The words ‘more’ and ‘efficient’ should ring a bell in our heads and hearts. The word ‘enough’ never occurs. There always seems to be something missing in our lives, requiring that next purchase or experience. And, even after the additional purchase or experience, we are left wanting more. More has become an obsession and efficiently procuring it, the next illusion. Because, more does not make our lives better, it simply increases the quantum of what we have. Unfortunately, even educated individuals have trouble understanding this.
Why is more not automatically better? This is an interesting topic for all of us to think about. With increasing technological prowess, economic efficiency makes things cheaper. It also makes performance better. The question to ponder is – what does ‘more’ make better and what does ‘more’ make worse? Roger Martin’s recent book titled ‘When more is not better’ raises this question with regards to America’s Democratic Capitalism.
I am a fan of Roger Martin. I have included many of his Harvard
Business Review articles in my course reading lists on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. I particularly loved his book ‘Playing to Win’, which i have referred to many of my students and entrepreneur friends. I also enjoyed reading his book ‘Creating Great Choices’. So, i was surprised and happy to see a book on this topic from Prof Martin, the strategy professor. The book attempts to ask how democracy and capitalism can coexist?
The first part of the book focusses on the problem. It highlights the challenges America faces today, in sustaining and making the efficient model, continue to deliver on the ‘American Dream’. Unfortunately this dream is under threat, and Roger deftly handles how this can be overcome. While he does balance between theory and practice, the book is interesting because he uses his strategic approach to problem definition. While he uses secondary data to showcase the macro trends, he uses interesting data from projects done at the Martin Prosperity Institute to supplement what aggregate data misses to capture. The responses by citizens and how they seem disconnected with both the democratic and the capitalist systems, is worrisome to all who believe in them. Additionally, this section highlights the challenges of relying on proxies to measure performance and progress. Two big problems with proxies are: choice of proxies and their atomistic nature. The section is filled with many interesting cases, but the one that caught my attention was the way a pediatric hospital attempted to include performance metrics into the incentives of the CEO. WOW! The response from the CEO (will let you, the reader, savor it yourself), and the lesson it provides is alone worth the price of the book.
The second half of the book presents solutions. It presents an agenda at four levels – business executives, political leaders, educators and citizens. I particularly enjoyed the chapter ‘An Agenda for Educators’ where he talks about the experiences of teachers, especially K-12. It gives a glimpse into why the world still thrives – there are still selfless people who strive to make the lives of others better. All the solutions presented are drawn from existing practices, although practiced in pockets. When i read through the second part of the book, I was reminded of another interesting book by Professors Sutton and Rao titled ‘Scaling up Excellence’ where they discuss why excellence exists in pockets and how it needs to be spread around. This scaling up of excellence, is in effect what Prof Martin proposes. But as he warns, this is both challenging and necessary.
The book is an interesting read. Apart from the cases, stories and data-driven logical conclusions, the voices of individuals (ordinary citizens) is a great reminder that we are a society of individuals with diverse emotions and reasons. In today’s world of aggregate numbers and reductionism, let us not forget that every one of us has feelings, and thoughts which needs to be heard, acknowledged, and taken into account, before any major decision. This is equally important to the CEO of a small and medium enterprise, the leader of a large organization, and leaders of nations. Individual voices matter. Not listening to them will be disastrous to the peace and well-being of our world.
Reference: Martin, R. L. (2020). When More is Not Better. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
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