Getting Our Thinking Right
The harder we work the luckier we become. South Africa has been a lucky country………only because we have worked hard. How often have we been at the crossroads of disaster………at the edge of a precipice? But it has not happened. We have worked hard and avoided Armageddon.
We need luck again, as we build up to the election at the end of May 2024. We are at the crossroads again and must work hard for that lucky outcome.
The first message in getting our thinking right is hard work. The next is the knowledge and information to make decisions. So much disinformation out there, fake news. Masses of information/disinformation come from the media on the internet. It can come from anywhere around the world, It can all be lies.
We have to be wary especially of politicians. Donald Trump told his many supporters the election was stolen from him, despite prominent judges’ ruling from sound evidence, it was not stolen from him. People believed it because Trump told them.
THINKING LIKE A SCIENTIST
Thinking like a scientist is one aid to keep us on the right track. Adam Grant in his book Think Again, The Power of Knowing What You ’Don’t Know, advocated that one should avoid 1) preaching 2) prosecuting 3) politicking. But when communicating one should think like a scientist.
On any relevant subject, a question should be formulated. Scientists might call this a hypothesis it might be more understandable if we call it a contestable statement. It then needs to be debated with all the reliable information from different sources.
Factfulness
Another book to quote from is Hans Rosling’s book “Factfulness, The Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things are Better than You Think.” Rosling is critical of the Media for focusing on the bad news or news that is misleading.
The book confirms that despite all the uncertainties, the world has progressed, resulting in the improvement of the quality our life in most countries of the world. Not enough attention is paid to this, Rosling describes this in a chapter titled, “The Negativity Instinct.”
In this chapter, he gives graphs of 16 Bad things that have decreased e.g. battle deaths peaked at 201 deaths per 100,000 people in 1942 (WW2) to one per 100,000 people in 2016. He also records 16 good things increasing e.g. Women’s right to vote. In 1893 only one country allowed women to vote, in 2017 this went up to 193 countries.
The Gap Instinct is most revealing, we talk of rich and poor countries or developed or developing countries. It is dramatic to present things in simple terms, it can be misleading......Rosling calls this a mega misconception to divide the world in two. It heightens an image of conflict, it is binary, and it makes things right or wrong.
In SA, Thabo Mbeki who served as President after Nelson Mandela, went public saying South Africa has two economies one black and poor the other white and rich. It was certainly a dramatic thing to say and received the attention of the media.
Before returning to Mbeki, Rosling's first point on this subject goes back to 1965, then, you could divide the world into rich and poor, but not in 2017.
Rosling proposed four levels of standards of living.
The four levels proposed by Rosling take into account a wider range of factors. These factors include life expectancy, literacy rates, child mortality rates, income per capita, and access to healthcare and education.
These levels are:
Level 1: Very poor countries with low life expectancy, low literacy rates, and high child mortality rates.
Level 2: Poor countries that are making progress, but still have a long way to go.
Level 3: Middle-income countries that are becoming more developed.
Level 4: Rich countries with high standards of living.
The four levels can help us to understand the progress that countries are making. Moving from Level 1 to Level 2, making significant progress. This information can be used to make better decisions about how to help countries develop. Only 200 years ago 85% of the world's population was at level 1
Rosling’s Four Levels: each model above represents a billion people, 7 billion in 2017
Four levels replace the world being split into developed and developing nations.
Each figure represents a billion people.
Google Gemini provided the following figures on the progress of South Africa (see below) .
South Africa has made significant progress in moving people out of Level 1 and into Levels 2 and 3. There are still a significant number of people living in Level 1, and the country still has some way to go, before more people reach Level 3.
The progress is encouraging, the ANC government can take credit for firstly reducing level 1 from 40% to 10% and increasing levels 2 and 3 combined from 60% to 85%.
The percentage of South Africans that have moved up the levels from 1990 to 2023.
Hopefully, Thabo Mbeki has read this book, he would see how helpful the four categories are compared to the generalization of only seeing the binary conflict of two economies. The figures above show the progress South Africa has made.
THE ROLE OF LEADERSHIP IN SOUTH AFRICA
In these next elections, there is a huge responsibility,for both followers and leaders to base decisions on the correct information.
Tshilidzi Marwala in his book “Leading in the 21st Century” said.
“It became apparent to me that due to the complexity of problems that face humanity today, those that don’t know should not lead”.
Marwala was Vice-Chancellor and principal of UJ (Johannesburg University). He is South Africa’s foremost authority on AI and more especially on 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution). Marwala is a leader in his field.
Leaders and politicians should know before they lead. Subject political policies to scientific thinking, form a contestable statement and subject it to a debate. Science wants proof that statements are correct. It means often doubting what you hear.
Marwala also found the term politicism. Politicism is one of the reasons why our economy in South Africa is shrinking. Other countries in Africa have also gone through this. This happens because African governments focus on dominating their economies…...it shrinks the economy, resulting in governments running out of tax revenue to pay for services and development for the people. This instead of partnerships with the private sector and other means to support private enterprise., We will discuss this further in future blogs.
NON-ADVERSARIAL CONFLICT
I turn to two other sages in our life: Firstly, David Attenborough after spending a lifetime showing us our beautiful planet, on TV programmes. He has now been active working on documentaries and his books in particular “A Life on Our Planet”, “My Witness Statement, and “Vision for the Future”. He has informed us on Climate Change.
In a non-adversarial way, without blaming anyone and seeking conflict, he points out the threat to the whole planet. What we are seeing now in climate change can only get worse unless we reduce the greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He doesn’t even get angry with those who are in denial or those saying we can’t do anything so forget climate change.
What he does is point out new developments, including business opportunities, in the Green Economy and the Circular Economy.......could this be the beginning of a new industrial revolution?
The second sage is our own Nelson Mandela. His approach to ending apartheid made peace happen in our country; his approach was non-adversarial. Imagine if Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, after the horror attack by Hamas, had laid down his sword and made the courageous decision to negotiate peace. He would have had the support of the whole world. He has not learned anything from Nelson Mandela’s example.
In South Africa sustaining peace created the opportunity to build up our country’s economy and start the journey to eliminate poverty including in Africa. Other countries have done this – Germany, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Costa Rica and more.
It is that decent life that business management can make happen for all. We have to move away from thinking only politicians can make this happen. Business has to be more assertive.
In the next blog, I will cover the environment under which businesses operate in two articles. The first article will cover the huge impact that the National elections at the end of May are going to make on the business environment. The second will cover more of the universal environment of the world we live.