Don’t miss the signals!

A key in guiding an organization to a better future is detecting what is happening in the milieu in which  it is functioning.  Think of it like a captain on a riverboat navigating through foggy waters or as a problem of discerning meaningful patterns from a river of data.

At the University of Chicago I spent weeks analyzing business data using stochastic methods looking for these meaningful patterns.  These efforts were meant to find trends that would lead to models that were predictive of future behavior of markets, prices and other seemingly random events.

At that same institution I learned that the stock market is "a random walk" and that the most can be said about the stock market is "it varies," and that the economy with certainty goes through a continuing series of business cycles.  Nothing is forever, it will change.

It's easy to be lulled by things as they are and may have been recently, or to apply past experience to the current situation and call it the same, or to miss signals in the noisy environment that would tell us that the current is changing and flowing faster and pulling us toward the shoals.

A strategic thinker has the obligation to not only seeing today's possibilities and pitfalls, but to continually project into the future as best he or she can to see what possibilities and pitfalls are ahead.  It's an immense challenge, one that was underscored for me by Professors Nelson, Zarnowitz and others at the U. of C. Graduate School of Business.

At the least, this challenge should impel us to assure that we and others in our organization are digesting and sharing as much information as we can about the environment and how it might be changing.  Like the riverboat captain, we need watchers on deck and to be taking continuing soundings to be sure we are in the deep channel and are not moving ahead into the rocks.  Pay attention!