One of the oldest maxims from the stock market (and still included on nearly every prospectus for shareholders) is “past performance is not indicative of future success…” Put more bluntly, just because you’ve been successful in the past does not guarantee that you’ll be successful in the future. That maxim continues to ring true largely because the stock market (and the world itself) is constantly changing, and every minute that are hundreds of factors, influencing thousands of decisions for millions of people. The sheer scale of it all is overwhelming. Faced with the daunting task of trying to understand all the moving pieces, most people simply shortcut the process and find a simple, easy to measure factor (like past performance) to focus on. They then commit their tangible and emotional resources based solely on that measure’s performance. The concept was described best to me once through an analogy “Most people never think about what went into building a roller coaster…until they are staring down from the top of the first hill…”
The “roller coaster” trade off is one that most of us have been making for years because of something economists call Information Asymmetry which is the concept that people often don’t have the all the key information they need to make rational decisions. After all, who has the time, resource and skills to obtain all the information they need to know before making each decision? No one does. But fortunately, with the advancements in technology, we now have the ability to gather and synthesize more information than ever before right into our hands. And while information asymmetry will always exist in some form, out belief if we can find ways to use technology effectively, we can make our decisions feel more like playing a game of poker rather than a game of 3 card monte.
The goal of this blog is to help people (particularly those in healthcare) use technology to assimilate more information into decisions by finding ways to break down the mass quantities of data and organize it into easy to use perspectives. Here at Krystal Ball, we focus on three main perspectives: Actions, Actors and Antiquity.
Actions – Our foundational perspective and the one people seem to be most familiar with. Our posts and discussions around Actions will largely focus on outcomes that result from decision made by leaders. However, we will look beyond the basic “We did X…and Y happened” equation and instead try to understand the thought process utilized by leadership was actually good, regardless of outcome. Speaking of outcomes, we’ll also use this perspective to explore some of reasons they happened including planning/structure, execution, unseen forces and just plain luck.
Actors – “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds its attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir. While Mr. Muir did not work in healthcare (he was a naturalist), his quote would undoubtedly resonate with almost anyone working in the healthcare field. There are a seemingly endless number of things connected to even the most basic healthcare operations. For example, in one of my consulting engagements, our team identified 34 different process that were part of a basic office visit with a patient. With so much inter-connectivity, its nearly impossible for the people in charge of managing operations to pinpoint the appropriate causation needed to solve problems. Our goal with Actors is to take a step back and look for correlations between people and process (rather than causations to outcomes). We’ll also show examples of how managing correlations creates more flexible/dynamic processes that are capable of adapting to solve problems, like a GPS adapting the route after a wrong turn.
Antiquity – Admittedly, this perspective could have been called “history” but then we would have lost the “AAA” theme, so we opted to go with the old school wording. When it comes to antiquity/history, everyone knows the old adage “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.” Based on my experience, I think the adage probably needs the accompanying phrase “And those who study history too much, will also have problems.” That’s because there’s often a disconnect around how people learn from the past. Far too many places become myopic about finding root causes of their issues. They become obsessed and turn to historical data/metrics/trends to identify any and all areas that might be causing the issues, rather than using historical information to determine how they came to have those issues in the first place. It’s the equivalent of taking your car to a mechanic in a panic because three different warning lights are on, while also failing to mention to them that you haven’t had the oil changed in five years. When I was consulting, I learned to provide this prospective to clients by drilling down in my questions about their situation until I inevitably got the answer in some form or another of “We do it this way because we’ve done it that way for years…” And it was maddening because I knew it would incredibly hard to dislodge such an ingrained idea/process from an organization, even if no one could make a reasonable case about why it was valuable to keep in place.
The goal with the Antiquity perspective is to examine the role that past decisions played in setting up key structures and processes and how those decisions may have morphed over time (i.e. started as a workaround and eventually became a SOP). We’ll also look at how an organization’s history continues to impact it decisions and how the level of impact can result in very different outcomes for organizations that otherwise share many similar characteristics.
If you’ve read this far, first let me say thank you. I know there are plenty of other things available that can grab your attention. Second, I hope you’ll continue on with us in this unique thought exercise where philosophy and statistics come together as strange bedfellows in hopes of creating new insights. Check back soon for new updates and feel free to leave us comments below. Good or bad, we’re always happy to hear from you!
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