Case Studies
“When Queen Elizabeth I of England ascended to the throne, her reign was by no means assured. The tumultuous years under her father, brother, and sister had contributed to a political situation that was precarious at best. England was in a religious crisis that was threatening the stability of the kingdom, and was essentially broke.
Elizabeth knew there were aspects of leading the country that were outside her circle of competence. She had an excellent education and had spent most of her life just trying to survive. Perhaps that is why she was able to identify and admit to what she didn’t know.
In her first speech as Queen, Elizabeth announced, “I mean to direct all my actions by good advice and counsel.”After outlining her intent upon becoming Queen, she proceeded to build her Privy Council—effectively the royal advisory board. She didn’t copy her immediate predecessors, filling her council with yes men or wealthy incompetents who happen to have the same religious values. She blended the old and the new to develop stability and achieve continuity. She kept the group small so that real discussions could happen. She wanted a variety of opinions that could be challenged and debated.
In large measure due to the advice she received from this council, advice that was the product of open debate that took in the circles of competence of each of the participants, Elizabeth took England from a country of civil unrest and frequent persecution to one that inspired loyalty and creativity in its citizens. She sowed the seeds for the empire that would eventually come to control one quarter of the globe.”
Second-order Thinking/The Law of Unintended Consequences
During their colonial rule of India, the British government began to worry about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi. To reduce the numbers, they instituted a reward for every dead snake brought to officials. In response, Indian citizens dutifully complied and began breeding the snakes to slaughter and bring to officials. The snake problem was worse than when it started because the British officials didn’t think at the second level.
Second-order effects occur even with something simple like adding traction on tires: it seems like such a great idea because the more you have the less likely you are to slide, the faster you can stop, and thus the safer you are. However, the second-order effects are that your engine has to work harder to propel the car, you get worse gas mileage (releasing more detrimental carbon dioxide into the atmosphere), and you leave more rubber particles on the road.
Almost everyone can anticipate the immediate results of their actions. This type of first-order thinking is easy and safe but it’s also a way to ensure you get the same results that everyone else gets. Second-order thinking is thinking farther ahead and thinking holistically. It requires us to not only consider our actions and their immediate consequences, but the subsequent effects of those actions as well. Failing to consider the second- and third-order effects can unleash disaster.
This concept can be used in the essays of following themes:
1.Very very crucial in administrative decision making or policy making. This can be a useful case study to illustrate what’s lacking in public policy or administrative decision making. Sometimes the solutions offered make the problems worse rather than solving it. Why it is important to have pilot studies- to determine and examine the unintended consequences of a decision and how to manage it.
2. A critical trait to be a good leader/or anyone leading an institution/organisation.
3. Characteristics/qualities one should develop – essays on themes of making one self better/learning.
4.The skills/qualities that should be taught in schools – on changes that can be made in education system.
5.Emotional Intelligence – second order thinking helps in building trust and trustworthiness. Going for the immediate payoff in our interactions with people, unless they are a win-win, almost always guarantees that interaction will be a one-off. Maximizing benefits is something that happens over time. Thus, considering the effects of the effects of our actions on others, or on our reputations, is critical to getting people to trust us, and to enjoy the benefits of cooperation that come with that.
If you had to make a guess on who invented closed circuit television (CCTV) in the United States, whom would you choose? A large institution like the Department of Defense? A telecom company? Some techie in a police department? You probably wouldn’t name the late Marie Van Brittan Brown, who, along with her husband Albert Brown, filed the first patent for a closed circuit monitoring system in 1966. She was a nurse, living in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York, and as such worked irregular hours. When she was home alone, she felt unsafe. In an interesting example of inversion, she decided to do something about it.
In the same situation, most of us would work forward, thinking of safety-oriented additions we can make to our existing set-up, like more locks, or having a friend stay over. Van Brittan Brown, however, went a step further, asking what would need to change in order for her to feel safer. She identified that it was her inability to see and communicate with persons outside her door that made her feel the most vulnerable when home alone. Working backward, her thinking may have gone something like this: what can I do to change that situation? What would have to be in place? Van Brittan Brown followed this through, and CCTV was born.
Van Brittan Brown and her husband designed a camera system that would move between four holes in the door, feeding the images to a TV monitor set up in the home. The images would allow her to get a complete view of who was at the door, and additional technology allowed for communication with the person outside without the door being opened. Further, they developed a feature that would allow her to either let the person in, or sound an alarm to notify a neighbor or watchman.”
Explanation : Most of us think forward to achieve a goal/objective. But sometimes it’s helpful to think inversely or backward to arrive at a solution. Rather than thinking “how to get rich” , if you look at it “how to not get poor”, chances are you will be making better decisions. This inverse thinking is one of the reasons for emergence of index funds.
