Category: Newsday T&T

It’s easy to make the mistake of being too optimistic at times when it’s simply unwarranted. This fault is called the “planning fallacy” and it follows a natural human trait to project the best case, even when the evidence suggests something quite different.

We Caribbean people are well known in the rest of the world for our casual, laid-back and fun-seeking dispositions. It’s a major part of our culture – perhaps a release from centuries of slavery and indentureship. People pay thousands of dollars to enjoy this vibe in our carnivals, attractions and tourist resorts.

As distinct as this culture might be, it has a drawback: we are culturally prone to be over-optimistic. The “planning fallacy” is the embodiment of this tendency: we leave San Fernando for a meeting in Diego Martin, estimating that the trip can take as little as an hour. While it’s true that, under ideal circumstances, it’s possible for such a miracle to happen, it’s a mistake to believe that it will in fact do so. It’s a greater folly to lead someone else to expect us to be there “in an hour” especially when our timely attendance is critical.

It’s the planning fallacy at work and it undermines projects throughout the world and in our region. Here’s how we get past it.

1. Use Past Data

We fool ourselves into thinking that this particular trip to town is different than the three we made last month, and therefore will take less time. After all, we argue, the conditions are different; prior obstacles are unlikely to recur. Plus, we have learned a few lessons that will make things better this time around.

The research shows, however, that past data is the best predictor. At the very least, we must look for anecdotal facts as a starting point, before making projections we fall in love with that are, in fact, just plain crazy.

To prevent this from happening, seek independent verification for task estimates. Ask someone else how long it takes the average person to make the trip, or complete the task. If someone is making you a promise, ask them how long a similar task took in the recent past. Listen carefully to both the words given in the answer and the tone of their voice. Then, make your own determination.

2. Ask for Unbiased Estimates

An unbiased estimate is simply one that has an even, 50-50 chance of taking place. For example, the odds of getting 10 Heads in a row when flipping the average coin 10 times are extremely small. Most trips each day from San Fernando to Diego Martin during daytime hours take almost 2 hours – it’s the rare, one-off trip that may take only an hour. Perhaps 1 out of 50.

When you ask your colleagues to make estimates, never take the first one offered. Instead, test it. Ask them “I hear you say 10 days, but do you mean 10 days plus or minus 2 or 3 days on either side, late or early?” If they demur and tell you that there’s no way the deliverable can be early, then you know that they are committing the planning fallacy. They may not know how to correct the estimate, but you must do so if you hope to walk away from the conversation with a realistic idea of how long the task will take.

3. Accept Negativity

In business, we have a tendency to over-value the person with a can-do attitude. The employee we prefer to work with is the one who bring us both problems and solutions, never gets depressed and infuses a team with energy. However, we go a step further and accuse those who are pessimistic of having negative attitudes – they aren’t “team-players.”

To escape the planning fallacy, however, we need to listen to the voices on both sides and accept those we don’t want to hear.

It’s a big mistake to tear down the person who expresses doubts as they are likely to be the ones who will save the project from its own hubris, and failure.

Unfortunately, this happens all the time, especially on the part of executives who “want what they want, when they want it.” The sad, failed implementation of the Obamacare website is a prime example. Middle managers did their best to keep those who  knew it wouldn’t be ready on time as far away as possible from the executives who needed to know the facts. The failure speaks for itself.

Good project management is all about recognizing and mitigating risk, but our cultural habits actually increase risks. Trinidadian managers need to factor this tendency into their estimates to avoid making ruinous, unrealistic plans.

Published in the Trinidad Newsday

Why should a local company bother to carve out a 30-year strategic plan? Here’s one reason: to clearly separate today’s ambitions from tomorrow’s legacy.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a sound long-term plan is built on small actions taken immediately, not on grand gestures. Here’s an example.

Jamaicans who travel to Trinidad notice a small but telling difference right away. At night, Port of Spain and its environs are “brighter.” Trinidadians who land in Jamaica at night say the same: Kingston is “darker.” This noticeable difference is not emotional but empirical: one country is an oil and gas producer, while the other is struggling to find the foreign currency needed to pay its energy bills. As a result, recession-hit Jamaicans look for reasons to turn off electricity, seeing every light left on as a huge cost.

The habit that’s developed seems like an insignificant one today in the present energy boom. An effort to be energy conscious would seem superfluous. However, a company that develops the small practices leading to energy conservation would be preparing itself for a time when Trinidad’s subsidies are removed. It would be able to accomplish goals that the average firm would not even fathom.

