Sem dados acerca do futuro

Há anos aqui no blogue comecei a falar no "optimismo não documentado," por exemplo:

• Acerca do optimismo não documentado
• É inutil

Ontem, Roger Martin publicou um artigo, "Going on the Offensive with Creative Strategy", que está relacionado com o tema:

"My message was that in modern business, creatives are dooming themselves to high failure rates by accepting the dominant premise of modern business, which is that by objectively analyzing the past, you can predict the future.

...

In business, all ideas are subjected to the premise that we should only take an action for which data analysis confirms will garner the necessary revenues in the future to justify the investment required by the action. Analytics are taught that their job is to enforce this premise strictly and pervasively — any deviation is reprehensible and dangerous.

...

The problem is that analytics are taught a fundamental logical fallacy. To make decisions, they are taught to use a methodology that implicitly assumes that the future will be identical to the past while we definitively know that in business, the future is rarely identical to the past. But analytics enforce a methodology that assumes it is.

That is the single biggest problem in the modern practice of management.

...

The object of strategy is an integrated set of choices that compels desired customer action. But companies do not control customers: they will do whatever they wish. Analyzing past data to forecast the future behavior of people you don't control is a fantasy exercise.

...

If you are a creative, understand that you live in a business world completely dominated by analytics. It is an era - that took shape about fifty years and still dominants today — on which we will look back fifty years from now and wonder what were we thinking? And what on earth were we teaching?

It will probably take another twenty years for the current dominant business premise to be seen as utterly ridiculous."

O conceito de "optimismo não documentado" é a decisão de agir com convicção mesmo sem garantias estatísticas. É o risco de investir num caminho novo, sem “benchmarks”, baseado em algo que ainda não foi medido, mas que faz sentido. Ou como Martin escreve:

“Analyzing past data to forecast the future behavior of people you don't control is a fantasy exercise.”

E, como diria Rory, é justamente nas decisões que não podem ser sustentadas por dados históricos — porque criam o futuro em vez de o prolongar — que reside a verdadeira inovação. O que por sua vez se relaciona com a opinião de Phil Mullan acerca dos governos e do seu medo acerca da inovação verdadeira. BTW, Seth Godin também não é meigo:

"Certainty is another word for stalling."

Produtividades: europeia versus americana

No WSJ do passado dia 17.12 este texto "Why the U.S. Is Trouncing Europe" com um tema interessante e de esfregar na cara aos adeptos da caridadezinha:

O velho tema da "caridadezinha" aqui no blogue. Recordo:

• de 2021 - Lerolero 
• de 2008 - Vamos brincar à caridadezinha

Primeiro os ingredientes:

 

"Economists never cite one of the most significant statistics about the U.S. economy. According to data released last week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only about 12% of Americans score at the highest levels on internationally administered academic tests, while 34% score at the lowest levels - nearly three low scorers for every high scorer. Germany's figures are nearly even: 18% score at the highest levels and 20% at the lowest. Put another way, Germany's ratio of high to low scorers is almost three times America's. Scandinavia's is five times; Japan's, seven.

These enormous differences have profound economic implications.

...

Yet America excels relative to Europe despite these enormous differences. While Europe has created 14 companies worth more than $10 billion in the past 50 years, with about $400 billion of market value in total, Americans have created nearly 250 such companies, worth $30 trillion. That success has driven up America's middle-class incomes. The median disposable U.S. household income, according to the OECD, is now 25% greater than the median German household and 60% greater than the median household in Italy.

...

The belief that taxing success more heavily will scarcely slow inevitable progress ignores the importance of being first to market and founding successful companies in America rather than the rest of the world, the enormous difference in the training and expected payoffs for successful risk-taking that it creates for America's talented workers, and the motivational effect higher expected payoffs for successful risk-taking have on our talented workers."

