That's the essence of the Law of Requisite Variety, as postulated by noted British mathematician Ross Ashby!

For the uninitiated, this is my personal interpretation:

The more adaptable and flexible we are, the more we can adjust and operate at our best in any given situation.

Just sharing my musing, triggered by Dr Maxwell Maltz's quotes as appended below:

At the end of the day, each and every one of us has to take full charge of our own life, as we navigate the Highway of Life.

To be successful, and to stay resilient, we need to play the game of life to the full tilt.

Drawing upon what Dr Maxwell Maltz and his Psycho-Cybernetics classic have had taught us, we just have to rely on our creative resourcefulness in tapping the goal-striving capability and the six higher-order mental faculties already naturally endowed in our built-in success mechanism to get the ball rolling.

To up our ante and ramp up speed, there are three important things, at least from my own experiences, we must do:

1) increase our level of awareness of what's happening around us [Readers may want go and explore the philosophy of the 7 Levels of Awareness, as postulated by the late Bob Proctor. Just go to the PGI corporate website];

2) increase our learning ability and agility, in terms of knowledge acquisition [Readers may want to join the Learning How to Learn Mastermind Community to gain more insights];

3) increase the bandwith and depth of our strategy repertoire, so as to embrace the Law of Requisite Variety to help deal with evolving challenges - and opportuntiies - of today's VUCA or TUNA world, in conjunction with the foregoing;

If interested, readers can go and peruse the following recommended books, which are perennial favourites of mine:

1. Peak Learning, by Ron Gross;
2. Self-University, by Charles Hayes;
3. The Power of Focus, by Les Hewitt;
4. Choosing the Future, by Stuart Wells;
5. Thinkertoys, by Michael Michalko;
6. Strategy for You, by Rich Horwath;
7. The Anticipatory Organisation: Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage , by Daniel Burrus; (applicable to every professional, even though it has been written for companies!)

Godspeed to everyone!

VISUAL TOOLS GALORE FROM DILIP MUKERJEA

Here is a quick snapshot of the numerous visual tools [in low-res display for obvious reasons] developed by Dilip Mukerjea as part of his continuing authoring & consulting work.

In my view, these visual tools are useful in helping business professionals to navigate the accelerating changes in today's fast-paced, rapidly-changing world, especially from the standpoint of anticipating opportunities, solving problems & making informed decisions.

More explicitly, they will help you to embrace the 'Law of Requisite Variety'.

Readers who are seriously interested to learn some of these visual tools should write to Dilip Mukerjea, at dilipmukerjea@gmail.com.

CHAMPIONING STUDENTS: PROFERRING MYRIAD VISUAL MAPPING TOOLS

[continuation from the Last Post ~ in connection with the recent launch of a series of new programs intended for parents as well as their school-going kids/teens, under the auspices of 'The House of Creative Brains'.]


Because of Dilip's never-ending innovative spirit, he has developed a vast repertoire of visual tools to help working pros as well as students to navigate overwhelmingly abundant data, irrespective of whether they come printed, electronic or otherwise.

Most people only know "mind-mapping" as a solitary tool, but just imagine you have only a screw driver in your tool box, how does the world look to you? Think about it.

Particularly for a student, a smorgasbord of visual tools will provide one with multitudinous array of diverse options to deal with the variability & complexity seemingly inherent within different academic subjects or disciplines.

As a case in point:

A 'story grid' or a 'storyboard' will be ideal for English Literature; a 'noteboard' will be excellent for fleshing out all the terminology of Science subjects; a 'concept map' will be superb for organising information from any Science subject, e.g. Biology, at various superordinate & subordinate levels; a 'timeline' or 'transitive order graph' will be more appropriate for History, so that one can follow the chronological trend of major events with their attendant causes & impacts;

In fact, I would say a creative combination of mindmaps & other visual tools may even be necessary to help a student to navigate the complexity of any subject.

Mastering visual tools is a must in today's Knowledge Economy as we are living in a dominant visual culture.

Don't forget, more than 90% of our learning in a lifetime comes to us via visual cues.

As a counterpoint:

In the corporate world, visual tools have proven to aid decision making; shorten meetings; promote group consensus; generate better impressions & convince audience (in a presentation); & garner effectiveness in problem solving & learning from documents.

This is based on the research work of Robert Horn, visiting scholar at Stanford University & author of the classic, 'Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century'. I recommend reading his book.

In a nut shell, mastering the visual tools from Dilip's portfolio of offerings will help you to embrace the Law of Requisite Variety.

In more explicit terms, if your rate of learning is faster than the turbulence around you, your chances of continual success are assured!

To paraphrase 'Neutron Jack' or better known to the corporate world as Jack Welch:

"I've always believed that when the rate of change inside an institution [read: individual] becomes slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight!"

