Incompetent? Poor Manager? Misinformed? Poorly Trained? Uncaring? Afraid? Using a Bad Risk Management Model?

Incompetent? Poor Manager? Misinformed? Poorly Trained? Uncaring? Afraid? Using a Bad Risk Management Model?

How does one:?

A.?So competently: invent, develop, manufacture, warehouse, launch, distribute, and administer two Godsends—

(1) A set of potent COVID-19 and variants vaccines, and?

(2) An incredible array of very accurate at-home or at-work rapid and very low-cost tests.

B.?And do both: ten times faster and efficiently as in any other time in history??

C.?And still: kill almost a million people in the US (and over 6M people globally)—and severely or significantly harm hundreds of thousands of other Americans (including 40k requiring hospitalizations)—as well as subject some 80M US residents to a severe, risky, and scary infection that on average lasts about two weeks and might keep the infected person out of work, school, or play for weeks more??

D.?And all the while: heavily destroy or severely harm the US and global economies, in and among themselves, for almost two years.

How can the tools be so good and the outcomes of their use so poor? How can so much value and so much harm be created in a single stroke? Is it like we armed our top troops with the best weapons in history and then made them use a wrong model, such as having them face those weapons in the wrong direction most of the time? Friendly fire can do enormous harm, whether it hits an ally or not. Did we use the wrong infectious disease risk management model? I believe we did. Let me tell you why.

I want to be clear right at the outset about what I think: There is no single source of the harm. This sad story is not to say that we did not save many lives despite the large-scale use of poor risk management models. Indeed, we did. It was impossible not to. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. And the clock we as a nation and as part of our global constituency used was right many more times per day than twice. But America and the rest of the world's business leaders used a broken clock more often than not.

And we also cannot reasonably say that the use of poor risk management models even came close to creating all the harm. Of course, there were also significant other forces at work. I am just saying that I believe an inferior model is behind much if not most of the damage.

Other hostile forces behind errors sometimes included CEO (1) incompetence, (2) poor management skills, (3) poor information collection, understanding, and use skills, (4) poor training, (5) afraid, and (6) lack of caring. Whatever the cause, from a flawed model to poorly skilled or prepared CEOs, it is scary to think about how tools that are so good were, and might again in the next wave be, so poorly used.

When the current US (partial and then more significant) truce and the recent global (10%) decline in infection rates (except in East Asia, where there currently is a 10% increase) redirect themselves and charge upward again, can we do things far better??

Using the best risk management model (the one invented and developed by me and further developed and deployed by my risk management teammates at Safely2Prosperity LLC), a model that is a bottom-up risk management model relying on enterprise and household sanctuary rules, all of which is described more fully at safely2prosperity.com, I believe we can.

Doing things right is far less expensive in every way than doing things wrong—especially doing them so badly that enterprises and their CEOs will soon be held legally accountable. They will begin to see this happening soon. Many enterprises and CEOs already have. The many settlements just are kept widely secret because they contain a non-disclosure clause.

When subsequent variants or new diseases strike, as with a high degree of certainty they almost surely will (wishful thinking be damned), I hope things might begin to change. Perhaps then we can change some people's minds further and further. As the saying goes: "There is nothing like a hanging to focus the mind."?

But it would be best if CEOs prepare NOW, before the next storm, instead of negligently designing, installing, and enforcing their safeguards only after the full force of the next storm strikes. They got caught unprepared over the past two years. Will most CEOs let this happen again?

Almost certainly, if COVID or the Flu (whose 1919 parent killed 50M people worldwide) or another deplorable infectious disease charges forward with even more vigor, minds might more quickly change. Then, the following two years of battles, the next, and the next might do the trick.?

But wouldn't it be far better to be prepared in advance? Isn't that one of the CEO's key roles? Isn't that how you separate good CEOs from poor ones?

COVID-19 is and has been a powerful enemy worthy of our profound respect. And it has rearmed its own troops several times in the form of variants that are more contagious and/or more lethal weapons. Which weapons might it invent next? Will some of them be stronger, still?

