thoughtful decision. It is also interesting to note that he is not an anti-vax campaigner nor is he in the pro-vax camp. He is just using his freedom of choice whether to have a medicine or not.

Covid-19 pandemic has brought in several new rules and new ways of public behaviour. Since it was a global health emergency people, experts and nations were learning new things by trial and error. While the World Health Organisation was giving some studied guidance, people and nations around the world tried their own immediate and local coping mechanisms in the absence of an effective cure against the Coronavirus. What you can’t cure has to be prevented. Logical. So, pharma and vaccine companies worked overtime to come up with vaccines that may prevent the spread of the virus. And to their credit several vaccines came up in a relatively short time and the authorities approved the use of such vaccines with limited clinical trials.

The vaccine morality has divided the world broadly into two categories- the pro-vax and anti-vax camps. Pro-vax folks advocate that vaccination is essential for everyone and those who do not get vaccinated harm themselves and others. While the anti-vax people advocate that these vaccines are not yet proven regarding their efficacy and long-term negative side effects and hence oppose any vaccine mandates. Novak’s declaration has brought in a third possibility of vax-neutrals who retain their freedom of choice while neither joining the pro or anti-vax groups. This third category of people are not making their choice based on data analysis nor do they oppose anyone. Yet they want to exercise their freedom of choice.

Let’s examine this a bit further.

Most, if not all the currently available vaccines against Covid-19 are not really vaccines by the very definition of vaccines. A vaccine is a preventive medicine that will protect the vaccinated from a disease or infection for one’s lifetime or a defined period, say for 10 or 15 years. None of the Covid-19 vaccines claim to prevent the occurrence or recurrence of Covid-19 for the vaccinated person. On the contrary there have been plenty of instances of vaccinated people contracting the Corona virus and spreading the virus to others. So, if the vaccine is neither protecting the vaccinated person from the disease or from becoming a virus carrier what great reason is there to mandate vaccination on every thinking adult?

Okay, the pro-vax camp may still say that even though the vaccine may not prevent the disease, it will still add some immunity in the vaccinated person and reduce the chance of death due to Covid-19. But then, there are many other means of improving immunity and general health without the vaccines. Eg., there are many ethnic or local plants and foods that boost immunity. Should we mandate all of them? No. Instead, provide information on all such options and let people choose what is best for them.

Let’s come back to the morality of it. Most of the moral codes are aimed at protecting the freedoms and encouraging the duties of individuals to have a safe social co-existence of a community or a larger society. That is a fair proposition without which no society can function effectively. In the recent past we have seen several discussions around vaccine equity, vaccine nationalism and vaccine patenting etc., All of that have valid moral grounds but all those grounds have been breached by companies and nations. There was no system to ensure that the rich and poor nations had the same access to vaccines or medicines and the same kind of inequity was seen among people within nations. There was no system of a liberalised patent system for these ‘emergency use’ vaccines to make them available for everyone in the shortest time. And, of course, there were huge differences in the pricing and the vaccine schedules. However, like in many other social crises such inequities are to be expected. Therefore, the summary of all these is that moral codes emerge in a social context and they do evolve rather than staying unchanged.

Well, the majority of us (me included) would take the easy path of going with the flow. Will trade off personal choices for peace, harmony, and personal convenience. So, we all stood in the queue and took the vaccine shots, twice and some even four times. Most of us belong to the pro-vax camp. Novak chose a new morality around the vaccine. And he has every right to do so and let’s respect it. Djokovic may not have all the data, but he still has the freedom of choice to inject a medicine into his body or not. One can agree or disagree with him. But let us grant him the right and wish him well. Let’s not slam him, vax or no-vax, grand slam or no grand slam!

‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’- Arthur Conan Doyle

Statistics, AI, and the Champion’s Mind

 

Watching the 2022 Australian Open Men's final match between Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev was a treat to any sports lover. Or for that matter for anyone who likes exciting entertainment. That it was a duel between two high ranking tennis professionals with great skill and grit is just understating facts. So many comments and commentaries have already been made about this exciting match with a nail-biting finish at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on the 30^th January 2022. This piece is not about the match; rather this is about how our minds get conditioned and confused with statistics and collective intelligence or lack of it.

Behind the fascinating game is a curious play of statistical probability that has played differently in the minds of people and at different times of the match. Well, before the starting of the match vast majority of spectators have gone with Nadal as the winner looking at his track record and the fact that there was no Djokovic added to their belief. Surely there were some people who have placed their bets on Medvedev looking at the way he has fought big battles on the world tennis circuit in the recent years. Moreover, Medvedev was seen as younger, taller and a strong underdog while Nadal was seen as coming back after long injury break and a good 10 year older than his youthful opponent at the finals.

The mind map of spectators changed a bit after Nadal lost the first set without much of a fight. Some doubts would have creeped into the minds of some people but still most of them kept their faith in Nadal. In the minds of most spectators the pendulum almost fully swung into Medvedev’s court after his straight second set win, though this set was harder for both. In a match that needs three out of five sets to win one way to look at the statistics is that Medvedev’s probability has already crossed the 66.6%, ie., two out of three. For the moment, only very few people would look at even giving Nadal the remaining 33.3% probability of winning the remaining three sets. Because that is a difficult proposition, and the mind looks for easier options based on ‘historical data’ which is coloured often by the ‘recency effect’ of the latest set of data. For most of us future is just a scoping of the past and present to a longer timeframe with minor changes.

The confirmation bias is almost completely tilted in favour of Medvedev when the score board showed 0-40 (offering three breakpoints to Medvedev) in the very first game of the third. At this point the tournament’s AI was giving Medvedev 96% chance of winning. Afterall, what is the need to suspect the AI? Unlike human brains the AI has no bias!

Really? No. AI too is biased by a program that works on statistical algorithms created by humans. Or that is how it works mostly as of now.

Well, after Nadal won the third set people started suspecting the AI. And of course, the AI too would have started revising the calculations, just like the Google Maps re-routing the way after a wrong turn taken by the driver. And then goes the fourth set to Nadal and statistically the odds are even now! But the spectators’ minds have almost tilted towards Nadal as that is the outcome most of them wanted anyway. They wanted to go with a champion who is going to create a historic record and not with an upstart young player, however powerful he may be.

Now the question is what would have been Nadal’s state of mind during this dramatic match at various stages swinging from deep despair to high hopes? We wouldn’t know that. I would imagine that with a champion’s mind Nadal would never have given up hope. In fact, during the entire match there was no significant reaction from Nadal to indicate that he has given up on the match. On the contrary, he kept playing despite all the odds and probably an aching body.

At the end of the long match, Nadal could barely walk to the presentation podium. In fact, we saw him sitting down during the presentation ceremony out of sheer fatigue and pain on his legs. A great champion’s mind cannot be constrained by statistics and AI. True champions will junk all statistics if they don’t help boost their winning chances.

Well, all this is based on what we saw on the final day of the tournament. There could be a lot of ‘what if’ scenarios that would have changed the outcome and the analysis. We do not know whether the tournament would have gone this way if Djokovic was part of the tournament. What if by sheer stroke of a couple of missteps by Nadal or smart flukes by Medvedev the fifth set would have gone in favour of Medvedev? All these could be possibilities.

Statistics normally deals with larger number of events or historical data from which we derive certain probability calculations. These probability calculations keep changing as the data set changes. Yet, the probability calculations can go wrong in real life situations. Why? Any Probability number that is less than 100% always leaves a chance of going wrong. For instance, 99.9% probability of winning still leaves a chance of losing. Luck often plays at the margin. That brings us to the realm of possibilities. What is possible may not have occurred in the past at all, yet it could just emerge in the future. And the future could be the next moment or after a million years.  

