THE HORIZON MIND:
The Horizon Mind covers the 6 elements to each topic in the blogs; includes Overview, MyStory, MyAnalysis, Iconic References, Summary and What’s Next.
Horizon is defined as the line at which the earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet and it is defined as the limit of a person’s knowledge, experience, or interest.
The Horizon Mind discusses the overall topic with iconic references as resemblance of events to be remembered for the betterment of the future. Humans tend to believe things which have some kind of evidence attached to it.
1.0 OVERVIEW
The failure of The Titanic had cost 1,517 perished lives and the cost of The Titanic was USD7.5million in 1912 (USD203 trillion in 2020). Understood that The Titanic is not a business entity but we could look at the tragedy in a different perspective; enrich your perspective, embolden your journey.
As a business entity is an entity that involves the activity of making one's living or making money from its resources by producing or buying and selling products; such as goods and services. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit” and it is a journey with turbulences inevitably to be sustainable and reaching its goals.
Having a business entity requires a combination of resources to generate profit along with “disturbance” of its internal and external challenges.
The most tragic thing in the business journeys is The Titanic Mindsets that being carried forward till to date since 111 years ago.
An analogy for a thought is a business is similar to a ship sailing in the middle of an ocean from Point A to Point B. The goal of the ship is to reach the destination at Point B successfully. Regardless of who are on the ship at the moment of the sail, they are having the possible challenges of the internal problems and the external problems during the voyage. The key to survive in the journey is preparation and strategy for a safe and successful journey.
Crisis from different perspectives will only depleting your resources, instead do enrich your perspective; embolden your journey.
Businesses should have the ability to see every perspective of its stakeholders; be it from management, employees, governments, clients, customers and communities. By enriching the perspective of the stakeholders, businesses should be successful and excel to the next level.
Thus, based on some crucial but important business lessons from RMS Titanic (later known as The Titanic) struck a North Atlantic iceberg at 11:40pm in the evening of 14 April 1912 at a speed of 20.5 knots.
The failure of The Titanic had cost 1,517 perished lives and the cost of The Titanic was USD7.5million in 1912 (USD203 trillion in 2020). Understood that The Titanic is not a business entity but we could look at the tragedy in a different perspective; enrich your perspective, embolden your journey.
The iceberg scraped along the right side of the hull below the waterline, slicing open the hull between five of the adjacent watertight compartments.
"Iceberg, right ahead!" shouted lookout officer; Frederick Fleet, with only 37 seconds prior to the collision. After ringing the bridge, the rest was history for us to learn and avoid.
We always hear businesses closed and its employees suffered due to the laying off and the closures of the businesses. Thus, failure in business is really costly for everyone and we should avoid of being failed in the businesses.
Considered to be an “unsinkable” ship, Titanic was the largest and most luxurious cruise liner of its day, measuring more than 269 metres long from prow to stern—the length of four-city blocks—and 53 metres high, and weighing more than 46,000 tons. It boasted state-of-the-art technology, including a sophisticated electrical control panel, four elevators and an advanced wireless communications system that could transmit Morse Code.
It was considered to be an “unsinkable” ship, but the failure of The RMS Titanic had cost 1,522 lives perished and the cost of The RMS Titanic was USD7.5million in 1912 (USD203 trillion in 2020). It was doomed due to The Titanic Mindsets.
Failure is costly to everyone. One man’s fault is another man’s lesson.
Business owners and management team members of businesses should have the ability to see every perspectives of the stakeholders; be it from management, employees, governments, clients, customers and communities. By enriching the perspective of the stakeholders, businesses should be successful and excel to the next level.
History has recorded the failures of successful international companies namely Blockbuster, Nikon, Nokia, Kodak, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Toys R Us, My Space, Sears, Blackberry, WeWork and the list continues..
No one is immune to making mistakes – we are human, after all!
But if we simply apologize for the mistakes that we had done it but carry on with the same mistakes in the near future, thus we're in danger of repeating the same errors, over and over again.
When we don't learn from our mistakes, we inflict unnecessary stress on ourselves and on others, and we risk losing people's confidence and trust in us.
