Take a deeper look
The lens we look through changes what we see. It's easy to think a simple and familiar underlying process is at work or fundamental truth is at the root and that we are seeing part of it or its results.
While something is certainly underneath what we see, I think we are foolish to reduce it to something simple, familiar and fundamental. After all, when we think about it we know that what we see is really the result of a phenomenally complex system or, better stated, the interaction of phenomenally complex systems. Indeed, we can see the effects or results of these systems - a flower, a stock market drop, an entrepreneurial opportunity - but it is impossible to fully grasp or describe the system and how it works. Only when we isolate parts or pieces can we see dimly lit clues about how it works - mapping DNA to explain the human body, a stock price prediction model that poorly fits reality, volumes of market data that indicate changing consumer preference.
It is so easy to say that what we see is what we have seen before, maybe tweaked or morphed a bit, but still, it's not new. While that may be true, we are poorly served if we really believe it. Remember, phenomenally complex systems are interacting to produce what you think you are seeing. Systems may tend toward stability, but they are not truly stable. Shocks, input changes, interaction with other systems that are growing in intensity and scope, all of these things and more can destabilized or alter very complex interacting systems. The flower suddenly is less prevalent, perhaps because average temperature has risen and is affecting plant growth; domestic markets suddenly drop, perhaps because Italians are perceived as not being able to repay their debts; the entrepreneurial opportunity disappears, perhaps because consumer sentiment changes and other firms at the margin have already reacted.
This underlying complexity calls for us as strategic thinkers to use different lenses to look at what we see. (Ah, perhaps this proves the case for the liberal arts major and the Renaissance Man!) Rather than seeing what we have always seen, we are better served to look in new and different ways: statistical, anthropomorphical, sociological, psychological, biological, philosophical, geographic, economic, and on and on. We need the evidence from many viewpoints to better understand what we are seeing.
If we do take time to look at the important aspects of what we think we are seeing through many different lenses, the richness of the interacting complex systems at work will emerge and the decisions we make based on what we are seeing will tend to be better informed. Not necessarily right, but better informed than decisions that might be made otherwise and that others are likely making based on a more simplistic view of what's at work.
