Are we able to monitor and control success and failure ?

 Are we able to monitor and control success and failure ?

Back in 1989 a young student bought his first shares

in the stock exchange.

In the next 20 years he was lucky to evaluate

the potentials of around 2000 more companies in Cyprus, Greece

and the United Kingdom,

monitoring also what went wrong for those that shut down.

When the Cyprus Stock Exchange collapsed and billions of pounds were lost , without any obvious reason, that was a red flag that for an aspiring professional on fraud investigation would be repeated

As a Bachelors studies student, the same person, 

made a couple of assumptions regarding the EU design, stability and future failure.

Unfortunately, today we monitor the most negative

of those scenarios happening. The people that implemented and monitored the procedures of European integration had no idea on how to do it properly. This is why today we are discussing the models of a soft disintegration.

What the outcome of the 2008 crisis has proven for sure

was that PIGS cannot fly if monitoring and controlling is left to people with limited skills and experience..

The collapse of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain

opened the Pandora Box

for the United Kingdom, Germany and France, but the red flags were not obvious unless you had studies and experience on the topic of Ponzi finance.

This is why today all governments wonder how to fix the problems they caused but in fact they have absolutely no idea on how to do it.

The pattern is identical and whoever can observe it, is always one step ahead but the majority of the population will pay a huge bill.

This is because both the Project Managers and the Fraud investigators failed to do their own job properly, when they should.

Ten years earlier I wrote a post regarding the upcoming problems of France. Today everyone discusses those problems but fails to understand the necessary solutions. In the meantime, the United Kingdom has left the European Union, in order to fix their own issues. This is how inevitable that choice was.

Based on the evidence, coming from cases such as 

- Overend, Gurney and Company,

- Northern Rock,

- Royal Bank of Scotland,

- Lehman Brothers,

- Cyprus Popular Bank (MARFIN Laiki) Group,

- the Cyprus and the Greek bust,

and the most recent cases of :

- Wilko and

- Poundland,

I have recently created a series of modules

focused on the necessity of monitoring, controlling and re-designing,

during the periods that things go really bad.

Based on the case studies and the evidence, I follow

the routes of how the money disappears each time and

who are the organizations

that will allow the system to restart again.

This research allows the participants to understand

how important it is to make a functional design and implementation,

especially during the periods that the society needs stronger support,

in order to recover sooner.

An important module, allow my learners to understand Ponzi schemes in the 21st century era

and the importance of Hyman Minsky and the Ponzi Finance theory

in order to identify and evaluate the health condition stages of any private and public body.

As a professional on the field, I am always looking to train the organizations and the teams that plan to be the problem solvers of tomorrow and I offer the best available knowledge.

So when I read articles blaming Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Emmanuel Macron I can instantly understand which parts of the analysis are accurate and which parts are misleading, based on the personal perceptions of the writer. What I could say as a general rule is that each leader brings good things among bad things, during their administration. Unfortunately, it takes too much time to evaluate whether the majority of their actions were good or bad and it’s always too late to fix the damages that were caused.

This is where Political science meets Project Management and Fraud investigation, in order to provide the best possible solution.

If you have some examples to share, please share your own comment or example.

The rules of instability periods..

It’s this period of the economic circle, once again so one more American bank went bust !

Fragility of the financial system is increasing all over the world, even in the United States.

And as experts predict, the party has just started.. We saw it previously, we see it at the moment, we will see it again, again and again. 

The pattern is the same and the mistakes also..

We currently have the United Kingdom in a situation between stagnation and flirting recession.

Inflation is still high and interest rates are getting higher and higher..

Leadership and management prove completely incompetent to fix anything,

like the previous circle turnpoints. 

Management in an important number of companies varies between below average and inexperienced, pushing the companies straight to the bottom..

This month, Cyprus celebrated 19 years since joining the European Union.

For me, personally it is a reminder of periods that a dream becomes a nightmare.

The European Union project , soon after, proved to be a huge failure.

Cyprus, Portugal, Italy,  Ireland, Greece and Spain flirted and danced with bankruptcy..

Citizens of Cyprus and Greece lost access to their deposits, seeing banks closed for weeks..

The most recent, political incident, the evacuation flights from Sudan showed the chaos of the so-called Union for one more time..

The time the European Union was designed I was studying for my Bachelor, with classes related to European integration, the stability and instability of the project..

The flaws of the system were part of my assignments and based on my experience even predictable.

Nobody paid attention to those assumptions, during that period.

Not even my professor believed that those assumptions would become reality soon.

A lesson I got years earlier, from the period I was analysing the Stock Markets is that whatever you see may not be accurate, whatever you analyse could change in a second, whatever you start investigating may show more than expected.