Nadal did not allow statistics to come in the way of his determination. For him what he imagined appeared more real than what appeared on the score board during the game.

‘Everything you can imagine is real.’- Pablo Picasso

Fooled by Certainty

Everyone wants a clear and definite answer for a question. Anyone who speaks in a definite ýes’ or ‘no’ is preferred to someone who says ‘may be’. Most of us are taught that knowledge is meant to make people discern what is right and what is wrong or to choose the best from a given set of choices. Education is often meant to prepare students to develop the faculty to know or at least to choose the right answer. More so in the last quarter of a century when most examination questions are in the form of choosing from multiple options. People build convictions around things and experiences, at times too quickly and at times slowly.

Most people prefer to live in a world of binaries- yes or no; black or white. That’s comfortable, efficient and even considered the right way to live. Most of the crucial life decisions are based on such binaries. You either pass or fail a test and there is nothing in between. In most games, you either win or lose, though some games are occasionally drawn. Hardly any sports lover wants it that way. Every one wants a winner and at least one loser at the end of the game; in fact, most games produce more losers than winners. If the game hasn’t produced a winner at the end of the stipulated time, find a way to clinch the deal in favor of one. Even a ‘sudden death’ is preferable to a drawn game! Football lovers like penalty shoot outs and sudden death rather than their blood pressure shooting up in the anxiety of uncertainty.

Yes, there are opposing forces and contrasting realities in the world we live. Yet, human experiences are not always like day and night. It is not that on a given day we have equal measure of pleasure and pain. It is not that a given academic test cut off indicates success or failure. It is not that some people are honest and others are crooks. It is often that some are less honest than others or some are less crooked than others. Real life is more often being tentative or ‘uncertain’ rather than being certain.

Dig a bit deeper and you will find that this world of binaries is a highly over-simplified and often imaginary world. In the real world everyone is a winner at times and loser at other times. But we still prefer to label people as either winners or losers; good or bad. That makes choices easy for us. It is easy for us to cast our vote for a ‘good’ candidate or to choose a ‘good’ school for our children. Or even create a clear caste system of preferences, perceptions and labels for people around us and beyond our vicinity. That sounds almost like analyzing anything in the world in a four-quadrant BCG matrix (introduced first by Boston Consulting Group) or grouping the destinies of all the people in the world under 12 zodiac signs or all the people in the world into 16 ‘personality types’ using the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator).

None of us can escape the craving for certainty. Probably our ancestors faced a world of greater uncertainties and by generations of mutations and civilizations we have evolved to cut out uncertainties from our mind by consciously pulling things into clear boxes, definitions and belief systems. Yet, we are all certain that we live in an uncertain world! Well, who lived in world of certainty, ever?

Dealing with uncertainty has become a required competence for leadership today. While one has practically no escape from uncertainty, getting comfortable with uncertainty is the harder part. Just as the ‘unknown’ is the bigger field of knowledge, ‘uncertainty’ provides greater meaning to life.  

Suspend certainty. Be tentative. Be tender, rather than solid like a rock! Certainty is a path to delusion. Certainty is often suspension of knowledge than expression of knowledge. The more we know about something the less certain we are about it. Certainly, I am not claiming to be certain about that, though!

‘The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.’ – Erich Fromm, Renowned psychoanalyst and philosopher of 20^th Century

The Annual Performance Anxiety

The annual performance appraisals are in striking distance from now. Bulk of the employees are not amused as much as the companies are convinced of their performance appraisal systems. Most of them consider it as an unnecessary ordeal rather than a cordial exchange of feedback.  

Every organization- be it a profit oriented business, community organization, school, not for profit organization, sports administration body - to be effective needs to measure and manage performance of its people. Everyone knows as much; yet no one knows what works always. That is probably because nothing works always and everywhere. Peter Drucker said, ‘what is measured improves’. However, measuring is not managing. Managing performance of people has always been hard. Despite all sophisticated systems of performance measurement, companies still want the employee to ‘discuss’ performance with the manager. Performance discussions are at times dreaded and often causes anxiety for the employees.

