The Broken Window Technique - Suresh Padmanabhan
(Suresh Padmanabhan is an author of the International Bestseller- “I Love Money” now translated in more than 10 Indian and International Languages. He is also the creator and coach for Money Workshop a program to develop consciousness in the areas of Money, Wealth Creation, Prosperity and Spirituality. He has conducted numerous workshops both in India and Overseas. Website www.themoneyworkshop.com.)
I don't know about the validity of this story. But it makes interesting reading. New York city was very much infested with crimes small and large. The mayor of New York wanted the city to be cleaned of the crime and he requested police commissioner to do something about it. Many commissioners came and took up this project. Some wanted more police officers to patrol, some wanted more arms and ammunitions, and some wanted stricter rules and laws. Many things were tried but there were no visible results. Results were very temporary and did not last long. Everyone including the Mayor was getting tired and fed up. The mayor had heard of one police officer who had immense psychological knowledge in handling problems. So he requested him for a workable solution.
That police officer studied the complete problem for a month or so, then came to the mayor and told him, that he has found a workable solution. The mayor asked, do you want more guns? Do you want more forces to patrol? Do you want stricter laws? The police officer just smiled and said, sir, "all I need is paint."
The solution is so simple but truly amazing. The police officer had observed and noted that though there were many crimes, all had to start at a small starting point. Even the bigger rivers originate at a small starting point. He had observed that the starting point was "Graffiti Writing" (dirty and non sense writing all over). Everywhere in New York there were graffiti writing especially in subways and trains. No one before him had noticed that. He told his officers that just paint all the subway and trains back, spick and span. Every time the train came and had graffiti on it, the officers painted it back. They kept on doing this for many days and as this happened constantly the crime graph in New York came down dramatically. It is interesting to note the psychology behind the solution. People who do small crimes, maybe graffiti writing cant even be considered a crime, but if it is not nipped in the bud, then it grows. When the people noticed that even the smallest aspect of graffiti is being noticed and rectified, the bigger crimes just came down. This technique is called as the "Broken Window".Imagine that in your neighborhood a window is broken by some miscreants. The most immediate task is to replace the window and then hunt for the culprit. If this is not done, it is a sign of neglect. Not attending to the replacement will cause many more windows to be broken.
It is like having a spider web in your home. If you don't notice or remove the cob web, many more cob webs will come in your home. Problems have a way of growing. Hence it was said, that "A stitch in time saves nine". Huge ships have sunk with just one hole in it. Similarly when we have a small money problem if not attended immediately then it becomes bigger and bigger. Many of us are day dreamers; we just pray that problems disappear by themselves. No problem just disappears, but yes problems can become more complex and keeps growing. Every doctor says that prevention is better than cure. Keep checking your health and if there is a slight problem, solve it just at the start. If not be ready for bigger issues.
Look around now with awareness at your money issues. Do you sense any small issue out of order. Maybe you are borrowing more than necessary. Maybe your spending is just increasing just to match your life style. Maybe you have no savings. Maybe you have delayed in your payments of salary to your workers because of lack of money flow etc. These are all like Broken Window. Rectify them immediately. All it needs is to observe the broken windows and keep rectifying them.