Of all the countries I’ve lived in, India is the most laid back in Proactive mode and absolutely the most charged up in Reactive mode.
After a near lifelong observation and contemplation of this topic, I’ve come to the conclusion that any given society can either be Proactive or Reactive, but not both.
Each society should focus on its strength. Absolutely nothing wrong in Reactive. 30 years ago, Tom Peters posited that the future would belong to companies that were agile and could react quickly to fast moving conditions, etc. Probably the same is true of nations as well.
More in the following tweets:
1.
A culture can be Proactive or Reactive but not both. Proactive requires asking uncomfortable questions during normal times, which is mistaken for negative thinking in faux positive cultures. https://t.co/hXAutJRkDB . #PreMortem #Risk pic.twitter.com/L3ZnmWBsRw
— GTM360 (@GTM360) April 10, 2020
2.
Yet another example that Indians & Indian companies excel at being reactive even if they suck at being proactive. https://t.co/HdIpphDWXf
— Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) March 8, 2020
3.
Just finished an emergency conference call with a very large payment company.
I identified complex issues they did not remotely anticipate by requesting to electronically distribute COVID-19 relief funds for the Federal Government.
An honor & privilege to assist.
Gratitude ?. https://t.co/HSHKJs3cyr
— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) March 27, 2020
This guy happens to be a leading payments consultant in the US.
In India, he’ll be booted out from a payments program meeting in a minute if he anticipates so many issues right at start.
India is resource starved. It cannot afford to spend money on scenario planning and providing for anticipated problems that may never happen. It has to let the chips fall where they might and take it from there.
USA. Jacksonville. Hurricane prone. Every year, drill. People round up their belongings, load them into their SUVs and skip town for 24-48 hours, then come back. So when a real hurricane strikes, they’re better prepared. Ditto terrorism and natural calamities, but not pandemic like coronavirus.
Sadly no. We do tornado/hurricane drills and fire drills but not pandemic drills. Obviously we should b/c some people are just not getting it.
— Melissa Mackey (@Mel66) March 27, 2020
India is also faux positive. Destiny driven. Don’t tempt fate thinking. You’re supposed to think only good things will happen in future.
Against that backdrop, why would you think of bad things in advance and plan for them? In other words, you will not bother about risk management and mitigation strategy, which lie at the heart of a proactive approach.
If patients experience such unusual reactions while taking Valium, such as increased aggressiveness, acute states of arousal, anxiety, fear, suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, increased muscle cramps, difficulty falling asleep, shallow sleep, treatment should be discontinued. The initiation of treatment or its abrupt withdrawal in patients with epilepsy or with a history of epileptic seizures may accelerate the development of seizures or epileptic status. Read more at https://asahiramen.com/valium-for-sale/.
Sorry but any survey that rates Germany below World #1 on anxiety (or #2 if Switzerland is on the list) is BS.
— Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) May 7, 2020
"India goes from manufacturing 0 to 200K PPE & N95 per day, in merely 45 days, that too under lockdown".
Stunning!
Further proof that reactive is India's competitive advantage & should be reinforced in the pursuit towards self-reliance. https://t.co/IgVttrb4e7 pic.twitter.com/ZzaZWmRRzV
— Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) May 13, 2020
An IT company in Pune moved desktop computers from office to homes of 40K employees in one week after Lockdown forced offices to be kept closed. T-Mobile in USA took 4 weeks to do the same thing for just 12K call center staff.