Chilean miners and potential team building & cohesion lessons

After being trapped for almost 70 days, the 33 Chilean miners are finally rescued in one of the most amazing dramas and breath-taking rescue operations we might have witnessed as the whole world watched enthusiastically this capsule going down and up rescuing these extraordinary ordinary people one by one to the surface of the earth.
In the coming days we will hear and find out lots of details about the miner's ordeal since they went missing on Aug. 5th 2010. Their fears, their doubts, their hopes and their anxieties in the first two weeks when no-one knew if they were alive and enter into contact with them. We'll also find out more about "how did they make it?", "where did they get the strengths to survive such an ordeal?". Of course, there is no single answer to such a simple question! Courage, hope, faith, optimism, self-discipline, mental & physical strength and spirituality just to name a few have certainly played a critical role in keeping the miners alive. But I think that something else has contributed to the happy ending we have all witnessed on our TV screens. An exceptional person or a group of people was among the miners. People with exceptional leadership, personal and team building skills must have emerged from the group and helped keeping the miners together and upbeat during the tough moments they have had to endure. The "leaders" team had few critical tasks to accomplish in order to succeed in their role:
1. Counseling & Influencing skills: Especially in the first two weeks, the group had to deal with lots of anxiety and fear that a few miners could exposed. They must have managed to ease their fears and give them enough assurances to avoid a general panic that would have had disastrous consequences.
2. Logistics skills: With a limited amount of food and water supplies available, the group leaders must have devised a solid and realistic plan to ensure the longest survival time using scarce available resources.
3. Organizational skills: No one person could have knowledgeable in all aspects of survival skills. The leaders must have tapped for resources in the group to assign specific roles to those who were the most qualified and/or willing to assume these roles.
4. Charisma and Inspiration: The "leaders group" had an innate charisma that enabled them to emerge as leaders with the consent and approval of the other group members. They have inspired the miners and kept their moral up using both their charisma ability to inspire the group. I'm sure we'll find out more about what tactics and tips they to inspire the trapped miners but one can already think about faith, family, hope and love as "mines" for inspiration. The miners ordeal and their quasi-miraculous rescue is a great story of hope, love, courage, compassion and humanity. The spread of joy through out the world as each miner came out of the capsule was such a uniting moment for all of us. To the 33 Chilean heroes We say: welcome to freedom. As for the hundreds of unknown heroes who made that rescue a reality, we say: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

"A Flash of Genius": Innovation, Novelty and Blinking Wipers

The movie "A flash on genius" was on my must-see list for a while. I finally watched it this week-end and have really enjoyed it.
The movie traces the true story of Dr. Robert (Bob) Kearns professor of electrical engineering and the inventor of what is known Today as the "intermittent wipers".
Intermittent wipers enables car drivers to adjust the speed of windshield wipers based on the intensity of the rain.
In the movie, Dr. Kearns goes to court against Ford Motor Company for patent infringement and chooses to represent himself in court.
A defining moment of the case, in my opinion, happens when Ford lawyers bring to the witness stand a professor of electrical engineering to assess and comment on the "novelty" of the electronic circuit board that Bob Kearns designed to control the intermittent wipers.
The expert witness states then thal all components used in that circuit: transistor, capacitor and variable resistor were well known and available in electronic catalogs. All what Bob Kearns did was to arrange them in a different way (layout) on his control board. He concludes his testimony by stating that he would not call such a different arrangement of elements "invention".
To counter that statement, Bob Kearns brings in the famous novel written by Charles Dickens "The Tale of Two Cities" and reads couples sentences from the first page of the story before asking the expert witness:
Did Mr. Dickens invent any of the words he used in his novel?
The answer naturally comes as: No. Bob Kearns continues as he asks:
Do you think Mr. Dickens invented any of the words he used in his novel?
Is not it likely thal all the words used in that novel would be found in any English languauge dictionary?
Bob Kearns concludes: All what Charles Dickens did was to arrange the words available in English languauge in a specific sequence to write his novel. Can we then say that Charles Dickens did not come with any thing new??
Point made Dr. Kearns, in a very eloquent and convincing way.
When inventors innovate and come with new ideas, they rarely create their inventions from nothing! Guided by their vision, they use their expertise, domaine knowledge and many pre-existing tools to create innovation and novelty.

