Nothing Compares To Certainty

By Harry Cruickshank

“If a man will begin with certainties he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) The Advancement of Learning

Richard Feynman, the renowned American physicist, was an engaging character and a lifelong seeker of knowledge. He was also a pragmatist and uncomfortable with those who pursued the goal of certainty, citing the difficulty of absolutely proving hypotheses. In his own words:?“There’s all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over the place. I may be quite wrong, maybe they do know all these things, but I don’t think I’m wrong. You see, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself.”

This resonates in the business world too. Dangerous waters lie ahead for those who are willing to accept unsubstantiated claims or trust statements about future outcomes or value that lack the hard data, analytical rigour and critical thinking to back them up. And yet we continue to read stories about strategic and operational mistakes and failures that were avoidable.

So why does this continue to happen? There are several reasons and I’m sure you’ll be familiar with some (or all) of them.

• Executives want growth and they want problems fixed – and they want that as soon as possible, particularly if financial results are moving in the wrong direction.
• The problem may not be well-defined and there’s the risk that the fix is focused on treating the symptom(s) and not the root cause.
• The team tasked with resolving the problem lack some of the critical skills and tools required. A sound methodology may require structured questioning, proper survey design, an effective analytical approach and how to “present insight with impact”.
• People in the business, including leaders, may be too familiar with (and in some cases wedded to) vendors and service offerings that are not providing the necessary data, insight and input to decision-making that the executives need.

If one or more of these conditions are present, it’s likely that the exercise will be fraught with risk and any resulting recommendations compromised. Individually they’re bad enough, but in combination they can damage businesses and destroy value.

Technology is not necessarily your friend. Advances in technology promise much and, with careful deployment, can add great value by supporting effective processes and thinking, to automate and accelerate the delivery of data and insight. But if those processes or the thinking are flawed, then the technology simply pushes you faster in the wrong direction.

When working with clients we often encounter these situations. Our way of working is designed to minimise these risks. Here are three examples of that approach:

1. When we acquire information from customers or employees, we do so in a way designed to avoid any unconscious or conscious bias. That means asking the right questions in the right way rather than simply asking the questions the client wants answered.

2. By understanding what matters most to customers or employees, and measuring gaps around your performance, we can show you exactly where and why there are problem areas and the relative impact of these on your business.

3. Presenting feedback in an interactive, facilitated workshop format aligns leaders and their teams around action plans to deliver results.

This approach works time and time again. It’s quicker, clearer, more insightful than most forms of feedback and focused on action.

Certainty is hard to achieve, but by ruthlessly eliminating guesswork, untested assumptions, false truths, obfuscation and a lack of critical thinking we can focus in on insight and action in which you can have confidence. Your business can’t afford anything less.

Great achievements may have been built on a strategy of hope. We’d prefer a strong evidence base, solid analysis and a practical action plan for growth and success.