What's in a game?

Soccer is easily the most popular sport in the world, both in terms of players and viewership. And possibly the only sport today that has remained indifferent to technological advances, because success continues to be determined by such elementary considerations as physical stamina, skill and teamwork. The sheer thrills and rushes of adrenalin offered by the game are unmatched. Fortunately or not, soccer is no longer a game but a national obsession as highlighted by the events following the world cup qualifier between Ireland and France.

After a 1-1 draw, France managed to scrape through in extra time with a golden goal set up by Thierry Henry, one of the game’s leading strikers. However, Henry used his arm to control the ball, which went unnoticed by the referee. The Irish were devastated, and to lose because of a refereeing error was too much to digest. The team protested the result and wanted a replay, which is understandable. What came as a surprise was the call for a replay from the Irish Prime Minister himself! And he even brought up the matter with Mr. Sarkozy on the sidelines of an EU meeting!! Now, Irish fans are protesting outside the French embassy.

My point is beyond how to deal with refereeing errors and the dying element of “sportsman spirit”. I find it incredible that an entire nation can take the result of a game so seriously. We have seen it happen in India too every time Sachin gets out on a dubious LBW decision, and more so if we go on to lose the game, which is often the case. Why are we unable to see these events as part of the game and move on? After all, India losing matches has no direct impact on our lives. If anything, we will stop following cricket and put our time to better use. Technically, even players should not bother much for they are rarely paid on the basis on the result (unless in a tournament or in a qualifier such as this where they lose out on games). But in a bilateral series such as the Ind-SL one currently underway, how does the result matter?

The answer probably lies in the structure of our brain, which has three components: the reptilian brain, limbic brain and neocortex. The reptilian brain is instinctive and reacts immediately to stimuli without thinking, which makes reflexes possible. On the flip side, it also leads us to automatically react without thinking, and probably explains the current Irish rage. We get attached to our team and become one with it. So when the team loses, we lose. But before we can step back and analyze, our reptilian brain has perceived this as a threat and forced us to respond. Once you make a move based on gut, it is nearly impossible to let things go and reconcile with reality. Instead, we end up with rationalizing and justifying our stance.

The trick, of course, is to suppress the reptilian instincts and let the limbic brain and neocortex take over. The limbic brain processes emotions whereas the neocortex is responsible for reasoning and thinking. Apparently, studies show that our neocortex is severely underutilized. There are ways to address this, some of which I learned in the MCC and AMCC courses at IIM-A, but more on that later.

Today's news, Tomorrow's history

Until last week, swine flu deaths were prominently reported on the front pages of leading national dailies.  But now, they have been relegated to a mere statistic. Has swine flu suddenly become less dangerous? Is it no longer the epidemic it was made out to be?

Hardly, but our imagination has moved on. Even Jaswant Singh is so last week. Force India and Fisichella are in. And the debate on Pokhran II is brewing and will probably be the next big story. The aphorism that public memory is short sounds so true, and if anything, it seems to get shorter. But what is often overlooked is that memory can be easily rekindled, especially in the Internet age as is beautifully captured in a scene in the film, Notting Hill.

Julia Roberts, playing an American actress in the movie, ends up spending the night at Hugh Grant's place. The next morning papparazzi show up and pics are snapped. Julia is all hyper about the situation, but Hugh asks her to chill for the public memory is remarkably short and this too shall pass. But Julia retorts that it will pass for him, but every time a journo wants to write something about her in the future, he will search the archives, come across this image, and make sure to print it. (Am trying to find the exact lines. Even IMDB doesnt have it.)

I guess my point is if you are in the news for the wrong reasons, the entire nation doesnt have to actively track your fortunes. It only takes one person to run into you several years after the incident and exclaim, "That was you? Wasn't it?"

Dogs and Culture

Came across this, well, interesting piece of news. Some guy in New Zealand barbecued his pet dog. Inevitably, the SPCA raised a hue and cry and came close to taking legal action, but realized there was no case because the dog was killed painlessly.  Usually such events only get a couple of lines, but this was a full-blown story with interesting details.

The incident took place in Auckland but the man originally came from Tonga, where dog meat is perfectly acceptable. Why was he so desperate as to eat his pet dog? Apparently, the wife was bored with it. So what better way than to make a meal of it! I dont know if they have a 911 number for SPCA over there, but they seem to have reacted pretty quickly. "The dog had been skinned and partially charred" when SPCA arrived!! Man, in our country, even an ambulance wouldnt reach in that time. Unfortunately for SPCA, it is legal in NZ to kill animals so long as they are killed swiftly and painlessly. The guy hit the dog on its head with a hammer to render it unconscious and then slit its throat - apparently the standard procedure of killing animals for meat.

The SPCA is disturbed that it is legal in NZ for people to kill and eat their own pets, and are pushing for a change. But here's the part that intrigued me. SPCA advised the man that it was not part of the "culture" to kill and eat pets. My guess is this Tonga region must have be home to natives or aborigines who were here before us (going by the fact that dog meat is still acceptable there). And now we have the gall to tell them what is culturally appropriate!!

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/no-charges-man-barbecued-dog-2919419

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/spca-calls-law-change-after-dog-bbq-2919922

Outliers and Hofstede

MBA is a great leveler. The heady excitement of macroeconomics, finance and marketing is tempered by the fatal boredom of HR and OB. And one topic that inevitably gets raised in HR and OB is the Hofstede’s Index.

