Life As It Goes By

Perhaps it’s time to mark down the problems we face today around the world. Someone or me can pick these up later and analyze what has happened from now to then.

I would like to group them in 3 categories. I call them: the problem of global warming, the problem of mutation of bacteria, or healthcare simply, and the problem of greed.

Global warming is caused by the harmful CO2 gases that we the human created to damage the ozone layer. It is also caused by the widespread deforestation that we have done. The replacement rate for the trees that convert the CO2 to oxygen is much slower than the rate that we take them off the surface of the Earth. Effects of the global warming are huge. Melting of icebergs at the poles (North and South) rises the sea level and reduces the arable land area for not just humans, but the innocent animals. Weather has become more unpredictable as the nature adapts to the change in ozone layer. Tectonic movements are as usual until a relationship between them and the sea level or weather is found. Another effect is the rising temperature. This in turn results in fewer species among the animal and plant. As for the humans, more energy is required to keep us cool and a vicious cycle has been created.

My dentist friend once told me that the rate at which bacteria or the micro organism mutates would one day exceed the rate at which human can create anti-bodies or vaccines. I saw similar articles on the papers and believed this to be the fact. In recent years, we humans are troubled by pandemics, related to influenza. It is still unclear the actual causes of these. I feel that we, humans, play a big part in this. The way we feed the animals, pass the sickness to them or do tests on them have an impact. We have created mad cow diseases, bird flu, swine flu (not this time though) and etc. The real victims are the animals themselves. They themselves have not the ability to build immunity to such diseases. Every time I see a bird or monkey picking the food we leave behind, I wonder if how their body “system” will react to such food, especially artificial or chemically produced ones. It’s not their fault really. In their world, the basic rule is:  the fittest survives. They have to feed on anything they can find. They have adapted well so far, as I can see. There are no more trees where they can build nests (not to say communities) with. Instead, they find holes or make use of exterior design of buildings. These are just 2 (still many others there) types of animals we are talking about here. Anyway, the point is we must be reminded of the fact that it’s a matter of time when a pandemic will hit us really hard. So, think hard on how we can stop this…

Lastly, I would like to continue to rub salt on the recent Financial Crisis wounds. This is pretty much attributed by the thing we called greed. I think it might have begun many years ago when the Forbes’s published the World’s Richest list. I remembered myself following the list every year. At the start, it was a mixed feeling of amazement and admiration. As the top list didn’t change much for a while, more details had to be covered in the publication and this helped me (in fact, everyone of us) to understand better how these guys got there. It did change part of  me then. Suddenly, it struck me that I can follow the same steps and be like them. So, I embarked on a long journey to realize the dream of being rich. Yes, I tried and tried, but I only become older and further away from that dream. I know of friends who are in better position but they are still like me, a great, great distance away from those guys in the list. I realize I am sharing a common dream with a lot of people out there. I am not sure if I have a problem, thinking in this way. I am only know that I always wanted more and more the next time. Perhaps it’s just the nature of human race. I have no idea how I can cure this problem of mine (or anyone) or whether such problem can ever be solved.

Today happens to be 9/9/09 which sounds like 999 or the universal emergency telephone number. Maybe it’s about time for the world to call for help.

Recently, I have been put into a position to make some tough decisions. Though I have yet made any, I try to recall all that I have learnt from my business school not too long ago. It was there when I was reminded of the word “decision”.

The meaning of the word is clear and straightforward. It’s not difficult to draw a reference or give an example. Since young, we are already trained to make decisions: what color or food we liked, what subjects to take up and which vacation to go. Some of them (decisions) were easy. Some were really tough; even until today I still have no clue of how to decide. Then, there is this issue of right and wrong decisions. The only way to judge is to see what is the outcome of the decision. If there is no outcome or it’s impossible for you to find out, then you would be kept in the dark forever.

Let’s say you know the outcome. It does not guarantee that a judgement can be made. Especially when your decision plays only a small part of the overall outcome. Even if your decision is a bad one, the result might still be the same. Sometimes, the outcome came too late before you could learn from that bad decision and avoid making the same mistakes. This could also be that the decision has to be reached in a short period of time, even in split seconds.