That period taught me that companies under strong leadership and management last longer than those with weak leadership and management, but all of them are fragile in some period of time.

So, the most valuable lesson of that period was that I learnt to make assumptions for the worst and be prepared for “IT”.

That applies to business and politics equally.

For those who heard of Hyman Minsky, “IT” happens..

During 2008 “IT” was related to the Minsky Moment.

The time that the flaws are exposed on the highest levels.

Both organisations (strong managed and weak managed)  face financial challenges and struggle to survive.

In addition both categories (strong managed and weak managed) are vulnerable due to political factors.

Based on my experience more that 50% of the companies I was related to, in the last thirty years, have gone bust not because of their management but because of politics.

If we examine the latest Greek drama, it wasn’t normal or expected for all those companies of the latest gilded period ( that all went bust ) to collapse due to internal factors of incompetence.

All those companies collapsed due to high debt and that high debt was connected with 

wrong political decisions affecting wages, social contributions and international competitiveness. 

If we look at Cyprus, the design was more or less the same like Greece but political fraud and casino economics were multiplied.

There was a huge party by the politicians increasing taxes and loans for their own benefit and looting the social security fund, in order to keep their wages and secret bonuses.

Similar models are followed by the United Kingdom and France and so many other countries. Based on what it’s published, British politicians benefit from their position and connections and that reflects to lower performance of the NHS and the quality of life for the less lucky. People and organisations pay the real cost by direct or indirect devaluations so recently French people realised that they have to work more years, in order to cover the gap that was exposed. 

Also valuable to note that in the long term Greece was not able to compete with Turkey, a country with similar resources and production but with continuous devaluation of their currency.

In the long term, Cyprus was not able to become too expensive because they would lose the British tourists that moved to the occupied Northern part or Turkey.

In the long term Greece should be tuned with Turkey and Egypt in order to look attractive instead of trying to be tuned with France or Scandinavia.

In the long term Cyprus should be aligned with the United Kingdom in order to seem attractive to British visitors.

First Republic bank was the latest financial player that faced devalued assets and had to close.

For me, the story is repeated from the period of Barings. Later, the story involved Laiki, Bank of Cyprus and the Co-Op bank.

Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, fifteen years ago, invested heavily in the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia.

For the periods they faced losses they needed fresh capital.

In the end of the period, both old and new  investors kept away so there was no white knight available.

The outcome was existing investors losing their investment, the closure of Laiki and a series of repeated recapitalization for Bank of Cyprus.

The Co-op banking system collapsed a few years later due to political games, fraud and incompetence.

That was the most healthy arm of the Cyprus financial system so the total collapse of the so-called Cyprus miracle was inevitable.

That was the arm that could allow the rest of the system to become healthy again!

During the same period of time I was investigating a money-laundering case, involving the University of Cyprus.

After two courts and relevant paperwork that were released, it was clearly shown that it was an inside job. Recently missing funds had to be announced. Ten years later!

Inevitably, Brexit followed. People wanted to take back control.

They already suspected or knew of similar cases all over Europe and they had to put an end to the joke.

They actually said that they preferred to see their taxes going for better causes than money-laundering.

And suddenly here comes downshifting to complete the movie!

People stopped being attracted to fake careers and immoral activities.

Imagine yourself, in a top corporate position covering bullying and sexual harassment.

Yourself, in a middle level position, having expectations that will not be achieved by working with below average colleagues.

Yourself, in an entry level position, knowing that if you continue in that organisation will sooner or later lose a few fingers or your hand because of the low levels of health and safety.

Active and professional recruiters are still wondering though, why new hires fail in two years time..

If we take these valuable  lessons we can eliminate the upcoming repetition..

BUT.. Are we willing to do that?

Definitely not. Human nature is not changing so easily.

In the best outcome, leadership could inspire but in order to do that you need to have genuine leadership.

Management could train, guide and allow excellence, but in order to do that you need to have already experienced managers with high standards set.

Strategy could put milestones for problem solving, but in order to do that you need people that understand strategy, monitoring and evaluation in depth..

Unfortunately, after three decades in the business environment, in several countries and positions, the most valuable lesson I got is that people tend to ignore and avoid crucial actions because it’s more convenient.

Inexperience is more and more widespread and sooner or later we will face another perfect storm. And for as long as we ignore and avoid doing our real job, we make the exact same mistakes.

Based on an assignment where I got a huge “F” , during my MBA studies,  in the end we will all do the right thing.

BUT..Based on history, it will happen after we follow every other direction. Never forget that !