The Reflection of Philosophy of Science on ICT4D Research: Is My Research a Science?

1. Introduction

The purpose of writing this essay is to find the corresponding philosophy of science to my information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) research, so that I can entitle my research outcome as a valid scientific knowledge. The ICT4D research, which is more dealing with the national development and changing the quality of life through deploying ICT services, falls in the domain of information systems (IS) research. Whereas, the IS field is more broadly related to the study of the effective use of information and the potential impact of software systems and enabling information technologies on the human, organizational, and social world. The nature of IS field as a science is a mixture of natural science positivism and social science interpretivism (Khazanchi & Bjørn, 2000).

Particularly, the objective of my ICT4D research is to analyze the complex interaction process among various social and technical actors that influence the impact of ICT availability on remote communities. Therefore, the nature of my research as a science is more pertinent to interpretative or social science rather than positivism. My work is influenced by the authors such as Leviathan and Bruno Latour, who are writing from sociological or ‘post-modernist’ perspective. However, as Chalmers proposed that if the human sciences are to emulate the success of physics then that is to be achieved by first understanding and formulating this method and then applying it to the social and human sciences. Therefore, in the subsequent sections, as highlighted in Table 1, I will summarize the different perspective of philosophy of science such as empiricist tradition (observation and Experiments), logical positivism (theory confirmation through induction), popper’s theory of falsification, Kuhn’s paradigmatic views, furthermore, a brief description about Lakatos research methods and Feyerabend’s anarchistic theory of science. Alongside, I will briefly explain the reflection of these philosophies on my research; in addition, I will locate the nature of my research as a science by referring to the philosophical ideas of sociology of science.

2. Reflections of philosophy of science on ICT4D research

Table 1. Nature of science and its reflections on ICT4D research

Nature of Science	Reflections on ICT4D Research
Empiricism (Aristotle, Locke, Berkeley, Hume) Observation & experience Rejects, priori reasoning	Case study (observation) But, uses priori theory
Logical Positivism (Francis Bacon) Confirmation of scientific theory by induction/deduction	Generalization of theory through induction or deduction, however, lacking law of uniformity
Karl Popper’s falsification All theories should have the nature of falsification	Better than induction, however, difficult to falsify social theories due to contextual problem
Kuhn’s Paradigm The history of science is the history of change, but not progress (Rosenberg, 2005). For instance, Aristotelian physics, Newtonian’s mechanics, Quantum mechanics, Darwinism etc.	ICT4D research uses paradigm such as positivism and constructivism in ontology level, and positivists, interpretive, critical realism in epistemology level
Lakatos ‘research programs’ An alternative theory of paradigm. Prescribed to use core scientific practices as a standard methodology.	ICT4D uses standard research methodology such as interpretive case study, but differ to natural science methodology
Fayerabend’s theory of Anarchistic history Based on humanitarian ground, doesn’t believe in paradigm or standard methods	Misunderstood, but it is relevant to my research because ICT4D is more concerned to humanitarian issues. Heterogeneous local context requires adaptable research methodology rather than structured.
The Bayesian approach Confirmation of new scientific knowledge influenced by previous success probabilities	Difficult to estimate the previous success probabilities of social science research
Social science (post-modernist approach)- science is the outcome of interplay among different human and non-human actors (Latour)	My research fits here, but is it a real science?

2.1 Empiricism

The initial thought in the philosophy of science was mostly dominated by the concept of empiricism. The empiricism emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in experiments (Chalmers, 1999). The idea of empiricism is that the science is to be based on what we can see, hear and touch rather than on personal opinions or speculative imaginations. Accordance to Locke’s theory of tabula rasa, which state that the human mind is like a blank table and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Empiricism is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Therefore, empiricist claims that the science is methodologically empirical in nature. Some of the classical empiricists were John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). The ICT4D research is also bound to empirical study. For this purpose we conduct interviews, surveys, and data collection in the natural setup. However, the concept of not using any priori or existing theory in empiricism is differing to my research. It employs existing theories such as actor-network theory and social capital theory for analytical purpose.