Even the most consummate artiste undergoes some amount of anxiety before very performance or a live show. If that be the case what to talk about ordinary folks who go about doing their work day in or night out, when asked to appear for the ‘annual performance show(down)’? For the average employee when a day’s job is done it is done and dusted. Why make a cumulative obituary of all those activities and stake a claim for the next salary raise? That would appear more like over time working. To her the boss or the intelligent machine that records her daily job should make out what it means to work for 12 months. Why wait till the end of the year to give feedback? There is always some system to track you when something goes wrong, if not instantly at least after a short lag time. So why is it that the same system or similar system not able to track when things are going right?

Not that all companies aren’t doing this. Many of the business process management or BPO companies monitor and record transactions instantly and even customer feedback registered live online. They even have video footages for the facial expressions of the service executives. They may not need the year end exercise to decide on the performance level of the employee. But, such companies are a few in number. For most companies an honest employee needs to still prove her performance credentials on the PMS workflow when there is enough evidence for what she has done well and what she goofed up? Now, let’s imagine that the company doesn’t have good systems and the manager was too busy to take note of the performance of his team members. The solution to that has to come from the company and the manager’s end rather than subjecting the employee to defend her case for a rating and a salary rise. 

Here we are assuming that the manager is the villain of the story. That is not quite true as well. The manager is equally anxious about holding a performance review meeting with his team member or the board or even the venture capitalists. Often such meetings are not very easy and at worst turn out to be unpleasant and ugly arguments, emotional exchanges or a plain drama of masked characters. Both parties may want to avoid a confrontation and move on. The manager will have a succession list ready and the employee will have his resume up on job sites or with discreet head hunters.

Of course, what is written here is a caricature of performance appraisal meeting that tends to make everyone a victim. That cannot be entirely true.

All the talk about companies abandoning the bell curve and annual appraisals etc., needs to be viewed more critically. End of the day, hardly any organization can function successfully without periodic performance reviews and rewards linked to performance. Whether it is going to be annual, quarterly, monthly or project-wise is a matter of frequency and state of the engagement. Whether the system will have a three-point rating or five-point rating scale too is a matter of convenience. Whether there is a formal guidance on a certain percentage distribution of ratings or an informal way of managing the distribution is a matter of maturity of the system. These are not the most critical aspects of a well functioning performance management system.

A well-functioning Performance Management System will have more number of employees aligned to the goals of the organization. Breaking down these to measurable performance indicators is by no means an easy task. Some of those would be highly measurable and some of them may be loosely measurable and yet others will be just felt or perceived but not measured at all. That calls for management judgement and empathy applied judiciously. Abdicating such management responsibilities and thinking that a new system will cure all ills of performance in the organization is foolhardy. Performance management is more like a performing art than like a measurement system. Time to go back to basics and listen to Peter Drucker again: “The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.”

Talking on Thin Ice: The Davos Diarrhea

Your boss or boss’s big boss would have just gotten back from Davos. If you find them more responsive or responsible don’t blame them. It is the Davos effect. After all, they have taken pains to travel to the Alps and endure the snowy cold weather while attending the World Economic Forum meet which they have been attending year after year regardless of what happens to the company or the economy. All for the noble cause of making a ‘new world order’.

