Volume 3 · The Corner Cabin · Essay 5
20% Doctrine
You can write 20% Doctrine on the back of a bus ticket. But do not mistake small writing for small meaning.
The wisdom here is arithmetic, not poetry. Small inputs, repeated honestly, beat grand declarations made once a year. The figure is only there to keep you from negotiating with yourself.
The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.
In any Indian office there is one person who knows where everything is, whom to call, and how things actually get done. The organisation chart does not show this person. Reality does.
An organisation is only a group of people who have agreed, for now, to pull in roughly the same direction. Carry it lightly. Ideas, like umbrellas, are useful only when actually opened.