BUSINESS

Hitchhiking for Corporates

Lessons About Operating Effectively Under Uncertainty

The family that took me to Hehuanshan (And the only sign I wrote with a “typo”, trust me!)

I just finished a major project of mine.

It didn’t involve any programming, nor was it really business-related, but it taught me more than many work and study experiences I’ve had in my life.

Places I spent some time in during my Taiwan trip

I hitchhiked around the whole of Taiwan. Yeah, all of it. And inspired by this experience I am now launching a course for corporates where they learn valuable skills to improve their performance in the workplace.

The course I’m launching is, well, fictitious.

While it would be quite interesting to get people out of the office for some days and tell them to go stand on the side of the road with their thumb out, I will resort to just telling you about what hitchhiking taught me, and what it could teach you.

This way, you’ll either get inspired to try it yourself or be able to learn from my experience without having to spare any cardboard for it.

So, after hitchhiking about 1500km, on 16 different vehicles, with 30 different people, to around 20 locations in Taiwan, here’s what I learned (and what the students of my imaginary course would learn as well):

1. Having a Plan Doesn’t Always Help…

One day I woke up (in a tent) and decided to skip everything I had planned and try to hitchhike to this mountain. It took a long time to get a ride. And it was worth it.

In the age of forecasting and elaborate plans, it is worthwhile to understand how to handle situations when a plan fails to help, and how to deal with them.

Hitchhiking teaches you this better than anything. When people asked me “Where are you headed today?” I could only reply:

“I hope to make it to Kenting”

I could only hope, really. Since it is not something I have complete control over, I needed to be ready for different outcomes, like staying one more night where I was or getting a ride to an alternative destination — something I did on my way from Taipei to Hualien.

Business is no different. We can have plans, but relying on them being executed perfectly leaves you susceptible to being blindsided — it makes you fragile. We want to embrace the uncertainty, and be antifragile. Plus uncertainty can be fun too — just ask Nassim Taleb.

2. …But It’s Still Good to Have One

Happy I included Taroko National Park in my plans.

Plans can fail, so you should be able to execute in their absence. However, they are far from useless.

Planning, research, or any work done before a certain event is beneficial because it reduces your exposure to chance.

Here’s an example: I met many people along the way who said hitchhiking wasn’t working for them, so they stopped. After finding it relatively easy in Taiwan, I began to question those people further when I encountered them.

I then found out a lot of Taiwanese people were just standing at their front door with their thumb out hoping to catch a 4-hour ride South.

On the other hand, I spent a long time preparing my attempts every time, which included shaving, writing a clear sign in Chinese characters and, above all, researching the optimal spot to catch a ride.

What I looked like just before arriving in Taiwan

Just like the people who were failing, I was still at the mercy of chance — a clean-shaven face doesn’t guarantee I’ll get a ride. But by putting myself in a place where cars are going in the same direction I want to go in and preparing myself in advance, it was more likely that I would be picked up than them.

To those familiar with hitchhiking, the prospect of standing in front of your house to catch a ride may sound ridiculous (because it is), but we do similar things all the time.

Have you ever entered a meeting unprepared, or started coding without a clear idea of what you’re building? It’s not so different.

3. Be Open-Minded and Ready to Adapt

I changed my plans because of a suggestion from this lovely couple

We are oftentimes made to think that changing our mind is a bad thing. Public figures are especially scrutinized for it.

Politicians and CEOs are heavily criticized for opinions that differ from what they might have said in the past, and most of us are afraid to tell people: “Sorry, I don’t want ____ anymore. I changed my mind”.

But why should we be? Changing our mind in the light of new knowledge or as a result of deeper consideration should actually be encouraged! How many traders have blown up for holding on to their position until the very end?

Taleb offered George Soros some praise for his ability to change his mind with ease, and I believe that should be the right way to approach things. Soros isn’t doing bad for himself, and we can all benefit from stopping an argument once in a while to say:

“You know what? You’re right.”

Leaving Hualien I stood next to the road with the sign “Taitung City”. I quickly got picked up and was on the way to my destination. Through my conversation with the driver, I was then convinced to stop in Dulan, a township 15km away from Taitung. I booked my hostel on the highway and arrived there an hour later — a great decision.

On a similar note, everyone, and I mean everyone, can teach you something.

4. Trust Your Premeditated Decisions

If you’ve ever read anything from Kahneman and Tversky you’ll have reached the conclusion that our mind can be very bad at quick judgments.

These failures of intuition are a result of the actions from what Kahneman denotes as “System 1” — our mind’s mechanism to coordinate quick responses.

When making quick decisions, their research argues, we are heavily influenced by emotion and inherent biases which are near-impossible to override.

Instead, what we can do is slow down and refrain from making a quick decision (at times when that is possible). This will allow your “System 2” to kick in and assess the situation more rationally to produce a better judgment.

Now, you can read their extensive research (you should at least read some of it), or you can go out and try to hitchhike.

I often left my sign hanging from my backpack in case someone wanted to pick me up while I was on the way to my desired spot

When in Taichung, I was headed to the bus stop with “Taipei” written on a sign hanging from my backpack. My plan was to get a bus to a spot I found while researching and hitchhike out from there.

30 meters away from the stop, I’m stopped by a man saying:

“Hey! You are going the wrong way! Taipei is that way!”

I explain to him that I’ll first catch a bus, to which he replies:

“The bus to the center is over there, not here”

As I try to show him that Maps tells me I can also catch a bus to the center of town from the bus stop just in front of us, a bus races past.

“Oh, that was your bus.” — he said.

Yeah, that was my bus.

Multiple times throughout the trip I was stopped and offered help which led me to wrong decisions. Those who stopped me were friendly and only trying to help, but they had no proper context regarding what I was trying to do.

A few days later in Yilan, I researched and found a perfect spot to hitchhike from — it’s not always easy to find a good spot that is safe and legal.

On my way there another spot caught my eye. I thought it looked even better, so I stopped, put a smile on and my sign up. Nothing.

Then a car finally stops. The driver rolls down the window and says:

“You know the turn for the highway is back there, right? No cars going to Hualien will ever go through here”

Oops. In the heat of the moment, I ditched the spot I had researched about for one that appealed to me right then and there, and it was clearly a poor decision.

Again, it’s important to be open to new options that were not in your plan. However, if you’ve done your homework, it’s often better to stick with decisions your System 2 made beforehand than the ones System 1 blurts out in the moment.

5. Know Your Objective (And Have No Shame!)

Linked to the point above.

By being open to suggestions, we may find opportunities that are a good fit for us and worth pursuing, like when I stopped in Dulan rather than Taitung.

But it’s also important to realize that only you truly know your objective. So regardless of the pressure from others, you should stick with it.

In Taiwan, I was told many times to just take the trains and buses, as they are cheap, reliable, and would allow me to see more places during my limited stay.

However, my goal was to hitchhike the entire country. And that’s what I did.

6. Enjoy The Process

So why did I have to hitchhike? Isn’t hitchhiking just a way to save money?

I “had” to hitchhike because I wanted to. Not to save money per se, but because it was a great way to be exposed to locals, learn more about Taiwan and practice some Mandarin.

One of the best parts of my trip was in fact the rides themselves, not only the destinations. And that is what makes things enjoyable, especially work.