The theme for the 2017 WEF meet was “Responsive and Responsible Leadership”. Well, the theme is not meant for the 3000 odd attendees of the Forum. They are very responsive and responsible. By the very fact that they attend such important global meet they are responsive and responsible. Obviously, the idea is to make the rest of the leaders who haven’t attended the Forum more responsive and responsible. All these poor people who attend more than 400 official sessions in a span of four days must be really struggling to pick and choose from the competing sessions based on the topics discussed. Truly each topic merits everyone’s attention. We need to appreciate the physical inability of our great leaders to be present at multiple places the same time. However, ordinary folks like us might ask as to how do they choose from the 400 official sessions and so many unofficial but extremely important meetings by the fireside, at the hotel lobbies and in the corridors. I understood that these brilliant people use two thumb rules to resolve such dilemma. 1. Don’t go by the topic (because everything is equally important); instead go by the speaker profile. That solves half the problem. 2. Ask ‘what is in it for me?’ to find out a potential reference for business, a potential client, high media exposure or a combination of all or some of these. The new world order can wait for some time.

All these 3000 leaders are ‘global’ luminaries in their own fields- business, politics, economics (little bit), science, academics and social sectors. Therefore, lot of stress is on globalization of trade, global peace, global warming, health, welfare, inclusive growth, gender equality and many such noble motherhood ideas. This year’s star attraction was the Chinese President Xi Jinping who surprisingly became the new champion for globalization. The absence of Obama and the shadow of Trump would have provided some useful space to Jinping. Who knows, next year it could be North Korean President who will speak about globalization. Everyone wants globalization so long as their own national interest is ‘protected’. Mr. Trump is championing globalization too provided all Americans buy only American goods and all American companies make their goods in America.

Coming back to the theme of the 2017 Forum, it is unreasonable to think that in a week’s time the world leadership would become responsive and responsible. Let’s give them some time to implement all those big ideas came up in the 400 sessions. After all, the world takes a little over 365 days to take a revolution around the sun. No less. Have some patience. We also need to be empathetic to these leaders. Some eight of the rich people (not sure all of those have attended the meet this year, they are very busy people) control more than half of the global private wealth. It may not be wrong to assume that together the 3000 attendees of WEF 2017 must be controlling about 85% of global wealth and political clout. When they have such onerous responsibility on their shoulders they can’t be responsive to the satisfaction of 7.5 billion people. It is for the rest of us to take care of all such small things.

Leave aside the latest episode. Let’s look at the themes of the previous five WEF meets. Perhaps history may shed some light into the future. In 2012 the theme was, ‘The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models’ whatever that may mean. Have you seen any great transformation around? I haven’t. May be one ought to look within; all transformation ought to start with oneself. The theme for 2013 was, ‘Resilient Dynamism’! You figure out what that means. In 2014 it was like a theme song, ‘The Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business’. Can you ask for more? In 2015 it got short and sweet to read ‘New Global Context’. And in 2016 it got catchy saying ‘Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution’. What have you got other than iPhone-7 and Nougat OS?

Don’t get cynical. The world is changing and probably becoming a better (no spelling mistake here) place to live, work and play. All due to the 3000 great leaders meeting, eating and talking under freezing conditions in a country that anyone who would admit to be a beautiful place. Let the entourage happen year after year until SpaceX takes all of us to Mars.

Skating on thin ice won’t take you far. The verbal diarrhea at Davos is like talking on thin ice!

I cannot end this piece without quoting what a celebrated Economist of our times had to say about the who’s who of the Davos brigade. “I called them the International Association of Namedroppers. They think it’s their mission to solve a problem they don’t understand.”- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Happiness in the Times of De-monetization

The season of happiness seems to have many reasons to cheer even in these times of de-monetization. First, it started almost two weeks back or if one can stretch may be three months ago, with the festival season now culminating or continuing with the new year Eve, Adam and their great grandchildren. Second, the pains of ‘de-mon’ effect is waning, at least emotionally. Who doesn’t like a long spell of happy season?