This is just an example of the benefit of simultaneously planning for the long term while focusing on small, frequent actions. With the right planning process, any company can project itself into the future and consider the kind of “what-ifs” that change the way business is done today. By taking big trends seriously, firms can use them to define a destination that inspires bold actions right away.

By contrast, RIM, the manufacturer of Blackberry smartphones, didn’t do this kind of projection. As a result, its U.S. market share plummeted from over 50% in 2009 to less than 3% today. How should your company look beyond the conventional wisdom to see future reality with greater clarity?

1. Welcome contrary views.

As the CLICO/HCU inquiry reveals, squelching contrary views is a fast track to failure. A company that suppresses alternate and uncomfortable points of view is setting itself up to fail, and it’s especially easy to do this in a growing, healthy economy. It’s much harder to introduce and encourage conflict when there is no urgent or even apparent need to do so.

One method is to introduce outsiders with sharply defined opinions to act as professional devil’s advocates. Another is to conduct interviews with participants that help them sharpen intuitions into well-articulated points of view. During the retreat, allowing difficult conversations with uncertain outcomes is an absolute requirement.

2. Look at long horizons.

It’s often almost impossible for leaders to plan and consider big short-term changes. The psychological need to feel comfortable is just too strong. However, it’s easier to look to big changes in the future. For example, the adjustments needed to thrive in an economy without subsidies are easier to see from a distance, without the sense of an immediate threat. Then, creativity becomes the driver rather than fear, allowing the executive team the freedom needed to go beyond everyday boundaries.

3. Craft adjustment strategies.

Using contrary views to look far over the horizon is not just for intellectual stimulation. The purpose is to create a specific, measurable vision that can be back-cast from the future back to today. That’s how short-term adjustments and course-corrections can become apparent. Saving energy, which might seem silly today, becomes critical when a longer horizon is seriously considered. These adjustments, if applied consistently, add up to corporate transformations.

4. Look for a legacy.

Another benefit of a long-term planning exercise is that it takes the participants away from their current crop of concerns: bonuses, pension plans and corporate ambitions. It allows them to squarely confront the legacy they are leaving behind.

Consider this fact: decades in the future, a strategic planning activity will be undertaken in which the future leaders of your company will be talking about the performance of today’s leaders. Will your team be judged as a group of wise men and women who saw what was coming and made hard sacrifices and investments in order to preserve the company’s future? Or will your team be judged as fools who fiddled while Rome was burning?

Steve Jobs insisted that the inside of an Apple machine (which only technicians would ever see) should be just as aesthetically pleasing as the outside. He taught his employees that excellence lay in the details that others overlooked, and it’s no accident that he was able to take a failing company and turn it into the world’s most valuable in just over a decade.

Companies that take the easy path are fiddling, when they should be looking for small actions driven by a vision – far beyond the sum of personal ambitions.

Published in the Trinidad Newsday.

I recently do something I almost never do – repeat the topic of a post for another publication.

This time I did, simply because I had some new points to make from a different angle on a topic that’s going to become more important in the next few months. Here’s the link to the article in the Trinidad Newsday – How to Get Employees to Do the Job of Two People.

There are a number of reasons why the Caribbean executive needs to do more than just out-work his/her peers but must also share the way in which they are able to be productive. If they project the idea that they “have arrived” then that’s what people around them will think is the formula for success: hubris and over-confidence.

This article is from the Trinidad Newsday.

Why Executives Need to Teach Time Management

 

This article was inspired by an interaction I had with a middle manager who was amazed at how clueless his executives are in terms of the impact they have.

From the Trinidad Newsday: How Executives are Turning Their Employees Into Idiots

How can CEO’s stop themselves from corrupting their strategic planning processes?

I wrote an article for the Trinidad Newsday that described the ways in which this happens (inadvertently) and what top executives can do about the problem.

http://www.newsday.co.tt/businessday/0,164542.html

 

This article I wrote on January 5th, 2012 speaks to some of the difficulties faced by our Caribbean tendency to play fast and loose with promises.

Keeping Promises in Business (it’s a Newsday article that neglected to mention my name in the online edition.)

The State of Emergency in Trinidad has been curtailed somewhat by the removal of the nationwide curfew, but in this article from the Trinidad Newsday I made the point that there was something that could be learned from our experience in Jamaica.

Communicating During a State of Emergency – written for the Trinidad Newsday.