That’s what we live in – a world obsessed with numbers!
The number on our pay check.
The number on our bank statement.
The number of our followers.
We measure almost everything by numbers – and give it value in proportion.
Last week, I was in a discussion with the chairman of a hospital who wanted me to help start a pediatric heart surgery department. The conversation ran like this:
Him: “So, how many operations do you carry out every week?”
(There! A number, again!) I gave him a figure.
Him: “Isn’t that too few?”
Me: “Yes, that’s why I work hard to raise funds. So I can sponsor more.”
Him: “Don’t you feel you’re wasting your time?”
Me: “…???”
Him: “Aren’t you afraid of losing your skills?”
Me: “Huh…???!!!”
His point was that I’d be busier operating at his hospital. But I’m a ‘numbers guy’ too. Just different numbers.
Like 47,000 – which is the number of children with heart defects in my state alone.
Like 20,000 – which is the average amount, in rupees, that my typical family can afford for treatment.
His hospital is looking at the 5% (or less) of the population that has 150,000 rupees necessary for a heart operation. But with Rs.150,000 in hand, that parent has CHOICE.
Something my patient’s parent does not have.
Yes, I could work at a hospital like that – and be ‘busy’. But that would mean another child would not be able to have treatment.
That ’small’ number has a different kind of meaning – to me, and to my patients’ families, and to my generous donors.
Numbers matter in other things, too.
For my recent book launch of “Think, Write & Retire”, I made it a point to approach partners who will help promote it – NOT on the basis of how many people they could reach, but primarily on the strength of the relationship they have with their audience – and the degree of committment and involvement they have showed over the years with my CHD work.
Yes, some of them had humunguous lists.
Others had tiny ones.
And – no surprise here – I noticed ABSOLUTELY NO correlation between list size and responsiveness in terms of sales of books. Some small lists out-performed bigger ones by a MULTIPLE.
Or take my in-house email lists as an example. Some have thousands of prospects – and fewer than 100 check out a link I send them. On the contrary, a list of just a couple of hundred clients will often generate more clicks than them – and more sales, too.
Numbers matter. But the right ones.
47 is a small number. Though not when you realize it is the number of children operated for congenital heart defects, sponsored by the Dr.Mani Children Heart Foundation.
Then, it becomes a meaningful number.
More meaningful, maybe, than the bigger ones a chairman of a corporate hospital tossed around during a meeting last week.
What numbers are you obsessed with?
Why?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Dr. Mani, your article on numbers made me think. Yes, I wonder which numbers I’m enamored by. And are these the right numbers that should excite me?
Dr. Mani
I started my career as a numbers. data maniac person. I still believe in it when it is complemented with the people relationship and socital good behind it. I always admired your work with CHD and am committed to supporting it as much as I can
Thanks for being such a wonderful human
sankar
Just last night I was caught thinking and counting my fingers, when my wife inquired “what was up”.
Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of my father’s death – having occured on a Friday.
I was trying to fathom how that Friday is a Tuesday – 31 years later.
I had cracked the code before – I was only joinong the dots backward.
31 years- left me with the core number of days required, for the calculation.
As every year, shifts a day forward in the weekly calendar, and every leap year shifts it two days forward – there! I was with the answer – just add eleven days to the original Tuesday.
Yes! my wife had a squeamish grin of sarcasm – - –
That was a number illustration.
Probably she was saying “what a lot of time and energy for what results”?
The chairman of the hospital as a stake holder asked you four questions, to which you deliberately decided to answer two, without words.
This thread – a lovely read, to all intersted in stakeholder value.
Dr Mani – I remember in a talk by the emminent brain researcher V.S.Ramachandran saying that it has taken 300 to 400 thousand years for the human brain to arrive at the present state.
We are on numbers again, thousands of years!
Money after all,is only a means to achieve a desired goal with a purpose.
Purpose depends on the value affixed.
Can Values such as yours be denominated with a number?
My answer is a – NO.
Numbers take the form of infinity, at the higher end.
VALUES belong to another order – much higher!
The mind opener “are we human beings having a spiritual experience OR are we spiritual beings having a human experience” is falling on me.
Those lovely lyrics “I am on the top of the world, looking down on creation” reminds us that the perception from above wiil be different upon the values – upheld.