Se os economistas europeus realmente acreditam que o "Relatório Draghi" será a varinha mágica que tornará a Europa mais rica que os Estados Unidos, talvez estejam a subestimar a essência do sucesso americano: uma mistura de inovação à solta, tolerância face ao fracasso e uma boa dose de audácia que transforma ideias malucas em empresas bilionárias. Enquanto a Europa redige relatórios de 300 páginas, os americanos já lançaram três startups e uma criptomoeda. Portanto, se o plano europeu é ultrapassar os EUA apenas com novas regulamentações e ajustes fiscais, talvez seja melhor preparar um "Relatório Draghi 2.0" - desta vez com capítulos sobre como adoptar uma mentalidade mais empreendedora, com um anexo explicando como transformar burocratas em visionários e professores de economia em investidores de capital de risco. Afinal, quem sabe? Se o próximo relatório tiver menos fórmulas e mais fé no imprevisível, talvez a Europa tenha sua chance.

Voltar ao "optimismo não documentado"

Recomendo a leitura deste postal de Seth Godin, "Demanding certainty"

"The defenders of the status quo often demand certainty when facing decisions about the future.

...

But certainty? Certainty is another word for stalling."

Faz-me recordar o "optimismo não documentado":

• Acerca do optimismo não documentado (2017)
• Falta um pouco de "optimismo não documentado" (2010)

"dealing with possibilities"

 

Ao ler:

"The crew of UA 232, and many other teams that attempt a recovery, are not dealing with probable next steps built from logic, principles, and macro designs. Instead, they are dealing with possibilities. “In a contingent world, real-time improvising in the face of what people cannot fully anticipate [is necessary because] having designs that work as planned is only one of the many contingencies we prepare for.”"

Lembrei-me logo do fuçar, de Daniel Bessa, da Viarco e do optimismo não documentado:

• Quando o mundo mudam, o imperativo de fuçar
• Para reflectir
• Fazemos as contas ao contrário
• Optimismo não documentado

Trecho retirado de "Managing the Unexpected - Sustained Performance in a Complex World" de Karl E. Weick e Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. 

Outra religião, a do big data

Ando mesmo interessado nos textos de Felin & Zenger

"No doubt bias and error are important concerns in strategic decision-making. Yet it seems quite a stretch to suggest that the original strategies developed by people like Apple’s Steve Jobs, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, or even Walmart’s Sam Walton had much to do with error-free calculations based on big data. Their strategies, like most breakthrough strategies, emerged in settings with remarkably little data to process and little basis for calculation — situations in which the paths to value creation were highly uncertain and evidence was sparse. We are highly skeptical that debiasing decision making, eradicating errors, or ceding strategy to AI will improve strategizing, let alone lead to breakthrough strategies. [Moi ici: Pensamento bacteriologicamente puro, sem erros, totalmente justificável e matematizável é o da triade, dos encalhados. E perder o pé? E o optimismo não documentado? Valor não se calcula numa folha de cálculo, é um sentimento]
...
Composing valuable strategies requires seeing the world in new and unique ways. It requires asking novel questions that prompt fresh insight. Even the most sophisticated, deep-learning-enhanced computers or algorithms simply cannot generate such an outlook. But where does the uniqueness and novelty so essential to innovative strategic thinking come from? It comes from contrarian, perhaps even “distorted,” perceptions and beliefs about reality and the “facts” that surround us.
...
If everyone believes the same thing — or if everyone uses the same variables, information, and computational tools — the logical result is computational consistency, shared conclusions, and me-too strategies.
...
In setting strategy, deviation in judgment is a feature, not a bug.
...
It is tempting to believe that the right evidence and the right analysis will yield the right strategy. But just as customer surveys seldom lead to breakthrough products that capture the imagination of customers and markets, substantive strategy-making requires that we see well beyond the available data.
...
We view the strategist’s task as akin to an inkblot test, where participants are presented with highly ambiguous evidence and signals that afford many possible realities, but offer no single correct answer. With such tests, the very same evidence — an ambiguous picture or set of marks — can be interpreted correctly in many different ways.
...
Valuable strategizing demands this novel perception — an ability to see in ambiguous cues and data what others can’t see. Strategic thinking is fueled by the novelty of our observation, not its consistency. [Moi ici: Lembram-se do Serginho Centeno ou do André e as suas previsões do calçado, assentes em big data?] The object of strategic thinking is not to ensure that we all observe the same information and derive the same conclusion. It is precisely the opposite: If your desire is to be a value creator, you must aspire to see what others cannot."

