Blog Odyssée

A tweet thread by @yaneerbaryam

I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years.

There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia).

Summarizing:

1.Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented.

1/-

— Yaneer Bar-Yam (@yaneerbaryam) December 13, 2020

I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years.

There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia).

Summarizing:

1. Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented.
2. Mitigation (slowing transmission) versus elimination (stopping transmission).
3. Gradually responding to increasing levels of infection by imposing greater restrictions which enables the infection rate to grow (red zone strategy), versus starting with high restrictions to arrest transmission and relaxing restrictions only when the number of new cases is so low that contact tracing or localized short term action can stop community transmission (green zone strategy, including localized “fire fighting”).
4. Trying to keep economic activity and travel as open as possible but perpetuating the economic harm and imposing yoyo restrictions, versus making an initial sacrifice of economic activity and travel in order to benefit from the rapid restoration of normal economic activity.
5. Focusing attention on few individuals resistant to social action because of shortsightedness or selfishness, versus recognizing the vast majority do the right thing if given clear guidance and support, which is what matters for success, as elimination is a robust strategy.
6. Incorrectly thinking that this is a steady state situation where balance between counter forces must be maintained versus a dynamic situation in which rapid action can shift conditions from a bad losing regime to a good winning one.
7. Naive economic thinking of a tradeoff between economics and fighting the virus, versus realizing a short time economic hit will enable opening normally and restoring the economy (as recognized by McKinsey, BCG, IMF and other correct economic analyses).
8. We have to “live with the virus” versus we can eliminate the virus and return to normal social and economic conditions.
9. Waiting for high-tech vaccination to be a cure all, versus using right-tech classic pandemic isolation/quarantine of individuals and communities to completely stop transmission.
10. Considering the virus as primarily a medical problem of treating individuals and individual responsibility for prevention of their own infection, versus defeating the virus as a collective effort based in community action, galvanized by leaders providing clear information, a public health system engaging in community-based prevention of transmission, and the treatment of patients is, by design, as limited as possible.

Yet another acronym… VUCA nails our times as Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous and the VUCA-adapted behavior as Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Agility.

Let’s embrace it!

Sketchnote graphic by @woodard_julie.

Yet another pearl from Helen Bevan (@helenbevan).

Many organisations are planning their recovery/restoration/reimagined phase, post #Covid19. At present, I see a lot of teams creating radical, transformational ideas but their action planning approach to make it happen is highly transactional. We need transformation follow up too pic.twitter.com/jagv4eUrkm

— Helen Bevan (@helenbevan) September 23, 2020

Transactional follow up

Is focused on delivering an action plan, achieving a certain set of steps to move towards some outcome. It is surface level.

Transformational follow up

Is focused on the whole, the individuals, the team, the system. It goes below the surface. It helps a team or system create an awareness of the factors contributing to the achievement of their challenge or goal. Often these contributing factors stem from limiting beliefs, assumptions and values formed from past experiences.

Source: Based on work by Toby Sinclair (@TobySinclair_).

By Adam Zyglis (@adamzyglis)

Graphic from economist.com based on data from this document

Never mind Covid-19, become good at something else instead! (Tweet from @johnkellden)

1) be curious.

That’s it

Ways to future proof your career.

1) be curious.

That’s it

— Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin) January 31, 2020

From AlphaGo Zero Explained In One Diagram

From Power from the people: Rural Electrification brought more than lights

Sudden violence of obviousness

From Samantha Lee and Shana Lebowitz in Business Insider

Text by Sophie Fontanel (@SophieFontanel)

Make sure you’re always on the other side—by which I mean also on the other side. Don’t listen to those who insist you should take sides; as you know, a side is only one side. Cultivate uncertainty, which is synonymous with freedom, and also gentleness—put your hands over your ears when people tell you that gentleness is a weakness. Carry on being unsure; it’s better than being a safe bet. Read books by people whose opinions you don’t share; read Paul Morand’s Journal inutile and recognize its limitations; try to understand arguments that antagonize you, even if you take pride in being on the right side, and are wise to be so.

Take me (you never know, the example might be instructive): I live my life on both sides. In my case, it revolves around literature. I’m puzzling to people, because I write novels while cultivating a passion for the trivial world of fashion. I have carved out my career in both worlds, without ever once taking either milieu seriously. As a novelist, I look at fashion as if it were made out of words. As a fashion critic, I look at the literary world through its style, and not just for the clothing (far from it!). This path that I have chosen to follow makes everything more difficult; I can’t seek refuge in the safety of a single world, and it is an uphill struggle for me to gain recognition from my peers. But in the end, by dint of being different, you manage to invent something new. All my life I have lived on the other side, and I have learned something very simple that should have been blindingly obvious: on the other side, you get a better view. That’s what being an artist is about. Life has opened my eyes to that.

Original text (in French) here

⁦@ACHSaccred⁩ CEO day Asia Pacific Forum with ⁦@helenbevan⁩ How to better engage staff involve them at the level of the issues not when you have decided on your solution. Use methods of relational social networks rather than broadcast methods pic.twitter.com/lNfeUgEjQO

— Bernie Harrison (@bernieharry) September 18, 2019