And if more CEOs had (a) not used (or authorized the use of) incompetent risk management models to battle the disease—or (b) not failed to deploy effective risk management models—much harm might have been prevented, mitigated, or controlled.?

"Proper risk management models would not have cost much more. And their impact would almost certainly have produced a cost-benefit ratio in the thousands.

As it turned out, our business leaders were the real Generals in this war. And many of them failed dramatically. Our political and government leaders influenced them. But far less than the other way around. Focusing on short-term expenses was and continues to be evidence of the devil at play. Inventing high-quality tools makes little difference if we use them poorly."?

These Generals will pay handsomely for their failures in the form of ethical, moral, and legal punishments. And they will pay enormously in the form of financial, job, and career losses.?

You can bet your bottom dollar that employees, families, unions, investors, regulators, courts, and customers will see to that. But that is far from enough and far too delayed.?

US and world justice will never compensate us for even a tiny fraction of the vast harm to employees, families, enterprises, investors, and customers produced by these business leaders' incompetence in risk-managing the war against our COVID-19 and variants enemies.

Worse yet, many business leaders appear to have learned no significant lessons from their failures or the failures or successes of their colleagues. So, during (a) the next wave of COVID, or (b) the next wave of another existing pandemic-sized infectious disease, or (c) the first wave of the subsequent new pandemic-sized infectious disease, and (d) the next after that, and (e) the next after that, they will to a high degree of certainty fail again and again. You get the point.

So why do I focus so intensely and sternly on the incompetence of business leaders and not the incompetence of others? Indeed, there is enough blame to spread around. And clearly, several business leaders are heroes. They brought us the inventions and other Godsends I spoke of above.

There are two general and four specific reasons I focus on incompetent business leaders, even though social and legal justice will already be punishing them dearly in years to come. That punishment is already creating a form of self-correction of our business sector, but that is not enough to make the essential learning and deployment of the type and level of change so badly needed.?

The reasons for my focus on the wrongs committed by the US and global business leaders are:

A.?Greater Ability to Assert and Enforce?Higher Control Over Danger Zones. COVID is many, many times more contagious in highly populated for extended durations (all day or all night) closed facilities. Outdoors comingling, even for hours, is far less threatening.?

There are two highly populated for long durations closed facilities where, to a high degree, business leaders have direct or indirect abilities to risk manage the prevention, mitigation, and control of infectious diseases. They are closed (a) work facilities—from manufacturing to warehousing to distribution to office facilities, to university and school facilities, to government agency facilities—and (b) employee homes.?

Yes, there are exceptions. For example, lesser controlled retail facilities, such as stores, theaters, and closed-in baseball and football stadiums, fall here. This lesser control of their hazardous zone exists because their occupancy at any one time is transitory (minutes to just a few hours) and therefore both (a) a bit less risky and (b) a bit more challenging to protect, even if you can spend considerable resources in attempting to do so. But you get the point.?

Business leaders significantly control, either directly or indirectly, both at-work and at-home danger zones, 24/7. And it is within these domains business leaders can make or fail to make enormous differences in the health of employees and families. It is sad that despite my saying this hundreds of times, few business leaders appear to have understood this critical component of any risk management model that is likely to prove effective.

If business leaders care to protect their employees, business leaders have the power to create?true sanctuaries?in both work and home facilities for each of their employees. This rule is Rule #1.

B.?Greater Resources and More Motivations to Spend Them Because They Have More to Lose. In the aggregate, business leaders have far more disposable income. So, more so than political or government leaders, business leaders have the human workforce and financial resources to help create, study, learn, and deploy the proper solutions quickly and effectively.?

And, if we appropriately inform them of the vast size of the long-term human, social, and business losses they otherwise are creating, they might be convinced and inspired to embrace change—especially the change of models they are using for fighting this war.