Trechos retirados de "What Sets Breakthrough Strategies Apart".

Vou apenas especular (parte II)

Leio "Sonae Indústria vai fechar mais uma fábrica na Alemanha" e recuo mais de quatro anos, até Fevereiro de 2015, e ao texto "Vou apenas especular".

Falta uma dose de alquimia, "Alchemy: Or, the Art and Science of Conceiving Effective Ideas That Logical People Will Hate" segundo Rory Sutherland, ou uma dose de paixão, ou como diria o amigo Paulo Vaz, uma dose de optimismo não documentado. Há demasiados mordomos de Gondor à solta.

Acerca do poder do optimismo

Vamos sendo aquilo que vamos construindo-nos e não adianta sonhar em alterar o passado. No entanto, há algo que muitas vezes me assalta como um sentimento de culpa.

Trabalho por conta própria desde 1994, depois de ter começado por trabalhar durante quase 8 anos por conta de outrem. O que estes quase 25 anos de trabalho por conta própria me deram, ou me potenciaram desenvolver, foi um optimismo que creio que nunca seria capaz de respirar se fosse funcionário.

É claro que nem tudo depende de mim, é claro que a vida não é um mar de rosas, é claro que a incerteza está sempre presente, é claro que os loucos que influenciam a macroeconomia têm cada vez mais poder para me afectar, para me roubar, para me impor barreiras, mas no essencial sou eu que vou ao volante, sou eu que respondo pelo que me acontece e não posso culpar mais ninguém.

E culpo-me de não ter passado mais optimismo para os meus filhos. Uma está a trabalhar no CERN na Suíça e o outro estuda cinema (quem me conhece provoca-me, prevendo que será mais um maluco do BE) e julgo que estão bem e terão futuro. No entanto, quando nos reunimos à mesa sinto que há muito cinismo acerca do mundo e menos optimismo.

Este sentimento de culpa arranjou uma âncora quando descobri este artigo já há algum tempo "Why Encouraging Optimism Should Be Your First Business Strategy":

"When Bert and John Jacobs were growing up in a large family with little money, their family didn't dwell on their problems or what they didn't have. Each time they sat down at the dinner table, Bert and Jacob's mother would cut through the noise and say, "Tell me something good that happened today." By focusing on the good things that happened each day, their mother changed the energy in the room--and their family.
.
I apply a similar philosophy at my meetings. We start each meeting with asking, "What's up, what's down, and what's stuck?" I've found that by starting with the phrase "What's up?" as in what's going well, my team immediately focuses on the positive work that is being accomplished in our department. What could have easily become a bitch fest, complaining about problems and coworkers, instead becomes mutual praise and celebrations of accomplishments. The positive energy carries over into problem solving and we get more done.
.
Focus on the positive in your team to build the energy in the group. Focusing on the positive give people the confidence to tackle anything that comes their way."

E reforçou-se quando li recentemente em "Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations" de Frederic Laloux:

"At Sounds True, every meeting starts with a minute of silence. FAVI, for many years, had the practice of starting every meeting with all participants sharing a brief story of someone they had recently thanked or congratulated. The practice creates a mood of possibility, gratitude, celebration, and trust in other people’s goodness and talents. It helps to shift the focus away from self-centered goals and toward reconnecting with the broader needs of the organization."

