The magic of intangibles!**
……….. and the Happiness therein!
“Everything that can be counted does not
necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” ~Albert
Einstein
All my writings
talked of the magic of smaller things, the misnomer for the biggest of things,
the intangibles. As I delve deeper into the more inhumane side of the world, I
feel I keep finding more of emotions. A little of business in fact taught me a
lot more of emotions than 'the better side' ever could. This writing comes from
a world that duly underestimates the power of the smaller things…Let’s get down
to business!
While we were
running behind the ‘dot com’ boom or the ‘recession’ or ‘big data’ for that
matter, did we stop striving for something far more important to our existence?
While we were chasing towards success and expanding business, did we forget to
live? Did we forget that businesses are run by humans, humans who have needs?
Today, a
generation which is more educated, earns more and lives longer compared to any
previous generation is one of the most depressed generation in world history.
Perhaps, the most ignored fact in businesses today, is the human content of
business. Chip Conley, a noted businessman and a renowned speaker emphasized on
the fact that some of the biggest companies around the globe already know that
customer loyalty, goodwill and brand-value are worth much more than sales,
margins and material assets. Around 80% of assets on Apple’s balance sheet is
comprised of intangibles. In fact Harley-Davidson, Whole Foods Markets,
Southwest Airlines and Google are all intangible-driven companies. We do know
that the intangibles are worth a lot more than tangibles, but in the absence
of ways to quantify the intangibles in a definite way, we end up having to
ignore them.
It was in early
1970s when nations started realizing the value of intangibles. In 1968, during
a very memorable speech, Robert Kennedy stated that “GDP measures everything
other than what makes life worthwhile”. It was a game changing event in the
political and behavioral scenario. GDP must have been an important metric
during industrial revolution when production was synonymous to development.
However, with an 80% decline in poverty, was produce of a country, the only way
to quantify it?
In 1972,
Bhutan’s fourth dragon King succeeded his father at the age of 17. At a time
when Bhutan was known to be one of the weakest nations financially, he was
asked about the GDP of Bhutan by a journalist. The king in his answer changed
the way people looked at Bhutan and the way we judge nations based on only what
they ‘produce’, not what they ‘have’. He proposed ‘Gross
National Happiness’ as an all-encompassing metric. He not only
mentioned it, but also set up a procedure of quantifying the same through 4
pillars, 9 KPIs and 72 different metrics. Today more than 70 countries use GNH as a metric. UN recently identified happiness as one of the key
ingredients of development.
Prof. Daniel
Gilbert, psychology, Harvard University has done commendable work on importance
and analysis of personal happiness. He has studied multiple cases and reached
at a few results very intrinsic to human behavior. He very interestingly says
that people are bad at forecasting the reasons for their happiness.
One might feel that they will become happy if they get a promotion, a job or a
partner they wish for, but even after they get everything they want, do they
remain happy forever? After a period of time people learn to deal with ultimate
grief and similarly dissolve extreme happiness. The fact is there are
many things that can ‘make’ us happy, but there exists nothing that can
‘keep’ us happy. Who would believe that having kids actually takes
one’s average happiness levels way below?! I clearly remember asking for a doll
to my dad when I was a child and believing it while I said – “This is the only
thing I will ever ask you for. I will always be happy if you buy me this doll”.
My dad just smiled and got me the doll; knowing that I will never end asking
him for more toys and a lot more in life. We keep striving for a goal to become
happy and the moment we reach that, we shift the ‘goal’ itself and hence end up
making ourselves unhappy for eternity! It can be said for the mankind in
general that the frequency of happiness is much more
important than the intensity of happiness. Also, generally a
situation of no alternative surprisingly keeps people happier than
people who have alternatives. The good part is one can’t remain unhappy for
life and humans have a way of finding a way around situations.
“Wisdom does not come with age. Maybe it
is born in the cradle but this too is conjecture, I only know that for the
most part I have followed instinct rather than intelligence, and this has
resulted in a modicum of happiness.” ~Ruskin Bond
In Prof.’s
words, “The secret
of happiness is that it’s not a secret; it’s like weight loss – You
know the right things to do, you just don’t do it.” Happiness can
be generated only by knowing what counts for you. Chip Conley devised a simple
equation to explain the mathematics of happiness; which is more like
gratitude/gratification; what you have vs. what you want to have. It's up to us
to increase the numerator or denominator! :)
As our worlds grow bigger, we
start to realize smaller the things are, the more they matter. Days that just
go by waiting for our hours to get over, moments that just pass in a need to be
noticed and people who just cross right before our eyes in hope of being
acknowledged, all the small things that keep looking for our attention till the
time we lose time and start looking for them when they are lost. A silent day,
a lukewarm coffee, a half read novel and peace at heart is the way a perfect
life is! Sunlight meshing from a canopy of leaves, droplets of rain on your
face and a smell of the mountains, what else can a life wish for?
**Originally penned for internal usage at Mu Sigma Inc. –
Please take permission before copying or reproducing
