Tufte long ago shaped my belief that the way in which we present data is more important in shaping the way we think about it, than the data itself. This belief was taken to a new level when I saw this illustration representing research findings (Courtesy of Bob Waddington).At stake here is the myth that direct experience leads to knowledge. The graph is simple enough. It represents the effects of various experimental treatments on a sequence of different crops (black represents an improvement, white represents "no-imporvement"). This is not dissimilar from the brand manager's experience of sitting through focus groups and looking at the impact of different concepts on various sample groups.
The key organising factor of the data is time sequence. This is how we as humans remember things; "this happened before that", "this caused that to happen". The fact is that by looking at things this way makes it really hard to develop any insight into the nature of either the crops or the treatments!
A simple reorganisation of the data reveals a truly stunning new interpretation of the results. By clustering the data around the response of the crops to the treatments, rather than by the sequence in which they were administered we get a completely new pattern. We can see that there are roughly three groups of responses to the treatments.
This is true insight. And as is always the case with true insight, it looks obvious once revealed.
True insight penetrates the substance of what we are observing rather than following the random path of observation and experience.
Most people find it hard to break free from the illusion that what we see is real. Think about how a typical brand manager "learns" through her/his career.
Step 1: Get new job
Step 2: Flurry of activity to prove that the company made the right choice
Step 3: Brand share and performance improves
Step 4: Promotion
Step 5: Product share starts to decline reinforcing the belief that the brand manager did a good job
Step 6: New brand manager, new logo, new agency
Step 7: Cycle repeats until brand dies
The consequences of our actions are usually removed in time and space from the decisions we make. Things take time. Most people are more engaged with managing their emotional state in a meeting than making links to distant consequences.
It takes between 18 months and two years for the consequences of management decisions to be evident in a complex organisation. The feedback cycles, lags and unintended consequences need to take shape before we can really call something a success or failure.
Ask yourself if you can remember a decision you took 18 months ago. Ask yourself if you can see how that decision is playing a role right now. Can you see how the excess marketing materials you ordered are piling up in the warehouse or lie around unused in shops around the world. Are you dealing with cleaning up the the messes you made or the ones of your predecessor. If you are cleaning up their mess, ask yourself how they can learn from something they will never see and then ask that question about yourself.
Because we do not experience the consequences of decisions, we cannot learn from them.
Our learning experiences are mostly structured like the chart on the left. Building up a Boolean model for predicting the outcome of future decisions based on the sequence of our personal narrative. As long as everything in our immediate vicinity looks good, we'll keep operating on these assumptions.
To get true insight though, we need to break free from the filter of immediate experience.
So how do we counter the effect of short-termist thinking?
1. Cultural diversity: By bringing in different ways of experiencing the situation you reduce the dependency on one set of assumptions. This should bring us closer to experiencing the true nature of things.
2. The wisdom of crowds: Brainjuicer are doing really good work at allowing us to see a view of things less biased by personal prejudice.
3. Systemic thinking: Linking events in a system allows us to break free from the school ground logic of "he hit me"/"she hit me". Making dependencies visible to the group allows the team to think about the problem more completely.
4. Stretching the time frame: Quarterly thinking, chasing analyst reports is the wrong model for building value. Instinctively people know this but few people are bold enough to stand up against this wrong-headedness. Nothing of value was ever created in a quarter.
These methods allow us to re-present experience in a way that aids insight.
As we head into 2008 the challenge for business is increasingly to understand the true nature of things and to separate truly strategic action from reactionary busyness. The impact of pollution on China's ability to maintain growth will impact your outsourcing strategy. The cost crunch on India's IT outsourcing will impact political stability. But how?
The result of long term trends, these and other factors will be accelerated by a tipping point in human history. In 2007 we reached the historic moment where more than 50% of the human population became urban. We are living in a new world that requires new ways of thinking and acting.
The solution as always starts with challenging our own assumptions about what we know, versus what we think we know. Most importantly we need to break free from the notion that experience leads to knowledge.
