I want to talk about tension.
The tension present in every commercial and private decision we make, and action we take.
If you focus exclusively on the short term, you will make mistakes, go out of business.
If you focus exclusively on the long term, you will do too little, and go out of business.
You must find a midpoint, one that ensures the bills are paid today, while ensuring that the business has the foundations to prosper into the future.
Current vs Future. The Quantitative with the Qualitative.
Tactics, the short term stuff is powered by data.
Strategy, the long term stuff is powered by insight.
Insight is informed by data, but does not come exclusively from it. Insight comes from a wide range of sources, many not easily or readily available without a lot of work, time and experience, but nevertheless, absolutely necessary.
In effect, insight is identifying the ‘Why’ stuff happens, while working on the ‘what’ you are doing.
I am going to take this opportunity to ‘come out’ in this safe environment, and reveal a secret I have been hiding for all my adult life.
I am a …. Commercial schizophrenic.
On one hand, I love the numbers, the investigation, analysis, KPI’s, analytics, the opportunity to dig down and see connections, trends, and find the hidden gems that can be leveraged to deliver value. On the other, I am a frustrated creative. I cannot draw a line with a ruler, play a note, or hold a tune, and am in envious awe of those who can.
Numbers tend to numb the sense of curiosity, scepticism, and uncertainty, they imply something that is quantitative, and therefore black and white, no room for debate, misunderstanding, or discussion. The absence of numbers, without a credible story as to why, implies not enough work has been done, and we are therefore wary.
The challenge of measurement in life and commerce is a major one. What to measure, how to measure it, and how to ensure that the measurements lead to some sort of action, without which, the exercise is useless.
However, the core of the paradox of measurement is that some really fundamental things evade measurement. We are able to measure the past, and get results, biased, context driven, and short of understanding of the behaviours that gave us the measures. However, we have no idea how to measure the future, quantify what had not yet happened. All we know for sure is that it will be different to the past, so extrapolation is at best misleading, at worst totally and terminally wrong.
There is a great tension between the attraction of the seeming objectivity, safety and rationality of numbers, representing a continuation of the past, and the range of assumptions, beliefs, and projections that represent any vision of what the future might look like, and how it will impact on you.
Our brains are always seeking the easy and quick way out, jump to a conclusion to save cogitative energy, and when they see numbers, they automatically give them credibility they often do not deserve. Being creative by contrast is the exact opposite. There are no rules, the idea matters, creative energy, unquantifiable and harder to generate a quick conclusion, just gets in the way.
Strategy development is about developing a model of what the future might look like, then assembling and deploying appropriate resources in preparation for its arrival.
Data is a representation of the past, a quantification of what has happened. It is always easier to assume that the future will look like the past, so we tend to just extrapolate. We also need to be able to react instantaneously, instinctively, to danger and opportunity. This is a function of evolution, where to survive we had to rely on our instincts, instant reactions, typified by ‘flight or fight’ which we are all familiar with. Our ‘fast’ brain drives us, and it takes an effort to override that instant response with something considered.
I do not like snakes, at all. Nasty slithery things. However, I watched my youngest son when he was much younger play with a carpet snake at one of those touist trap reptile parks, knowing, rationally it was absolutely harmless, but would I touch it…NO. Irrational, emotional, and my rational brain gave up trying to get me to touch the bloody thing despite knowing it was so safe that I would let my son play with it.
Schitzo in the head!
My go-to marketing guru is Albert Einstein, also a reasonable physicist. Among his musings is this: Not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters’
When you need a schitzo with insight born of tough and long experience to help you play with your snakes, let me know.
Header photo courtesy of Geoff Ridenour www.ridenourphoto.com