Some thoughts on the crisis in Greece.

The recent financial crisis in Greece could be an illustration of the "fragility" of the EU as an economic, political, and social entity.
Long before the effective circulation of the Euro in Europe(late 1999)
the treaty of Maastricht (1992) has established strict financial criteria for countries who wanted to be part of the European currency.
These criteria related to the percentage of the public deficit to the national GDP and the ratio of the national debt to the GDP. Countries who met these criteria were welcome to join and those who did not, were asked to work their finances and come back at a later date.
As of Today, the Euro is the currency in 16 European countries.

The current debt crisis in Greece might have been rooted in the history of the
European Union and the Euro itself. The treaty of Maastricht has put too much focus on the financial criteria to qualify for the Euro and not enough attention to social criteria that are equally important. As a matter of fact, no one would argue that the economic, financial and social structures in a country are independent from one another. The lack of definition of the "social" pillar of the European Union has also led many convinced Europeans to call for voting against Maastricht. The late Philippe Seguin (Speaker of the French Parliament) was an ardent opponent to that treaty and he had a memorable debate with the late French president Francois Mitterrand in the days preceding the French referendum on the ratification of the treaty of Maastricht.

The lack of "social homogeneity" across Europe could have led to the economic troubles that Europe is presently going through. Disparities in areas like retirement age, unemployment benefits, social services and labor laws have a direct impact on the economic and financial situation of any country.
For instance, one could easily understand why the Germans are reluctant to jump in and help Greece when we know that people in Greece can retire as early as age 57 while the minimum retirement age in Germany is 63.

As they debate the most adequate way to help Greece, European leaders should look more broadly on the underlying causes and put forward a plan towards a better harmonization of European policies. Such harmonization would strengthen the EU and make crisis such as the current one less likely to occur in the future.

A "vital card" to reduce healthcare cost in the US

In the ongoing debate surrounding the reform of healthcare in the US, the words "waste", "administrative costs" come very often as many experts and commentators see them as one reason why the US healthcare system is the most expensive (18% of GDP) among industrialised nations, leaves about 45 million people un-insured or under-insured and has an overall ranking of 18 (some say 37) in quality of care.
A proven way to eliminate some of the waste and administrative costs would be to replicate what France has done when it started the "CARTE VITALE" (Vital Card) in 1997.
The vital card, shown above, looks exactly like a credit card. It has an electronic chip, a picture of the owner, his name and issue date.

Having tried this card for couple years in France before moving to the US, let me tell you one thing. It works GREAT and I trully think the US will gain a lot from adopting a similar approach.
The gains are not limited to cost savings because quality of care will significantly improve and let me tell you why.
1. Cost Savings: The electronic chip on the vital card has all relevant insurance information for the card holder. Once, a person walks into a Dr. office, the person working at reception will insert the card in a reader that will provide her with up-to-date information on the patient and his insurance. No more forms to fill every time you walk into a doctor's office. During the visit, the doctor enters, via a computer, the information relevant to that visit. That information is then automatically and electronically transmitted to the insurance company based on the information coming from the vital card. The insurance company then pays the doctor upon receipt of that information.
The whole process is automated: information capture / processing / payment which means less paper work and less cost paid for non-value-added steps in the process.
2. Quality Improvement: In addition to personal and insurance information on its holder, the vital card has critical medical information that are important to know to ensure quality of care. An example would be as simple as "allergies" or "medical history". The vital card would contain such information which means that rather than relying on the patient remembering what he is allergic to, the doctor would never prescribe a medication that would cause an allergic reaction in the patient because the patient forgot to mention it or may be because the doctor forgot to ask about it.
Another instance would be for a patient rushed into the ER after an accident. With his vital card, the medical staff has immediate access to important information such as: his age, his blood type, his medical history ..etc which makes them more capapble to make timely decision while having all or most relevant decision elements at hand.
France healthcare system is one of the best in the world and is considered by many an expensive one. However, it costs around 9% of France GDP (1/2 of what the US federal government pays) and provides universal coverage to all French citizens and residents.
The "vital card" provides a proven way of reducing costs while improving healthcare quality. The US healthcare reform should consider implementing a similar solution for the people in the US.