Don’t Believe Everything You Think.

This is a title of a book by Thomas Kida. Of course, I am not going to write about the content of this book but rather convey some of these ideas to Treasury officers, in particular BEA officers to trigger their mindset to be critical and creative.

We tend to believe whatever we hear rather than really analyzing statistics. As Treasury officers we must be wary of what we hear and should not come to conclusion based on hearsay. Most often, I come across officers who jump to conclusion on issues without thoroughly analyzing the issues. They usually prefer to listen to stories instead of statistical proof. They tend to believe stories told by friends or colleagues. This can easily deviate one from making the right conclusion. Most of us seek to confirm our own ideas and thinking rather than questioning them. In my case, I usually play the devil’s advocate by provoking and testing my ideas on others. This is merely to seek whether they agree or disagree with my opinion. In the process, I’m able to assess their capability in rationalizing issues and more importantly their mental thinking level.

People often tend to over simplify things. Most officers limit their thinking to whatever they believe in. They create boundaries and tend move around that restrictive circle. This is thinking within the box as opposed to thinking out of the box. This sometimes leads us to misperceive the world around us. Seeing is not tantamount to believing. According to an Indian proverb, “what you see with your eyes; what you hear with your ears and what you feel with your hands is not the truth”. Your eyes can deceive you. Your ears can trick you. Your hands can cheat you. So the ultimate truth can only be derived through careful scientific analysis. However, human by nature are impatient creatures and very quick to draw conclusion. This implies to most of us.

We have faulty memories. We are forgetful. We don’t even remember everything that happened day before. In that case, how could we retrace those things that occurred over the years to refresh our memories. That’s why people tend to make the same mistakes over and over again. In order to avoid this, organization must have proper minutes or documents of previous decisions and outcomes. The failure of past should no be repeated in the future. Having said that, history still does repeat itself or is it rather man who does not learn from his own mistakes.