Managing by Trial and Error

These are turbulent and exciting times. Greenfield, startups and groundbreaking environment inevitably leading to experimentation. The pace of change; speed of technology; variance in generational thinking and culture; all compel innovations. Slow and sure is out of the door, experimentation, trial and error has landed.

The displayed model is a normal trial and error loop. Repeated iterations, then implement the feedback on results, to find an efficient core. We have all used it in our work. More so, as you go up the corporate ladder. Contrary to what younger management thinks, older senior fogeys are experimenting too, because what they learned years ago is history and the ‘new’ has arrived. 

In today’s world of uncertainty and change, this is a valid method of operating. Hence, I am not writing a justification of the method, as there is no alternative. The blog is more about conditions and attributes required, to be at home in the current environment. Some thoughts are listed below.

• Knowledge of what is happening, e.g. what research is saying.
• Strong analytics, especially in the big data world.
• Listening to and observing others.
• And conversing with others.
• Not having a dogmatic outlook. Do not take things for granted.
• Chew, analyse and think. Impulse can be dangerous nowadays.
• But, also requires fast turnaround and quick decision making.
• Since there is constant change, one can be wrong! Learn to live with that and it means not having an “ego”.
• It does mean having a strong value system. Without this value system, one drifts towards wrong, as the voices are many. 

I would now take this further and add ‘countries and public office’ into the same approach. In dealing with public office, add further tenets to the ones mentioned above.

• Listening to numbers all the time. Not a one off election result.  It means a constant watch on polling insights
• It requires repeated iterations on actions, events and results looping back into ever-changing decisions.
• This leads to gradually capturing the centre ground. Repeated iterations will naturally tend towards the centre. (No wonder political parties today cannot be differentiated)
• The process and environment will look machine like.

Politics and rulers may well go this route in the future. It is something which Angela Merkel has applied over a decade and half in Germany. Looking at what our own Prime Minister is doing, I think it is what his government is also tilting towards. 

There is nothing wrong with this trial and error approach. It can be applied in government, as it can be applied in systems and organisations. We just need to be calm, controlled and follow the attributes to gradually achieve systemic efficiency.

The Passport

 

“One does not sell the land people walk on” 

Crazy Horse, Oglalala Sioux Chieftain, 1875 

  

The nomads understood the earth was changing. Cold and  drought were making it difficult to survive on the vast steppes. To their East they had heard of a big water and on the West was the sea of dark water. But, there was enough land out their for the tribes. They would go both East and West. The great Aryan migration had begun. Slowly over  hundreds of years, they came to lands in India and Iran, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Germany. The Aryan migration was to change the world many millennia later. 

        

Even earlier than that, the sons of Hazrat Nuh, Shem; Haam; Japheth had migrated too, into empty lands and filled them with humans. Thus humans had spread through the world. 

The Quran speaks about migration. Indeed, the Islamic calendar started from the migration of the Prophet (saw). In the Islamic perspective, migration can be for religion, for education or to avoid repression. There is freedom to go from a land and no reason to be attached to it. 

“Was not the earth of God spacious enough for you to flee for refuge?” (4:97)

So many Prophets, Adam, Ibrahim, Ismael, Musa etc migrated. It is allowed and such sacrifice, if done for religion is greatly honoured. 

     

Ibn Battuta, left his native Moroccan land at 21. A wander lust and a thirst for knowledge led him for three decades through lands as far East as India. He came home to narrate his many adventures. Thus enriching history and bringing mankind ever closer together.

Humanity for much of history had the freedom of the lands. As Crazy Horse quoted, you cannot own land. Allah (swt) had given this for free, for humanity to use and succeeding generations of humans were just occupiers of the land, to eventually pass on the usage to the next generation.

Sometime after World War 1 came a change in the status of empires. The nation states were born and its first representative the League of Nations was created. Much was changed and one of the first things agreed was to stamp the identity of nation states; thus the Passport was born. Back in the Persian empire days, the Khusro would issue letters of authority to his representatives, when they traveled to other parts. Similarly, Henry Viii issued authorities for his people to travel. But by and large, the Passport was first put into effect around 1920.   

  

It seemed like a minor intervention, but the Passport and what it implied, has changed the world. The word “immigrant” has been stamped onto our psyche now. In the past large groups of people simply moved lands and no one stopped them. USA, the most iconic country of the last century, is also born out of this very immigration. When the Mayflower from Plymouth sailed across the seas bringing the Pilgrim Fathers, there were no passports or barriers to entry. The Passport is the basic tenet of nation hood and has become the tool of racism, wealth, barriers and has also led to conflicts. Whatever the intention of the League of Nations, it has so transpired, that the simple agreement to institute the Passport almost a 100 years ago, is suspiciously viewed by many as a sinister conspiracy to subjugate the people of humanity.

Just a further related footnote of history. A hundred years ago, much changed very suddenly. The Balfour Declaration was made, creating the vision of Israel; the Caliphate of Muslims was destroyed; USA took its role as the major power; the concept of modern nationhood was established; The Bolshevik Revolution took place in Russia; the Jewish people commenced their migration to the Middle East (all done without any Passport!!!); The division of Europe was done leaving the seeds for World War 2. The division of Arabia was done, leaving seeds for the present conflict. The Passport was born; The present day system was institutionalised (banks, stock markets, currencies, insurance companies, transnational organisations, democracy). All within a space of three years history was transformed. So who was the guiding hand? Are we humans so obtuse, that we do not see a pattern here? But, that is a question of a separate story.