I am very fortunate to be tutoring History to a girl who is doing GCSE (15 year old). I love exploring the causes and effects of historical moments as well as in business. I did some research by myself before my session with my student. She is a very different learner than I am and likes to have the information in a story form. So, I constructed a story of the facts I had gleaned from my research.
My opening question to her was: what can you tell me about the Korean Crisis? While she was telling me what she knew, I looked over the hand-out her teacher had given her class. I don’t know if you know much about the Korean Crisis, but long story short, Second World War, Japan, China, Russia, USA, United Nations, divide country at 38th Parallel, North & South Korea. Anyway, one of the facts explained in my book and her hand-out was the “help” which China and Russia gave North Korea. The hand-out said 200,000 “volunteers” and the book I had said 250,000. Now, when there are LOTS of people coming at you with guns and murder in their eyes, you don’t say “Stop, let me count how many you are”. So, the question is, was it 250K or 200K soldiers? Because if 250K, the generals on the UN and South Korea side would have devised different strategies to deal with this number.
In a business context, the Korean Crisis was an International crisis. Relating this into Spend terms, which currency are we dealing in? Also, spending $250K or £200K for a goods/service can engender a different negotiation and/or Procurement strategy. The message here is, do not be complacent and just accept a set of data you have been given by Accounts Payable. You have to double check your facts and figures (data) so that when you are tasked to propose a strategy to deal with a (Korean) Spend crisis/challenge, you will know what the correct information is and not rely on false or anecdotal information.
BTW: No-one side “won” in the end – the Crisis reached a Stalemate that still exists today.
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