You just can’t Predict

Reading Non Fiction is pain and reading books by Nicholas Nassim Taleb is hell of an onerous task. The makers of Blue Whale challenge should have thought of reading his books as one the task. Nicholas Nassim Taleb is a very famous author who came to limelight in Finance and Risk Management world through his books Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness and Anti Fragile.

So what is Black Swan?

It was accepted belief all over the world for centuries that Swans are white in color. It was a proposition made on empirical evidence which was never challenged. Later something amusing happened. Australia was discovered. It was also discovered for first time that Swans in Australia are Black in color. So, one observation shattered the years of universally accepted fact that Swans are only white in color. All the Ornithology and Biology books world over had to be changed due to this one new discovery.

Coming back to my question, what are Black Swans?

They are events that are immensely rare, have huge impact and retrospectively they are predictable. Taleb goes on explaining how not to miss the ‘Black Swan’ events in his book. One sentence that I liked the most in his book is “We can get closer to truth by negative instances, not by verification. It is misleading to build a general rule from observed facts”. How to be immune (in case there is possibility) from Black Swans? There is a whole book written to answer this question i.e. Anti Fragile.

I happened to attend a conclave recently on Project Management which had marvelous speakers. One of the speakers was Mr. Rohit Chaudhary who commanded the fleet of Artillery Guns during Kargil War. He spoke on Project Management during scenarios called VUCA which stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. He spoke how there is no turning back or stopping when war is going on. He was commanding team of Engineers that was responsible for artillery guns.  It was ordered that heavy shelling should be continued nonstop else soldiers may lose life. Guns had undergone heavy wear and tear, there were shortages of crucial spares and soldiers were exhausted due to long travel. Such challenging situations demand balanced and out of box thinking. Rohit told present Project Managers that they should be ready and accept the disruptions during Project Execution. It is only then you can come across solutions. Another session on similar topic had IPS officer Mr. VV Lakshminarayan who is Addl. DGP of Maharashtra. He shared his experience of handling riots during at Ramabai Nagar during 1997 and his investigation of Satyam Computers Scam. His talk was around situations where months of Project Management and planning(Yes, Police too do Project Management) are changed within a day because of changing dynamics. In such scenarios you have to keep your eyes and ears open. Take help from experts but do not ignore the advice from foot soldiers. Non-conventional situations demand non-conventional solutions. Keep convention aside during crisis and throw away the rule book.