A couple of good blog posts in my feed this morning that provoked some thinking. \u00a0These quotes reminded me how much evaluation and planning is directed towards goals, targets and patterns that cause us to look for data that supports what we want to see rather than learning what the data is telling us about what’s really going on. \u00a0These helped me to reflect on a conversation I had with a client yesterday, where we designed a process for dealing with this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
First is this one<\/a> on one good tip to help your research:<\/p>\n And we need all the tricks we can muster because our psyche is playing them on us all the time: making us think things are solely\u00a0our<\/i>\u00a0decision,\u00a0our<\/i>\u00a0idea or\u00a0our<\/i>\u00a0considered opinion, constantly nudging us not to think for ourselves. Perhaps this is the basis of the easy tendency to lean so heavily on research but that\u2019s not the point. The point is that by looking to it for answers we do little more than search for reassurance that we were right all along. If nature abhors a vacuum, your psyche abhors cognitive dissonance and just because you\u2019re aware of the notion of confirmation bias doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re protected from it. As 20th century philosopher Bertrand Russell puts it:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n And so to the tip.<\/span><\/p>\n Rather late in the day I\u2019m discovering the joys of a bit of Scandinavian hard-boiled in the person of Jo Nesbo\u2019s detective, Harry Hole. In the novel\u00a0Nemesis<\/i>, Harry recalls his Police College lecturer\u2019s advice on house searches:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t think about what you are searching for. Think about what you find. Why is it there? Should it be there? What does it mean? It\u2019s like reading \u2013 if you think about an \u201cI\u201d while looking at a \u201ck\u201d, you won\u2019t see the words.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The lecturer’s advice is spot on. \u00a0Think about what you find. \u00a0Don’t try to mash things into pre-determined categories. \u00a0In the land of Cognitive Edge this is recast as “data precedes the framework<\/a>.” When we start with a scheme for categorizing our work, we are tempted to do two things, which are fatal strategic mistakes. \u00a0First we are tempted to fit every outlier into a category, which renders difference and novelty impotent. \u00a0A gradient of difference, or a range of diversity in a set of data helps us to discover innovative practices and sustain creative tensions. \u00a0Second, we are tempted to erase differences by working a a scale of granularity that is too broad to be useful. \u00a0And why would we do that?<\/p>\n Often, consultation and engagement is not undertaken with an innovative mindset. \u00a0Rather we are seeking to justify the planning targets that we have set. \u00a0We are looking for justification rather than innovation. \u00a0And here is why:<\/a><\/p>\n A disconnect exists between corporate strategic plans, which typically define the company\u2019s targets for growth, and their day-to-day execution activities….<\/p>\n …There is the fashionable argument that you abandon annual plans and you seek fresh planning ways to\u00a0 create an organization ready to react to critical changes in the marketplace. That is great for the little fella, all nimble and lean but for the larger complex organization they struggle.\u00a0 Each of the different organizational parts have different reaction and response times, are governed in totally different ways. Plans are essential as the instrument of strategic design but how can these become more reflective and responsive, this is a real thorny problem to crack.<\/p>\n\n