Decision-Making Archives - Page 4 of 7

Fracking

Fracking is a way of mining underground gas, but it has been linked to earthquakes and tap water that burns (at least when you run it over a lit match).

The method was first discovered during the American Civil War, when Union Colonel Edward Roberts noticed the effects of explosive Confederate artillery plunging into the narrow millrace (canal) near the battlefield.

Americans, who enjoy using any potential resource once it becomes apparent, soon began experimenting with the new procedure, and these days there are several fracking operations taking place in the US.

Although there have been attempts to legalize fracking in Germany, so far it seems like Germans would prefer not to risk the potentially dangerous method in order to gather new resources.

“Paralysis by Analysis“

‘Paralysis by analysis’ – a phrase often used in the American business context – describes over-thinking that leads to a reluctance to make a decision, and in doing so exhausts the available time in which to act.

In Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Cat the fox boasts of hundreds of ways of escaping while the cat has only one. When they hear the hunting dogs approaching, the cat climbs quickly up a tree while the fox in his confusion was caught. The moral: “Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.” In Hamlet, Shakespeare writes of Hamlet’s flaw of thinking too much: “sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.”

Analysis: ‘In the final (or last) analysis’ means when everything has been considered. This phrase is used to suggest that a statement expresses the basic truth about a complex situation. Late 16th century. Medieval Latin from Greek analusis, from analuein unloose.

Reluctance: Unwillingness or disinclination to do something. Ambivalence: The state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone. Hesitation: The action of pausing or waiting before saying or doing something.

Analysis and Intuition

Good decision making in the American context means a healthy balance between objective analysis and intuition.

Intuition: The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning; a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. Late Middle English denoting spiritual insight or immediate spiritual communication. Latin intueri, to consider.

Empiricism. Observation. For Americans, intuition is experience-based knowledge, called on immediately. Intuition is more than a spontaneous thought, a “gut reaction”, a hunch. Americans trust the judgement of the experienced, the wise, of those “who have been there”.

But not to the exclusion of objective analysis. Americans are constantly coming up with new ways to quantify what is deeply human, what in its essence cannot be quantified. It’s a question of balance. When to go with the objective analysis, when with intuition? Can they be combined?

Star Trek. A brilliant television series. Late 1960s. Deeply human, created with little frills, eye-candy, special effects. Instead it tapped into the human imagination, the greatest source of special effects. Kirk is intuition. Spock is reason. Tension between the two. But it worked.

Powell Doctrine

The Powell Doctrine, named after General Colin Powell, stresses exhausting all political, economic, and diplomatic means, before a nation should resort to military force.

Powell has since expanded the doctrine, stating that when a nation is engaged in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy, minimizing American casualties and ending the conflict quickly by forcing the enemy to capitulate.

Deploy. To extend a military unit especially in width; to place in battle formation or appropriate positions; to spread out, utilize, or arrange for a deliberate purpose. From French déployer, literally, to unfold.

“Throw More Bodies”

Let’s Stop “Throwing More Bodies” at the Problem, written by Adam Ziegler, August 8, 2013, on: smallfirminnovation(dot)com:”

“In my early days as a lawyer, there was one all-too-common phrase that drove me nuts: ‘just throw more bodies at it.’ I think it’s time to give this phrase a proper, final burial.

It’s insulting
Most new lawyers enter the market as smart, well-educated and highly motivated professionals. They’re not that different than you were a few years or decades ago. And most importantly, they’re people.

It’s dumb
Treating associates like cannon fodder is bad business. Associates work harder and better for supervisors that respect them.

It’s bad for clients
The ‘throw more bodies at it’ mentality is terrible for clients. Treating legal problem-solving as a brute force function of the quantity of lawyers and billable hours that can be brought to bear on a situation leads to flawed, wasteful, overly expensive work.”

“in the same light as a machine”

In his 1893 book The Distribution of Wealth economist John R. Commons used the term human resource. The term was then used in the 1910s and 1920s. Workers were seen as a type of capital asset. E.W. Bakke revived “human resources” in its modern form was in 1958. Adam Smith defined human capital as follows:

“The acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance of the acquirer during his education, study, or apprenticeship, always costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed and realized, as it were, in his person. The improved dexterity of a workman may be considered in the same light as a machine or instrument of trade which facilitates and abridges labor, and which, though it costs a certain expense, repays that expense with a profit.”

“… in the same light as a machine.”

