Valued Function

      Valued Function

Peter Drucker in his book, “Management Challenges for the 21st Century,” said: “Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. People know what they are not good at more often... and even there people are more often wrong than right. And yet, one can only perform with one’s strength. One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let alone on something one cannot do at all.”

Put slightly differently, you should expend energy at a place where you have the greatest effect.

More often than not, the vision of most visionaries are driven either by contribution, that is, to give back to the society; influence, that is, the political leverage to effect the much needed change in the social order; or profit, that is, to get return on capital investment. Whichever motivation drives you, as a visionary, it is necessary to balance energy to effect ratio, E2E_r, in order to valuate and/or appraise your contribution. The idea that the contribution of a vision should be scalable, suggests three hypothetical assumptions: if energy is greater than effect your vision may be under tension. If effort is commensurate to effect, your vision might be on its critical phase. But if effect outweighs energy then the vision is on a cruise to its crest.

The last assumption seems desirable for most visionaries, particularly those that are driven by profit. But even at that, the critical visionary is careful of its inflationary consequences. What do I mean? In today’s world of twits and texts, it’s quite obvious that many a visionary want to be seen and heard. Given the opportunity the shrewd visionary would rather catch all the bouquets, for less energy, and evade the attendant brickbats. But in the long run, the attempt to get effects greater than energy expended in a system would only result to one outcome: an inflationary-system.

This was why Sullivan remarked, “When you expand a zero, you still have nothing.”

In other words, as effect continues to outweigh energy, in the long haul, your vision would reach a plateau and diminishing return would set in and cause collapse of the vision.  

The idea to get more in equity where you have given less in energy is treasonable. Many want to fly but they despise running, while some whom decided to run scorn crawling and walking phases adjudged them as drudgery.

For instance, Samuel Pierpont Langley made two successful flights at altitudes 2,300 ft and 3,000 ft after a catapult launch from a boat. But modern airplanes are no more launched by a catapult from a boat, rather the run way is used and the planes are able to soar above 2,300 ft and 3,000 ft.

The drudgery phase of a vision, where the most energy is expended is as important as the flying phase of the vision. Many visionaries launch their vision without a circumspective eye on managing E2E_r then they reach a threshold where all hell seems to break loose; and at this point it feels like they’re on a treadmill: a labyrinth of their own making because they want to get more where they’ve given less...