I learned a few good things from my MBA.

Being critical is not criticality.

I checked Google immediately because my papers were being judged on criticality, not that they're critical or not.

Criticality is having an identified science behind any assertions, assumptions, and contentions. 

This means that you have to be reading tons of papers and academic articles to bolster your evidence-based analysis, create comparisons based on a wide-ranging studies previously upheld, and triangulate findings. 

One Substack writer has gotten more critical with his posts lately. He was funny as I read him but after 5-6 anti-Trump posts on anything he'd said/done/supported or whispered in his dreams, it's getting to be boring.

Critical yes, criticality no.

It's easy to be critical, but what we need more in this world and in our work, is more criticality.

The markets went down as a result of panic. 

Panic leads to more panic.

It becomes a doom loop.

This emotional reaction is akin to the one we saw with the financial crisis in 2008, when everyone pulled out of their investments and leading to the crash.

The crash led to inflation, unemployment, migration, higher levels of poverty, long lines to the food bank, and so on and so forth.

During the COVID19, I saw my RRSP savings dipped into historical lows, but my banker told me to just hang in there. If I withdraw, it will take longer to bounce back at the last rate than just do a  wait-and-see until it goes back up again, slowly and surely as the market recovers. 

Let's stop panicking.

We have yet to know in certain terms how the economy will fare given the tariff negotiations with major trading partners, immigration rates stabilizing, tax reductions for businesses, and labor market absorptions.

It's too early too tell yet, but when negative emotions dictate the markets, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which is not what we want. 

For those in the purpose-driven sector, continue your investments and improvement efforts, don't hold out what you have planned this year, instead, be all-in. There's no better time than to invest in your organization and enterprise. 

I'm putting my Econ hat on: stick to the fundamentals, please! 

Do you have doubts about the decision you just made? 

You can use a pre-mortem to surface hidden assumptions, concerns, and objections to the any decision-making.

Imagine the project failed. Discuss this with your group: What led to the failure? Specify the factors and bring out the hidden assumptions behind the decision. 

Try to be as exact in identifying the root cause.

Misalignment.
Lack of resources.
Overconfidence in the projections re: market response.
Product weaknesses
Lack of proper marketing.

This will eliminate groupthink, reliance on one paradigm, confirmation bias, and even the halo effect. 

People in the room will become more open to other perspectives and will try to rethink the decision based on these "reasons for failing."

They will also be open to diverse voices, review the figures they've based previously, and call on other external experts to help them out. 

With the help of a skilled facilitator, it can open up a can of worms or take hold of missed opportunities in the decision-making. 

Either a pre-mortem analysis will avoid some of these mistakes in business, finance, and life decisions.

The post-mortem is after-the-fact, which is hindsight working for you.

The pre-mortem is before-the-fact, which for me is the first step to risk mitigation and avoiding massive losses that's preventable.

Choose pre-mortem so your post-mortem is not that bad.