No company would survive the chaos created from a lack of leadership and a well-defined tactical mission. Free-wheeling departments operating without an eye to collaboration and coordination would only add to the confusion.  Why do we think it will work at a larger scale in the disaster recovery effort of Haiti?

            Perhaps under the auspices of the United Nations, there should be the ability to pull together the necessary expertise in a team that would lead such critical efforts to save and restore lives. Or perhaps there is a non-governmental agency that specializes in such efforts, and would be keen to the types of players needed and expertise available around the world.

            Of course, any such team would need to include expertise from the country in need to avoid the cultural missteps that come from donations that won’t work.  Offering food that can’t be eaten because it violates religious beliefs is a nice gesture, but not truly helpful.

            There is need for the dollar donations, but there is nothing like human capital with the right knowledge and skills to designate the spending.  In our ever-changing, fast-paced environment, the leadership and tactical expertise exists. It needs to be called upon and leveraged in times of catastrophe.

            There is no excuse for our world’s repeated failures to deliver swift and effective aid in such disasters. In our own country we should have learned from Katrina. Perhaps President Obama, with his audacity for hope, could step forward and offer a calm and respectful hand in setting up this team. Conferring with other world leaders on such an effort would be a good start.  Naming a member or two to the team would be a great second step.

            And while there will be those who think we don’t have time for such coordination, even fast-paced entrepreneurs will tell you that all have to be moving in the same direction on a major effort.

            I’m an optimist but I know there will be another disaster to contend with at some point.  So why not get our worldly act together, have a game plan, line up the players and the leadership.  And let the world, as John Lennon wrote, live as one… at least… and at first, in times of disaster.

   Malcolm Gladwell, author of Tipping Point, Outliars and Blink, made an interesting  observation about entrepreneurs in a recent New Yorker magazine.  He purports that they don’t take risks, it just looks that way.

            Through his examples, Gladwell explains that entrepreneurs are predators of perceived value, investors of others’ money or savvy information gatherers. His points:   There is no risk in charging more than cost when value is perceived higher; Nor is there personal risk in structuring a deal to only risk the assets of others; And when you have knowledge of a sure thing, that eliminates risk as well.

            While I am a great fan of Gladwell’s, I beg to differ.  Hindsight is that wonderful thing that takes away all doubt.  And doubt can exist in the human mind even though some see a situation as a sure thing.  That doubt translates into perceived risk.  In other words, not everyone in the situations of Ted Turner or hedge-fund manager John Paulson would have acted, nor necessarily succeeded to the level that they did.

            Successful entrepreneurs are passionate, comfortable with themselves, and are confident in their pursuits.  And when they experience a mishap, they learn and move on. They are savvy in the sense that they reduce the number of unknowns along the way, and therefore reduce the risk.  But risk they do.