Progressing Away from the Mean

Central tendency. Statisticians define it as the propensity of data points to converge towards the mean, the average or more generally, the mediocre. But time and again comes such a radical data point that shifts the mean to such an extent that renders the convergence useless. I’m not talking statistics here, I’m talking about society and when you think of it, the connection between ‘regression’ and ‘a regressive society’ starts to make sense. Let me use some statistics, particularly leverage plots, to drive my point home.

Act-1: The Four Kinds of People

Using the most used and abused form of classification used by MBAs — the 2x2, let me define four types of people on the dimensions of influence and leverage.

Majority Population

Those sitting here have no effective power and just add to the status quo. Their presence doesn’t affect society much except to add inertia to the system.

The Icons

These are the most powerful people in society who have made an impact. Think Gandhi, think Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or even Adolf Hitler. Closer to now, think Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.

The Establishment

These are people who run the Government, have taken over bureaucratic systems like IAS, traditional capitalists with dinosaur businesses, the celebrities and influencers who are just posting their selfies. Though they potentially have the power to move the masses, their impact has been low and they act just as the majority population.

Latent Potential

The most interesting group of people. This is the girl child who could cure cancer but couldn’t get an education. The scientist in Syria who couldn’t get a breakthrough owing to his country’s condition. The millions of people who have been denied their voice due to lack of resources but are credible and have knowledge that hasn’t been tapped by society.

Act-2: Influence and Leverage

Let me take a moment now to define the two dimensions. The influence is how different you are from the crowd, the influence you have garnered with your skills and experience. On the other hand, leverage represents how high above them have you elevated yourself above the normal masses. If I take a business analogy, influence is your product, while leverage is your distribution. What it takes to develop these two traits can elaborate using some great insights by Naval Ravikant:

Influence

Individuals who have gained influence develop it through two mediums:

Specific Knowledge

A term Naval uses to explain wealth creation, Specific Knowledge is knowledge highly specialised to a person which is difficult to replicate by others. This can be either technical, say knowledge of blockchains in education, or creative like designing an app.

Accountability

This reflects the brand someone has built around themselves and the credibility they have to their name. This is harnessed over the years by the work one has done and the ability to take risks in the unknown.

Leverage

“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the earth.” — Archimedes’s Law of the Lever

Leverage is something that gives you non-linear results for a linear input. It can be classified roughly into three types:

People

The oldest form of leverage, this is through the power of leadership. This was exercised by leaders like Hitler, Alexander and other historic.

Money

Capital is another form of leverage where the power of compounding comes in and money does the job for you.

Technology

Though this form of leverage exists ever since the invention of the printing press, it has become significantly prominent in the past decade. Started with books and newspapers, it has taken the form of movies, podcasts, blogs, tweets or any other form of media possible.

Act-3: Leverage Plots

Now let’s bring in some statistics here. The textbook defines Leverage Points as those points where a small change brings about a great deal in system behaviour.

This is how a typical simple regression plot looks like.

What brings these leverage points to where they are?

1. Rise or the influence: How elevated the point is above the majority concentration of points (along the Y-axis)
2. Run or the leverage: How far the point is from the majority concentration of points (along the X-axis)

High leverage gives a point the ability to move the line drastically and if that point is removed, the line remains in its status quo. While there’s a mathematical explanation to it, imagine how anyone sitting on the extreme end has the power to completely reverse the configuration of the see-saw. The centre of the see-saw represents the mean and those data points sitting on the extremes are called influential points.

The points of high leverage and high influence, the Icons, are the ones who will radically change society. For better or worse, depends on whether the Icon is a Gandhi or a Hitler. But they WILL shift the curve as all influential points do.

While there is no stopping for Icons to make an impact, we collectively must be adding more and more people to their pool. Here, the Establishment has the leverage to become Icons, but they are not able to do so as they either lack the specific knowledge society needs or don’t have the accountability to make that shift possible. That is to say, they do not become an influential point.

Our strategy in today’s society should be to prevent people with low influence from joining the establishment and replace them with those with great specific knowledge and accountability so that they can become Icons that move society. And thus, the Latent Potential is our hidden treasure.

How do we harness them? Some solutions can be:

1. Focus on education so that the hidden influential minds have the right tools to build their leverage.
2. Create diverse teams that have equal voices from all genders, castes, races, nationalities. An influential point can be anyone irrespective of their personality traits.
3. Aid countries with tyrannical administration so that the scientist who is working on curing cancer has sufficient resources to do so.

Thousands of other ways can be thought of to do this. But the bottom line is that we need to equip people with Latent Potential, i.e., people with High Influence, with the right leverage. They will ultimately shift the curve of society for the better and you’ll have a world that progresses away from the mean, rather than regressing to a mean.