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Murshid Markan

Alcatel-Lucent

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Systems approach a boon or a bane when dealing with situations when decisions are needed on urgent basis.

Systems approach start the process with a hierarchical and segmental approach but when the decision are urgent then do we actually align our work with systems approach while being quick in response.

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    Jul 10 2012: Boon. Military, police, emergency personnel, doctors, nurses, firfighters, etc ... all undergo ridgid training. When an emergency occurs your training kicks in and accepts and rejects options and a line of action takes effect. Without a systematic approach lives would be placed in danger and the situation would grow out of control.

    As an example. During a nuclear incident a strict protocol is followed. Decisions are needed on an urgent basis but the consequences of bad decisions are not acceptable.

    In a manner of speaking the brain runs a systems approach or checklist millions of times a day. Broken glass is sharp and will cut ... fire will burn you ... don't touch the stove .... don't pet the skunk, etc.... Yep that is a boon.

    All the best. Bob.
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      Jul 21 2012: IN a small personal illustration, even my swimming lessons clicked in for me in an emergency. I was just a teenager who loved to swim and who took lessons when i ended up in a bizzarre boating incident in the Trent canal system. Two houseboats went through a lock and the adults (who were poor swimmers) decided we would all swim in the middle of the lake we had entered. Somehow the lock behind us broke mid swim and unknowingly I was swimming back to the other boat to bring another child in for a swim. I had to really dig to get back to that boat and when I climbed up I realized everyone was caught in a terrible undertow and that no help would get to them from shore in time. That only left me an my training in life saving but it utterly clicked in. With 8 people widely spread in the water, I started the boat I was on with no hope of getting everyone. I picked up the closest person first (and believe me I would have left him until last without my training and he laid in the boat and did not help me. -it took me until a couple of years ago to realize he was probably exhausted), i then picked his son who was the next closest and then went to the furthest pont to pick up my parents who were clearly drowning and were sinking the inner tube that they had betwen them, then the man's wife and daughter and finally my sisters - the ones my heart wanted first but knew that they at least knew how to swim. They are all alive today and I was so excited to know that without the training of my local yokle Y that i would never have seen that outcome.
      This has formed the foundation of a saying that comes to mind in every crisis of my life: Stay in the boat! Your inclination, if you are one who want to help, is to get into the trenches or the water and pull someone out but if I had chosen that we all would have died. So if you stay in the boat you have all you need to help yourself and anyone else from a dry place.
      I am supporting Bob. Good point about training mking such a difference

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