E materializou-se neste postal quando ontem à noite vi um episódio do Masterchef Austrália e dei comigo a reflectir sobre a dose, sobre a cultura de saudável optimismo, de agradecimento, de relação que existe no programa, faz salientar e desenvolver o que as pessoas têm de melhor e dá-lhes energia para explorar os seus limites

E concluí que em Mongo, um universo económico em que os empreendedores, as micro e pequenas empresas abundam, o optimismo será um factor fundamental porque o emprego do século XX vai encolher, e só gente optimista, (mas também desesperada), se mete a montar um negócio. (Ou, na opinião dos bloquistas, gente burra, mas adiante). E Mongo vai ser bom para os negócios pequenos.

Nunca esquecer

Algures vai ter de se arriscar a ficar sem pé, vai ter de se abandonar a cabotagem, sem certeza de resultar.

This is such an important point! You Can’t Pick The Winners Without Investing in The Losers by @AlexOsterwalder https://t.co/bfkjKAcG6R pic.twitter.com/PLg7753J7I

— Tim Kastelle (@timkastelle) February 14, 2018

Recordar:

• Acerca do optimismo não documentado;
• Falta um pouco de "optimismo não documentado"

Só os cromos que nunca arriscaram é que julgam que é tudo uma questão de boa ou má gestão.

Acerca do optimismo não documentado

"Except I didn't buy 1,000 dollars worth of Bitcoin in 2008. If I had, I'd have more than $40,000,000 today.
.
It's not that I didn't know.
.
It's that I didn't act.
.
Two different things.
.
I knew, but I didn't know for sure. Not enough to act.
.
All the good stuff happens when we act even if we don't know for sure."

Tão bom!!!

Faz-me lembrar o optimismo não documentado (2010, 2010, 2010, 2014) , faz-me lembrar a tese da concorrência como um mecanismo de descoberta.

"O optimismo não documentado é um assunto que separa a ténue fronteira entre o arriscar com fundamento e o arriscar com base na fé."

BTW, este optimismo não documentado pode ser relacionado com aquela fase de neblina em que o mundo muda e as receitas anteriores deixam de funcionar. Então, alguns optimistas (ou desesperados) arriscam, fuçando. A maioria falha, um acerta e depois começa a aprendizagem dos empríricos por spillover.

Trecho inicial retirado de "What you know vs. what you do"

Comprem um cão! (parte II)

Parte I.

"Underlying the practice and study of business is the belief that management is a science and that business decisions must be driven by rigorous analysis of data. The explosion of big data has reinforced this idea.
...
But is it true that management is a science? And is it right to equate intellectual rigor with data analysis? If the answers to those questions are no and no...
Most situations involve some elements you can change and some you cannot. The critical skill is spotting the difference. You need to ask, Is the situation dominated by possibility (that is, things we can alter for the better) or by necessity (elements we cannot change)?
...
Executives need to deconstruct every decision-making situation into cannot and can parts and then test their logic. If the initial hypothesis is that an element can’t be changed, the executive needs to ask what laws of nature suggest this. If the rationale for cannot is compelling, then the best approach is to apply a methodology that will optimize the status quo. In that case let science be the master and use its tool kits of data and analytics to drive choices.
.
Data is not logic. Many lucrative business moves come from bucking the evidence.
.
In a similar way, executives need to test the logic behind classifying elements as cans. What suggests that behaviors or outcomes can be different from what they have been? If the supporting rationale is strong enough, let design and imagination be the master and use analytics in their service.
...
the division between can and cannot is more fluid than most people think. Innovators will push that boundary more than most, challenging the cannot."

E sublinho em particular:

"We think this is particularly true when it comes to decisions about business strategy and innovation. You can’t chart a course for the future or bring about change merely by analyzing history. We would suggest, for instance, that the behavior of customers will never be transformed by a product whose design is based on an analysis of their past behavior.
.
Yet transforming customer habits and experiences is what great business innovations do"

E volto aqueles a quem chamo de tríade,  prisioneiros de barreiras mentais e incapazes de perguntar:

- Como é que isto pode ser possível? Como é que não se pode sobreviver a vender sapatos de 20 euros e a solução passa por ter sucesso conseguindo vender sapatos a 230 euros?

