Eight years ago I was diagnosed with a life threatening condition that required surgery. I understood that the surgery would be quite difficult and so I searched high and low for the right surgeon. The doctor that I found was recommended to me. He was personable and seemed competent. I knew that he had been successful in many surgeries and I expected (hoped) that he would do what was necessary for me.

When I awoke from the surgery, my doctor was standing over me. Through the fog of anesthesia, he told me that the surgery was not a success. He said that they had opened me up and looked me over before simply closing the incision that they had made. After my wife joined me, he went on to tell me that the surgery was impossible to complete without killing me. His kind suggestion was that we should go on whatever dream vacation that we had planned (with the implication that no solution was possible). My time was short.

Flashing forward 8 years …

Sometimes smart people have competitive intelligence questions that are also quite difficult. It could be that they have tried to get answers themselves or have asked others in their work group to get answers. In the end, the answer eludes them all and they conclude that it is impossible to the get the answer. Thus, oddly comforted, they go about business imagining that everyone encounters and responds to such impossibilities the same way.

The fact is that some people are undaunted by the impossible (or what seems impossible to others).

In competitive intelligence there is an article of faith that almost every question has an answer that can be discovered ethically, albeit with some uncertainty. That is, evidence can be assembled, primary sources queried, data correlated and so on to produce credible and actionable answers. Smart people sometimes doubt that this can be done because they have previously tried for the same answers or relied on someone that tried and failed.

Here are some things to remember (as a competitive intelligence professional).

1. Someone knows the answer that you seek. The puzzle is finding that person. Usually there are multiple options to find such sources through the people you already know.
2. If you don’t know how to find an answer, someone else does. This is the meta level for (1). Someone that you know has solved a similar problem or knows how to go about answering the question that you have. Find them and use their problem solving guidance.
3. Companies (especially public ones) cannot help but reveal what they are doing. They are virtual sieves of information that is available to anyone that is looking in the right places. Think financial reports, employee postings, patent filings, standards body contributions, hiring plans and like things that are small pieces to deciphering their strategy.
4. Habits are hard to break. Companies, like people, behave in more or less predictable ways over time. If they were innovative, it is likely that they will continue to be. If they are technology followers, that is unlikely to change quickly. Their biases are ingrained and displayed through many actions and decisions. You can use this information when projecting likely future behavior.
5. Be gentle with those stymied by what is impossible (to them). They are right as far as they go. They are not going to get answers when they are convinced that the answers can’t be gotten. They might be irritated at you if you suggest that you can get the answers. Move carefully with them because your success may seem very threatening to their self esteem. Acknowledge the difficulty of the quest, softly suggest that might be other possibilities for finding the answer and involve them as details of the answer emerge.

My family is still angry with my surgeon. Not for the reason that you might suspect. In fact, we are happy that he stopped the surgery when he thought that it was impossible to safely proceed. When a professional stops because the task is outside or beyond their competence, they should be applauded. No, the damage he nearly did to me was that he implied in authoritative tones (as only a doctor can) that the surgery was impossible. No one could possibly do what he could not do. It was impossible.

Had we accepted his considered judgment my life would have ended many years ago. Instead, ignoring the protestations of impossibility, we consulted with another surgeon that specialized in difficult surgeries like mine. Six weeks after the failed surgery, my “impossible” problem was resolved.

Here is the life lesson that I have learned and that I apply to competitive intelligence work.

When someone says that something is impossible, they probably mean that they don’t know how to do it (whatever “it” is).

For a specialist that is skilled and practiced, what seems impossible to others can be routine. CI professionals should seek to be such specialists. We should get past the impossible to deliver valuable answers to our leaders.

Have you ever been told that something is impossible and then you proved it otherwise?