2.2 Logical Positivism

It is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism with rationalism incorporating mathematical logics known as deductions in epistemology (Chalmers, 1999). The epistemology of IS realm was dominated by the logical positivism. However, the IS research community gradually realizing the importance of interpretive studies along with positivism. Notwithstanding, the construct validation and process evaluation of the case study is some of the reflections which has implications to my ICT4D research. Logical positivism has advocated the observation based theory should be tested through experiments. However, the ICT4D research has a contextual problem in conducting theory laden experiments. The differences in the local context can produce different results even though both use the same theory. Another, drawback of logical positivism is the logical induction. Logical positivism has put forward the concept of generalization through induction. This suggests that the appropriate facts can be established in science by large number of observations under a wide variety of conditions, and there should not be any conflict with the derived law (Chalmers, 1999). It means replication of experiments many times to make it a standard theory. This kind of replication is not possible in social science research generally and ICT4D research particularly. Although social science theory also needs to be generalized through inductive and deductive reasoning, there is a lack of law of uniformity.

2.3 Karl Popper’s falsification

Karl popper was sharply against the idea of logical positivism or induction for generalization of the theory. Therefore, Pooper formulated his demarcation criterion for distinguishing science from non-science, where the criterion pertains to falsifiability (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). The falsificationist sees science as a set of hypothesis that is tentatively proposed with the aim of accurately describing or accounting for the behavior of some aspect of the world or universe. There is one fundamental condition that any hypothesis or system of hypothesis must satisfy if it is to be granted the status of scientific law or theory, a hypothesis must be falsifiable. Even though falsification seems better than induction for the generalization of ICT4D research outcome, sometimes multiple subjective interpretations may erroneously falsify the true hypothesis.

2.4 Kuhn’s Paradigm

Inductivist and falsificationist accounts of science were challenged in a major way by Thoman Kuhn. He came to believe that traditional accounts of science, whether inductivist or falsificaniost, do not bear comparison with historical evidence. Kuhn’s account of science was subsequently developed as an attempt to give a theory more in keeping with the historical situation as he saw it (Chalmers, 1999). A key feature of his theory is the emphasis placed on the revolutionary character of scientific progress, where revolution involves the abandonment of one theoretical structure and its replacement by another, incompatible one (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). The concept of paradigm is frequently used in the realm of ICT4D research. However, the paradigm in ICT4D research is mostly confined to positivist and interpretive camps (Khazanchi & Bjørn, 2000). And, my research falls into the interpretive paradigm.

2.5 Lakatos ‘research programs’

Lakatos like Kuhn, saw the merit in portraying scientific activity as taking place in a framework, and coined the phrase “research program” (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). According to Lakatos some laws or principles are more basic than others and that can be the defining feature of a science. A science can then be seen as the programmatic development of the implications of the fundamental principles. I take it as a use of standard methodology in my research such as use of most frequent interpretive case study. However, Lakatos positions for research programs were based on the features of natural science which may not fully comply with social science research in general and ICT4D in particular.

2.6 Fayerabend’s theory of Anarchistic history

Fayerabend from his humanitarian point of view supports his anarchistic theory of science on grounds that it increases the freedom of scientists by removing them from methodological constraints and, more generally, leaves individuals the freedom to choose between science and other forms of knowledge (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). A central problem with Feyerabend’s notion of freedom stems from the degree to which it is entirely negative, in the sense that freedom is understood as freedom from constraints. The only relevance to this paradigm and my research is that both are based on humanitarian ground. Parallel to Fayerabend’s theory, ICT4D research probably cannot be confined to any establish way of theorizing the phenomenon. It may violate the emergent nature of interpretive research.

2.7 The Bayesian approach

Bayes’ theorem is about conditional probabilities, probabilities for propositions that depend on the evidence bearing on those propositions. Those probabilities will be subject to change by the punter in the light of new evidence (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). Bayes’ theorem is a theorem prescribing how probabilities are to be changed in the light of new evidence. Although the importance of historical events cannot be ignored in the ICT4D research, it is quite difficult to estimate the previous success probabilities of social science research.

2.8 Social science (post-modernist approach)

Scientific theory can be objective, however, an objective theory not as one that exists independently of human beings and their influences. It can be a social object that forms over a period of time from a process of social construction in which many generations of cohorts of researchers participate and whose properties and behaviors can be observed and explained through such empirical disciplines as the history and sociology of science (Godfrey-Smith, 2003). The emergence of modern science in itself is a sociological process, which takes different forms during the transition from feudalism to early capitalism (Zilsel, 1942; Merton, 1938). The philosophy of science has been mainly drawn by the natural scientist with a very positivist approach; therefore, so called modern science definition rejects my research as a science. However, it is the post-modernist scientist who defined the science in a broad view which includes the social perspective as well. Social science theory and a natural science theory are no different in their logical form (Lee, 2000). The major differences between them are social science needs to perform an empirical work such as data collection in a natural setup, but not a natural scientist prior to formulating a theory. As such, they require data collection or observation by the social scientist no less than does any other aspects of objective reality that he or she encounters.