“… make a comeback“

The New York Times online. May 3, 2015. An interview with Diane von Fürstenberg, Belgian-born American fashion designer best known for her iconic wrap dress.

Interviewer: You’ve had such a roller coaster life of great successes, as well as some pretty dark times. How did you manage through all that?

von Fürstenberg: I’m still managing through it. First of all, let’s talk about success. I lived an American dream. I was very lucky because I was very successful at 25 years old. Now it’s very common for that to happen in Silicon Valley. But at the time, it was not so common, and I was a woman and I was very young.

Now we go to failure. What does failure mean? You didn’t make it? So you didn’t make it. But by not making it, maybe you learned something else. America is a society where you always have a chance and where you can always make a comeback. So I would say that failure sometimes could be your biggest asset.

Fail Fast, Fail Often

“Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Everywhere”. By John Donohue. The New Yorker. May 31, 2015.

“Discussions about failure may come more easily in America in part because our businesspeople are so good at it. The failure rate for startups, using a yardstick in which investors lose everything (i.e., all of the company’s assets are liquidated), is between thirty and forty per cent, according to Shikhar Ghosh, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School.

The rate is seventy to eighty per cent if failure is defined as not meeting the projected return on investment, and ninety to ninety-five per cent if it is measured by failing to beat a declared projection.

Despite these statistics, Americans remain remarkably optimistic about the process—last year, venture-capital companies staked forty-eight billion dollars in pursuit of big returns. And the fact that these investments are concentrated in a relatively small number of companies has not seemed to inspire much fear in prospective entrepreneurs.

According to a study done by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a project run by Babson College and the London Business School, in 2014 among respondents between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four who were not already running their own businesses, just thirty per cent reported that fear of failure would stop them from starting one.

And more than half of those Americans surveyed believed that there are good opportunities to strike out on one’s own.

If you get killed, at least you won’t know it.

In some cases, Americans are willing to take risks even if no corrective measures are possible. This has been particularly evident in Americans’ willingness to risk death during air and spacecraft testing and early use.

Apollo engineer Jerry Woodfill once said “Among the early space missions, I’ve always believed that the greatest courage was needed by their first crews. Whether it was Al Shepard, the Apollo 1 crew, or shuttle astronauts John Young or Bob Crippen, the most likely danger would be the first time any new space craft was launched into space. Flaws in design or manufacture could very well be fatal during maiden missions.”

American Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier, once said “It’s your duty to fly the airplane. If you get killed in it, you don’t know anything anyway.”

Some examples of Americans who knew they were risking death to go into space include:

On April 13, 1970, two days after its launch, an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft exploded.

This led to a desperate attempt for the astronauts to return to earth alive – one that nearly didn’t succeed. Less than a year later, despite having just witnessed an almost-fatal mission, the Apollo 14 spacecraft launched with three crewmembers on board.

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after lift-off, killing all seven crew members on board. However, prior to the launch, the astronauts were warned that some of the engineers were worried about the effect of unusually low temperatures on the seals for the solid rocket boosters.

Although they were not told the extent of the engineers’ concerns, they were warned that launching on January 28^th would be more dangerous than waiting for the next available launch date, and asked if they wanted to postpone. All seven decided that their mission was worth the risk of launching on schedule.

Margins of Error

The United States has enjoyed the most favorable margins of error. Risk-taking could flourish under such circumstances.

It is protected by two natural barriers, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its neighbor to the north – Canada – is culturally a cousin and has never been a threat. Its neighbor to the south – Mexico – was defeated in wars and lost large pieces of territory to the U.S. It, too, has never posed a threat to the security and stability of the U.S.

The indigenous population – the American Indians – were driven from their territorial homelands, killed in wars, placed on reservations. The nation has access to immense natural resources, chief among them land.

Margin of error: An amount (usually small) that is allowed for in case of miscalculation or change of circumstances.

Risk (noun): A situation involving exposure to danger, the possibility that something unpleasant or unwelcome will happen, a person or thing regarded as likely to turn out well or badly, as specified, in a particular context or respect; a person or thing regarded as a threat or likely source of danger; a possibility of harm or damage against which something is insured; the possibility of financial loss.

risk (verb): Expose (something or something valued) to danger, harm, or loss; act or fail to act in such a way as to bring about the possibility of (an unpleasant or unwelcome event); incur the chance of unfortunate consequences by engaging in (an action).