Modulating Our Inelasticity
An enriching class in Labor Economics introduced one of the most awe-striking concepts in economics triggering an ‘aha-effect’ and hence this post- “Elasticity of demand for labor”. The beauty here lies in the simplicity of the phenomenon, where it represents the responsiveness of the employer to a wage change in terms of cutting back or increasing employment.
What makes this so intriguing is the fact that the more inelastic your demand is as a worker, which in plain words depicts the weakness in the responsiveness of the employer to your wage increase or decrease, the more power you possess in negotiating your terms. This sprouts from the fact that you can, for the lack of a milder synonym, ‘dictate’ terms as long as the employer perceives the value added by you to be higher than the cost incurred on you.
This in a way is the prime factor leading to success in most of our endeavors. The more ‘indispensable’ you are the higher are your chances of flourishing in the present incumbency. I often do a dip-stick of my past performances to make sure that the value am adding is unique, non-replicable or at least difficult to replicate by another, so as to make my personal demand ‘inelastic’.
The approach needs to be dittoed even when we are operating in the context of our personal lives. How long does it take for me to come back to my initial sense of balance post experiencing an unpalatable stimulus – is my response to unwanted circumstances ‘inelastic’?
A wise teacher once so rightly told me that there is no such thing as “Stress Management” – the stress is bound to occur, what is important is the time lapsed between experiencing the stimulus of stress and springing back to serenity. Stress it’s said is the body’s non-specific response to demands placed on it that throws one off-balance. The more inelastic is the response to stress, the easier it is for us to come back to our center.
The concept of elasticity is so powerful that with some awareness we can catch it at play in most of our actions. When it comes to listening and appreciating a divergent point of view inelasticity would certainly be a vice, but when it comes to preserving your personal values inelasticity turns on its head and becomes a virtue; when it comes to recovering from an intense interval in ‘interval training’ in fitness inelasticity is a curse while when it comes to maintaining your stamina to take you through the complete work-out inelasticity is a blessing; when it comes to making room for others inelasticity can be the devil but when it comes to drawing a line so as to not be taken advantage of inelasticity can be the angel. The crux being in understanding and fine-tuning our inelasticity with the varying circumstances.
M. Scott Peck in his book “Road Less Traveled” talks of the mental map we create to help "negotiate the terrain of life”. We create our first map in childhood and we transfer much of the framework of this early map to the one that we use as adults. He says that a healthy individual understands the necessity of improvising the map as he travels. The bliss thus lies in calculating the magnitude of inelasticity required at each step as we refine our personal mental maps to perfection.
An enriching class in Labor Economics introduced one of the most awe-striking concepts in economics triggering an ‘aha-effect’ and hence this post- “Elasticity of demand for labor”. The beauty here lies in the simplicity of the phenomenon, where it represents the responsiveness of the employer to a wage change in terms of cutting back or increasing employment.
What makes this so intriguing is the fact that the more inelastic your demand is as a worker, which in plain words depicts the weakness in the responsiveness of the employer to your wage increase or decrease, the more power you possess in negotiating your terms. This sprouts from the fact that you can, for the lack of a milder synonym, ‘dictate’ terms as long as the employer perceives the value added by you to be higher than the cost incurred on you.
This in a way is the prime factor leading to success in most of our endeavors. The more ‘indispensable’ you are the higher are your chances of flourishing in the present incumbency. I often do a dip-stick of my past performances to make sure that the value am adding is unique, non-replicable or at least difficult to replicate by another, so as to make my personal demand ‘inelastic’.
The approach needs to be dittoed even when we are operating in the context of our personal lives. How long does it take for me to come back to my initial sense of balance post experiencing an unpalatable stimulus – is my response to unwanted circumstances ‘inelastic’?
A wise teacher once so rightly told me that there is no such thing as “Stress Management” – the stress is bound to occur, what is important is the time lapsed between experiencing the stimulus of stress and springing back to serenity. Stress it’s said is the body’s non-specific response to demands placed on it that throws one off-balance. The more inelastic is the response to stress, the easier it is for us to come back to our center.
The concept of elasticity is so powerful that with some awareness we can catch it at play in most of our actions. When it comes to listening and appreciating a divergent point of view inelasticity would certainly be a vice, but when it comes to preserving your personal values inelasticity turns on its head and becomes a virtue; when it comes to recovering from an intense interval in ‘interval training’ in fitness inelasticity is a curse while when it comes to maintaining your stamina to take you through the complete work-out inelasticity is a blessing; when it comes to making room for others inelasticity can be the devil but when it comes to drawing a line so as to not be taken advantage of inelasticity can be the angel. The crux being in understanding and fine-tuning our inelasticity with the varying circumstances.
M. Scott Peck in his book “Road Less Traveled” talks of the mental map we create to help "negotiate the terrain of life”. We create our first map in childhood and we transfer much of the framework of this early map to the one that we use as adults. He says that a healthy individual understands the necessity of improvising the map as he travels. The bliss thus lies in calculating the magnitude of inelasticity required at each step as we refine our personal mental maps to perfection.
posted by Garima at 2:54 PM
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