The subjective meaning of the research has been conceptualized as first-level constructs – meanings constructed by human subjects in the social setting that the social scientist seeks to explain. It is only on the basis of these first-level constructs that the observing social scientist may properly found the constructs known as second-level constructs comprising his or her scientific theory. Because subjective meanings or first-level constructs exist in the empirical subject matter of social science but not in natural science, it is appropriate to describe the subsequent second-level constructs or theory as being social theory. As a matter of fact, natural science methodology can be seen as a limiting case or subset of social science methodology (Lee, 2000). Therefore, in my opinion, my ICT4D research qualifies as a valid scientific knowledge under the social science umbrella.

3. Conclusion: Is my research a science?

Most of the theories put forward by scientific community are positivists by nature as advocated by empiricism, logical positivism, and falsification, whereas, social phenomenon cannot be observed by positivists approach only. To my proposed research, empiricism or empirical research is a fundamental part of interpretive epistemology. Whereas, confirmation of social theories through induction seems to be difficult in my case study as the local context keeps changing. Likewise, the idea of theory testing and falsification do not fully comply to my research because my research does not test any theory; instead, it just uses the theory for the sake of defining its conceptual framework. Positivists’ theories are mainly criticized for favoring objectivism and rejecting the subjective aspects of social perception. That may lead us to rigor testing of the process and ignoring the relevant facts.

In IS domain, I found the Kuhn’s paradigm theory is consistently dominating. For instance, the ontology of IS realm is confined into two paradigm positivism and constructivism. Likewise, the epistemology of IS field has three paradigms i.e. positivist, interpretive, and critical realism. Following this tradition of paradigm, I would say the ontological and epistemological nature of my research falls into constructivism ontology and interpretive epistemology. Thus I am not in a state to correspond my ICT4D research to single domain such as empiricism, logical positivism, falsification or Kuhn’s theory of paradigm. Particularly, my proposed research is more broadly related to the study of the effective use of information technology and the potential impact of software systems and enabling information technologies on the remote communities. Therefore, the nature of my research as a science is more close to social science. However, social science is not a disjoint family of science; it inherits the natural science features as well. Comprehensively, natural science methodology can be seen as a limiting case or subset of social science methodology. In my opinion, however, this controversy seems to be a never ending process, and that is the only way to keep the growth of science alive.

References:

(1) Chalmers, A. (1999). What is this thing called science? : Open University Press, UK.

(2) Godfrey-Smith, P. (2003). Theory and Reality: an introduction to the philosophy of science: The University of Chicago Press/Chicago and London.

(3) Khazanchi, & Bjørn (2000). Is information systems a science: An inquiry into the nature of the information systems discipline. Database for Advances in Information Systems (Formerly : Data Base ), 31(2), 24.

(4) Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social, an introduction to actor-network theory: Oxford University Press.

(5) Lee, Allen (2004). Thinking about social theory and philosophy for information systems, in Willcocks, L. and Mingers, J. (eds) Social Theory and Philosophy for Information Systems, Wiley, Chichester, 2004, pp. 1-26.

(6) Merton, R. K. (1938). Science and the Social Order; Philosophy of Science, 5(3), pp. 321-337.

(7) Rosenberg, Alex (2005). Philosophy of Science, a contemporary introduction, 2nd Edition, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

(8) Zilsel, E. (1942). The Sociological Roots of Science, The American Journal of Sociology, 47 (4), pp. 544-562.

2009 - The Year of Understanding

After the passage of one more remarkable year 2009, when I analyzed retrospectively, I found that it was a year of reading, learning, and understanding of philosophy, theory, and methodology of information systems in general and ICT4D in particular. Therefore, I declared the year 2009 as the year of understanding. During the course of understanding, philosophy was and still is the most fascinating subject to me. Although knowledge gained through philosophy is abstract, the knowledge and its implications can be concrete. In my opinion, we as a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) must have philosophical understanding of our research work. It helps us to reflect on our own work and testify its validity as a science. Better understanding of philosophy paves the way to understand the role of theory and its contribution to choose the right methodology as well. This is how we get the intellectual and effective outcome combining theory with empirical research, which, consequently, leads to better coherence in theory and practice. It is not respectable to say that philosophy of some philosophers I read were good or bad. Each and every bit of piece I learned from them is and will be the most precious wealth of my life. Finally, with the passing of an outstanding year 2009 and arrival of another wonderful New Year 2010, I have also worked out my agenda. In this coming year 2010, I will more concentrate on writing articles, blogs, conference, and journal papers. Therefore, the coming year will be the year of reflections.

