Global problems like Environment require us to think in terms of Time span of discretion, or the length of the longest task an individual can successfully undertake.Time span of discretion is about achieving intents that have explicit time frames. Half a century ago, while advising a UK Metals company, Elliott Jaques had a deep and controversial insight. He noticed that workers at different levels of the company had very different time horizons. After several decades of empirical study, Jaques concluded that just as humans differ in intelligence, we differ in our ability to handle time-dependent complexity. This is how Jaques model has ranked capacity in humans:- Level 1 encompasses jobs such as sales associates or line workers handling routine tasks with a time horizon of up to three months. Levels 2 to 4 encompass various managerial positions with time horizons between one to five years. Level 5 crosses over to five to 10 years and is the domain of small company CEOs and large company executive vice presidents. Beyond Level 5, one enters the realm of statesmen and legendary business leaders comfortable with innate time horizons of 20 years (Level 6), 50 years (Level 7) or beyond. Level 8 is the realm of 100 year thinkers like Henry Ford, while Level 9 is the domain of the Einsteins, Gandhis, and Galileos, individuals capable of setting grand tasks into motion that continue centuries into the future. Perhaps problems like climate change are intractable because we have a political system that elects Level 2 thinkers to Congress when we really need Level 5s in office. Matthieu Ricard looks like Level 9 thinker in terms of the deep understanding of subject, may be being altruistic helps us achieve us that level. This helps us realize that the old saying, he who thinks longest wins is only half the story, and that the society in which everyone explicitly thinks about tasks in the context of time will be the most effective. - Kunal Bavishi
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 02:32:24 +0000
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