Perception before decisions

The quality of every outcome is limited by the quality of perception available when the decision is made.

Strategy, data and governance all matter. They create a strong foundation for decision-making, but they cannot account for every issue influencing the outcome.

This week alone we have watched political negotiations, trade disputes, unprecedented corporate earnings, accelerating AI investment and the emergence of new gig economies. They appear to be separate stories, yet they are connected by a common thread. Every one of them reflects a decision made from a particular way of perceiving power, value and risk.

The visible event is only the final expression of that perception.

Leaders do not lack intelligence, experience or information. What they lack is access to the wider reality already shaping the situation. Relationships, assumptions, competing interests, identity, timing, organisational dynamics and the patterns that sit beneath the formal strategy all influence what eventually unfolds.

I have experienced the push and pull of this. I have spent more than twenty-five years working on major transformations across banking, telecommunications, payments and government and have been part of decisions involving significant capital, resourcing teams and strategies supported by strong data. I have also seen programs not achieve their intended outcomes because important influences sat just outside the field of view available when the decisions were made.

This is the area where I now work. I combine strategic experience with intuitive perception to expand the field of view before further capital is committed, negotiations progress or major decisions become difficult to reverse. I notice what does not fit, what keeps repeating, where attention is being drawn away from the central issue and where the results can’t explain the reality unfolding beneath it.

I also work with an Advisory Council* of thought leaders whose perspectives help identify the assumptions, relationships, pressures and patterns influencing the situation beneath the stated rationale. Together we explore the influences that conventional analysis often leaves untouched, revealing leverage, constraints and opportunities while they can still be acted upon.

It is not about predicting the future. The value is in increasing the quality of perception before further decisions are made.

Better perception changes the choices available. Better choices improve the use of capital, reduce unintended consequences and increase the likelihood that strategy delivers the outcome it was designed to achieve.

The defining leadership capability of the coming decade will not be access to more information, faster technology or greater analytical power. It will be the capacity to perceive more of the reality that is already present before deciding what to do next.

* Over many years I have developed an intuitive practice and that now includes working with an Advisory Council of historical leaders and thinkers. The Advisory Council consists of Peter Drucker, Madeleine Albright, Carl Jung, Bob Hawke, Marie Bashir, Estée Lauder, Diana Vreeland, Saul Steinberg, Rumi and the Medici family. I work with them intuitively as a way of examining complex situations through different perspectives, allowing assumptions, patterns and opportunities to emerge that may otherwise remain unseen.