IRIS32 Conference, Molde, Norway - My Speech (unedited)

First of all, my heartiest greetings to all the researchers and the organizers of this wonderful event. Regarding me, my name is Devinder Thapa and, I am originally from Nepal and currently I am employed as a research fellow in the University of Agder. Obviously, this is my first but not last appearance in IRIS conference and it’s my pleasure to be a part of Scandinavian research team. Although research is not a new term for me, doing IS research is a completely new experience Therefore, I am in a primary stage of developing my research proposal. During my research tenure, I received a plenty of suggestions from my senior researcher and supervisor, that I should attend IRIS conference. Before coming to IRIS conference, frankly speaking, I had a very different impression or you can say hypothesis about this conference. For instance, it was pretty sure that Molde is a beautiful place, and there was a best chance to utilize University fund for some recreation, but I was not so optimist about synchronizing any research ideas. I was thinking like, ok, IRIS is a place where many homogeneous actors from the Scandinavian region will come together and force me to enroll in their research tradition and finally translate me and my colleague to follow their research tradition. But, on the contrary, I found it completely different. As soon as we started our working group session, from the very beginning, I realized, this is the place where you can, not only, get our ideas more furnished but also facilitate other researchers to get more insight, and enhance own knowledge at the same time. In my personal case, I came here with fuzzy ideas, which were important I knew, but they were not in order to make a sensible network. Today I can boast, yes, my heterogeneous ideas are synthesized and they started forming a good sensible network. Definitely, the whole credit goes to IRIS32 team, which is truly a harmonious Network composed of heterogeneous actors, fortunately, just opposite to my hypothesis. Last but not least, IRIS games will be one of the memorable events despite not making the Robin Hood proud of me. Well, I will conclude my small notes here and once again, my sincere thanks to IRIS32 organizing committee and all the participants.

Hope to see you again in Denmark, next year.

Thank you, Tusen Takk

Re-conceptualization of Digital divide

With the outburst of Internet technology in the mid-nineties, the concept of digital divide also came into existence. Digital divide can be categorized into two dimensions such as external divide and internal divide. External divide can be defined as a digital gap between developed and developing countries, whereas, internal divide is a national level digital gap between urban and rural areas. For instance, in Nepal most of the Internet services are concentrated inside the Kathmandu valley, but rest of the rural areas is still deprived of these services. However, the initial concept of digital divide was narrowly focused on the gap between have and have-nots, for instance those who have access to computers and internet services and those who do not have. Similarly, mass diffusion of Internet in the developing countries has been rather misunderstood as economic and social change. Therefore, the researchers have re-conceptualized the concept of digital divide in a broader term. Re-conceptualization of digital divide, besides technological gap, contains the intersection of socio-economic status, gender, age, language and geographic location. In addition, it refers to the cultural dimension, inadequate infrastructure, and shortage of manpower. Broader interpretation of digital divide also include cognitive issues such an attitude of community people towards technology and their daily usage patterns.

Mark Warschauer in his book Technology and Social Inclusion illustrated that many information and communication technology (ICT) development projects failed due to narrow conceptualization of digital divide in developing countries vis-à-vis developed countries. Mark presented one example of an Indian project launched in New Delhi known as Hole-in-the-Wall. The objective of this project was to provide computer access to the city’s street children. They fixed five-station computer kiosk inside a booth with monitors shown through holes. The computers were without keyboard with special joysticks and buttons that substituted for the computer mouse. The computers were connected to the internet through dial-up access and operated by a volunteer inside the booth. They wanted to experiment minimally invasive education, therefore, there were no instructors. The idea was to allow 24 hour computer access to the street children so that they can learn at their own pace and speed. Initially, the project was hailed by researcher and government agencies. Huge numbers of children flocked to the site to learn basic computer operations such as MS office, and internet browsing. However, after conducting an empirical research, the reality turned out to be different. There were many shortcomings in the project such as frequent occurrence of technical problems, lack of context-sensitive contents in their native language; moreover, children spent most of their time in drawing with paint programs and playing computer games. Likewise, the hidden architecture of the computer stations made it difficult to supervise, instruct, and collaborate with other community organizations. Even the parents from the community complained that kiosk was harmful to their children because they spent more time on playing computer games instead of doing schoolwork. The example shows that providing only computers to rural people is not a solution for social improvisation. Therefore, the digital divide should not be counted by number of internet connections; however, it should be analyzed taking into account how technology interventions have been used to amplify the best social practices.