Geert Hofstede, a Dutchman, profiled the behavior of people in various countries and concluded that cultural differences can be explained on a four-point scale: Power Distance, Individualism vs. Collectivism, Masculinity vs. Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance. B-schools and academia adore such neat models and, next to Porter’s Five Forces, Hofstede’s Index has to be the most frequently used tool to explain away the failures of MNCs. It makes you sound intelligent and gets you points for class participation. Beyond that, it seemed useless. Until I read Outliers.

Gladwell’s latest book attempts to search beyond the obvious traits of successful people – that is intelligence, hard work and perseverance. They are important, he agrees, but claims there is a little something, called luck, which actually catapults them into a different league. Like his previous books, Outliers makes for interesting reading, but what made me sit up and take notice was his analysis of plane crashes.

Here is a chilling recount of the 1990 Colombian Avianca plane crash in New York. The aircraft is desperately running out of fuel, but has not been given permission to land. The captain asks the first engineer to contact ATC and tell them it’s an emergency. The first officer contacts ATC, and among other things, mentions they are running out of fuel. Planes are expected to be low on fuel as they reach the destination so ATC doesn’t give this much weight. But rather inexplicably, the first engineer doesn’t push.

The situation makes no sense, until one looks at it through Hofstede’s index. Colombia is a country with relatively high power distance, where people are more respectful of authority. Hence, no questions were asked. If the first engineer was an American, Gladwell claims, the conversation would have taken a different course. Reading this sent a chill down my spine, but it seems airlines world over have recognized such manifestations of cultural differences in everyday interactions, and have taken measures to train their pilots and crew.

Jai Hofstede!

The Iraq War

I am not a Bush supporter, nor am I his worst critic. But, my sympathies are strongly with the President in the matter of the Iraq war. Several damning revelations since the start of war, most notably the CIA's intelligence failure, have caused not only Americans but people around the world to question the decision. In fact, the Republican party paid a heavy price in the mid-term elections held in October 2006. With the perfect 20/20 hindsight that we all possess, we can now say the war was a mistake. Even Bush, in the inner recesses of his soul,  must agree.

But, what was it like in 2003? As the President of the most powerful nation on earth, but one that was attacked by terrorists on its own soil, with another rogue nation threatening to wipe you off the face of earth, what are your options? Sit back, relax and wait to see if Saddam makes a move? And if Saddam had nothing to hide, why was he so reluctant to allow UN inspections? Maybe, diplomacy was an option, but I doubt Saddam was interested in assuaging the anxities of the US. He probably relished being a thorn in Bush's posterior. So, I guess Bush decided to err on the side of caution.

Unfortunately for Bush, it turned out Saddam never had any WMDs. Or he somehow got rid of them. I am not familiar with the theory that the sole purpose of the war was to gain control of Iraq's oil resources. I wont comment on it, but I will say this: In this day and age, it is almost impossible to capture a sovereign nation and control its natural resources. Anyway, in my opinion, here's where the US faltered: after attacking Iraq and capturing Saddam, the US forces should have retreated. Bush has no right to use the taxpayer's money to try and establish democracy in Iraq. The US has done its part by liberating millions of Iraqis from the dictatorial rule of Saddam. Too bad if the Iraqis cant make something out of this. If the Iraqis dont have a leader that can unite all the warring factions and provide decisive leadership, then I guess they deserve to be caught in the throes of a civil war.

World's Most Powerless Person

The American President is easily the world’s most powerful person although Osama Bin Laden is giving him a run for his money. But, do you wonder who the world’s most powerless person is? For obvious reasons, I am keeping ordinary citizens like you and me out of this race. And to make the search meaningful, I’ll limit my quest to national leaders, and in that, to people in positions that at least have a semblance of power. This will automatically eliminate choices like the President of India, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Iraq and the likes.

You should have guessed the winner by now. Yes, it’s our dear Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh. I don’t think there’s even a close second. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Singh. On the contrary, I believe he’s the kind of Prime Minster we’ve been desperately searching for. However, a Prime Minster also needs power, and that is where Mr. Singh lacks.

Mr. Singh was not the preferred choice for this position. In fact, he was never in contention until Mr. Sharad Pawar caused a furor over Mrs. Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. Mr. Singh has Mr. Pawar to thank as much as Mrs. Gandhi for his elevation as the leader of Republic India. Sadly, Mr. Singh was not chosen for his financial acumen or political wisdom. It was his image of being a soft-liner that won him the job, and on top of that, I don’t think he had any say over who got into his Cabinet. Even with that, if the Congress had secured a majority in Lok Sabha by itself, Mr. Singh would have had control over how his Government is run, despite Mrs. Gandhi holding the remote that is. Now, he has to work his way with the likes of Mr. Laloo Prasad Yadav, and some of the political allies and supporters of the UPA don’t even belong in the same country. Yes, I refer to the Communist parties. The CPM and CPI have nothing in common with the Congress except their shared hatred of the BJP: Good enough to win an election and form a Government, but hardly sufficient to formulate progressive policies. (It is some consolation that Buddadeb Bhattacharya, Chief Minister of West Bengal, subscribes to a more realistic view of the industrial situation in India.)

So, Mr. Singh finds himself in an unenviable position, where he has the power to sign any law that he wants, but the Congress has tied his hands and the Left keeps hiding the pen.