Certainty is a virtue, isn’t it?

Where would we be without confident, black and white answers to important questions? There is great comfort in knowing something to be true or in taking a position that does not need to be reexamined each day. So, we test our beliefs and fix them in our minds. Without such a process, life would be too incredibly complex. It is enough to deal with the new things without having to question what we already know. Makes sense to you?

And yet, unyielding certainty can be a trap.

When my daughter was young, it was a regular event every few months for her to ask if she could have a dog. My answer was always the same, “No, Sweetie, a dog is a lot of responsibility and work.” She cheerfully and consistently accepted my short answer (which never varied) for years. Then she approached me one night while I was sitting on the couch with my son. “Daddy,” she said, “could I have a dog?” Well, the usual tape started running, “No, Sweetie, a dog is a lot of responsibility and work.” When I resumed talking with my son, I could see out of the corner of my eye that my daughter had not moved. Turning back toward her, I could also see that there were tears in her eyes. Off she ran upstairs. My son and I exchanged bewildered looks. “What was that all about?” he asked.

That night as I was putting my daughter to bed, I found her lying there still affected by my answer. I asked her if she was upset at me. Without making eye contact, she nodded her head “yes.”

Quietly, I said, “But, Sweetie, you know that I always say ‘no’ when you ask for a dog. A dog is a lot of responsibility and work.” (Perhaps if I whispered the words she would accept them better.)

Turning to look at me directly, she delivered to me an important lesson.

“Daddy, you could have said ‘maybe’.”

There is so much simplification that occurs in strategy and competitive intelligence work.

Much of that simplification is necessary because the competitive environment is simply too complex to think that analysis can start from scratch each day. So, we analyze, categorize and prioritize so that the few most critical issues are worked hardest. Over time, the people that are involved know and can repeat the common answers to both the lower priority issues and those that are getting special attention. Indeed one measure of the success of a competitive intelligence program is the general awareness of the conclusions of the competitive intelligence efforts. What’s the problem with all of this?