Peripheral Vision
In the June 18, 2008, Toronto Globe and Mail, business book reviewer Harvey Schachter reviewed Stall Points by Matthew Olson and Derek Van Bever, Yale University Press. The book talks about how successful companies hit a takeoff point, and soar. But eventually, most meet a stall point, where suddenly everything seems to fall apart. The review mentions that the authors make the point that “it is the assumptions that you believe the most deeply or that you have held true for the longest time that are likely to prove your undoing.” Here’s what I wrote to Harvey about that:
I am continually shocked in my consulting work with how blind even the most successful and effective leaders are to the limitations of their own views. Jerome Groopman talks about it in How Doctors Think. The neuroscientists talk about it in discussing the problems with cognitive bias.
In Rules of Victory we talk about it in terms of View, and how that leads (or doesn’t) to synchronized and effective Practices and Actions.
One of my favorite images in talking about this is the experience of using a flashlight on a dark night: It simultaneously sharpens perception at the focus but renders the periphery more opaque. Since so many answers lie somewhere in the periphery, our ability to see and understand what’s lies out there needs to be expanded. This is akin to what Olson and Bever present in seeing the limitations of the assumptions underlying one’s strategy.
James Gimian