There is a need to offer community oriented meaningful computer courses instead of delivering particular software programs. We need to involve the community organizations in designing the context based curriculum. Mere rendering the software training is not sustainable in the long run. Instead of making donor oriented or politics oriented IT policies, it should be more people oriented. There is a dearth of people oriented IT policies which really make a difference in people’s lives. Fast spreading policies such as providing computer training to mass population can be attractive for pulling funds; however, sustainable development comes from the slow and effective penetration of the technology. Indeed, we need to consider both the factors and find the middle way to use the technology for mass dissemination and penetration. For instance, rural teachers might learn how to create their own technology-based materials based on local conditions rather than only using commercial software developed for other contexts. A crafts cooperative might learn how to develop and manage its own web site rather than posting its announcements on somebody else’s. Nongovernmental organizations might learn to establish and run their own networks of telecenters rather than just attending cyber cafes. Therefore, to bridge the broader digital gap and to provide meaningful ICT access, consideration of social context, social purpose, and social organization are significant irrespective of developed or developing countries. Otherwise, how could be know the impact of ICT on society without any consideration of the social context in which computers are used.

Although the cheap cost of computer devices can make it affordable to the poor people, social structures are crucial in determining who is able to access any technology and use it beneficially. In the context of Nepal, the role of leadership, vision, and local “champions” are crucial to the success of ICT for development projects. We should not repeat the mistake to overemphasizing the role of computer experts rather than of the best community leaders, educators, cooperative societies, micro financing firms and NGOs. Those who are capable of managing complex social projects to foster innovative, creative and social transformation will likely be able to learn to integrate technology into this task. For instance, to provide community based public access by NGOs such as e-Village in India, also, provide an opportunity with micro financing activities to rural ICT entrepreneur like Grameen Bank project in Bangladesh. In developing countries, it is neither feasible nor possible to provide computers to each and every rural community members, therefore, the intermediate organizations based on public private partnership (PPP) such as NGOs can operate community information services known as telecenters, equipped with computers, internet connection, fax and telephone. These community information service centers can retrieve meaningful information on health, agricultural product prices, educational material, or the government policies and disseminate the same to the rural communities.

In conclusion, pessimist society has blamed ICT for bringing the digital gap; on the other hand, the same ICT can be an efficient and effective tool to bridging the broader external and internal digital gap. Indeed, providing laptop to each child is not the only solution, the participation requires more than just physical access to computers and connectivity. They should be able to access the requisite skills and knowledge, and contents should be based on local context and language, furthermore, requires community and social support to be able to use ICT for meaningful ends. As Mark Warschauer stated that the tasks are large, but so is the challenge: reducing marginalization, poverty, and inequality and enhancing economic and social inclusion for all.

ICT for Rural Development and the Role of Media

I was watching a video recording of PM Dahal's speech at Nepalnews.com on 7 April, 2009. He was expressing his dissonance about the role of Media in spreading negative information to people. However, my article is not about endorsing the PM's statement neither to criticize the role of media. My objective is to pull media's attraction towards the subject of rural development through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Ironically, media itself is a core component of ICT, however, little coverage can be found about the contribution of ICT in rural developments. Simple statements of political figures can be seen as a news headlines, on the contrary, it is difficult to find any column of ICT for development activities, not in a single passage. If we go through the World Development Reports and UNDP profiles, it seems millions of dollar has been already invested in the ICT for development projects. However, the actual impact on rural communities are unknown. Either there is null impact of these projects or media is not interested in disseminating the actual outcomes of these development activities.