In this blog, shall we have a look at how do The Titanic Mindsets are still remained in our minds which should be avoided in our lives and our businesses.
2.0. MY STORY - Why am I sharing this writing with you?
As an observer and an analyst, I had been observing the things in my life and in front of me with a lot of questions such as why it is happening, why it failed and did they know how to solve it from the beginning? should be better than when it became worse? And the question continues.. As I was witnessing the falls of my previous companies that my colleagues and my former bosses had to suffer due to the out of income in the coming months; had given the impact to myself to uncover the real reason of the failures.
How come a company that had been doing well in the business but failed in the middle of the operation?
The “Iconic Reference” of The Titanic Mindsets will further explain on how The RMS Titanic’s 1912 was succumbed in the seabed of The Atlantic Ocean.
In this analysis of the falls and failures of the used to be successful international companies in the world, we need to have the empathy skills of experiencing the actions taken by the “captains of the ships” or the management of the companies that made the companies failed in the middle of the journeys.
“Most people don’t really want the truth.
They just want constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth.” - Anonymous
3.0 MY ANALYSIS
At DPSB, we analyse things happened around us and commemorate it as memorable events for us to remember and trying hard to avoid the mistakes and failures.
Thus, mind us of our analysis on some crucial but important business lessons from RMS Titanic (later known as The Titanic) struck a North Atlantic iceberg at 11:40pm in the evening of 14 April 1912 at a speed of 20.5 knots.
Understood that The Titanic is not a business entity but we could look at the tragedy in multiple perspectives; enrich your perspective, embolden your journey.
The failure of The Titanic had cost 1,522 lives perished and the cost of The Titanic was USD7.5million in 1912 [USD203 trillion in 2020 (future value)].
The iceberg scraped along the right side of the hull below the waterline, slicing open the hull between five of the adjacent watertight compartments.
“Iceberg, right ahead!” shouted lookout officer; Frederick Fleet, with only 37 seconds prior to the collision. After ringing the bridge, the rest was history for us to learn and to avoid from doing it.
At DPSB, our analysis had come out with the term of The Titanic Mindsets which represent the mindset of the crew members and its planning team (i.e. the management of The Titanic).
Hubris is a characteristic of excessive confidence or arrogance, which leads a person to believe that they may do no wrong. The overwhelming pride caused by hubris is often considered a flaw in character. It means arrogance and excessive pride. This can be a character feels internally, but it usually translates into the character’s actions.
Plans are nothing. Planning is everything. But mindset is the king of everything. <br>Once your mindset changes, everything on the outside will change.
We always heard businesses closed-down and its employees suffered due to the laying off and the closures of the businesses. Thus, failure in business is really costly for everyone and we should avoid being failed in the businesses.
1.0 Hubris leads to pride
Hubris is a characteristic of excessive confidence or arrogance, which leads a person to believe that they may do no wrong. The overwhelming pride caused by hubris is often considered a flaw in character. It means arrogance and excessive pride. This can be something a character feels internally, but it usually translates to the character's actions.
Characters who have hubris are stubborn and believe themselves as always right. Excessive pride makes people reject others ' advice which leads to making rash decisions. This can cause them to make mistakes in decisions or overestimating their own abilities. Acts of hubris usually lead to death or punishment. Individuals who act on their hubris are neglecting the wellbeing of the community and instead are focusing only on themselves.
The Titanic Mindsets of hubris had made the construction of The Titanic less scrutinizing on its safety and planning with over 3 million cheap and low quality rivets were used. The metallurgists in 1999 said those low-grade rivets would have ripped apart more easily during the collision, causing the ship to sink more quickly that it would have if stronger rivets had been used.
If The Titanic Mindsets of pride did not exist in the construction of The Titanic, the 3 million quality rivets will be used instead of the cheap ones. Thus, The Titanic could have survived longer from being sank to the bottom of the seabed of Northern Atlantic Ocean. The passengers and crews could had survived for a rescue from MV Carpathia; some 58 miles of The Titanic’s location.