[to be continued in the Next Post.]

[For more information about the series of new programs under 'The House of Creative Brains', please get in touch with Ms. Faye Yeoh via her email faye_yeoh@yahoo.com]

10 WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR PERSONAL CONTROL VARIETY

One of my most favourite authors, thinkologist Dudley Lynch, has just written a fascinating but insightful blogpost.

I certainly like his personal philosophy of 'rebel with an agenda'.

Here's the link.

Please pay particular attention to his '10 Ways to Keep Adding Innovative New Lanes to Your Personal Capacity'.

I like to call them '10 Ways to Enhance Your Personal Control Variety'.

To me, they resonate very well with the 'Law of Requisite Variety', especially from the standpoint of knowledge & skill acquisition to deal with the never-ending onslaught of disturbance variety from the environment.

YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE!

[All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

CAN YOUR ORGANISATION OUTPERFORM THE WORLD ECONOMY?

See if you can answer the eight questions below. Plot your responses on the radial grid. The ideal shape is a circle of the largest diameter.

A sample shape is shown dotted within the grid.

These questions are related to the CEO’s Mandate as shown in an earlier post.

Keep testing yourself so that you and your organisation can get a continual Return on Ideas (ROI).

Organisational Self-Assessment Questionnaire



1. If the standard operating procedures are the driving force behind all the corporate decisions in your organization, is it seen as a problem?

2. Are your people tuned in and switched on to the challenges of working in real (unreal) time?

3. Do your people feel safe to express divergent ideas, and do these ideas, if any, have a mechanism (a conceptual conveyor belt) to move them into action?

4. Does your organization have Innovation Teams to translate ideas into action?

5. Does your organization have an effective innovation system that can spot talent, identify opportunities, assemble smart teams, allocate time and other resources, and set direction in order to remain continually viable for the long term?

6. Do your people know that by not continually questioning the status quo there is no status to their quo?

7. Do you accept that information is not good enough ~ we need ideas and imagination to create impact?

8. Beyond intellectual capital, do you recognize and act on the value of imaginative capital, so as to reap a Return on Imagination (ROI)?

[Excerpted from the 'Ideas on Ideas' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

I like to draw a parallel lesson from Jack Welch's winning strategies, when he once said:

"If the rate of change inside an organization is less that the rate of change outside... their end is in sight".

This characteristic means the urgent need to thrive on proactive change management & constant re-assessment.

Tactically, at least from my personal perspective, this is the 'Law of Requisite Variety' in action!

IS INNOVATION PURSUING YOU OR ARE YOU PURSUING INNOVATION?

This is the Age of Competitive Intelligence!

It has given birth to The Learning Economy. And thus, the need for Human Resources, humans standing in reserve, waiting to be used, has been replaced by the need for Resourceful Humans!

In a globally interlinked world, business success is based on cognitive success. Cognitive has two equally significant meanings: “to know” and “to beget.” When blended, these two meanings suggest that all birth is an awakening to knowledge. To know and to generate are inseparable.

Red Alert!

Are the actions, transactions, and interactions of your business processes perpetuating the decaying status quo, or are they alive and infused with novelty, value, and passion?

Are your people able to convey unforgettably brilliant first impressions?

Does your organisation recognise that its lifeblood must be open communications of information:

thoughts, feelings, and ideas?

Is innovation pursuing you or are you pursuing innovation?

If innovation is pursuing you it means that the rate of change outside your organisation is much greater than that within it. That spells trouble.

Today, innovation must trump bureaucracy, for red tape has morphed into red alert! The choice is clear: innovate or disintegrate.

Is The Red Tape The ONLY Thing That’s Holding Your Organisation Together?

What are YOU doing about it?

[Excerpted from the 'Leadership, Learning & Laughter' edition of The Braindancer Series of bookazines by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]

Say Keng's personal comments:

Although Dilip Mukerjea has written his essay from the organisational perspective, I am sure he has also intended that the pursuit of innovation applies in the personal setting.

In the personal context, The Red Tape refers to poor habits, old ideas, outmoded routines, irrelevant practices, dogmatic rules as well as disempowering beliefs .

I hold the view that, at the personal level, the pursuit of innovation, excellence as well as anticipation is the hallmark of peak performance & success achievement in today's rapidly-changing world.

By doing so consistently, I am confident that one gets to increase the personal rate of change faster than the environmental rate of change.

This is the basic tenet of the 'Law of Requisite Variety', originally conceived by Dr W Ross Ashby from the world of cybernetics, which applies to both organisations & individuals.

So, I like to rephrase Dilip's pertinent questions:

Is The Red Tape The Only Thing That's Holding You Together?

What are YOU doing about it personally?