We don't need to go further to experience the success stories of ICT implementation in rural communities. India is one of the star role model for us, where we can find plenty of examples. Illustrating one example of e-village, MS Swaminathan Foundation in Tamil Nadu has developed a novel approach known as e-village. They set-up different computer terminals in the rural areas. These computer terminals are pre-loaded with a database of useful information relating to government services, such as agricultural extension, health and the police that contain the relevant contact details for each village. They connected the ten villages together and selected a group of volunteers to run that village centre. Women have been given priorities to run that centres, and provide training courses to other women. In addition, technical support is provided by a central 'hub' situated in the nearby town Vilanur. The technical support centre is headed by some trained IT professionals. Training courses for up to 25 people can be held at the Vilanur hub and lager courses such as for making incense sticks and small scale paper production from banana leaves have been developed to facilitate livelihood diversification through small business activities. The daily information bulletins are sent by e-mail to the networked villages which receive a summary of the main news stories from the local markets each morning. With the growing usage of ICT, village people started applying this technology to new areas such as solar power and spread spectrum masts. Compared to costly telecenter models, the e-village provide more localised and low-key service at a fraction of cost. Similarly, if we look into our own local Nepal Wireless Network Projects run by Mahabir Pun. Who is doing a tremendous job by facilitating the ICT services - eHealthcare, eLearning, and eCommerce - to remote communities.

Similar ICT development projects can be implemented in other rural areas by deploying the existing frameworks with some readjustments. The role of media in this endeavour is to educate the people through telling success stories and the usage of ICT for development. Media can break the myth that IT artefacts are some kind of robotic machine that can be operated by limited expert engineers. They need to tell the people that a simple training program is enough to learn and use ICT services. For example, by learning simple email messaging they can communicate instantly and economically. They can read daily market information and news headlines in Nepali, accordingly. In my personal case, I asked my 60 years father to learn internet chatting so that we can have easy and virtually free communication at any time. This is just a simple example, however, ICT has a multiple macro level impacts as well. According to DFID sustainable livelihood guidelines ICT has a positive impacts on human capital, social capital, financial capital, natural capital and physical capital. For instance, distance education, improved communication between different communities, computerised and transparent micro-credit services, land record keeping. Likewise, improved accessibility to domestic and international markets for selling agricultural products.

Although there are many rhetoric of ICT for development, ICT itself is not a panacea. It can be an instrumental for development, if implemented in an effective way. Giving specific guidance through media channels on effective implementation of ICT artefacts, it enhances the impact level. Likewise, high level impact on human, financial, natural, physical, and social capital . And, enhances the accessibility of remote communities to global market. Consequently, reduces the digital gap between urban and remote areas vis-à-vis between developing and developed countries. As a result, most of the jobs concentrated in the urban centres can be disseminated through the use of ICT, which can reduce the migration of skilled population from remote to urban areas and improve the communal harmony. Then only we can realize the true meaning of the flat world.

This article is an attempt to appeal media fraternity, donor agencies, IT vendors, and policy makers, that we should encourage ICT development activities by all means. It is not an afford of single person or single community but we need a synergistic afford from all corners. As stated Developing countries have by-passed the industrial age and leapfrog into information age. Unless Nepal leapfrogs into the Information Age, the economic gap between Nepal and rest of the developing world would widen. And, the role of media in this transition phase is indispensable and vital.

This article has been published in the Kathmandu Post, Nepal.

New Nepal, New Leader, and New Approach – after CA poll

Recently I was reading a book by Jim Collins titled “Good to Great”; it was a survey of fortune 500 companies. The purpose of survey was to find out how a company turned itself from good to great. These companies started in an inverse situation but in the long run they proved to be a black horse. While reading, I found some of the factors to become “good to great” are essential to transform the system of our country as well. Then only we can truly see the new face of new Nepal otherwise it will be simply an old wine with a new label. The factors are level 5 leaders, first who then what, good decision making mechanism, and finally sense of discipline.

As Jim Collins describes “Level 5 Leaders” is an individual who is very humble on a personal level, but who possesses a great deal of drive and desire to succeed, where “success” is not personal, but defined by creating something great that will outlast for the generations. We also need a leader with a strong determination, will and commitment to do what is necessary to drive our country on the new direction of peace and development. The author advocates that “level 5 leaders” can be made because many people probably have the core abilities and attitude necessary to attain that status.

During the transformation rather than concern themselves first with the “what” - direction, strategy – they have to be ensured that we have the right people “on the bus” before anything else. By having a strong team, they can avoid pitfall of depending completely on one leader. As the author said,”Great companies are those that have a very solid foundation, and don’t depend on the brilliance of any one person. We need to give good people good opportunities, rather than the biggest problems. Fixing problems makes you good, but taking advantage of the right opportunities can make you great.”

