Predicting the Unpredictable
By
Clay Ricord
Senior Consultant
If you are interested in a very good (but not necessarily easy) read,
try Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan. The book takes you on a
journey crossing history, perceptions, and logic. The idea behind The
Black Swan is that events that have low or no predictability do
regularly occur and can have very large, game-changing impacts. One of
his examples is 9/11: few of us would ever have thought such an attack
possible. But after-the-fact, connect-the-dot analysis shows that it was
visible in hindsight; couple the notion of events with low probability
and outsized outcomes with the idea that we are wired so that dealing
with the unlikely is just something people don’t do well. We like order;
we like predictability. “Like” may not be strong enough: we almost
require predictability. We want the world to fit our view.
You may have seen or heard of the “Invisible Gorilla.” (You can find it
on YouTube.) With only a mild expectation set, people can miss what is
right in front of them—in this case, a guy in a gorilla suit whom you
would think impossible to miss. Because it is not in their realm of
possibility of the situation, most folks do not see it.
You and your team face this head-on nearly every day. Your ability to
see what is going on and be open to identifying black swans has a direct
effect on your success. Looking for the unknowns and what project
management calls “the unknown unknowns” is a basic part of managing
risk. But to do it, you have to identify those threats and opportunities
that would be high-impact and not filter them out because they don’t fit
your expectation of what should be happening.
“New Coke” was launched in 1985. Market research supported the
popularity of the new formula, the competitive force of Pepsi called for
action, and internal politics made such a flagship product change
possible. A few days after the launch, a forceful backlash developed. It
was a movement, a reaction management never considered possible. For
Coke, it was a Black Swan event.
For me, improving my “vision” starts with identifying the assumptions
and beliefs that underlie my perception of the situation. If you can get
a hold of those, you can improve your ability to manage the risks and
opportunities you face.
