There is this idea that success is 100 per cent correct decision making. For some people, they understand this to be 90 per cent or even 80 per cent correct decision making. This idea is completely wrong. A success rate of 56 per cent, implying 44 per cent incorrect decisions, is a great result. Here’s why.
Let’s simplify things. Assume that you are the chief executive of a company and that each decision you make has, on average, an equal impact on the company performance. Let’s say that if you make a good decision you increase profit by Dh1 million and if you make a bad decision you decrease profit by Dh1m.
What does this mean in terms of the company performance?
Imagine, if you will, that as chief executive you have to make one of these decisions every working day and that there are 240 working days a year. A 56 per cent success rate means that out of the 240 decisions, about 134 are successful which generates Dh134m in profit. That means 106 decisions are failures, decreasing profits by Dh106m. The result is an annual profit of Dh28 million.
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Most people would never believe that a 56 per cent success rate, on a uniform distribution of the effect of decisions on P/L, could result in an Dh28m profit. In fact, most people would consider a 56 per cent success rate as a failure for a chief executive.
The absolute return of Dh28m needs context in terms of the total equity of the firm. If the equity is Dh10 billion, then this is an insignificant contribution to performance. If the equity is Dh100m then it is a major contribution to performance.
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The way to think of this is what types of decisions should a chief executive be taking? As a simple example, why not assume that if a decision has less than a 1 per cent impact on return on equity (ROE) then the chief executive delegates it, but the as soon as it reaches 1 per cent of ROE, the chief executive takes the decision. This gives us a way to think of the impact of decisions on the ROE of the company. In this scenario, a chief executive with a 56 per cent success rate, implying a 44 per cent failure rate, will generate a 56% - 44% = 12% ROE. If the success rate is just 60 per cent in this scenario then the ROE will be an extraordinary 20 per cent.
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Some might question the flat 1 per cent per chief executive decision. Although the actual level at which a chief executive takes the decision can vary, it makes no sense for a chief executive to take a decision on matters that have a large variance on ROE impact. A chief executive who takes decisions that have a 10 percentage point impact on ROE would not be rational to also take decisions that impacted ROE by only 2 percentage points. This is a chief executive who doesn’t understand how to take the critical decisions and delegate the sometimes big but not critical decisions.
What does this mean when looking at a business? If a chief executive talks about having an 80 per cent success rate then they had better have a ROE of of around 80% - 20% = 60%. My participation in our markets shows CEOs in general claiming greater than 80 per cent success rates, while in fact they have ROEs of far less than 60 per cent. Far less than 20 per cent even. In this scenario this means that either the chief executive is taking decisions at extremely low levels of importance to the company, and is therefore incompetent, or he or she is being dishonest.
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Book%20Details
%3Cp%3E%3Cem%3EThree%20Centuries%20of%20Travel%20Writing%20by%20Muslim%20Women%3C%2Fem%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EEditors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESiobhan%20Lambert-Hurley%2C%20Daniel%20Majchrowicz%2C%20Sunil%20Sharma%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPublisher%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EIndiana%20University%20Press%3B%20532%20pages%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
SERIE A FIXTURES
Saturday (All UAE kick-off times)
Cagliari v AC Milan (6pm)
Lazio v Napoli (9pm)
Inter Milan v Atalanta (11.45pm)
Sunday
Udinese v Sassuolo (3.30pm)
Sampdoria v Brescia (6pm)
Fiorentina v SPAL (6pm)
Torino v Bologna (6pm)
Verona v Genoa (9pm)
Roma V Juventus (11.45pm)
Parma v Lecce (11.45pm)