Factors that affect decision making can be: emotions, pressure,impact of the decision,  knowledge & experience. There could be more but I personally feel these are the more critical ones. There is a common belief if you are emotional, you can make a good decision. You always need to be calm first. If you are under pressure to make a good decision, naturally your decision might be skewed, depending on the type of pressure. Example, if you are under the pressure of time, you would most likely pick a decision that will buy you more time (not scientifically proven, at least to my knowledge). If you face peer pressure, you might succumb to their demands and make a decision based on that.

On the other hand, if the impact of your decision matters little, you would probably decide without a second thought. If it turns out to be a bad decision, it is highly possible that you have overlooked the impact of this decision. Knowledge plays a part too. An acceptable example would be in workplace. If you are told to decide, say …, the color of the product. You can then make a decision based on your knowledge of your customers. You may debate that it’s instincts but I still prefer to use the word, “knowledge” because it’s similar to how you would explain to your colleagues on your “instincts”: you just “know” it. Of course, some of that decision may come from your past experience with the customers. Knowledge and experience are 2 different things though they are connected. Just like concepts and practical applications.

Back to school, I think of 3 approaches. There might just 2. You’ll decide. One concept I can remember is the multiple criteria decision making. You are supposed to list all the criteria for that decision and grade them with weightage and probability. A score for each criterion is produced as graded. This then gives a clear picture of which path is desirable . I know I have simplified the model here (there should be steps before such as creating paths for each criterion, so that a tree diagram can be visualized with the options for the decision as endpoints) but the gist of the model is to allow the decision maker to be unaffected by emotions or pressure. There might still be some pressure coming from your peers on giving scores to each criterion but at least knowledge and experience can be used to debate or qualify the scores (assuming there is no dominant power in the group).

Another model comes from the IT industry. Ever heard of dashboards? Yes, you put metrics all over your company operations and connect them to your company IT infrastructure, so that the executive on top can grab a snapshot of the company anytime and anywhere he or she wants it. Due to the accuracy and clarify of the figures and numbers, a better decision can be made at the executive desk. This no doubt comes at a price: it’s expensive to build up such systems and take a long time to fine-tune and improve. Conceptually, it should be the way to go for all companies.

Lastly, we learnt about a tool called scenario planning. Though it is more commonly used for strategy making, I feel it can be applied in decision making. Depending on the impact of the decision, you make scale scenario planning accordingly. Fundamentally, the tool is used to help you to understand the issues and uncertainties involved. They might be too much for you to handle. So, you should forget about them for a while. Keep them at surface level. Now, try to go by another approach. Think about what are the main forces that drive these issues or uncertainties. Then, try to group them so that you have less problems to dealt with. Then, consider carefully which has the highest impact and plausbility. You should be interested in the 2 groups that has the highest impact and the lowest possibility of happening. Then, you can formulate 3-4 scenarios based on the contents of these 2 groups. You can plan for the worst scenarios and something normal (not a must), so that you can be prepared for the worst condition and check whether what happens next is close to any scenario. If you are lost somewhere along the way, that’s fine. It’s not something easy and you need a lot of focus and probably assistance from the professionals. It’s not really rocket science. It’s a way to structure your thoughts and make use of your knowledge and experience in the industry and society. The projection can be for 5 to even 15 years. More could overkill. Some companies do a new exercise after every 5 years. Anyway, to make an important decision in a not too short time, you can try to shorten the process. The main point, I think, is  to prepare yourself for the worst scenario and lay the path down in your head to check if things are really going the way you predicted and then decide how you can act at each juncture.

If all these sound more troubles for you, then don’t sweat it. Just forget about everything. Gut feelings, as Jack Welch would tell you, prove to be effective as well. It is equally important that you have guts in the end to execute your decisions (not really linked with gut feelings) and to live on the consequences of your decisions. So don’t procrastinate, make some decisions (apply to me as well)!