Road to Progress – 2

I was walking on the road (Yes. It is difficult to walk on the sidewalks or footpaths as they are called in India and we will talk about the reasons a little later) and suddenly I feel a light shower of droplets over my head and clothes.  I look up and see the sky is quite clear and the strong sun shining as if doing its business.  I was left wondering where did the droplets of water come from.  I looked around just as a public transport bus passed me at great speed and realised that some idiot sitting at the window side and eating PAAN had spitted out the juice and part of which had fallen on me.  Imagine, I had just showered, put on my clothes, perfumed myself and had left to go to work and this happens.  My clothes had been soiled and paan stains leave strong marks on your clothes.  So temporarily, these clothes would not be in circulation.  They would have to go to the laundry for dry cleaning and the launderer would also not guarantee a stain-free garment.  So that would be the first and the second casualty, first being the additional cost of laundry and second being the loss of one pair of clothes to wear out a set of clothes which I have maintained for routine wear.  With these stained clothes, forget going to office, there was no way I would be going to continue going where I was.  So I turned back to come home for a change of clothes.  Carrying on walking on the road with pan stains all over you would have been a huge challenge with people staring at you, thinking what kind of a moron you are, how did you get and it giggling away happily.  So I called for an autorickshaw (a three wheeled vehicle private transport available for hire) and headed home.  This was the third financial loss I incurred for no fault of mine and the only risk I took was to walk on the road.  I come home, shower (even usage of additional water is a loss), change in to a new set of clothes.  My wife is happy to ask me a barrage of questions – who was it, why didn’t you do something, etc. etc.) and I have absolutely no answers to those. 

I had to reach office by 10.00 a.m. and I am still at home at 11.30 a.m.  Since I am late to reach office, I again hire an autorickshaw (this is my fourth financial loss).  I reach office by 12.45 and my boss looks at me as if I am a citizen of Mars and hired ISROs Mission on Mar’s orbiter and landed up at his office.  He tells me that I am late, very late and that is unacceptable.  I try to explain to him the reason for being late which is completely unacceptable to him.  He shouts at the HR to mark me half a day’s casual leave in my leave records.  I am already running short of leave which I will require for the festivals and many occasions that will follow one after the other till the next year starts.  This means that any additional leaves that I will take will be marked as excess and pay will be deducted from my salary.  This is the fifth financial loss that I have incurred for no fault of mine.  The moron who threw caution to the wind and spat out like a carefree bird’s droppings must have reached his destination at no extra cost other than the cost of bus ticket and here I am in complete misery and incurring financial loss, one after the other.  I also don’t know how many other people he may have blessed from his window seat.  Just like the government has enforced no smoking in public places, why is there no restriction on consuming or chewing paan in public places and public vehicles.  It is such a pathetic site to even see the rich sitting in their expensive vehicles, their drivers happily spitting on the road side as if they have paid taxes and have a right to do so.  When will this stop?  Who will stop? How did it come to this state? Who is responsible for this mess?  Yes, the public is definitely responsible for this mess but is there anybody else who will take up responsibility for this? 

People are now sharing on WhatsApp with their names, taking a vow that they will not throw garbage on the road or spit on the road, etc.  Now this is very stupid.  All these people, okay I am sorry, most of these people who are using the latest technology are educated, qualified, mature, living in modern spaces, modern world, good apartments and colonies.  My taking a vow not to do so, they are admitting that they have been throwing garbage all around them carelessly.  Shouldn’t they be punished right away?  Shouldn’t they be sent for counselling?  Did their teachers and parents not do a good job of teaching them civic sense?  Technology brings culture of other countries and places into your home through television, mobile phones, internet, people who tell you stories about their visits abroad.  Didn’t you learn anything from them?  When you know it is a bad practice, why are you doing it?  Why wait for a Government to create awareness and then take action?  What does it tell us?  Where is the problem?  Interestingly, the magnitude of this problem is very huge, it is across the country.  It is so widespread that it will be difficult to eradicate it.  There have been transformations like people do not smoke in public places but the number of smokers is, by contrast, very small.  Here, every Indian is used to this habit and tantamount to not respecting the country, not respecting where you live and from where you earn your sustenance.  Our living spaces are precious to us.  We keep them clean so why have these double standards for your own private spaces and for public places?