Techos retirados de "Management Is Much More Than a Science"

Acerca da paixão

Uma conversa com um empresário, esta semana, fez-me recordar um postal de 2014: "Great businesses, in the final analysis, are built by passion".

A sua empresa foi visitada por um empresário do mesmo sector mas a operar num país da Europa Central. Enquanto essa empresa estrangeira trabalha para o sector automóvel e tem 7 a 8 vezes mais trabalhadores, a empresa portuguesa trabalha noutra área do mercado que não o automóvel. Às tantas o empresário estrangeiro comentou para o português:

- Quando falas do que fazes falas com uma paixão!

Conheci este empresário português em 2012 e logo lhe disse a frase que tinha aprendido dois anos antes num tweet de Osterwalder:

"a paixão numa empresa é inversamente proporcional à sua dimensão"

Olha! Consegui recuperá-lo:

:-D RT @vpsingh: The level of passion is inversely related to the size of an organization

— Alex Osterwalder (@AlexOsterwalder) November 19, 2010

A tríade, os muggles, só confiam nas folhas de excel e nos custos e preços para decidir acerca do potencial de uma empresa.

"We usually think of strategy as a rational, analytic activity, with teams of MBA’s poring over spreadsheets.  We often forget that strategy has to have a purpose and that purpose is almost always personal and emotive.
...
And that matters.  It determines what you can and can’t do.
...
Great businesses, in the final analysis, are built by passion."

O empresário que serve a indústria automóvel lida com uma estratégia de preço, pensa em eficiência, em regras, em planeamento.

O empresário português pensa em rapidez, pensa em flexibilidade, pensa em tecnologias alternativas para fazer o que faz ainda mais rápido e com ainda menos defeitos.

A parte que não se aprende na academia

"What separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is the willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough. I must have the guts to explode the game, to upend my opponent’s thinking and, in so doing, unnerve him.”

 A coragem para apostar numa certa dose de optimismo não documentado, a coragem de, por algum tempo, perder o pé.
.
Trecho retirado de "Thoughts on Chess, Kasparov and Putin"

"You have to find a way to elevate yourself to be above common sense,"

Há muitos anos que aqui no blogue saliento os feitos daqueles que vão além da folha de cálculo, aqueles que vão além do optimismo documentado e arriscam baseados na paixão por algo.
.
Primeiro um ponto de ordem, as folhas de cálculo são importantes, as contas têm de ser pagas: os trabalhadores querem o seu salário; os fornecedores querem as suas facturas pagas e os investidores querem o seu risco recompensado.
.
Segundo, as folhas de cálculo falham quando se trata de equacionar o futuro de um empreendimento baseado na paixão e não na eficiência. Recordar:

• O papel da intuição;
• "Great businesses, in the final analysis, are built by passion"

Os Muggles só conhecem a eficiência, não conhecem nem percebem a magia da paixão.

.

Em "Chobani Founder: 'Elevate Yourself' Above Common Sense" fala-se em:

"Here's a hint: Sometimes, Ulukaya said, common sense is no help. "You have to find a way to elevate yourself to be above common sense," he said, speaking to an audience of entrepreneurs at the Inc. 5000 conference in Phoenix on Friday. "We cannot do what we have done through the mirrors and lenses of common sense. We have to think something different."
.
Ulukaya said that ability to generally ignore common sense, comes from passion. "When you're elevated then you're not looking at an opportunity or problem or dream from a common perspective," he said. And from his telling of the Chobani story, it was clear that a little bit of "elevation"--what some might call craziness--certainly played a role."