Instead of thinking through the achievement of a positive outcome, we could ask ourselves how we might achieve a terrible outcome, and let that guide our decision-making. Index funds are a great example of stock market inversion promoted and brought to bear by Vanguard’s John Bogle.9 Instead of asking how to beat the market, as so many before him, Bogle recognized the difficulty of the task. Everyone is trying to beat the market. No one is doing it with any consistency, and in the process real people are losing actual money. So he inverted the approach. The question then became, how can we help investors minimize losses to fees and poor money manager selection? The results were one of the greatest ideas—index funds—and one of the greatest powerhouse firms in the history of finance.”
You can use this analogy and case study in the essays of following themes :
1. To deal with problems that seem too difficult to solve – climate change, plastic pollution etc – focus on what we don’t want and work from there. Inverse thinking is helpful to build consensus – nobody wants the temperature to rise more than 2.5 degrees so what can be done to stop that.
2. Inverse thinking also leads to innovation – in essays of innovation you can quote the case study to highlight how innovation happens, what mindset is helpful etc.
3. In restructuring education – inverse thinking is a helpful tool for students to learn.
4. In policy making/administration – focusing on what an outcomes shouldn’t be would be a good guide to better decision making. It helps in second order thinking.
In the mid-1970s astronomer Vera Rubin had a very interesting problem. She had a bunch of data about the behavior of galaxies piling up that wasn’t explained by contemporary theories.
Rubin had been observing the behavior of the Andromeda Galaxy, and had noticed something very strange. As explained in an article on Astronomy.com, “the vast spiral seemed to be rotating all wrong. The stuff at the edges was moving just as fast as the stuff near the center, apparently violating Newton’s Laws of Motion (which also govern how the planets move around our Sun).”
This didn’t make any sense. Gravity should exert less pull on distant objects, which should move slower. But Rubin was observing something entirely different.
One possible explanation was something that had been theorized as far back as 1933, by Swiss astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky, who coined the phrase “dark matter” to describe a mass we couldn’t see, but which was influencing the behavior of the orbits in the galaxies. Dark matter became the simplest explanation for the observed phenomenon, and Vera Rubin has been credited with providing the first evidence of its existence. What is particularly interesting is that to this day no one has ever actually discovered dark matter.
Related Concept:
Occam’s Razor – Simpler explanations are more likely to be true than complicated ones. Occam’s Razor is not an iron law but a tendency and a mind-frame you can choose to use: If all else is equal, that is if two competing models both have equal explanatory power, it’s more likely that the simple solution suffices.
These concepts can be used widely in following essays :
1.How to understand some phenomena – essays on science and how far it has come to explain the universe.
2.Decision making – keeping it simple with requisite minimum variables.
3.Policy making and administration – understanding some common “baffling” issues and how they can be resolved.
4.Creativity
The Ford Model vs the Toyota Model
The Ford Model : As a pioneer of the factory line system, the focus was on mass production in the shortest possible time. However, mass production systems were not designed to incorporate the potential for innovation at the level of the factory worker. Essentially, the workers on the shop floor were simply interchangeable parts of the production system.
Massive amounts of inventory were kept on the floor, and problems were not fixed until the end of the line. Workers were not there to address problems or improve the system. They were just there to perform their repetitive task, leaving any rework or problem-solving to specialists.
The Toyota Model : In 1940s, Toyota struggling after the war looked at the mass production system of the Ford and realised it wouldn’t work for them.
Mass production produced a lot of waste, was inefficient because it deferred the addressing of mistakes to the end of the line where they were most costly to fix, and took an exceptionally long time to change when a new production model of car came out. Toyota development guru Taiichi Ohno thought there was room for improvement. One of his insights was to focus on the environment of the frontline worker. He noticed that in the mass production system was none of the specialists beyond the assembly worker was actually adding value to the car. What’s more, the assembly workers could probably do most of the functions of the specialists and do them much better because of their direct acquaintance with conditions on the line. It was realised that getting more effective output from the shop floor worker was not about speeding up performance or setting higher quotas. It was about creating a smoother environment that empowered workers to engage with their work.
So, as given in the book , The Machine That Changed the World, “In striking contrast to the mass production plant, where stopping the line was the responsibility of the senior line manager, Ohno placed a cord above every workstation and instructed workers to stop the whole assembly line immediately if a problem emerged that they couldn’t fix. Then the whole team would come over to work on the problem.”
Furthermore, time was set aside each day for workers to share ideas on how to improve processes. The result of the changes to the assembly line was a system that produced cars that needed less rework at the end. So even though “every worker can stop the line… the line is almost never stopped, because problems are solved in advance and the same problem never occurs twice.”
The culmination of these tangible changes made to the factory worker environment resulted in improved car quality, production efficiency and worker morale.