Political and government leaders, in most cases, don't create or use real solutions to huge or largely intractable problems. At best, they just massage them. Or when they have great ideas, often they are prohibited?de facto?or?de jure?(a) from using them at all (as was the case recently when the US Supreme Court irresponsibly struck down the President's OSHA Hybrid Safety Program, while ignoring how discriminatory against front-line workers (most of whom are low-paid Black or Hispanic employees) mandatory vaccination programs are) or (b) from using them robustly.

So, what can I (and through me, you) do to change the minds and habits of key US and global business leaders (and they of others) right now? As I said earlier, the punishments that slowly appear for some will do this in time. But millions more people will be killed or otherwise significantly harmed in the interval if we do not quicken the pace.

1.?Continue Publishing My Articles. I can continue publishing articles and posts like this one, hoping to get business leaders' attention. And thereby help change the minds of many business leaders who have been reluctant to do the right thing because of short-term out-of-pocket financial costs. I have published well over 50 articles and posts to date. Together, they have had something like 100,000 views.?

2.?Upgrade My Daily Newsletter. I can continuously upgrade the daily newsletter that LinkedIn has awarded me. And I can continue to inform my 30,000 followers. Doing both in the hopes that they are business leaders—or they are business leaders' influencers, and/or their employees or family members who are thereby inspired to speak to them loudly might thereby create change.

3.?Follow-Up More Aggressively with Hits on Safely2Prosperity's Website. I can follow up more aggressively on the roughly thousand hits on Safely2Prosperity LLC's website (safely2prosperity.com) that my teammates and I received since we launched our "Enterprise Infectious Disease Safety Program" (and its software-as-a-service (SaaS) infectious disease risk management platform), a few months back.

4.?Ask Readers Like You to Carry the Torch and Spread the Word. Finally, I can ask readers like you to carry the torch and spread the word.?

(a) If 5,000 readers (including you) contact 100 of their family members, friends, neighbors, or colleagues, 500,000 (half-a-million) people might become more aware and highly motivated to press for risk management model change, especially in large public companies.?

(b) If they each contact 100 people, 50,000,000 (fifty million) people might become more aware and highly motivated to press for change.?

(c) If they contact 100 people, 5,000,000,000 (five billion) people might become more aware and highly motivated. Etc., etc. You get the point.

Of course, there will be much leakage along the way. But 5M people calling for model change NOW might be a realistic figure. This heavy leakage is still manageable. We can manage it well. We can do this especially if we can get others to begin to think about the many who are killed and severely harmed as real people—grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents, sisters, brothers, kids, grandkids, friends, colleagues, and their families—and not just numbers.?

Too many of the world's people seem to feel that the deaths or lasting harms to the very old, the very young, the physically or mentally impaired, the very financially poor, or members of minorities don't count. Or if they do matter, they do not count very much.

The power of the people who sincerely care and are enlightened is vital—and often unbeatable. But, again, you get the point.

If you want to join my anti-COVID army, from General to Private, and you want to be equipped with a risk management model to turn a severe loss in the past into a significant win during the months, years, and decades ahead, you can contact me at?[email protected]?or at S2P's website:?safely2prosperity.com.

I hope you do. I can use your help.?

"In sum, many business leaders could have managed this enemy with far fewer casualties if they had deployed and properly used the best risk management model.?

Also, if some of our business leaders had not been incompetent (or misinformed, uncaring, or afraid to spend short-term money to save employees and families from avoidable deaths or severe or significant harm) and just used the best risk management model then and now available, the world would have been far better off.?

Simply put, their use of the wrong risk management model is the source of most of the avoidable harm."

There is no excuse for permitting continued use of any of the poor risk management models so widely used earlier and now by some business leaders to continue to kill and otherwise seriously harm avoidably.?

Let's together extinguish it—to the furthest extent humanly possible.

Using Safely2Prosperity's and my risk management model ubiquitously throughout the globe will turn the tide.

Best,

John

John A. Norris, JD, MBA

Founder and Executive Chairman

Safely2Prosperity LLC

Email:?john.norris@safely2prosperity

LinkedIn:?/company/safely2prosperity

Website:?safely2prosperity.com

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? 2022 Safely2Prosperity LLC and John Norris, JD, MBA