The flow of happiness, of course, comes in many ways and on multiple channels. FaceBook and Whatsapp appear to be the most popular channels of the new year happiness. E-mail and SMS have lost out as mediums of happiness, much the same way the post cards and greeting cards of yester years. Since, I belong to the Boomer generation, I got a few greeting cards and less than five messages on SMS during this happy season. Even the change of medium is a reason to be happy. Sending and receiving happy messages have become ever more easy for even the dumb people with smart phones. Most of us only do smart forwards received from other smart people who have in turn got them from yet other smart friends. When we want to reply to others we have many options too depending on our mood and time at hand. We can use our own selfies, pictures, videos, images or emoji’s. Text is very sparingly and boringly used.

Here are a few things that made me happy this season.

Couple of weeks back I decided to bury my old iPhone in memory of the late Steve Jobs and bought a One Plus3 T phone. I am still learning the tricks on the new gizmo run on Android. Android brings an array of symbols previously unknown to the Steve loyalists. The reason for happiness was found when my son told me that this new phone has two sim card slots. At first I thought this may be a safety feature for a fast running engine just as a twin-engine airplane is safer than a single engine aircraft. Surely getting a phone with two SIM card slots and a host of other features (many of them I may not use in my lifetime) at less than half the price I would have paid for Mr. Cook’s new phone is a happiness enhancing thing that happened to me.

Then I heard about the ‘Happy New Year’ offer by Reliance Jio. My new phone has an empty SIM slot available and a generous billionaire is offering 4G data and calls free until 31^st March 2017. What a perfect coincidence! I went to the Reliance Digital store nearby and the subscription was hassle-free too. No paper work; no documentation. All what they wanted was my Aadhar card number and my thumb impression. Like Eklavya, I offered my thumb (albeit impression only) on the biometric platter, to the billionaire. My genetic code and personal data are now with a private billionaire. Is that scary? No. What am I going to do with my genetic code? Nothing. Rent it out and get free data and voice! For now, I am happy. I may worry about it later at leisure. But my Guruji told me that happiness is in the ‘present’. So, I accepted the new year ‘present’ from Mr. Billionaire. Unlimited free calls and all time free data even for a limited period is cause for great happiness.

I thought this was truly a good way of happiness during the new year season, when you are at the receiving end. All others or most others while wishing us ‘happy new year’ and assorted nice words, phrases, images and even poetry do not think a bit in terms of what ‘I will do for you to enhance your happiness in the new year’. The responsibility ends with a small text message or a smiley. No further expectation till next new year eve. Period.

My friend sent me a recent post that says all those who are unhappy are so for the same reasons! That was quite illuminating. In a nutshell, it says people are unhappy because they have either high expectations or wrong expectations. The corollary of that statement must also be true as well. People are happy because their expectations are low or they have the right expectations. I carry that as a take away for the new year.

What made you happy this new year season?

P.S. "Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life." - Omar Khayyam

 

The Coffee House Economics

After a long gap of time I have recently visited an Indian Coffee House (ICH) outlet in Kerala. Obviously one expects from the ICH excellent coffee and food items served by extremely courteous staff. Yes, I experienced all this in my latest exposure just as what I had experienced every time during my college days decades ago. Those days, I took it for granted and thought this is what to expect from any coffee shop or restaurant. Over the years, in many cities of India and abroad, I found that it is too much to expect such basics at a reasonable price. In fact, such places are fast disappearing without leaving a trace in history.

Here is a list of basics that I have experienced at the Indian Coffee House.

1. Excellent cup of hot coffee served on the table for Rs.10
2. Food and snack items are healthy and taste good
3. The waiters and staff are well groomed and in a traditional but elegant white uniform. Service is quick and with a smile.
4. Coffee and food are served in white porcelain and not in steel or paper cups or disposable plates.  
5. Clean ambience, located conveniently and with car parking space
6. The place has a brand appeal; but not meant for any particular social class. Unlike some other similar places the ICH does not detract ordinary folks with high prices and the well heeled with a dirty ambience.
7. Tipping is not a norm. No direct tipping to the waiter; tips if any can be dropped in a common box near the cashier’s desk that will be shared among the staff.