Toyota fostered an environment on the factory floor that emphasized communication and collaboration. Workers helped each other solve problems and could switch their focus with ease depending on what the situation called for. The system developed by Ohno encouraged them to be knowledgeable about the entire process and get curious about finding solutions and efficiencies. The resulting process is called “lean” and is summed up in the following: It transfers the maximum number of tasks and responsibilities to those workers actually adding value to the car on the line, and it has in place a system for discovering defects that quickly traces every problem, once discovered, to its ultimate cause.
This case study can be aptly used in the essays of following themes :
1. How institutions/organisations should be organised – a mechanism of dialogue between the management and employees based on principles of communication and collaborations. Treating your workforce/employees/subordinates as equal stakeholders in the work.
2. How to implement policy at the ground level in administration – involve the people in the ground – take their opinion/views/suggestions on how to solve problems since they are the ones getting impacted. Specialists will have an outsider’s overview of problems but it’s the insider person living that problem on the ground with an acute awareness of the terrain who will provide the much needed insights on policy implementation.
3. Themes of leadership and management
4. Innovation.
It’s important to stress here that innovation doesn’t just happen at the level of products but also at the level of ideas and processes, that are very fundamental to the progress of society.
Sachin Tendulakar and Vinod Kambli : Tendulkar’s laser like focus on his goal enabled him to stay on course to reach his destination and he was able to achieve all the success and greatness making use of the opportunities that came his way. Vinod Kambli, who also made a start with him, however could not achieve this much because of lack of clarity and distractions coming from all directions.
Napoleon changed the way wars were fought, thanks to his military strategy and velocity showcased by him in the early battles he fought. However, his Russian military campaign shows that if you lose sight of your aim and forget the direction of your goal, your strategies and speed will not be of much use.
In the book How Asia Works, Joe Studwell examines the underpinnings of the success of the economies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and the failures of Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand. All these countries have experienced periods of intense growth, but only the first three were able to turn that growth into a sustainable system that could weather downturns and challenges.
Studwell argues that there were “three critical interventions” that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan undertook to achieve sustainable economic development. They first maximized output from agriculture; next each country directed investment and entrepreneurs toward manufacturing; and finally all had financial policies that supported both of these things.
He explains, “the vehicle for the change was a series of land reform programs to take available agricultural land and to divide it up on an equal basis (once variation in land quality was allowed for) among the farming population. This, backed by government support for rural credit and marketing institutions, ergonomic training and other support services, created a new type of market.”
Once these agricultural policies were firmly established and their productivity manifested in economic improvement, the governments of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan set up policies aimed at boosting manufacturing. In order to create long-term productivity in the manufacturing sector, firms were rewarded for their success as exporters. Firms that didn’t measure up to this global competition were culled.
Conversely, the Asian countries that were developing at the same time but did not follow these agricultural interventions had long periods of impressive growth, but they were unable to sustain it. With no real land reform in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, agriculture output was dampened because landlords made more money renting plots than making investments to increase yields and families had no incentive to maximize the outputs on the land they didn’t own. In terms of manufacturing, these countries allowed firms to focus solely on the easier sell to domestic markets, which removed the incentives for knowledge transfer and technological development.
Therefore, when times were good, growth was possible, but when financial crisis hit, those that had not substantially transformed their economies were unable to deal with the challenges. Growth stalled in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, and the populations went back to being poor.
In making the case for effective development in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, Studwell writes, “There is no significant economy that has developed successfully through policies of free trade and deregulation from the get-go. What has always been required is proactive interventions—the most effective of them in agriculture and manufacturing—that foster early accumulation of capital and technological learning.”
You can use the above case study in following essays :
1. Structural Reforms needed in India : it’s important to structurally change the Indian economy especially the agriculture sector followed by the manufacturing sector for India to achieve sustainable growth.
2. The emphasis on increasing the share of manufacturing in GDP. It’s even more critical for India considering its grown demography. In this regard, utility of schemes like Made in India, export promoting schemes like PLI.
3. Importance of supportive government policies.
4. Lessons for Indian economy to strengthen its fundamentals – getting its basics right.
When presented with oat flakes arranged in the pattern of Japanese cities around Tokyo, brainless, single-celled slime molds construct networks of nutrient-channeling tubes that are strikingly similar to the layout of the Japanese rail system. A new model based on the simple rules of the slime mold’s behavior may lead to the design of more efficient, adaptable networks.
The yellow slime mold Physarum polycephalum grows as a single cell that is big enough to be seen with the naked eye. When it encounters numerous food sources separated in space, the slime mold cell surrounds the food and creates tunnels to distribute the nutrients.
In the study, oat flakes were placed (a slime mold delicacy) in a pattern that mimicked the way cities are scattered around Tokyo, then set the slime mold loose.
