The new-age-flag salute: Being Indian is just a little bit more complex than you thought

BACK OF THE BOOK

One need not be dedicated to the proposition that all men are created lazy to arrive at this big philosophical conclusion about productivity: it is troublesome. Thick-lined charts menace boardrooms with it. Heavy books get written about it. Alert minds are lulled into snoozes by it. Worse, reaching for the 'Outsource It' rubber-stamp is no help; big companies and big economies have outsourced their decision-making apparatus to global consultants, but have found no escape from productivity.

It just won't go away. The good news is that not all books on the subject are designed to induce yawns. This one, written by the founding director of the McKinsey Global Institute, William W. Lewis, presses all the keywords that ought to turn anyone with any claim to global responsibility, crimson-faced: The Power Of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty And The Threat To Global Stability. And if this is not enough as a measure of sobriety, the jacket has no picture either; indeed, the closest Lewis gets to using imagery is in the chapter on India, that too in response to "the only man-made structure that has ever exceeded my expectations", the Taj Mahal.

THE POWER OF PRODUCTIVITY By William W. Lewis University of Chicago Press PP: 339 Price: Rs 1,299.20

The rich-poor divide-expressed as productive-unproductive-is too dangerous to leave clumsily addressed, argues Lewis, using an analysis of product markets in 13 countries to propose a deceptively simple solution: competition.

Fair competition, that is, among all value generators-for the individual consumer's mind and money. And so, free of intervention on behalf of big organised interests (such as producer lobbies) by power-wielding authorities (such as big governments). This makes for productivity-what poor economies desperately need.

That's no cloudbursting revelation. Nobody who has watched market dynamics closely would argue with that, nor object to Lewis' upholding of the US as the market to emulate, despite its 'new economy' ending up in a whimper. Also, grant the author his litany on what India, a case of "bad economic management from a democratic government", must tackle. Be it vague land titles, gross protectionism, retail investment barriers, an outsized public sector, distortionary taxation.... India is still nowhere close to giving the 'market' an unhobbled role in resource allocation.

In keeping with the broad anti-monopoly theme of the book, Lewis makes a coherent case against big government as a way to keep the market free of control by "elites" (including big business). Intervene, but only for the consumer; Chicago-school laissez faire with a flicker of Berkeley mitigation (meanwhile, somebody please get a tranquiliser gun for the statists who think the state always knows better than the market).

Not that McKinsey knows best either. The book's weakness, as seen in its analysis of India, is its own boxed-in approach to such sectors as agriculture and apparel. Indian farming is doomed to a poverty trap on account of labour-intensity, Lewis suggests, so long as industrial and service booms are unable to relieve the land of its teeming millions. This sounds way too fatalistic; why can't info-enriched agriculture ascend the value scale? In apparel too, the go-global emphasis could possibly be on individualised value creation-given some imagination in the realm of human sensuality-rather than just industrial-scale mass mechanisation.

What's more, India's apparent lack of 'competitive intensity' overall might actually have peculiar reasons that cannot be discerned from a simple economic policy template. Lewis does appear to have a clue, though; he assigns a formative role to the American Civil War's values-the fight for the little guy's rights-in that economy's eventual success. Hmmm... as they say in advertising, whether one gets two minutes, 30 seconds or a monosyllabic moment, a proposition need only be single-minded to win dedication.

10 THINGS THAT KEEP CEOS AWAKE AND HOW TO PUT THEM TO BED By Elizabeth Coffey & colleagues McGraw Hill PP: 218 Price: Rs 225

Insomniacs. Are they also confused? Too confused to admit any need of help? Elizabeth Coffey, an executive coaching expert, might have some answers. As Director Partner at The Change Partnership, a UK-based coaching firm, she has lent large portions of understanding to CEOs who typically don't know where to seek help. Or even how to take time out for some seriously well-guided reflection on their jobs. And here, in this book, she gets together with several of her colleagues to put down some case studies.

The blue pupil on the cover jacket seems particularly appropriate, given that Coffey herself is an expert on diversity. This calls for heightened discretion: "The coach must be an unimpeachably confidential sounding board with whom the CEO can be open about every aspect of life."

Needless to say, Coffey's own piece, Meeting The Diversity Challenge, is what gives the book its salience. And in it, she delves into the "collective mental programming" of groups, and "the way people respond to the challenges of time, nature, relationships and the general environment". The key paradox: those labeled 'different' are both enabled and blocked by the same things in their careers. Yet, study after study has shown that diverse teams outperform homogenous teams. So obviously, there's plenty of human resource value that remains to be unlocked.

To Indian readers, the case study of the British civil services may not be much good, given the country's longish history of attempting much the same thing. Business CEOs, however, might want to give the challenge another thought. Breakthroughs often come from making things work that seem impossibly difficult to go through with.

WISDEN CRICKETERS' ALMANACK 2003 Ed by Matthew Engel Macmillan India Ltd PP: 1,648 Price: Rs 585

This almanac's most important figure is on the back cover: Rs 585. To anyone who's nuts about cricket, this is a steal. The Wisden book is the Wisden book, you see, the definitive databank, and it was a hefty Rs 1,600 for an imported copy till Macmillan India decided to do the obvious and give this cricket-crazed country its own special version of the 141st edition.

The book is nice and handy, a perfect companion in the stands to get a quick fix on what's so statistically unique about what's going on out there between the stumps. The reference points are all neatly laid out-even if the game's emotionalists argue that columns of numbers and bald facts don't really reveal the real competitive passion of the game.