I thought it fitting to start this website by explaining my purpose for creating it.

In my opinion, sharing ideas effectively is the foundation of all progress. The results of any sort of collective endeavour depends on how well its participants share and receive information. The reason being that in all of these cases, there is a desired result which people are attempting to achieve via their concerted effort. Concerted effort requires agreement on what needs to be done, why it should be done, how it should be done, and who should do it. If objectives, motivations, methods and responsibilities are not agreed upon, concerted effort is not effective and does not lead to the desired outcome in an optimal way.

Illustration

Consider any organization, assuming that there is a desired outcome and that all participants agree on the desired outcome, let’s look at what happens when there is no agreement on what, why, how things should be done, and who should do it.

1. Disagreement on what needs to be done leads individual participants making their own decisions about what they need to do. Decisions made in isolation tends to produce results that conflict or overlap with results of other individuals. When this happens some participants tend to produce results that counteract the results of others. If progress is to be made, the efforts of each participant must collectively move the status quo closer to the desired outcome, and this is only possible if participants agree on what needs to be done.

2. When people do not agree why things should be done, motivation is not alike in all participants. Therefore the quality and quantity of output of each individual is likely to vary greatly. This is problematic because the work of one group or individual tends to depend on the work of another. If results are not all of the same quality or quantity, the collective result produced will not be as conducive to the desired outcome as it could be.

Motivation aside, agreeing why something needs to be done also makes sure that optimizations are not being made towards the wrong thing. Optimizations occur naturally everywhere effort is required and when people optimize for the wrong thing, they are essentially wasting their time in the long term.

3. When people do not agree on the way things should be done, the methods used to achieve results tend to conflict. This leads to failure in coordinating efforts, which in turn, impairs overall productivity. Therefore, the why of things must be also communicated clearly and be well understood by all participants.

4. When people do not agree on who should do the work, there is misalocation of resources. More or fewer people that is necessary could be working on the same task. On a large enough scale, this becomes extremely wasteful. Expectations and targets may not be met, or will be met in a sub-optimal time.

Conclusion

In long-lasting successful organizations, the way to tackle these issues is have systems in place to facilitate decision making and communication. Systems can be thought of as a form of pre-written messages that explain (communicate) the decision-making process. They outline the what, when, why and how of internal discussions, and provide a framework for information gathering and sharing.

Further difficulties arise when the environment where the organization exists is naturally not receptive to ideas. For example, Mauritius is a conservative society. Conservative societies are known for their resistance to change. New ideas, by virtue of them being unvalidated, are already unlikely to be accepted in conservative societies. If one wants to improve the chances of their ideas being accepted, they must first be able to communicate them effectively.

I need to be able to write my thoughts clearly. This website is an experiment to improve my ability to write and communicate effectively.