Coming back to why I was walking on the footpath or sidewalk, there is reason to it.  In fact there are many reasons and I will list a few of them here.  The urban sidewalks, first of all, have become a thing of the past.  People are more used to walking on the streets than on the sidewalks.  Over the years, the local municipality has attempted to make the roads wider and therefore has reduced the width of the sidewalk.  This reduced sidewalk will full of hawkers and you have to literally wiggle out whilst walking. Stores extend the permissible size of their store to extend their counters for display leaving absolutely no space for walking.  I wonder if they want customers to walk on the sidewalks and then walk into their stores or to stay away from the store as much as possible by not leaving any space to pedestrians.  Yes, you sometimes see domestic animals squatting happily, encroaching upon the citizen’s space.  Third, you will find beggars occupying a large space of road.  Fourth, you will see key-makers, food stalls, bhelwala, pani-puriwala, shoe-repairer (mocha), the imitation jewelery seller selling his stuff, with people surrounding them, blocking the limited space on the sidewalk.  Businessmen who have stores and the outside road is earmarked as a No Parking zone, will have their motorcycles parked on the footpaths.  Then there are open manholes and with the modern day high level corruption on sidewalk tiling, you will see popped out interlocking tiles, some have just broken down, other have not been laid properly, other are just missing from their missing leaving large cavities.  At some places, there is just no footpath.  You have to walk on the road, whether you like it or not.  With children in tow, this becomes very difficult.  I could go on because the list is very long. 

When will the Municipal Authorities create good dedicated areas known as footpaths or sidewalks for citizen to be away from the burgeoning number of vehicles on the road?  Isn’t that a part of citizen facility?  Why are we so careless? Why are we accepting all this nonsense from a government which is expected to provide citizens with facilities that enhance their safety?  Why are the sidewalks not free from extended stores, encroachments, impediments and uneven surfaces?

Mumbai, the financial capital of India is now in a state of shame.

Road To Progress - 1

The Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is giving what people were all the time desirous of.  He has given so many mantra’s and people are lapping it up.  He is showing people that there is hope.  There is hope for a better life, hope for a good environment to live in, hope for prosperity and economic progress.  People are fed up of living within financial constraints.  The world has become aspirational.  While the India’s rich have aspirations to conquer and dominate the world stage, the poor want to do more than just survive.

The Prime Minister’s mantras are not new but their coinage is effective.  It throws a spell and people are falling in awe.  But if you take a deep look, they have a lot of meaning attached to it.  Speed, Skill and Scale was one which describes the way India should go ahead if it has to, forget the outer world and become and economic superpower, help India’s population to prosper internally.  Even if they do business internally within India with this mission, they will achieve great heights.  This mission statement has lot of deeper meaning to it because we have now got very used to the “Chalta hai” (it’s ok, who cares) kind of attitude.  “Chalta hai”, interpreted could mean: 1) It’s ok, we will do it at our own pace; 2) let’s compromise on the materials; 3) Let’s compromise on the quality; 4) let’s compromise on the workmanship; 5) let’s do some additional cheating; 6) let’s not put more effort; 7) how will the customer know what we have not given him; 8) he is not going to be our repeat customer, so any poor quality product or service will do, and so on.  This Chalta Hai attitude has to change, and has to change fast.  If not, it will affect our image the global level.  People will seek products from abroad.  Earlier, people were crazy for Japanese, British and American products.  Then we saw a demand for Indian products and now Chinese products have conquered.  Name the product and you will see a Chinese product.

