Decision Quality Blog

This is off the topic of family care, but interesting as an object lesson in decision making nevertheless.

A piece in the Wall Street Journal today points out that as the US airlines have recovered, they’ve begun to think about updating their fleet. The problem is, Boeing and Airbus (who is in bad shape) are sold out . . . [read]

The nation’s biggest airlines, back on firmer financial ground after a five-year slump, are eager to start replacing their aging aircraft fleets, but they face some major obstacles.

Among their biggest challenges: finding enough new airplanes to meet their needs, figuring out a way to pay for them and deciding how long they can afford to wait in line for delivery. If they don’t succeed, the consequences could include more delays for air travelers.

During the slump that began in 2001, the major U.S. carriers sat on the sidelines, focusing on cost cutting, while their foreign rivals went on a buying spree. Now, production at Boeing Co. and Airbus, the world’s leading aircraft makers, is sold out until 2011.

Moreover, the nation’s biggest potential aircraft buyers — AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, UAL Corp.’s United Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc. — would prefer “new-generation” single-aisle planes that Boeing and Airbus haven’t even designed yet, rather than derivatives of 737s and A320s that have been available for decades.

Another potential hitch: With their balance sheets battered by years of financial crisis, the big airlines aren’t in a position, at least for now, to commit billions of dollars to buying planes over the next few years. But if they don’t start buying them soon, many of their planes will be nearing 25 years of age, when it typically makes more economic sense to replace them than to keep operating them.

Though those older planes can still fly safely, they are less reliable, developing more mechanical problems that can lead to delays and cancellations. The older planes also tend to have noisier engines and lack passenger entertainment systems.

According to a recent analysis by Boeing, U.S. airlines will face an avalanche of aging airplanes beginning in 2012 if they don’t start ordering this year and next for planes that would be delivered between 2009 and 2011.

According to the article, the bigs will attempt to muscle their way up the queue to get what they want, a tactic that may or may not work. Given that the airline industry as a whole has never made money, and the big US carriers have lost buckets and bales of the stuff since 9/11 and before, it’s hard to fault them for not getting out ahead of this issue. Shoot, it wasn’t and isn’t a foregone conclusion that they’ll be around in 2012. But you can appreciate how pinched someone over there feels . . . now that they want to start making some decisions and there don’t appear to be a lot of choices open to them.

The same can happen to you and me. There are big lists of decisions we know we need to make, things we need to do, but we put them off for every conceivable reason. Just one example. How many of you have a bag of emergency food, water, flashlights, candles, matches, and first aid gear set aside and easily accessible? I thought so. Yet we all felt pretty compelled around that topic after 9/11, Katrina, or the latest tornado or snow storm to hit where you live.

The same thing is true for family care types of decisions. Working things out before an emergency gives you time, perspective, and choices. Dealing with a family care emergency as it is happening gives you none of those.

kah

Technorati Tags: Decision Analysis, Decision Making, Decision Quality, Elder Care, family 2.0, Family Care, Parent Care, Family Emergency

We humans love rituals. Some of us have been educated out of that love, but deep down, there is something about the form and substance of rituals that give us great comfort. Even the really scary kind (I’m thinking now about Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto) give comfort the wider group, even if they terrify the people directly participating. Anyway . . . .

I found this piece in the paper today on the value of rituals which begins with a story . . .

Before settling down to work each day, Michael Shermer has a cup of coffee with half-and-half (“never a latte at this point in his morning”) and reads the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.

Then he sets off on his bicycle for a training ride with friends. Next, he drives his daughter to school and parks in a particular spot, the same one every day, gets his bike out again and pedals to Starbucks, the same location every day. There, he always drinks a venti latte while reading The New York Times. “It’s pretty dang predictable,” he says from his home in Pasadena, Calif.

Shermer is not a superstitious man. He writes a monthly column for Scientific American magazine, founded the Skeptics Society and wrote “Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time” (Owl Books, $16).

Interesting. For those who don’t know, Shermer is regarded as one of this age’s great skeptics, so his next statement stands out . . .

He doesn’t believe that if his first cup of coffee is a latte he’ll wreck his bike, or if he reads two newspapers instead of three he’ll suffer irreversible writer’s block. But he appreciates the power of rituals.

“I would make a distinction between rituals and superstitions, although they’re not completely separate,” he says. “Rituals are more just behavior patterns that make you feel less anxious, more comfortable. In a way, ritual attenuates the anxiety, and you don’t need some of the goofier superstitions.”

Call them what you will, “rituals, routines or almost-superstitions” these patterns impart the sense that your day will go well, that there’s a cause-and-effect relationship within your power to influence.

If not taken to extremes, they even can enhance your physical and mental health.

I take a larger thought out of this . . . take care of yourself. Be nice to yourself. Do things that make you feel safe. Create some healthy habits. And if you find that feeling harder to come by, think about finding some new rituals.

kah

Technorati Tags: Health Care, Michael Shermer, Health Habits