Uma outra forma de dizer, é preciso "sair do carreiro"

O papel da intuição

Primeiro, daqui:

"We’re prepared for a world much like #2 — the world of risk, with known outcomes and probability that can be estimated, yet we live in a world with a closer resemblance to #3."[Moi ici: O mundo da incerteza]

Depois, daqui:

"When making decisions, the two sets of mental tools are required:
1. RISK: If risks are known, good decisions require logic and statistical thinking.
2. UNCERTAINTY: If some risks are unknown, good decisions also require intuition and smart rules of thumb"

 Estão a ver o problema de quem está escravo de folhas de cálculo?
.
Estão a ver o problema de quem acha que os governos podem tomar boas decisões, decisões racionais, suportadas em estudos e muita análise?

Acerca da estratégia

Formular uma estratégia não começa por uma folha de cálculo. 

.

Formular e perseguir uma estratégia tem muito de "optimismo não documentado" (recordar isto e isto).

"The people who gravitate to strategic planning functions and strategy consulting firms tend to be highly analytical. That, I believe, is a problem. To be sure, analysis is important but in the end, strategy is and will always be a creative process.
.
Strategy is not the inevitable outcome of a process of analysis: it is a choice of where a firm wants to play and how it will win there going forward. Yes, a working knowledge of the industry and its likely evolution, the customers and their likely preferences, the firm itself and its potential capabilities and cost structure, and its competitors and their likely responses and actions should inform that choice. But it is simply not possible to predict that many things about the future through analysis unless you simplify the features of the solution space to an extent that makes it analyzable — and at the same time irrelevant. It guarantees strategic failure.
.
To develop a compelling strategy, you have to begin by staking out the territory you want. That is an act of choice and imagination. After you’ve made the choice, then it is the time for analysis: figuring out exactly what you have to do to get to where you want to be and to be able to play the way you need to in order to win."

Trecho retirado de "Strategize First, Analyze Later"

O pensamento da tríade

Há anos que escrevo sobre a tríade e o seu modelo mental, por isso, gostei de ler:

"having reviewed and worked with hundreds of strategy plans for some of the world's largest corporations and public and third-sector institutions, we have learned that something is missing. It's striking how similar to one another the strategies look these days. The structure, language, key analysis, evidence, arguments, recommendations - even the typeface of the graphs - are almost identical, whether it is a beverage company, a producer of building materials, a sportswear manufacturer, or a retail chain. It almost seems as if what the company produces doesn't matter as long as it is in markets where the compound annual growth rate is above average, the capital expenditure is decent, the cost structure is on par with the competitors, the capabilities of the organization are leveraged the right way, and the value proposition is clearly defined.
...
Most of these strategies, created with a linear mode of problem solving, aim at getting the maximum growth and profit out of the business through rational and logical analysis. [Moi ici: Recordo aquela expressão sobre o optimismo não documentado] The ideal is to turn strategy work into a rigorous discipline with the use of deductive logic, a well-structured hypothesis, and a thorough collection of evidence and data. Such problem solving has dominated most research and teaching in business schools over the last decades and has formed the guiding principles of many global management consultancies. Slowly but steadily, this mind-set has gained dominance in business culture over the last thirty years. Today it is the unspoken default tool for solving all problems. This linear mind-set borrows its ideals from the hard sciences like physics and math: learn from past examples to create a hypothesis you can test with numbers. As it uses inductive reasoning for its foundation, it is enormously successful at analyzing information extrapolated from a known set of data from the past. Default thinking helps us create efficiencies, optimize resources, balance product portfolios, increase productivity, invest in markets with the shortest and biggest payback, cut operational complexity, and generally get more bang for the buck. In short, it works extraordinarily well when the business challenge demands an increase in the productivity of a system. But what happens when the challenge involves people's behavior? When it comes to cultural shifts, the use of a hypothesis based on past examples will give us a false sense of confidence, sending us astray into unknown waters with the wrong map."