Initially, the slime mold dispersed evenly around the oat flakes, exploring its new territory. But within hours, the slime mold began to refine its pattern, strengthening the tunnels between oat flakes while the other links gradually disappeared. After about a day, the slime mold had constructed a network of interconnected nutrient-ferrying tubes. Its design looked almost identical to that of the rail system surrounding Tokyo, with a larger number of strong, resilient tunnels connecting centrally located oats.
Such a malleable system may be useful for creating networks that need to change over time, such as short-range wireless systems of sensors that would provide early warnings of fire or flood. Because these sensors are destroyed when disaster strikes, the network needs to efficiently re-route information quickly. Decentralized, adaptable networks would also be important for soldiers in battlefields or swarms of robots exploring hazardous environments.
This case study can be used in the essays related to following themes :
1. Nature as a teacher. How nature uses principles of optimisation in its functioning – How humans can learn and leverage nature to optimise their work.
2. Nature continues to remain a source of mystery – new knowledge yet to be gained from nature.
3. Innovation – doing smart work. Thinking out of the box.
Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 by Alfred W. Fielding and Marc Chavannes by sealing two shower curtains together and capturing bubbles of air on the inside. Obvious use? No. They first tried to sell it as wallpaper, but there were no takers. Then they tried marketing it as greenhouse insulation, but this failed. Then the company took it to IBM as a way to protect all their new business computers while in transit. The usage took off and the product developed into the bubble wrap we have today.
Sometimes people invent things solely for the sake of the invention.
This can be used in the essays of following themes :
1. Need to invest scientific research and discovery such as India’s space programme. Often, there are arguments made on the lines that millions are poor and hungry in our country so is it justified to spend millions on a space programme or any other scientific work. This can be quoted.
2.Learning for the sake of learning – the value that needs to be inculcated in the education system.
3. Motivation and Perseverance – you might fail at one thing that you had planned or prepared for but if you keep at it you will get success in other ways that you probably hadn’t even imagined. You might fail the UPSC exam but the knowledge and skills gained will be useful, sometimes making you reach places you hadn’t even thought of.
4. Personal growth and learning – It also teaches us that as individuals we must not underestimate the options we have at our disposal. Too often we get stuck in “functional fixedness,” a mindset where we see in things only their intended use, rather than their potential use. A fork doesn’t have to be just a tool to put food in your mouth. It could also be a hook, tack, or hair detangler. It may be combined with other household objects to fulfill even more purposes. As the saying goes: do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.
In the parched village of Denganmal, in western India, there are no taps. The only drinking water comes from two wells at the foot of a nearby rocky hill, a spot so crowded that the sweltering walk and wait can take hours. For many men in the hamlet some 140 km from Mumbai, the solution was a “water wife”. Sakharam Bhagat, 66, now has three wives, two of whom he married only to make sure his household has water to drink and cook. Polygamy is illegal in India, but in this village, “water wives” are common.
The above can be used in essays of following themes:
1.Status of women in India
2. Climate change and how it impacts women and social relationships
3. In the context of amending personal laws and UCC – polygamy practised in different forms.
4. Unique challenges faced by policy makers and administrators and how they can be addressed. Think of some solutions to issues like this.
“The Forgotten Nakoshis of Satara” – practice of giving girls demeaning names translated into “unwanted” – Satara, a district in Maharashtra, where girls especially from poorer backgrounds are named Nakoshi, Nakusa, or Nakusha meaning unwanted in Marathi. It has severe socio-psychological impact on the girls as they internalise their own unworthiness.
A renaming ceremony was organised by the district administration but the prejudice is so deep rooted that much couldn’t be changed.
This case study highlights that deep rooted nature of patriarchy in our society. Even something as basic as a name has become a tool of practising discrimination against girls/women.
And how initiatives of state fall short of address these socio-cultural aspects of discrimination and misogyny.
It can be quoted in following themes :
1. Patriarchy and gender discrimination – the socio-cultural nature of it.
2. Steps taken by the state and how they fall short to address issues in a holistic manner. Going beyond numbers and statistics to perception and behaviour change.
3. Also, think over these issues and how they can be resolved.
The Scorching Divide – the uneven impact of climate change on women and how its pushes them further away into domestic roles.
This report/case study can be used in the essays of following themes:
1. Climate change and it’s impact on women – it’s impact on social justice – the issue of climate justice and how it will impact society and social relationships.
2. How climate change will impact women’s participation in politics, economy and other spheres of life.
3. How climate change will change societies and their structure.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3229655/warming-world-brutalises-women-heatwaves-deepen-gender-divide-india-us-nigeria?module=lead_hero_story&pgtype=homepage
Intersectionality of Caste and Gender : case of Dalit women forced to be “wet nurses” for the “upper caste” children.