Combined with the “Make in India” Mantra, the “Speed, Skill and Scale” concept have to potential to take India to the next level in terms of its own economic progress.  The market in India is huge and products that are manufactured in India will be consumed here itself.  So market and consumption is not an issue.  Manufacturing has to pick up and for that to happen, the government must ease the norms for doing business.  In the coming days, it would be interesting to see how the plans unfold.  Much has been said about what should be done and what has not been done.  But now the time is for the government machinery to work together, iron out the differences, work in synergy with each other.  The Prime Minister must ensure that the Speed, Size and Scale mantra must start from the government departments first.  The scale is there in terms of the huge number of employees (here we will not question the performance), the format and structure is there.  They need to deliver things with SPEED.  How will the Prime Minister bring in accountability of these babu’s will be interesting to see.  The PM and his office may have control over the Central Government ministries and they may be able to drive it in mission mode, but when it comes to the machinery at the State and Municipal level, it will collapse completely.

I am left wondering as to why previous governments could not think of all these simple aspects all the while they were in office. India could have achieved so much progress.  These kind of activities do not require legislative procedures and the opposition would have been floored completely.  This gives rise to another point that creativity in political field also has become very important.  Creativity was the domain of artists in the field of fine arts, advertising and related field.  But just by being creative, so much can be achieved.  There is positivity in the environment, stock market is bullish, people are talking about it and there is energy flowing all around.  And the best part is nothing on the ground level has changed yet but people are hoping that it will, very soon.

Indians are looking up with hope for a better tomorrow.

Using your resources effectively

Does thinking of cool things in the severe heat of summer make life better?

The heat here in Mumbai is getting severe and is becoming intolerable.  The humidity in the air adds to the discomfort.  Getting out in the sun to commute to work or for other errands adds to your woes.  Waiting for a train or a bus drains your energy.  Imagine you've just showered, sprayed the best of deo's and Italian perfumes or Ether and the moment you step out of the house, you are drenched in sweat, starting to gradually stink for our underarms.

The objective here is not to get completely lost or get overwhelmed by the over-powering thought but to be realistic and accept things as they are.  All seasons have their own benefits and nothing can be foregone for the other.   While those living in the northern hemisphere crave for a streak of sunshine, people living in the equatorial region crave for relief from the scorching sunshine.

What one can do is to make the best of the available resources - if you are given an egg -make an omelet  Don't try to make an ice-cream out of it.  Judicious use of resources has two benefits - (1) you don't have to try hard finding them because they are right there in front of you;  and (2) there is knowledge already available of what can be made it of it so use that to your advantage.

The world has progressed on this entire concept. Intellectuals have said - do not try to reinvent the wheel where the wheel has advanced so much that if you continue the pursuit of developing the wheel all over again, you will be left much behind while the world would have progressed by leaps and bounds.

It is important to keep up with the times and build on that.  Not everybody is gifted with this advantage and on the other hand everyone is. The only difference is that while people with no such advantage go all out and convert their dismays and disappointments into their advantage, people with clear advantage and opportunities right in front of their eyes are not able to see them.  Not many are able to see opportunities knock at their door-steps while others start looking at the backdoor where there isn't any opportunity.

God has gifted us with immense values and gifts.  They are all inbuilt and have come as a package deal with we the mortals never introspect to evaluate our skills and resources.  Some people don't learn after receiving major shocks and tragedies of their life.  Others, and those are the intelligent ones are able to learn from other's failures and mistakes.

Opportunity and Failures are just perceptions and figments of imagination.  Both are invisible and just state of a person's mind.

Our creator wants us to progress in life, use our intellectual capacity go make this life on earth a better place to live in.  Are we playing our role effectively?  Are we doing justice to our roles that has been given to us?

Get wiser, look harder, grow from what you were yesterday.  If you are what you were yesterday, you have not learning anything, you have not attempted to fulfill your expectations.

The Sunday Truth!