Trechos retirados de "The Moment of Clarity" de Christian Madsbjerg e Mikkel Rasmussen

"the art of focusing on what’s important and ignoring the rest"

Quando comecei a ler/ouvir "Gut feelings: the intelligence of the unconscious" de Gerd Gigerenzer, apesar do autor estar constantemente a repetir que "Less is More", nunca pensei na relação directa entre o trabalho do autor e as reflexões que faço sobre o meu trabalho de intervenção nas empresas.
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Contudo, comecei a juntar as peças quando ouvi:
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"Common sense suggests that forgetting stands in the way of good judgment. Earlier in this book, however, we met the Russian mnemonist Shereshevsky, whose memory was so perfect that it was flooded with details, making it difficult for him to get the gist of a story."
...
E relacionei com os casos que Gigerenzer conta, uma e outra vez, em como os ignorantes, em n testes, conseguem bater os especialistas, em previsões desportivas ou concursos sobre geografia.
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Estou sempre a chamar a atenção para:

• Concentrar uma empresa no que é essencial;
• Responder à pergunta quem são os clientes-alvo e trabalhar paranoicamente para os servir;
• Ao modelar o funcionamento de empresas, não sejam como os franceses, não tentem incluir, não tentem contemplar tudo;
• Ao cartografar um processo, começar pela sua finalidade, pela sua razão de ser, pelo seu propósito;

Quando se sabe muito sobre um tema, podemos ser prejudicados pelo excesso de conhecimento quando a resposta não é lógica:

.

"Imagine you are a contestant in a TV game show. You have outwitted all other competitors and eagerly await the $1 million question. Here it comes: 

.

Which city has the larger population, Detroit or Milwaukee?

.

Ouch, you have never been good in geography. The clock is ticking away. Except for the odd Trivial Pursuit addict, few people know the answer for sure. There is no way to logically deduce the correct answer; you have to use what you know and make your best guess.

...

Daniel Goldstein and I asked a class of American college students, and they were divided—some 40 percent voted for Milwaukee, the others for Detroit. Next we tested an equivalent class of German students. Virtually everyone gave the right answer: Detroit. One might conclude that the Germans were smarter, or at least knew more about American geography. Yet the opposite was the case. They knew very little about Detroit, and many of them had not even heard of Milwaukee. These Germans had to rely on their intuition rather than on good reasons. What is the secret of this striking intuition? The answer is surprisingly simple. The Germans used a rule of thumb known as the recognition heuristic:

• If you recognize the name of one city but not that of the other, then infer that the recognized city has the larger population.

The American students could not use this rule of thumb because they had heard of both cities. They knew too much. Myriad facts muddled their judgment and prevented them from finding the right answer. A beneficial degree of ignorance can be valuable, although relying on name recognition is of course not foolproof."

.

O nono capítulo "Less is More in Healthcare", um capítulo que mete medo, ao dissecar o pensamento dos médicos que os leva à sobre-prescrição, à sobre-medicação, e ao sobre-tratamento, termina assim:

• "Truly efficient health care requires mastering the art of focusing on what’s important and ignoring the rest. "

BANG! Aquelas palavras "the art of focusing on what’s important and ignoring the rest"

• "Good intuitions must go beyond the information given, and therefore, beyond logic."

Outro BANG!!! Uma estratégia, ou muitas estratégias bem sucedidas resultam porque não têm uma lógica linear... porque são fundamentadas em... "optimismo não documentado", em intuição.

