Fog of War (Part II)

(continued from Part I)

4. Maximize efficiency

A significant wastage of efforts ensues when decisions are on live-wire and desperate moves seem to be the last resort out. Inefficient planning will not only delay the achievement of the objective but also put heavy drain on resources thereby significantly altering the strategic advantages. It s imperative to look at the efficacy with which success is being achieved. A brute force method is only good so long as micro-management is not required. Otherwise, somebody has to hard-sell an efficient solution, which defies established thumb rules, to his/her superiors.

During WW-II, the Allied forces were initially using China as the airbase for its Japan bombing operations. The B-29 bombers were being flown in from Kansas, USA to Arunachal Pradesh, India. They would then be loaded with fuel and fly across the Himalayas to China airbases. The fuel would be off-loaded for creating reserves for mainland Japan bombing operations. The Chinese air-field were constructed by manual labor. The whole operation was insanely inefficient. It was only when the action arena was transferred to Pacific (and Mariana) theater that a swift progress was made by US against Japan. The decision of transferring entire war-machinery from one theater to another would have required great conviction as well as convincing.

5. Proportionality should be guideline in war

Every war has its own magnitude of what is acceptable as "collateral damage". However, both parties should adhere to the limits of this number. A mindless action by one party (maybe another manifestation of "brute force") could blow apart this unwritten rule of war. Killing of civilians, women and children has always been deplored when the winner tramples over the vanquished. But as human race builds better and better weapons of mass destruction, the idea of proportionality of destruction has been buried by the desire to win (and experiment) in the minds of military leaderships.

US dropped two atomics bombs on Japan after they had destroyed some 67 Japanese cities to the tune of 50% to 90%. On a single night of fire bombing (using "incendiary bombs") on Tokyo, more than hundred thousand people were annihilated. Tokyo was then primarily a wooden city and fire bombs wreaked havoc. Dropping two atomic bombs after causing so much destruction was an act completely out of proportion to whatever had been the scale of US-Japan war , unarguably the most brutal war in the history of mankind.

6. Get the data

The most obvious deductions don't require geniuses to figure them out. But, even the not obvious ones need not wait for geniuses to unearth them. Relevant data can be the crucial differentiating factor between circuitous, futile analysis of problems as opposed to hitting the bull's eye. Data can put into perspective the subjective judgments and give a replicable framework to arrive at insightful conclusions. In the wake of missing data, a successful decision will appear a lucky guess in retrospect. However, a word of caution - data without proper tools and methodology to analyze is no good than junk.

Fog of War

Robert McNamara is former US Secretary of Defense. He has served under both Kennedy as well as Johnson administration. In essence, this makes him a key player in two very important events in the Cold War era - the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. BBC produced a documentary "Fog of War" (2004) in which Robert McNamara narrates "11 lessons" he has learnt through his experiences by living the Cold War 24 X 7 for 7 years (1961 - 68) of his life. McNamara is attributed by some to be a "war-monger" responsible for causing heavy losses by not reducing US involvement in Vietnam. However, his these insights should be taken from viewpoint of a skilled manager rather than a war hero. Here is my own interpretation of these "11 lessons" coupled with the facts narrated in the documentary.

1. Empathize with your enemy

One must understand the mental state of the enemy. Every person, especially if he is leading others, wants to walk away from a conflict feeling vindicated. If the situation is clearly understood, one may actually afford to let the enemy "feel" victorious (or at least vindicated) to have more fruitful outcomes in one's own favor. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy let Khrushchev tell Russians that the Commies were successful in "preventing" an American invasion on Cuba; while at the other hand, Americans were able to get the nuclear warheads dismantled from Cuba without having to shed a single drop of blood. Khrushchev got something to give back to his countrymen out of the conflict he had chosen to escalate and Americans were happy to let the Commies believe that they had bullied USA while achieving the real purpose of diffusing the impending nuclear war.

2. Rationality will not save us

The belief in Game Theory that all actors are "rational" does not work in when human beings are under pressure. One cannot trust "enemy's rationality" to plan out his/her moves. The following snippet of conversation proves this by revealing how scaringly close the world had reached the brink of a nuclear war because of "unexpected irrational" behavior.

When Fidel Castro was asked by McNamara almost 20 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis:

1. Did he know the nuclear warheads were already fitted into the Russian missiles (i.e. missiles were "launch ready")?
2. If you knew that, would you have recommended to Khrushchev to use them in face of an US attack?
3. If he had used them, what would have happened to Cuba?

Castro replied:

1. I knew they were there.
2. I would not *have* recommended it to Khrushchev, I *did* recommend that to Khrushchev.
3. We would have been totally destroyed.

3. There's something beyond one's self

One has to observe and adhere to the values which are extrinsic to the conflict situation. The war may tend to make one weak, immoral or deceitful; but how much one succumbs is a matter of strength of personal will-power as well as the gravity of situation. Also, beyond the high adrenaline action, one should be (in an ideal situation) able to love his family and cherish the happy moments spent with them.

(to be contd..)