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

Blogger Buzz: Blogger integrates with Amazon Associates

The Power of Ideas - Economic Times

June 22, 2010 – Economic Times

India Needs Your Ideas - from Narayna Murthy

Perhaps no one else knows better than NR Narayana Murthy the thrills of building an enterprise. On the eve of Power of Ideas 2010, he spoke with Archana Rai about his entrepreneurial journey, hoping more Indians will join this league of ideas nation

HE is one of modern India’s most celebrated entrepreneurs, a person who dared to strike out on his own a full decade before economic reforms transformed the business landscape of the country. In 1981, when Nagavara Ramaraya Narayana Murthy persuaded a group of six engineers who worked with him at Punebased software firm Patni Communication Systems to quit their jobs and join him to build a software services export firm, he was selling an idea whose time was yet to come. But such is the power of ideas, it transformed Mr Murthy’s dream into what is today’s Infosys Technologies—the country’s second largest software services firm with an estimated market cap of $35 billion.

When ET approached him to mentor the second edition of The Power of Ideas programme, his excitement was palpable. “Entrepreneurship is the only instrument to make this a better country. I will encourage any initiative that encourages entrepreneurship,” he said. And why wouldn’t he. Afterall his three-decade long journey has had its share of ups and downs and Mr Murthy cherishes every moment of it.

When Mr Murthy started, the other partners were pretty young and in junior positions. Kris and Nandan had a year’s experience each. Dinesh and Shibulal had two years, Ashok had one years experience and only Raghavan was older than Mr Murthy, who had by then already launched an enterprise, closed it down and reentered the world of salaried work. So when the idea of Infosys took wing, Mr Murthy had a fair notion of what he was staking to follow a dream. “The unstated assumption was that if this new venture failed, the others on the team would take up a job. Whereas I was married, had a daughter, I was not even sure I would get a job if we failed. There was TCS. Wipro was not even there so there were concerns,” he says. But what clinched the decision was the support from his wife Sudha Murty. “My wife said let’s do this. Afterall, I am working,” says the IT veteran, as he looks back at the long career that has propelled him, and the company he co-founded, to a position of global eminence. This ability to evaluate risk appropriately has been a central feature of Mr Murthy’s career. In the late 1970s before he founded Infosys, he set up a company called Softronics in Pune that offered software services for the domestic market. “But very quickly I realised that the domestic market was not ready for software entrepreneurs, so within a matter of a year or so I closed down Softronics and joined Patni Communication,” he says, underscoring the need for entrepreneurs to be alert to changing dynamics.

“And later, at an appropriate time, when I realised that there was an opportunity to look at international markets I founded Infosys,” he adds. As economic liberalisation took India by storm in the early 1990s, Infosys would go onto become the poster child of a country newly emergent on the world economic stage. Murthy and his team of co-founders who first offered shares in their fledgling firm to the Indian public in 1993 would ride the wave of India’s software services boom in the following years leading up to the very successful listing of Infosys stock on the US NASDAQ exchange in 1998. The next year the company raked in $100 million in revenues and by year 2004, would go onto reach the milestone of $1 billion in revenues. Today the market value of the country’s second largest software services firm is estimated at $35 billion.

But it has been a hard and arduous climb from very modest beginnings. The eighties were a decade of toil for the team as the environment was very business unfriendly. It took 50 visits to Delhi and sometimes up to two or three years before they could get a license to import a computer, their first telephone connection came a year after they applied for it.

“We did not have any data communication facilities. We have even have faxed software code. Can you imagine that?” says Mr Murthy, describing the importance of perseverance in the early days of building an enterprise.

As their customers were overseas, the Infosys team would require ten days to get an approval from the Reserve Bank of India to travel abroad. The fledgling company also struggled to raise finances in the absence of a venture capital system and the outright refusal by commercial banks to fund a venture that offered no collateral security.

Even worse, for a business that relied entirely on the number of skilled engineers on the rolls, attracting talent was an uphill task. “We couldn’t hire consultants from outside of India and the mindset of most youngsters was to get a job in government or in a large private sector company, those were very difficult times.”