Antropologia e relações amorosas

"The biggest enemy of top-line growth is analysis and its best friend is appreciation. Sure, in a small minority of companies and industries, like the smartphone business these days, there is explosive growth, and if an analysis is done of past trends, it shows lots of opportunity for top-line growth.
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But in the majority of businesses, if the available data are crunched, it shows a slowly growing industry — one growing with GDP or population. That generally convinces the company in question that there aren't really opportunities for top-line growth, and that in turn becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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The fundamental reason is that analysis of data is all about the past. Data analysis crunches the past and extrapolates it into the future. And the past does not include opportunities that exist but have not yet happened. So, analysis conspicuously excludes ways to serve customers that have not been tried or imagined or ways to turn non-customers into customers.
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Thus the more we rely on data analysis, the more it will tell a dour story on top-line growth — and not give particularly useful insights.".
Por isto, também por isto, é que a tríade só conhece o preço como alavanca competitiva. Por isto, também por isto, é que falo de relações amorosas com clientes, fornecedores e produtos. Por isto, é que escrevo sobre o "optimismo não documentado"... e lembram-se da frase "valor não é um cálculo, é um sentimento"?
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Quando as empresas em sectores competitivos contratam gestores de topo que não conhecem o negócio... como é que eles podem adquirir este conhecimento não documentado? E quando conhecem o negócio, como podem fugir à armadilha da análise?
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O CEO da Office Depot's Kevin Peters responde a estas perguntas!!!
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Observando e conversando com os clientes!!! 
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Antropologia pura e dura!!!
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"If instead, the core tool is not analysis but rather appreciation —deep appreciation of the consumer's life — what makes it hard or easy; what makes her (in this category) happy or sad — there is the opportunity to imagine possibilities that do not exist.
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Organizationally and behaviorally, analysis and appreciation are two very different things. Analysis is distant, done in office towers far from the consumer. It requires lots of quantitative proficiency but very little experience in the business in question. It depends on data-mining: finding data sources to crunch, often from data suppliers to the industry. Appreciation is intimate, done in close proximity to the consumer. It requires qualitative proficiency and deeper experience in the business. It requires the manufacture of unique data, rather than the use of data that already exists.
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In my experience, most organizations have more of the former capabilities and behaviors than of the latter and hence most struggle with top-line growth. The biggest issue isn't the absence of top-line growth opportunities but rather the lack of belief that they exist. And that is driven by the dominance of analysis over appreciation."

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Excelente reflexão de Roger Martin em "You Can't Analyze Your Way to Growth"

Safanões no meu optimismo

A realidade com que lido no dia a dia deixa-me optimista face ao futuro.
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No entanto, às vezes, esse meu optimismo parece ir por água abaixo...
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Como se pode ser optimista quando se lê isto:
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Primeiro isto: "O inquérito revela ainda que há uma grande desconfiança por parte dos portugueses no sistema político. Cerca de 90 por cento dos inquiridos dizem desconfiar ou confiar muito pouco na classe política e nos Governos, 89 por cento nos partidos políticos e 84 por cento na Assembleia da República. Os tribunais, os sindicatos e a administração pública reúnem também elevados níveis de desconfiança." Pacífico, subscrevo isto.
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E logo a seguir, a mesma população insegura, infantil, com o locus de controlo no exterior, com um mindset fechado e negativo, entrega o seu futuro a essa casta em quem não confia:
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"Em aparente contradição com esta desconfiança generalizada no sistema político está a convicção expressa pela maioria (74 por cento) de que o Estado deve contribuir sempre para a competitividade e o desenvolvimento de Portugal. Só depois vêm as empresas privadas e pública, os media ou a sociedade em geral."
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O Estado só contribui para a competitividade quando não se mete, quando não atrapalha, quando não saqueia... basta comparar o destino da Aerosoles e da Rhode, apoiadas pelo Estado, e o destino das PMEs lideradas por donos com o 6º e o 9º ano de escolaridade...
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Parece que nunca mais assumimos que o nosso futuro somos nós que o construímos... para quê meter o papá Estado ao barulho? Para lhe dar justificação para nos saquear ainda mais!
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Trecho retirado de "Metade dos portugueses diz que o país está pior do que antes do 25 de Abril"

O José Silva vai gostar

"Innovation: Enough with the Freedom to Fail"

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O optimismo não documentado é um assunto que separa a ténue fronteira entre o arriscar com fundamento e o arriscar com base na fé.