I am not suggesting here that there is no other such place n India. Sure, there will be such exceptions in different parts of the country. But this is an institution with over half a century of tradition and consistent service to the public. Even that is not probably the real differentiator. To appreciate the difference one has to look back a bit into the history of the Indian Coffee House. The ICH in its current form took shape in 1958 as a workmen’s cooperative with the immediate objective of protecting the livelihoods of workers who were fired from an earlier coffee establishment that has roots in colonial India. The leadership for such an initiative was given by the legendary communist leader A.K. Gopalan (popularly known as AKG). Yes, those were still early days of independent India when we had political leaders with integrity and social commitment across the spectrum.

Today ICH runs about 60 coffee houses from Thrissur to Thiruvananthapuram and a few in other cities like New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai. One can expect the same quality of coffee and service from every outlet of ICH. We need to appreciate this in the context of many cooperative societies patronized by government or by private parties in India. Most of such cooperatives are citadels of corruption, nepotism, inefficiency and vested interests. Here is a cooperative that is not supported by the Government and is capable of retaining efficiency and quality of service for decades. There is something special perpetuating an organization culture across generations.

There are many modern coffee retail chains in India and abroad that provide good ambience and a certain consistent quality of product and service. Café Coffee Day is an example in India and Starbucks is an example globally. They are run by private entrepreneurs and not comparable with the Indian Coffee House. They are run like any other businesses, build brands and serve expensive yet ‘ready-mix’ coffee or frozen snacks. They position more as meeting places than coffee shops. You need to go to the cashier to place your order and pick up your stuff when ready. In other words, you do much of the service and you pay more.

The Indian Coffee House is a place where you will be served. And you will get genuine coffee and food made instantly or without losing the freshness. Now, that is not a scalable business like Café Coffee Day. Or maybe no Venture Capitalists looked at them. And that is a good thing for now, for many people like me and for all those folks who own and serve at the Indian Coffee House.

Let’s look at the economics. Pure capitalist economics would suggest that McDonaldization adds value to stake holders. This familiar model would scale up fast, standardize fast and make the customer share the costs and efforts of running the business, run adjacent or even unrelated revenue streams, advertize to create artificial value perception and hike prices, innovate, automate and appify everything possible. And eventually, go for an IPO or sell to any buyer and move on. With the advent of stock markets businesses in a sense have became tradable products. Yet, many millions of retail participants who buy and sell company shares do not really buy and sell the companies. Only the big guys or investment houses can really force ownership control of businesses. 

Once upon a time businesses were built with the purpose of meeting one or many of the needs of a society or a community and in that process the entrepreneurs and shareholders earn some profits. That is really old and un-fascinating story for the start-uppers and VCs. For them a business is a means to make money; an asset that can be traded partly or fully anytime- the sooner the better.

In the evolution of business economics, one can’t easily make a judgment as to which model is right. In some sense, it may be wiser to leave that with the market, assuming that a free market reflects the will of the people. The only problem is the assumption of free market. Free market is more a concept than reality. So, the government comes in with regulations and lobbyists come in to protect the interests of pressure groups. And we are back in an un-free market.

In the midst of all these, where does a cooperative institution like the Indian Coffee House fit in? In the local community! There is still some space for such institutions and businesses to co-exist. Such businesses are profit sharing organizations. They share their profits not only among the shareholders but also among the larger group of daily patrons who are also called customers. When I go to the Indian Coffee House with three of my friends, buy four cups of coffee for Rs. 40 and spend 40 minutes discussing technology, literature, business or anything (using the space as a private meeting place) my friends and I are instantly sharing the unmade profits. Shall I call it the ‘opportunity profit’ to mean the ‘opportunity cost’ of say Rs. 500 that I haven’t spent at another Coffee Chain Shop?

Lot of people think good economics creates more billionaires. A few people think good economics makes life better and affordable for more people.  Time for a coffee break!

‘In economics the majority is always wrong.’ – John Kenneth Galbraith