Facts. It’s all about facts. That’s what we say. That’s what we think the real “drop the mic” moment comes from. “I believe in FACTS.”
There is a problem with facts, however. Facts come only after the event has taken place. If you have the facts, you’ve missed the boat.
Before 9/11, the fact was, nobody had used airplanes to do what we witnessed on that terrible day. That was the FACT… until it wasn’t.
Facts are what we obsess over when we become trapped on the inside. The inside of our company, our school project, our artistic masterpiece, our book, our political position, and much of our philosophical ideas.
We fall in love with fact and reason and logic. These are good things–incredibly good and important things!
But. humans are not mere reason-based or fact-based creatures, they are also perceptive. Perception is not quantitative like factual statistics, perception is qualitative.
If somebody in the Defense Department had perceived that a plane could be used as a weapon, we could have better prepared against such an attack–even in the absence of FACTS to back up that concern.
We must take care that we are not so focused on the inside of our project or business that we lose touch with the outside “real” world. We live and operate in the real, outside world and the changes in trend happen in the real world. By the time we have stats on trends, it’s too late to catch them.
The trend is important to see, but if you can spot the change in trend before it fully manifests itself, your business will be booming. It takes perception to spot changes in trend.
Don’t rely strictly on facts, data, and stats. That’s yesterday’s news. Useful to see and compare, but never let them consume you. We must be comfortable enough to allow our perception to steer decisions about the future of our work, company, and life.
“the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses.”