The Titanic Mindsets of pride had also made the management of Harland and Wolff mis looked on the mother nature of the sea or to be specific the Northern Atlantic Ocean’s condition at that time. The Titanic was not built to sail along in iceberg areas. It is understandable that at the time, there was no technologies could support or provide the data. But due to Titanic Mindsets, they did not prepare for the worst things to happen such as a survey boat prior to The Titanic to sail through.
The Titanic Mindsets of pride led to double standard of the passengers on board of The Titanic which saw 58% of 2nd class passengers and 39% of 1st class passengers perished in the tragedy.
Business Lessons:
1. A business entity should not have The Titanic Mindsets of hubris where it could make blinded decisions on the important things in businesses.
2. A business entity should have a survey or a risk management report prior to any decisions made.
3. The Titanic was not meant to be built to sail on the icebergs areas which representing the supply and demand equation in business world. Your businesses should supply products or services to the demands of its customers. If product fit is not achievable in the market, your business could fail just like The Titanic.
4. Double standard treatments should not be a policy or a culture in every business. Regardless to the employees or to the customers. We have seen the double standard treatments in companies that we worked for before. It ruined the motivations and harmonies amongst the employees and management teams.
5. El Cortez Hotel in San Diego, California had installed the first outside glass elevator in 1950. The idea came from a bellboy for the hotel to build a glass elevator in the hotel. The most glamorous apartment-hotel in San Diego did not reject the bellboy’s idea to build a glass elevator in the hotel with no double standard treatment but accepted the idea from the bellboy. Since then, the idea was acceptable by the market and gave positive impact to the hotel.
2.0 Insufficient planning due to hubris which led to ignorance.
a) It may have taken a fatal wrong turn - After the iceberg was spotted, the command was issued to turn "hard a starboard," but as the command was passed down the line, it was misinterpreted as meaning "make the ship turn right" rather than "push the tiller right to make the ship head left,". It was only 37 seconds left prior to the collision.
Business Lessons:
Non-existence of operation manual had caused the fatal wrong turn of The Titanic. If proper operation manual and planning had been implemented, the history should have changed. The 37 seconds could have saved the collision instead.
Again, The Titanic Mindsets of hubris-thus-insufficient planning had failed to prepare for the worst things to happen in its maiden voyage.
Without proper planning in a business, it is like a small ship is sailing in the middle of North Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night without any compass or any equipment.
b) The binoculars were locked up - There were binoculars aboard The Titanic, but unfortunately, no one knew it. ... Lookout Fred Fleet, who survived the Titanic disaster, would later insist that if binoculars had been available, the iceberg would have been spotted in enough time for the ship to take evasive action.
Business Lessons:
The Titanic Mindsets of hubris-thus-insufficient planning had caused the insufficient preparation for the management and the crews.
If the operation manual had been in place on The Titanic, the binoculars should be available for Fred Fleet to send the message to the crews earlier than the 37 seconds.
The existence of business operation manual and business plan is crucial and they are the top 2 must-to-have documents for every business.
c) There were too few lifeboats - Perhaps the biggest tragedy is that there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate all of the Titanic's more than 2,228 passengers and crew members. Only 16 lifeboats available on board. The lifeboats could accommodate only 1,040 people.
Business Lessons:
This was the crucial thing that the management of The Titanic did not securitize before the maiden voyage; They had failed to plan for the worst to happen.
The Titanic Mindsets of pride had led the management of The Titanic to ignore the planning for the worst things to happen prior to the maiden voyage.
Even the lifejackets were available at the time, the victims could not survive at -2.2C temperature in the sea.
The two most important documents for every business i.e. business operation manual and business plan should discover the possibilities of the worst things to happen. It involves risk management plan, risk assessment document and risk strategy.
3.0 Stubbornness due to hubris then led to ignorance.
a) 7 Iceberg warnings went unheeded - At approximately 9:40pm the Mesaba Liner sent a warning of an ice field. The message was never relayed to the Titanic’s bridge. At 10:55pm the nearby Leyland liner Californian sent word that it had stopped after becoming surrounded by ice. Captain Phillips, who was handling passenger messages, scolded the Californian.
