As We Think, So We Act

As We Think, So We Act

Time your optimism and your pessimism to come up tops, most times

In an economic downturn due to a pandemic, famine, malfeasance by large financial organizations, poor governance, trade wars and real wars, and other assorted reasons, people respond to the economic situation in two ways as it pertains to their life and their livelihood:

a.   It is going to get worse

b.   The worst is over; it is going to get better

People who believe “it is going to get worse” take measures that deepen the overall perception of crisis. They hoard and clean up departmental shelves leaving everyone else bereft of daily necessities creating a real crisis. Those who are more measured in their response, the “it is going to get better” lot, adapt and make do with less or with nothing.  

In financial markets, such behavior and attitude spawn the ‘bear market’ of pessimism and the ‘bull market’ of optimism. A bear lumbers. A bull charges.

Optimism or pessimism are ‘congenital’ traits that are not necessarily good or bad attributes of a person. In excess everything is generally bad. The two traits are ‘situational’ and ‘personality’ driven.

The pessimists tend to be less demanding of themselves than the optimists. They prefer balance in their life than the highs and lows which is the wont of an optimist.

An optimist by his very nature tends to do better than a pessimist simply because he (the male pronoun is used for convenience only) takes more risks and is willing to bear the downsides of the risks.

A pessimist generally vets and reviews every decision before committing and in the process gets most of the decision right, but makes far fewer of them i.e. when not beset by an ‘analysis-paralysis’ syndrome.

An optimist responds to opportunities as they emerge with a go-no-go approach to decision-making and in the balance does better. Quantity begets quality. He does not grieve or become inconsolable when things don’t go his way. His argument is ‘you cannot win them all’ and with the nonchalance characteristic of him, he just moves on to the next thing. There is no slack in his pace. No moping over the loss or unbridled celebration over the win.

For an optimist winning is routine. He would not be an optimist if it was not so. It’s always ‘where is the next mountain to climb’. He approaches overcoming life’s challenges as a quest, not as a task.

In a business-as-usual situations both optimists and pessimists balance out the risks and rewards and their attitudes do not make any waves that call for alarm, oversight or correction.

However, in a crisis situation like an economic slowdown or a pandemic, we need more optimists and some pessimists to move things forward boldly and yet have some checks and balances. What we absolutely do not need is the 24/7 news channels and their hourly prognosis of doom.

At such times, it usually comes down to the individual. It is rare to see statues of ‘committees’ in parks or city junctions. It is always the individual who steps up; others follow. We need the ‘Howard Roark’ in such situations – the protagonist in The Fountainhead, a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand, a Russian-American author.

Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who designs modernist buildings and refuses to compromise with an architectural establishment unwilling to accept innovation.

A major mass-based programme such as fighting an economic slowdown or a pandemic demands boldness, innovation and empathetic bonding with the masses to get the job done – done well – and done for good.

In these times we need optimists who believe such slowdowns (or pandemics that cause it) are a call to re-examine all our assumptions and beliefs about how things work.

The business-as-usual attitude must seize; must become pariah to decision-makers. Failure to act makes what was manageable, a burgeoning crisis. It brings up the Churchill and Roosevelt in some and the Donald J Trump in others ‘thrashing around for the proverbial straw’.

All our assumptions and beliefs of crisis management is upended by the time you recognize there is a crisis, and importantly, of a very different nature. To live in denial is the default setting for a normal human being. Not so with true leaders.

Especially when dealing with something so totally new as the novel Covid 19 virus, that attaches itself to a phenomenon, such as global movement of people, at a peak travel period (year-end), whizzing the merry and the  brooding, shoulder-to-shoulder, in tubes literally – trains, planes and subways – breathing in fresh and recirculated air – and some droplets of spurned and abandoned virus.

In a pandemic of the nature of Covid 19 of 2019-20, a highly contagious respiratory impairment disease, containment of community transmission is directly linked to containment of the disease.

While the whole world struggled and still struggles with containment, the little state of Kerala in India with 35 million people (half of UK and tenth of US population with 7 and 4 percent per capita income of the two countries, respectively) did it successfully, going by the book: following the WHO protocol to the ‘T’ ‘I’ and ‘S’: test, trace, isolate and support.

The architect behind the successful containment is a kindly, cheerful, bespectacled former secondary school science teacher, KK Shailaja (Teacher), who has acquired many nicknames including one promoted by The Guardian, ‘The coronavirus slayer!’ in an article published on Thurs 14 May 2020 titled ‘The coronavirus slayer! How Kerala’s rock star health minister helped save it from Covid-19’.

More about this story read: ‘Covid-10 Coronavirus Slayer - KK Shailaja (Teacher) - Kerala's Rock Star Health Minister’ in my LinkedIn Posts and on the blog.

It does not always pay to be an optimist. Some pessimism on the enormity of the task, such as battling an infectious disease like Covid-19 makes for a good starting point.

Pessimism on levels of preparation to combat the disease would certainly have helped save lives in countries that took the disease lightly or lightly experimented with concepts such as ‘herd immunity’ which we have learned in retrospect, ended tragically for Sweden and the UK.

By ‘timing’ our optimism and our pessimism, situationally, we can come up tops, most times.