If you were Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, facing this fast changing situation of the coronavirus(COVID-19), what decision you will make for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Game just less than 5 months away?
Making Tough Decision (MTD1) is the key job of leadership — anyone disagree?
Making Timely Decision (MTD2) is very important — Timing matter!
Making Consistent Decision (MCD) is very important — Consistency is a big part of trust, without high level trust, no decisions will be executed well.
Making Tough Decision Timely (MTDT) changed the history all the time! Hence MTDT is more difficult while matters lot more than both MTD1 and MTD2.
Let’s see how Abe (or JP gov) did so far per my score-keeping standard:
- Making Tough Decision: Low score
- Making Timely Decision: Medium score (In about less than one month, they decided to emphasis the no-plan-B position clearly)
- Making Consistent Decision: High score (100% consistent so far, no plan-B)
- Making Tough Decision Timely: Low score
At this point, the official Plan B from Japan government is “NO plan-B”.
Historically No-Plan-B worked very well in some famous historic events all over the world including:
- Fighting a battle with one’s back facing a river (205 BC, China)
- Crossing the Rubicon: (49 BC, Rome)
Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon river in January 49 BC precipitated the Roman Civil War, which ultimately led to Caesar becoming dictator and the rise of the imperial era of Rome.
Both famous success of no-plan-B listed above are fighting between two military groups for political benefits. Hence, it highly relied on the actual military power each group holds.
While the “enemy” that Japan gov is facing now is very unique and unknown — the novel coronavirus which is still a fast developing story all over the world, but something is clear at this point:
[-] In Japan, the spread is ongoing and getting worse(esp. with local community spreads confirmed in multiple prefectures across the country)
[-] Around Japan, South Korea is exploding (Confirmed cases approaching 3000)
[-] More countries start seeing local spread incl. Italy, Iran etc.
[-] Major multi-international companies like Nestle, Facebook, Google etc. decided to cancel major events.
[-] US gov stepped up the task force level by have VP Mike Pence to head the gov task force.
So no single trustworthy facts are showing positive signals, I have to say. With this, I really don’t know where the confidence from supporting JP‘s’ no-plan-B decision. While I do understand the key factor here — Japan already spent $25B for this event, and they are looking forward to cashing out for the 10+ years returns.
Okay, a good analysis is just a good starting point, ONLY ACTION can cause the change — taking my observer hat off and put my decision-maker’s on, here is my suggestion to Abe-san and JP Gov.
Revise Plan-A : Work with IOC to change Tokyo2020 to Tokyo2021. Yes, I am saying delay it by one year.
Why? It’s win-win-win strategy.
1. Focus-Allow the whole Japan society to fully focus on containing this virus by concentrating all the attention, resource and will.
2. Internal-Reduce the domestic dividing caused by the anxiety of the time pressure.
3. External-Give the whole world confidence with Japan government by showing capability for making this tough decision swiftly.
Go Japan! Go Tokyo Olympics not this year but one year later!!
