I recently completed this book by Thomas Friedman. I just loved it.
Sometimes I feel that non-fiction can be more captivating and gripping than fiction. Non-fiction elucidates examples from people’s lives who are as ordinary as we are. It makes us ponder over the factors that changed their lives. It makes us think strongly about the aspects that hinged their development. It gives so much of food for thought. Life gives us the lessons which mind can never think of.
“The World is flat” – An eye opener indeed. It made me realize how humans (if they ever master the art of collaboration) can succeed and move the world and its people to a notch above what we are today.
Friedman has simplified the amount of thinking we need to put to understand the reason behind the highly accelerated growth in the recent years (after second world war). We have entered the new century with a huge success of shrinking the world. Shrinking the world is not just about the reduction in travel time that we have achieved through advancement in transport engineering but is more about the effects of heavy rate information flow in all the directions. Information has empowered humanity. It has acted as the perfect leveller. Collaborative efforts and business has helped us to average out the standard of living (when I say average out, there may be few countries which may witness a decrease and few other which may see an increase). Friedman talks about 10 different flatteners – fall of Berlin wall, Internet, Work flow software, Open sourcing, outsourcing, Offshoring, Supply-Chaining, Insourcing, In-forming and steroids like modern mobile equipments.
To compete or to collaborate? This has been the biggest confusion. Competition has its own domain – nurturing innovation, providing cheaper but better products etcetera. Collaboration on the other hand has helped in Knowledge sharing, working together to achieve a common goal – Service and Profitability. Competition and Collaboration should be limited to their respective domains (in some cases small amount of overlap is also tolerable).
With cheaper (and more accessible) means of communication, everyone has become the neighbour of every other person. Globe has been flattened. Now you are not blinded by the horizon (attributing it to earth’s curvature). World has not been just flattened, it has been beaten and moulded the other way around. Yes. As a consequence, we now don’t reside on the exterior surface of the sphere called earth but live on the interior surface. Now we are all exposed. We not only can see the other person but we can constantly track his activities. Horizon has been eliminated from the game thereby opening gates to limitless possibilities.
But as Friedman says, this effect has empowered both – the good and the bad – equally. So now we not only have to constantly compete with others for the good, we also need to be watchful of the bad.
Friedman’s comparison between dreams and memories is highly motivating. It is very true – we should stop living in our glorified past – in our memories. We should dream. As Kalam says, Dream, dream dream… Dreaming leads to thinking; thinking provides knowledge; knowledge leads you to work hard, which in turn makes you great. Living in memories will paralyze you, on contrary, dreams mobilize you. Dreams give you a reason to live, reason to act and when dreams turn true – they give a reason to die full of satisfaction. If people stop dreaming and brood over their memories, then they are hit by stagnation.
Friedman also helped me understand how monarchy (and to some extent oligarchy) breeds contempt and leads to violence. Oppressed society’s thinking gets blurred and leads to terrorism. Terrorists are confused souls born out of a bad governance. Most of the Muslim countries are helping terrorist burgeon on their grounds. But India, being the 3rd biggest Muslim country, has never shown a slight sign of such development. India has treated its native people and immigrants equally. India is the epitome of tolerance, acceptance and secularism. Hence, despite the wretched governance, India has displayed highest level of stability (few incidents of communal riots can never be compared to terrorism).
Friedman also writes about the way social entrepreneurship. Confluence of technology, ingenuity and humility can change the face of the earth.
Friedman takes us through the complete lifecycle – he plugs lot of gaps – he also talks about the measures we need to take to sustain the growth – to provide an atmosphere to dream.
No wonder – Thomas Friedman has won Pulitzer thrice.