Around nine years after Infosys was set up, the founders felt they were going nowhere as the friction to business was extremely high. “We thought we would sell the business for some million dollars, but fortunately we all sat down, discussed & debated,” Mr Murthy reminisces. “We chose to run the full marathon and I am glad that we took that decision.”

NRN SPEAK ON SHARING WEALTH
Right in the beginning, I took the view that I will have to distribute the equity in a much fairer manner among the seven of us. Later we decided we will have to give stock options to every employee, including the janitors.

ON DEALING WITH RISK
I have always said that ships are safest in the harbour, but they are not meant to be there. They have to go into the high seas, weather storms & reach the comfort of a safe destination. It is the same with entrepreneurs as well.

ON SACRIFICES
Whenever you take up an idea that transforms the world and brings a major difference to society and the market, it requires tremendous sacrifice. One has to accept that the sacrifices will be commensurate with the glory that you get.

ON INNOVATION
Professor Peter Drucker once said there are two important ingredients for success of an entrepreneur—innovation and marketing & sales. With innovation you can say that my idea does something that nobody else has done so far.

ENTERPRISE QUOTIENT:
Narayana Murthy during the early days of Infosys

In the early
days, we did not have any data communication facilities. We have even have faxed software code. Can you imagine that?

The unstated assumption
was that if this new venture failed, the others on the team would take up a job. Whereas I was married, had a daughter, I was not even sure I would get a job if we failed. There was TCS. Wipro was not even there so there were concerns

We thought we would sell the
business for some million dollars, but fortunately we all sat down, discussed and chose to run the full marathon

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=ETNEW&BaseHref=ETM/2010/06/22&PageLabel=8&EntityId=Ar00800&ViewMode=HTML&GZ=T

Twitter yourself a new job - using social networking media to expand horizons and identify new avenues

Twitter yourself a new job
Jan 11

Extracts of Article Written by: Alok Sahu

Some career consultants caution you against using social networking sites to find a new job. I, on the other hand, am a huge fan of social networking sites. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about LinkedIn, today I want to focus on Twitter. Twitter is a great way to expand your network and ultimately expand you visibility and in turn strengthen your chances of getting hired. Twitter is all about researching and networking, which coincidentally are the two major “offline” skills you need during the job search.

Here are some useful tips to maximize your Twitter job search experience:
• Choose a good name. Remember you are looking to establish credibility and build your brand. For example, if you are in Marketing, you may want to choose something like, “marketingpro.” I am sure that is taken, but you get the idea.

• Make sure you include your LinkedIn URL in your account. You should use Twitter as an extension to your LinkedIn profile. If you have an online resume or portfolio you should link to that as well.

• Find the players and follow them. This is easy to do, conduct a search on your area of expertise and just read the threads. In a day or so it will be very clear who the players are. Once you determine who they are, click to follow them.

• Participate before going in for the kill. What I mean by this, is do not start of by asking if anyone knows who is hiring, that is back technique and just plain tacky. Instead, become a participant, share some information, you must give before you can get.

• Once you are established, start asking for advice, this will lead you down the job opportunity path.

Thanks Alok for sharing your knowledge.  By publishing it here in good faith, I am helping your knowledge and article reach out to more people.

"Success Through Excellence" - Shamim Rafeek: A.R Rahman - "An Inspiring Story of Success through Excellence" !

"Success Through Excellence" - Shamim Rafeek: A.R Rahman - "An Inspiring Story of Success through Excellence" !

Being Nostalgic

Yesterday I was in a very sentimental mode and I phased through my recent past.

As I was passing from Dadar through Bandra and finally towards my home, I saw the office of Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) and suddenly remembered my first Multi-Channel Black and White Television and how sweet were those days. I fondly remember Mumbai Doordarshan and its excellent programs like Chhaya Geet, Saturday and Sunday Movies, Phool Khile Hai Gulshan Gulshan, those news broadcasts and the excellent quality of presentations, programmes that brought to screen eminent singers right from Mohammed Rafi to Mukhesh and stalwarts like Adi Marazban and "Avo Mari Sathe". Not to forget those live cricket matches without the advertisements between the overs. Such wonderful days!.

