Good morning.

Happy Leap Day!

Essentially, writing ‘don’t read my emails’ is a weird subject line, I know.

But when the SITREPs broke the email and blog earlier this week, I realized there might be a problem.

Not on the technical side — that’s an easy fix — but on the reader side.

If there was too much information to fit into an email, was that too much information for a reader?

(I’m pretty sure the answer is yes.)

But the point is that I don’t want you to read the whole thing. That defeats the purpose of trying to get you focused information. I just want to get you what you need to make better decisions.

So I just want you to read the bits that are important to you.

Unfortunately, I have to include all the countries because I don’t know what’s relevant to you specifically*.

(*That’s why DCDR also provides tailored reporting. That way you can just set up a feed to focus on the handful of critical locations and commodities that matter to you most. Hit reply if you want to know more about that.)

So I’m trying to structure things to let you quickly focus on the locations that are most relevant to you. You can skip countries where you have little or no interest.

But once you jump to the countries that matter to you, then what?

Good Questions = Great Understanding

Not every decision needs a highly complex risk assessment: simply asking the right questions will get you a lot of what you need. The right question is like having the right key for a lock: it’s how you open up the knowledge you’re looking for.

The simple question I like to start with is, ‘so what’? I find that's a really quick way to put things into context.

• Things seem more unstable in China. So what?

• There’s fighting in the east of the DRC. So what?

• Farmers are protesting in Europe. So what?

Asking ‘so what?’ is my go-to question. (OG readers will recall that this was the blog title a while back.)

But if you want to get more specific, try these eight questions. These are all variations on ‘so what?’, but each zooms in on the effect of an event.

Eight questions to help you identify the effects of a change in the situation

‘Nothing’ is a Legitimate Answer

Here’s the important thing.

Sometimes, the answer to ‘so what?’ is ‘nothing’: not every situation affects every group. In fact, most events won’t affect you at all.

(Don’t fall into the trap of playing devil’s advocate, worst-casing everything, or any of the other five-dimensional mind-bending that people like to engage in. Not everything needs to be analyzed to death. Asking ‘but what if…?’ all the time is the opposite of helpful.)

So answering ‘nothing’ isn’t just acceptable, it’s the right answer in the majority of cases.

And, if we think about the maths of a risk assessment, no impact means we’re multiplying the threat by zero, leaving us with zero risk.

Risk = threat x impact
=>
If threat = 0
Risk = 0

We can safely skip zero-impact issues but when there is or could be an impact, then you need to dig deeper: you need to really understand what’s happening, what that might mean for you, and what you can do about it.

But by skipping the stuff that’s not relevant or has no effect, you get to the analysis much faster.

KISS + Nike

Then, when it’s time to do the analysis, keep it simple.

1. Consider how things will affect you by asking ‘so what’ or the 8 questions

2. Ignore the things that won’t affect you

3. Focus on the things that will have an effect. Analyze and plan for these in detail.

4. Put plans into action

I understand that this is an oversimplification — and there’s lots more on risk assessments and decision-making here, here and here if you want details — but simple works in the majority of cases.

But, simple though this might be, it will get you most of what you need in a fraction of the time. 

And critically, it moves you to the action step more quickly because it’s far too easy to plan things to death but never take action.

Always remember the Nike ads: just do it.

Read Fast, Think Fast, Act Fast

So no, I don’t want you to read each SITREP in full.

Instead, I want you to jump to the areas that matter to you, quickly ask, ‘So what?’ and, if there is something of concern, start planning.

So the intent is not to get you to read the whole email. The intent is to let you read fast, think fast, and act fast.

~Andrew

PS - To help speed things up, I’ll be making some changes to the newsletter. Look out for a slightly different format, frequency and structure of the emails starting Monday.