Hack:
Need effective rhythm for the sustainability of a business.

‘Desmond David Hume’ is a character of famous thriller TV series ‘Lost’. In every 108 minutes he enters a number into the computer to save the world. Within this 108 minutes gap, whatever he does must have to enter the number in proper time. He made a rhythm to do this to achieve the target. We called it ‘Rhythm of operation’.

In the latest book of famous scientist Stephan Hawking ‘the grand design’, the scientist describes how growth of the universe is happened by following the specific rules. Earth travel around the sun in a definite manner, similarly the moon and other planet of the universe do specific activities. In this way, planet like earth or moon survives itself and maintains the routing activities. We called it ‘Rhythm of survival’. In the similar rhythmic nature, the universe continuously expands. We called it ‘Rhythm of expansion’. In every moment the universe faces some unpredicted challenges, like storm in space, which may have impact on the rhythm of operation. The system faces these challenges and uses some strategies to survive. Depending on new situation, system may modify ‘Rhythm of operation’. We called this process as ‘Rhythm of change’. For some predictable changes, the system adapt slowly with the changes. For example, due to increase of temperature, the world is slowly changing its property to adopt. One can define this as ‘Rhythm of adaptation’. The combination of these rhythms can be defined as ‘Rhythm of sustainability’ that includes all the activities from short term to long term prospective.

Like the universe, every business needs effective ‘Rhythm of sustainability’ to ensure the sustainability. This includes:

1. Effective ‘Rhythm of operation’ to perform the daily operations efficiently and effectively to gain competitive advantage.
2. ‘Rhythm of survival’ ensures the short time or medium time target to eliminate the short or medium periodic threat for the business.
3. ‘Rhythm of expansion’ is important for the growth of the company for the long time existence of the company.
4. ‘Rhythm of change’ provides the guidelines to response fast for the unexpected change request.
5. ‘Rhythm of adaptation’ is the process that analyzes the expected changes in future and takes rhythmic approach to adopt with the changing environments.

These rhythms are the strategy that can be used in every activities of a business. We can make easy to understand these rhythm by some example. Let consider a telecommunication service company that are currently performing some specific projects. The company develops rhythm to perform the development activities to fulfill the target of the projects that reflects the efficiency of development activities and ensure competitive advance in terms of completion of projects. This is short term oriented and project specific or operational specific.

Company need to secure near future to perform the current operation effectively. This can be done by ensuring the projects in pipeline for the next several periods to avoid uncertainty in short and medium period. This can be done by ‘rhythm of survival’. The sustainability mainly depends on the foresight of secure future. This can be achieved by proper plan of future growth and do the activities for the growth (i.e. target of growth 5% in each year, prepare for new market, etc.). These activities should be part of ‘rhythm of expansion’. Rhythm of change and rhythm of adaptability are the prevention strategies to overcome the destructive influences of the environments.

It is essential to find the effective rhythms and perform these efficiently for the sustainability of a business. A sustainable company can provide the best possible benefits to the customers and the strategic partners.