I have been kicking around an issue for a while. A short summary - we have technology that can analyze huge amounts of data really fast. Gives us cool, clean, pretty reports and analysis - hence the 5G infrastructure. The problem comes in when humans take days, weeks, months to make a decision - we still work at the 1 and 2G infrastructure. Staffs are not all equal, the decision maker is on leave, politics crashes the best of ideas. Left of Bang is a great process - but sometimes we are our own worst enemies.
Paul - I think one of the challenges is that you can have infinite amounts of data available, but until you're able to make sense of it and use it to inform your decisions, it doesn't become truly valuable or helpful.
A lot of data can also create a lot of noise that buries the signal people are looking for. The more this happens, the longer it can take for a human to make a decision.
But when you start with the decisions you're looking to make, and then move backward to identify the watch points and action points that should prompt that decision, the data can then accelerate the process and become a true force multiplier.
This is so good Patrick! 👏 (and thanks to Kyle Shepard for pointing to this essay). You are addressing a fatal flaw in the human brain which is that we operate mostly at the tactical level of identifying threats when they’re bearing down on us, which is efficient and conserves precious energy supplies. But when there are emerging existential threats farther out on the time horizon, we will usually recognize them too late to build the capacity to deal with them successfully. So your 3-levels of preparedness is hard but vital to achieve for sustainable success as a person, business or country. I reference Charles Handy’s great writing about the S-Curve where “Point A” is the where you want the strategic level to kick in. Great important survival stuff!
Baird - I love that you bring up how focusing on the here and now might be preferred, but often simply ineffective. To your point, by the time you have certainty that an emerging threat is in fact emerging, it is often too late to do anything about it.
In our work with organizations, we started out focusing on the tactical level, but kept hitting a ceiling in performance and potential because the two higher levels had never been built.
We wrote our paper on getting left of bang at the strategic level (the pretext for coming on Kyle's show) to help make that not as hard, but without a structure and terminology to do it, leaders are left to make it up as they go.
I have been kicking around an issue for a while. A short summary - we have technology that can analyze huge amounts of data really fast. Gives us cool, clean, pretty reports and analysis - hence the 5G infrastructure. The problem comes in when humans take days, weeks, months to make a decision - we still work at the 1 and 2G infrastructure. Staffs are not all equal, the decision maker is on leave, politics crashes the best of ideas. Left of Bang is a great process - but sometimes we are our own worst enemies.
Paul - I think one of the challenges is that you can have infinite amounts of data available, but until you're able to make sense of it and use it to inform your decisions, it doesn't become truly valuable or helpful.
A lot of data can also create a lot of noise that buries the signal people are looking for. The more this happens, the longer it can take for a human to make a decision.
But when you start with the decisions you're looking to make, and then move backward to identify the watch points and action points that should prompt that decision, the data can then accelerate the process and become a true force multiplier.
Thanks for the comment!
This is so good Patrick! 👏 (and thanks to Kyle Shepard for pointing to this essay). You are addressing a fatal flaw in the human brain which is that we operate mostly at the tactical level of identifying threats when they’re bearing down on us, which is efficient and conserves precious energy supplies. But when there are emerging existential threats farther out on the time horizon, we will usually recognize them too late to build the capacity to deal with them successfully. So your 3-levels of preparedness is hard but vital to achieve for sustainable success as a person, business or country. I reference Charles Handy’s great writing about the S-Curve where “Point A” is the where you want the strategic level to kick in. Great important survival stuff!
https://bairdbrightman.substack.com/p/ready-to-change
Baird - I love that you bring up how focusing on the here and now might be preferred, but often simply ineffective. To your point, by the time you have certainty that an emerging threat is in fact emerging, it is often too late to do anything about it.
In our work with organizations, we started out focusing on the tactical level, but kept hitting a ceiling in performance and potential because the two higher levels had never been built.
We wrote our paper on getting left of bang at the strategic level (the pretext for coming on Kyle's show) to help make that not as hard, but without a structure and terminology to do it, leaders are left to make it up as they go.
I look forward to reading your article!
I always admire thinkers who keep on building out their paradigm as client needs emerge. They’re the best consultants!