There’s a great new book called “How to Make the World Add Up” by Tim Hartford. In it he gives advice about making sense of the deluge of facts, figures, statistics (and other lies) we receive every day. There’s a war in Ukraine, food supplies are in jeopardy, our supply chains are tightening, inflation is raging, no one wants to work, and, in Ontario, the weather was so bad they had to import the Spanish word derecho to describe it. The media (print, social and broadcast) has a job of attracting eyeballs - so anything slightly different from what happened yesterday becomes the focus of their attention. And the more dramatic, and negative, they can make it - the better. With so much negative news, it’s easy to let your amygdala take over and ignite your fight or flight instincts.
The gist of Tim Hartford’s excellent book is to show us how to put all of the facts and figures into context and to take the right perspective on them.
Why is this useful?
While there is undoubtedly a great deal of human suffering and turmoil in the world, it is not really ‘epic’: inflation in North America has been at 8% for the first 4 months of 2022 vs 13.5% average for 1980; the war in Ukraine vs World War’s 1 and 2; and our little Spanish windstorm was neither a hurricane nor tornado. And life goes on despite it all.
As CEOs we need to sort and understand the data we are receiving (this alone will put you ahead of the majority of folks who simply react) and to look for opportunities the changes are creating.
For example,
Obviously, these are generic examples, and your own opportunities are likely far more extensive. But, do not wait. If you can act now, you’ll have first mover advantage over your distracted competitors who are distracted by staffing, supplies, inflation and derechos…
Bye for now
Andrew
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