Better than salsa

Stupid as it may sound, the forces that be have made me formally answer why I am fit to be part of a computer gaming community. An excerpt from same:

Q - What are your expectations from the community?
A - To allow to prove that a left arrow tap (“dodge” move) can be as scintillating as a salsa step.

Q - Any prior experience in gaming?
A - Extract from my 'last working day' mail to gamer’s club at workplace:

“I bow to the gallery and take farewell from the arena. It was an honor to fight the warriors. As they said in Troy, 'I walked with the giants'. So long, till our IP addresses ping the same server for another round of gore."

This Summers

I was alive and kicking for the past 2 months. Summer Internship time. It was great to be back in actual work atmosphere, to tackle the ambiguities and organization hierarchies, to hear middle management tell "this is how business is done", to know that its a bad world out there and there are no pretenses to portray the contrary.

My project was making a business case for a project to be taken up by my organization. It involved aspects right from demand estimation to evaluating business models to making breakeven analysis to chalk-out implementation details. Here are some of my personal learnings from the Summer Internship. They may be particular to the nature of project and may not be relevant in entirety for all MBA Summer Internships.

1. Identify the organization hierarchy
2. Know the operational touch point in each deptt.
3. Understand the business

• Nature of business
• Market
• Competitors
• Pricing - Landed cost at each point in supply chain, nature and reasons for margins in each case
• Customer segments
• Customer expectations
• Ground situation where the product is used (perceived quality and utility)
• Recent changes in the market - arrival of new competitors, changes in market of primary product if the product under study is a derived product
• Expected trends in near future and in long term
• Macroeconomic, social and political factors which have implications on business regulations, consumer behavior, supply chain relationships and logistics.

4. Company's history - past lows, success/failures of high risk projects/ turnarounds
5. Changes in organization structure, new management changes in recent past, effects of this on policies and business
6. Stakeholders in the project

• Whom is the report intended for?
• Is it a "recommendation" or a "validation"? A "recommendation" is used by middle management to get buy-in from senior management. A "validation" is commissioned by senior management to make middle management work and prove that the senior's vision or gut feeling is quantitatively correct
• Are there opposing views in the organization on the final decision? If yes, why? Which side are you on? How do you defend your recommendation in weak/grey areas of analysis.
• Which party is stronger? You are working under which party?

7. Gathering information

• Generate contacts - they will lead to top or middle management of other organizations (logistics provider, distributors, marketing agency etc.)
• Get the details of field and/or operational person - the most important source of info which will shape the analysis
• Open both the formal and informal channels of communication. Informal info comes only from people in field, who are closer to the customer than to the power dynamics in management
• Keep making sense of the info and how it is helping in the final evaluation of the business idea. Don't pursue a line of thought if it seems academically sound but doesn't have data available or does not make business sense.
• Data may not be readily available. Try to find secondary data if primary data is not available. Assume percentages where there is no data and ask the relevant people in field or middle management to approve the assumptions or correct it

8. Analysis

• Make a tree structure of different decision paths
• Make a 2-3 level analysis by generating options, evaluating and recommending for the various implementation details of the business
• Make a PPT which can navigate through these different paths - use hyperlinks, which can easily take one back at the parent node at any point
• Use sensitivity analysis where assuming some numbers as input data to show that if the actual is off by 5% or 10% either ways, how much will it affect the final result
• Use graphs judiciously so that the visual representation of data directly makes that impact ("moment of enlightenment") which you felt when the data started making sense to you. Each chart-style has its own nature of impact. Pie chart - best represents share/contribution. Scatter plot - best represents trade-off analysis
• Put charts on PPT and use hyperlinks to invoke the Excel files which have calculation. People assume that the numbers have been worked and don’t want to see Excel sheets. They want to see them only when the final result or trend reported by you does not fit the perception they had been carrying about that matter. Then you will need to convince them with the data and calculations
• Insert extra worksheet in each Excel file which contains data sources - Name of the person, Actual data file. This gives credibility to input data
• Show incremental recommendations after analyzing each sub-area of decision to show that you are slowly building up the solution to the bigger problem

9. Validation

• Try to validate and "stress-test" your recommendation
• If possible, try to run some simulation by inputting live/actual data to show what will be the performance of your proposed solution. This analysis may throw surprises and suggest area which need to be explored apart from the problem in question. Maybe the root-cause may come out to be somewhere else.

10. Winding up

• Even after the appraisal, get a feel of what is the opinion of various stakeholders on the both the analysis and results. People will open up earlier withheld information and/or personal opinions in order to either support or invalidate your recommendation. This will let you know what to watch out for when doing a similar analysis.
• Write thank-you mails to all who have helped with their insights and data collection. Don't divulge actual recommendations to parties outside the organization.

11. Organization skills

• Understand your official level in the organization
• Try to maintain the hierarchy structure if its strictly followed in the organization
• Socialize with the peer or immediate junior level employees of the organization. The informal info on both the boss as well as the project is much helpful
• Get to know the HR systems, various job profiles, satisfaction levels, possible career growth etc. so that it helps to make a decision in case you are offered a PPO.