One of the key factors in the success of the great companies was a series of good decisions. The good decisions flowed from the fact that they all made a consistent and thorough effort to confront reality, internalizing the facts relevant to their market. Similarly, our political system should pave a way to the economic growth of country instead of personally poking their nose in all corners of the decision making. It’s often better to ask questions rather than dispense “answers.” Encourage healthy debate. It has to be real debate, not a show put on to make people feel included. It should also not just be argument for the sake of argument - reach a conclusion and move on. When things go wrong, investigate to avoid repeating the mistake, instead of assigning blame. If people are too worried about protecting themselves, it becomes difficult to honestly analyze and learn from failures. Create mechanisms, that allow people to communicate problems instantly and without repercussions, and in a way that cannot be ignored. By maintaining this vision, and keeping their ear to the ground, it won’t be necessary to motivate people - they’ll be motivated of their own accord.

Other essential factors are the spirit of leadership and a sense of discipline. They are both necessary - without the drive to try new things, and some degree of independence, a system becomes a rigid, stifling hierarchy. Without some sense of discipline, system begins to break down. The best leaders have both latitude for individual action, as well as a culture of disciplined behavior. It’s useless trying to create rules to force the wrong people to behave correctly - it simply won’t work. Instead, we need to educate people and develop an innate sense of self-discipline that doesn’t come from above. There is a big difference between having a “tyrant” that enforces a culture of discipline by fear, and finding people who naturally adhere to a disciplined approach. The former will disintegrate when the leader moves on; the latter creates a lasting system.

Finally, let’s dream positively for the best interest of our New Nepal, New Leader and New Approach.

The power of positive thinking

It is quite difficult to define the positive thinking with concrete parameters. It is a completely subjective opinion of different people with different objectives. However, some books define it as a passion or fire in our mind to achieve our short or long term goal. Positive thinking itself is not a complete way of thinking; it consists of different personality traits like vision, planning, action, evaluation and determination. One of the complementary elements that go one-on-one is the self-motivation. Most of the time, to light the fire in our mind, we need motivational fuel that should come from our own inner sea field. Last considerable factor is luck. My understanding of luck is to finding a proper opportunity; it’s rather not a supernatural phenomenon. A powerful positive thinker can create opportunities in mid of scarcities. However, I don’t want to deal with this [luck] stuff further, it may create logical and illogical arguments. J

Most of the creatures in this world have the passion for sex and money. However, I am not discussing about the thinking backed by some evil forces. I read some unusual stories about people like Hitler, Idi Amin, and Charles Shobhraj. Although they were also having killing instinct, their passion was not acceptable to the large bunch of society. So we should not nurse such passion which eventually leads to the unacceptable obsession. Therefore the first and foremost rule of positive thinking is that it should be encircled inside the ethical periphery.

It is not necessary that the positive thinking always result as per our pre-defined goal. Sometimes it may be paradoxical. For instance, in my personal case, I was desperately working hard to go to UK for further studies, I was completely passionate, and I prepared well for IELTS, left the banking job etc. However, unfortunately or fortunately I could not pass through the VISA criteria, and landed through by-pass to South Korea. Since positive thinking in the real sense is to finding a new opportunities besides existing difficulties. At the meantime enhance your strengths and recover from your weaknesses. Utmost, this [difficulties] is the actual testing parameter of our positive thinking vis-à-vis vision, planning and action.

When I came to Korea I was just having a passion to do something but not a definite plan. Gradually I redefined my vision and planning, subsequently started working on it. As a result, I succeed to achieve the first short term objective of my life, my doctoral degree, for the time being. Even though the long term goal is still far ahead, however, I was able to discover my strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, I know what is my long term goal and means to achieve that goal. Even if I could not manage to achieve the pre-defined goal, I am strong enough to light the fire of positive thinking and finding new ways in the face of awful difficulties. Because I have experienced the magical power of positive thinking, if it is properly planned, and wish any individual can form this attitude. There is no discrimination of cast, creed, color, or gender to get the benefit of the power of positive thinking.

Finally, I would like to say, the power of positive thinking can be realized if we have a proper vision, planning, action, and evaluation process. That should be backed by ethical values, self discipline, and strong determination. Even though, this write up is mainly focused on my self experiences of positive thinking; however it can be equally applied to any individual in a similar fashion.