Lift Interactive

Use Wisdom

I’m a big fan of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner’s book, Freakonomics. If you don’t know the book, the gist is that the authors take a lot of raw data and apply statistical analysis to it in an effort to come away with a conclusion. Sounds pretty dry but the beauty of the book is in what data they choose and how they break it down. The topics they are analyzing are interesting because they are common and popular. If you haven’t read the book and you’re in a book store, thumb through it a bit and enjoy.

What a luxury it would be if for every big decision you have to face there were a mountain of statistical data and someone there to analyze it. I’d love to have Steven Levitt nearby to help me make big decisions. However, he’s a pretty busy guy. I’ll wager that virtually everyone out there also has the same issue—there just aren’t enough statisticians out there to help us make big decisions. Fortunately many of us have adapted and we don’t rely on statistics to make our decisions every time.

I’m sure there’s some university grad student out there cringing that a topic so broad is being mentioned in a blog post. He or she probably has a thesis paper in the works on what I’m breaking down to a few paragraphs.

So what do we use to decide. While I feel many people might decide the same as I do, I really can only speak for myself. If I feel I’m lacking all the information and I still need to make a decision, I use two things. I use expert advice from trusted sources and I use my personal experience. I submit to you that both are facets of wisdom, and sometimes I feel wisdom doesn’t get it’s due respect. “Wisdom” is not a very fashionable word these days. When’s the last time you called somebody “wise.” Just because we don’t use the word very often, that doesn’t mean we’re not using wisdom.

Wisdom is the abililty to look beyond the immediate problem into the surrounding factors and to incorporate the broader picture into the decision at hand. Whew, a bit of a mouthful. In the context of Lift, imagine we have a decision to make on whether or not to build a new product. If we only had data at our disposal to make the decision, we might commission a market research project to discover the product’s viability or perhaps we’d need an accountant to run the numbers and do a cost-benefit analysis for us. Both of these are common ways to analyze a problem and come to a decision but neither are very wise in and of themselves. Wisdom involves looking beyond the numbers and data and embracing your gut reactions, your intuition and your common sense. These are all other ways to say that you are pulling in additional information, some of which might be very vague, and using that additional information to make your decision. Wisdom is also knowing that you should incorporate the stats when they’re available. In our example, we might not need an accountant or market research to know that if we build a great product, it will influence the market and that building a product is not just about the final result but also about the learning along the way and increased experience level of all those involved. If we include these other factors, we are being wise.

So, how can you incorporate wisdom into your next decision? Step back and take time to consider not just the immediate information. Try to consider the surrounding factors as well. Ask experts about a problem rather than waiting for another report or study to come back. Search your own experiences or those experiences of your team and look for analogous situations. I’m sure if you use your wisdom or your organization’s wisdom in your next decision, you’ll be excited with the results.

At Lift, we’re experts in web design and web development. If you’ve got a potential project in mind and would like some help figuring it out, give us a call or an email.

Posted by Tim on December 8, 2009 | Comments (0)

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