Nowadays we have hundreds of television channels but there is nothing worthwhile to see, the editing and photography have become absurd, zooming in and zomming out, flash lights coming to the screen. Is this what is called good photography? This any child can do so where is the professionalism here! I must add that editing has also taken a beating. While an artist or a singer or a dancer is about to deliver a key punchline, the camera zooms out on the background dancers or pans out to the audience making a complete mockery of event. One tends to loose interest in the programmes.

The News Channels do not transmit news but they instill fear and I don't know how did the concept deviate from news to presenting trivia. Everything becomes breaking news - Some how it will become like the old adage - the wolf has come and suddenly when there is genuine breaking news, people might not even care for it.

Last night I was watching Midnight Feast on Travel and Living Channel and the host visited on township inhabited by an Amish Community on the Route 66 in US which believes in living without many of the modern technologies - they live without electricity, without piped water, without washing machines, personal computers, internet, iPods, music system and all things modern. It is quite a closed community and believe that by such abstinence they will reach heaven directly. Must be quite an experience to live life that way.

How to Approach Islam in the Workplace

Kellye Whitney, 12-28-2009

The 9/11 tragedy gave new meaning to profiling for Muslims in the United States, and though the event happened years ago, sentiments still linger.

Dr. Donald E. Wagner, a professor at North Park University in Chicago, said some of those bad feelings have diminished, but it only takes one incident to bring about a resurgence of that negative energy.

“Any time an event happens like at Ford Hood," where gunman Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan allegedly killed 12 and injured 31 in November," there is greater awareness of Muslims, and there could be more profiling and some abuse. It’s always best to be alert when something like that happens.”

However, Wagner said diversity executives can use those incidents as teachable moments to increase diversity awareness. For instance, bring in a Muslim speaker to offer — on a voluntary basis — interested employees rudimentary knowledge of the Islamic religion, which Wagner said is the fastest-growing religion in the United States in major cities and can be substantively different from one place to the other.

“The positive thing is there are a lot more organizations working on this as well as greater sensitivity in business, in the police and [in] universities across the board, “ he said. “There’s a lot more dialogue going on between Muslim-Christian, Muslim-Jewish.”

Still, he said diversity executives may want to dedicate some training to increasing the awareness of Islamic practice to promote acceptance should, for example, Muslim women in the workplace chose to wear the hijab head scarf.

“Education is always a good thing, and there might be some subtle ways that can be done without making it look patronizing,” Wagner said.

Have informative brochures or pamphlets available, or ensure certain holidays make it onto the company calendar. For instance, Wagner said, during the month of Ramadan, executives should be sensitive to the fact that Muslims are probably fasting. Therefore, it might be best not to eat in front of them.

“Some businesses make a time and place for prayers, particularly the noon prayers, and occasionally there may be a Muslim employee who will make the Hajj, which is the once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca. That’s a great honor to complete that,” Wagner said. “It would be thoughtful for congratulations to be sent and for folks to be aware of what that is.”

Some Arab Christians may have slightly different traditions, such as fasting during Easter and Lent, and their Easter may be at a different time than the traditional calendar holiday. Therefore, employees may request to take off on a Good Friday different from what is scheduled.

Wagner said efforts to increase awareness and to educate employees increases respect and levels of equality so Muslims are not viewed as “mysterious, shadowy figures” but as people who aren’t that different from everyone else.

“There’s more that Christians and Jews and Muslims agree on than we disagree on in terms of belief and practice,” he said. “There’s a great book out titled Who Speaks for Islam? I use it in class, and it’s a Gallup poll survey done throughout the Muslim world on attitudes about women and men in the workplace [and] what Muslims really want.

“It shows they really want democracy, but they don’t want the West to come in and interfere. Most are against suicide bombings and terrorist attacks. There’s also a polling on attitudes toward Muslims in the United States, and some of that data could be extrapolated and be useful for training in the workplace.”

