Dear Members,
A lot has been written and said about the impact of technology on our
lives. We often read about how technology will influence every aspect of our
lives. Technology used in a positive way leads to innovations, which in turn
result in an improved and enhanced lifestyle and better standard of living.
This improves the quality of life, fuels investments and if handled wisely
could even create employment opportunities. Technology has changed the way we
live, behave and interact, both at work and at home. It has changed the way we
communicate, the way we entertain ourselves, the way we seek information and
much more. On the flip side, technology has made a number of traditional jobs
redundant, raising a fear that machines and automation will replace low and
semi-skilled workers and newer technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI)
will be a threat to skilled workers. The new advancements are forcing people to
continuously update their knowledge to stay relevant and productive in this
competitive world.
In the midst of all the debates on the influence of technology, I was
very happy to come across a very comforting report about the Chicago-based
aircraft maker Boeing. Boeing is said to be dumping one of its most ambitious
automation projects of using advanced and sophisticated robot technology to
build two main fuselage sections for its 777 jetliners and an upgraded version,
the 777X. Boeing will now rely on skilled mechanics to manually insert
fasteners into holes drilled along the circumference of the airplanes. This is
so because the manual solution has proven more reliable, requiring less work by
hand and less rework, than what the robots were capable of doing. This proves a
point, that however tempting it may be to trust automation and technology,
there are and always will be certain areas where technology can’t match the
dexterity, creativity and precision of the human mind, hand and eye. This
debate will always go on, but I strongly believe that humans, human skills and
emotions can never be replaced by technology. Humans remain one up against
machines!
Mistakes: A mistake ‘is an action,
decision, or judgement that produces an unwanted or unintentional result.’ We
are all humans and we all make mistakes. So the best solution is not to try and
hide or disown your mistake, but to face it head on. Depending on the nature of
a mistake, it is more important to acknowledge this fact and apologise (if
needed), introspect over the reasons, learn from it and ensure that it does not
happen again.
Everyone makes mistakes and everyone deserves a second chance. Some
mistakes have little or no significance and can actually be a great learning
experience. But some mistakes may have huge ramifications and may involve a
huge cost not just financially but on relationships and on emotional
well-being. As mentioned earlier it is vital to learn from mistakes and have
the courage to own up to them. Here are examples of some well-known
personalities who have spoken about and owned up mistakes made by them:
a) Bill Gates has said that ‘his
greatest mistake ever’, reportedly worth US$400 billion, was not to create
Android at Microsoft.
b) Mark Zuckerberg said that ‘one
of the biggest mistakes’ of Facebook was not digging deeper into the Cambridge
Analytica scandal, in which the data mining firm misused data to try and
influence the elections, which caused a huge public outcry and more than US$100
billion was knocked off Facebook’s market capitalisation.
c) Ace investor Warren Buffett
admitted that his decision to take control of Berkshire Hathaway was a
‘monumentally stupid decision’ taken only because it was available cheap. He
kept on investing in Berkshire’s textile mills, which eventually shut
operations in 1985.
d) Chinese e-commerce giant
Alibaba’s founder and CEO Jack Ma reportedly said ‘My biggest mistake was I
made Alibaba’. He was just trying to do a small business but it grew and
brought on greater responsibility and more trouble. He became so busy that he
did not have personal time.
e) Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata
Trusts and former head of Tata Sons, said his greatest mistake was branding the
Nano car as the cheapest instead of the ‘most affordable’, which was the
intention of the company. Branding it as the cheapest created negative impact on
the market.
Well, we must learn from the mistakes of others because we can’t live
long enough to make them all ourselves!
With
Best Regards,
CA Manish Sampat
President