Business Lessons:
Non-existence of business operation manual or business plan.
The Titanic Mindsets of hubris-thus-stubbornness had caused Captain Phillips to ignore the iceberg warnings received. If the captain heard the iceberg warnings, history should have been changed.
Business operation manual and business plan are two living important documents for every businesses. They are revisable for the businesses to steer the operation especially during the turbulence.
b) The ship was going too fast at 22.5 knots of its maximum 23 knots - The Titanic’s skipper, Captain E.J. Smith was blamed, for sailing the massive ship at such a high speed (22.5 knots of its maximum 23 knots) through the iceberg-heavy waters of the North Atlantic. Captain Smith was trying to better the crossing time of Titanic’s White Star sister ship, the Olympic.
Business Lessons:
The Titanic Mindsets of hubris-thus-stubbornness could had been avoided by Captain E.J. Smith with an understanding of the mother-nature and its surroundings. The Titanic was not built to hit the icebergs in the first place.
Business lessons that we could get from this is that each business unit should scrutinize its products against its customers’ demands. Without the product fit’s elements to its targeted customers, you could lost in the competition in the market. To put things simple; supply and demand element which mostly businesses failed to focus this aspect accurately.
4.0 Carelessness due to hubris then led to ignorance.
a) Climate caused more icebergs:
At that time in 1912, technologies were not available for climate forecasting and such insights, thus the crews of The Titanic had failed to understand the climate change where tides sent icebergs southward during the period of its maiden voyage.
The climate change had caused the icebergs, sea ice and growlers were concentrated in the position of the collision that happened. These climate change of natures is part of the external factors that the crews had failed to adhere and scrutinize.
b) Lack of planning:
Hubris led to carelessness, carelessness led to insufficient planning of its maiden voyage.
The captain and the crews had carelessly unplanned for the unexpected to happen prior to the departure. The binoculars were not known to be available and the lifeboats were limited to only 16 units.
Business Lessons:
Businesses could foresee any challenges internally or externally if businesses have its operation manuals and business plans. Business plans should cover its potential risks that the entity is facing via its risk management reports and risk assessment reports.
The catastrophic event of The Titanic should had been avoided if the management and the crew had earlier surveyed the climate change at the time prior to the collision.
4.0 ICONIC REFERENCES
The RMS Titanic and The Hare and The Tortoise are the iconic references for the downfall history of Nikon. The Titanic Mindsets of ignorance and hubris in Nikon’s decisions for not getting prepared for the market demands had allowed the other competitors especially Canon to create new lines of product range to accommodate its customers’ demands and the iconic references of The Hare and The Tortoise had made Nikon to ignore the Know-Your-Customer (KYC-1) exercise and Know-Your-Competitor (KYC-2) exercise; to keep abreast with the current situation using the available strengths and weaknesses like what The Tortoise was doing to outbeat The Hare.
5.0 SUMMARY
Everyone has its own self-talk that contributing to the next actions to be taken. The self-talk also contributing to the mindset of the person. My series of blogs will explore and present to you for your understanding the knowledge of developing your mindsets either to the left or to the right, it will depend on your choices. My blogs will also uncover the reasons to the destructions of the successful businesses once before due to the mindsets of “too big to fail”.
6.0 WHAT'S NEXT?
After the sinking of The Titanic, several acts and laws were passed and approved in order to avoid another catastrophes. With the approval of the new policies, ships now had better safety procedures and construction, constant contact with others on the sea and coastal radio stations, and rightful compensation for maritime injuries.
Get to know about how The Titanic had changed the maritime laws below:
1.0 THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA (SOLAS)
2.0 CHANGES TO SHIP DESIGNS
3.0 THE RADIO ACT OF 1912
4.0 INTERNATIONAL ICE PATROL
5.0 THE JONES ACT
From The Titanic catastrophic event in 1912, the authorities had made a lot of changes to the operation’s rules and regulations in order to avoid the same event from happening. These have shown how serious it was to the ships and vessels’ operation to avoid more catastrophic events like The Titanic.
Plans are nothing.
Planning is everything
but the mindset is the king of everything.
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