For instance, Wagner said that according to the poll, Muslim women increasingly want to be independent and be respected in their professions, yet their religion is central to who they are, and mores and values tend to be conservative.

“[Women] are increasingly in the workplace across the Islamic world in the Middle East and here,” Wagner explained. “Free them up so there aren’t impediments and unnecessary conflicts and tensions in the workplace. That could certainly lead to efficiency.”

Source: http://www.diversity-executive.com/article.php?in=804

Note: The same concept should apply to the understanding of all religions and faiths for a United, Peaceful World.

Are You Making the Right Decisions? Think Twice!

Research indicates that people buy more German wine when a store s sound system plays German music in the background and more French wine when it plays French music. However, shoppers claim that the background music has no effect on their wine choices. Most people think that they make rational decisions, even if they do not. In this example, irrelevant, low-level sensory input determines people s choices.
Michael J. Mauboussin, a finance professor and investment strategist, wants to help people make better decisions.

In his book, he details the most common decision-making mistakes and suggests practical techniques to avoid them.

GetAbstract recommends this book to people who want to increase their awareness of their own irrationality and, especially, to managers in decision-making positions, whose mistakes may have ripple effects throughout their organizations and even beyond.

According to Mauboussin, smart, well-informed people make decisions as poorly as anyone else. The human mind is not hard-wired for rational thinking, and many intelligent and creative people harbour false beliefs. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the superrational detective Sherlock Holmes, believed in spiritualism and fairies. His capacity to interpret the world accurately was, therefore, rather less than that of his protagonist.

To make better decisions, learn to counteract false premises and avoid other mental pitfalls. Don t go with your first impulse. Instead, Mauboussin advises you to think twice . First, prepare to make decisions by learning about usual mistakes.

Next, recognize flaws in your own decision making, and then apply this lesson to your next decision. Don t let closeat-hand information lead you astray.
Avoid the inside view. Use objective information about how other people have evaluated and handled the type of problem you face.

Avoid the tunnel vision trap by seeking out different points of view. Don t make important decisions at stressful times. Since incentives can sway your opinions, analyse the incentives that might cause you to make one decision over another. Consider the potential consequences of your actions.

Mauboussin recommends keeping a decision-making journal , where you enter each major decision you make, the reasons that led to your choice, a description of your mood and your prediction of the outcome. By auditing your decisions, you ll be able to evaluate them. The journal will reveal patterns in your thinking. Equipped with a record of your decisions, you will avoid hindsight bias , the inclination to see events as more predictable than they were. It will help you remember how the situation presented itself to you before you knew its outcome. Your circumstances influence your decisions. Thus, to make good decisions, increase your awareness of your environment and its influence upon you. Don t mindlessly base your decisions on what peers do. Keep your thinking fresh and relevant, and don t let yourself be dragged down by inertia or the status quo.

Often, you must consider numerous factors when you make decisions. Therefore, in addition to a decision-making journal, Mauboussin recommends developing a decision checklist so you don t inadvertently overlook something crucial. People make mistakes more often by forgetting an important step than by failing to handle the individual steps well. The value of your checklist will increase in proportion to the stability of your environment . For example, decision checklists are useful for pilots and surgeons, because much data exists regarding situations similar to those they routinely confront. However, in an environment where everything is fluid and circumstantial, decision checklists are less helpful.

Warren Buffett said, Virtually all surprises are unpleasant. With this in mind, think through the worst-case outcomes of your decisions. When you regard such scenarios as potential real-life situations, you will be motivated to think things through rationally.

Place yourself mentally in the future. Imagine that your decision did not work out as you had planned. Should you have been able to predict the poor outcome? This technique enables you to spot in advance problems that may result from your decisions.

Rolf Dobelli is chairman, getAbstract. Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition Michael J. Mauboussin Harvard Business Press, 2009, 272 pages List price: $26.95 ISBN13: 9781422176757