Breadth vs Depth

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“Raichand has gone crazy,” Swami said the other day while munching his muffin with vigour. Jigneshbhai looked up.

“I thought he always was or was he not?” he asked with an eyebrow raised slyly.

“Yes, that’s true. But last week he has gone mad,” Swami reiterated. We waited for him to finish his muffin bite.

“Last month he ran a campaign on some social media for traffic for the company’s website. It ended up bumping traffic hugely,” Swami elaborated. “The agency that ran it told him that it also improved what they called engagement.”

“Engagement?” Jigneshbhai asked while sipping his coffee.

“Probably meaning the likes or comments or something like that,” Swami explained.

“I see,” Jigneshbhai muttered under his breath. “So?”

“Well, now the campaign has stopped,” Swami continued. “And the traffic is down to a trickle. And he is enraged with everyone.”

“Hmm..” Jigneshbhai sighed. “So the engagement didn’t lead to marriage?” he asked with a twisted mouth. Swami looked at him initially with a scowl, but then smiled.

“Nowadays even engagements are rare. So marriages take long, or don’t happen,” Swami remarked in uncharacteristic style, picking up some of Jigneshbhai’s style of wordplay.

“Who knows if those visitors really read or understood anything on the website? Or liked what they read,” he continued. “But all Raichand wants is more of them now.”

“And he has put you in charge of that project?” Jigneshbhai asked, this time his sly expression replaced by a smile. I doubt if there is any pleasure in the world he gets more than teasing Swami.

“You guessed it right, yours truly has to get back those visitors,” Swami said and focused back on his coffee cup and muffin. When it comes to Raichand, Swami is quick to accept whatever happens as his destiny. After a few moments of silence during which Jigneshbhai introspected and Swami and I waited for him to complete it, he spoke. 

“Breadth can be a lousy and misleading indicator of success,” he said. “And today’s world is full of breadth indicators.”

Swami and I looked at each other and pondered over what he said. I had just began to absorb it when Swami popped the question as usual.

“Breadth indicators?” Swami asked.

“Yes, what else are traffic type of metrics? Visitors. Views. Impressions. Clicks. What else?” Jigneshbhai said. He seemed to have done some homework on this.

Swami was surprised but pleasantly. He took over from Jigneshbhai.

“You want more? Readers. Subscribers. Friends. Connections. Number of emails opened. Number of whatever clicked,” Swami said. He had taken charge of the project and learnt fast. That’s why Raichand depended on him. Whether he liked it or not, Swami did whatever was necessary to please the boss.

“But when it comes to depth, there seem to be none,” Jigneshbhai said. “How many of those visitors, clicks, friends and connections actually care?” he enquired.

“Zero. Give and take a few,” Swami replied in an instant.

“So why does Raichand keep doing it? Why does he get mad at everyone and push them to do it?” Jigneshbhai asked. He had never understood the logic of some of the things Swami did in his job, and always questioned them. I can’t blame him. He had never worked in one.

“For lack of anything else to do. He has to do something, after all,” Swami answered. “And he has no time, unlike you, for anything other than breadth. No time for depth.”

Jigneshbhai still didn’t get the logic of it. “Just because we can measure breadth easily, it does not mean it is important. Just because we cannot measure depth easily, it doesn’t mean it is unimportant,” he vehemently proclaimed.

Swami and I nodded in agreement. Both of us agreed that today it is easy to build breadth in anything. Broad pipeline. Thin trickle. Huge breadth but no depth. But what was easier to build was also easier to measure. What was tougher to build was also tougher to measure. With that reality, it was no wonder that breadth took the cake when it came to measuring anything.

When we were lost in thought, the wealthy, old man walked across to our table from the adjoining one. He tapped Swami on the shoulder and left us out of our depth, when he said, “Water, water everywhere, not a drop to drink.”

***

PS: Check Food for Thought here.