It is good to see underdogs assert themselves unapologetically in the quest for the ultimate prize. Characteristically, the games – now in the semi-final stage – have delivered a few spectacular upsets. This article delves into some rather unlikely outcomes to surface hidden insights we might glean from a closer look. 

Let’s start with the low-hanging fruit.

Underrated Doesn’t Mean Unqualified

An obvious starting point relates to how we assess prospective outcomes between competitors. We all know the names of great footballing nations, and when they’re up against a lesser-rated team it almost feels like a foregone conclusion. We revert to a mental ranking algorithm that spits out a likely outcome we naturally accept as true, without much forethought. 

But let’s stop for a moment and think about it from the viewpoint of the underdog. They haven’t just shown up to the games uninvited. They’ve earned their spot in the big league, beating the competition to it. They too can compete at the highest level, and that says a lot about their abilities. Merely saying it is not enough; Give them a chance and they’ll gladly prove it to us. 

This point brings to mind the group-stage matchup between Saudi Arabia and Argentina. Coming into the games, Saudi Arabia was ranked 51, a far cry from Argentina’s position close to the top at number 3. Despite Argentina’s early lead from the spot, the Saudis showed grit and class to level the playing field early in the second half. A one-all outcome would have been an impressive feat for the underdogs, but the Saudis had other plans, stealing the lead through a sensational strike in the 53rd minute of the game, and sending Lusail Stadium into ruptures.  

And that’s how it ended, 2 – 1 to Saudi Arabia. A stunning upset, ending Argentina’s 36-game unbeaten run. Remarkably, the Saudi team achieved this feat with only 30% of the ball possession. They only needed half a chance to make a point.

The win is always there for the taking, despite the odds. 

This leads neatly to our next point. 

Past Performance Is Not A Guarantee Of Future Performance

Without offending the bookmakers, this discourse forces us to consider the role of statistics in informing our expectations. Past performance is indeed the best indicator of future performance. But that has a lot to do with circumstances, the status quo if you will, remaining unchanged.

The World Cup is teaching us a different lesson: It doesn’t take much to shake things up. And in a dynamic environment, where anything could happen, the very odds some would swear by can prove incredibly pliable. 

I enjoyed watching the Cameroonian outfit render this message in their fixture with Brazil – the best-ranked team coming into the games. Both teams had met 6 times prior, resulting in 5 losses for Cameroon. As stats go, Brazil scored 12 times against Cameroon in previous encounters, conceding only 3. To simplify that, for every goal Cameroon scored against Brazil, they let in 4.  

That’s the kind of picture – and prospect – we get from tallying up the stats. But these teams met again in the group stages of the FIFA 2022 World Cup games. The outcome couldn’t have been further from the initial outlook. To be candid, both teams put in an impressive effort, creating numerous opportunities in a game that could easily have gone either way. In the end, it was a solitary goal by a Cameroonian forward in the 92nd minute that would separate the two sides. Leaping onto a right-wing cross, Vincent Abubakar’s sublime finishing touch put the odds, and all the history, squarely in the past. Almost as if to say “Things are different now.” 

The big idea here is that we can’t always look to the past and hope to see the future. We should leave room for surprises, pleasant or otherwise. 

One final thought remains. 

What We lack In Talent, We Can Make Up In Tenacity

This is easily the most important point to be made here. It’s at the heart of what makes the underdog such a formidable force. This notion lays bare the truth that tenacity and resolve can indeed go the distance. So if it’s all you have, it may well be all you need!

As noted, the 2022 FIFA World Cup games have already given us many special moments to feast our eyes on, and cherish. The story of Morocco’s Atlas Lions is one for the books. Dubbed the Moroccan marvel, their world cup campaign is still going strong. 

Coming into the games, Morocco (like Cameron) didn’t have history on their side. They’ve featured at the world cup 4 times, exiting in the group stage on three occasions, and at the round of 16 once. But The Atlas Lions have played their game with spirited resolve, making history and dazzling spectators in the process. While cruising into the semi-finals, team Morocco have made light of football heavyweights like Spain, Belgium and most notably Portugal, setting up a decidedly captivating semi-final with yet another heavyweight. 

Ranked number 4 coming into the games, the Blues, as the French football team is colloquially known, are no pushover. The fixture is set for 15 December. Will the poise and passion of The Atlas Lions deliver the outcome we’re all hoping for with bated breaths? It remains to be seen. This truly is the stuff of dreams, the very thing we watch movies to catch a glimpse of. Only this is real!

We’ve all heard the Bible story of David and Goliath. These examples are updated versions of the same idea that underdogs can – and often do – make a big impact. Of course, the idea is not unique to the FIFA World Cup games or even the sporting arena. Businesses, governments, academics and artists – any realm in which distinction is sought after – can exemplify it uniquely. 

I’ve always been a supporter of the underdog. I admire their resolve and how they shake things up. There’s much to learn from observing how they approach their biggest challenges like small fry. And when they succeed, they inspire us to dream big, and dream again. 

Viva Morocco!

Marketers have a tough job. They constantly have to bring so many ideas into the copy to enhance its appeal. It takes a feat of brilliance to capture the essence of a proposition in a simple, compelling and relatable message, without compromising on novelty. This has its risks. The ideas that don’t make the cut are sometimes the ones that would have tied it all together, elegantly. 

This growing phenomenon is fast approaching crisis level. The pursuit of creative messaging is costing marketers the message entirely. 

In this thought, we consider three reasons why marketing messages fail spectacularly. We also explore strategies – guideposts if you will – to help keep things on track, and ensure that the right message is delivered to its intended audience.

Verbosity Is Not A Virtue

One common reason for marketing fails is simply saying too much. As a result, the real message is lost in everything else. 

It’s a fixable fault. However, the idea of trimming down a message to a shadow of its former self is hardly delightful, and marketers notoriously resist it. This shows up in several formats. The most obvious are TV and radio ads that feel like they’re at 2x playback speed. I’ve always wondered why anyone would want to rush a message this important, one meant to create a connection with their audience. It feels like a counterintuitive approach to building relationships.

There’s no way around it. For a marketing message to be clear, it has to be as concise as possible. That trimming down process is necessary. In the writing world, it’s called “killing your darlings” because it takes the cuteness out of a message. But that’s a good thing. Because clear and concise is better than cute and confused. No pun intended.

Say The Needful

We’ve established that there’s no need to max out the word count. Let’s move on to the next big thing: word choice.

In conversation, one can ask clarifying questions about what’s being said. This feature is absent from marketing messages, because marketing normally happens in a one-way channel. The meaning of a message rests entirely on the marketer’s word choice. Things can and often do go wrong here. 

Here’s a common reason why that is. Marketing messages have to be politically correct, socially relevant, and culturally appropriate, all while having great optics. It’s a long list of checkboxes. Once again, there’s a real risk of losing the message in all the added extras. This pressure is especially felt with marketing initiatives in an inherently polarised space like social justice.

There is a song I recommend every marketer listen to once in a while. Admittedly an unlikely source of truth on the subject. It does, however, underscore the importance of saying the needful, confidently. Say, by John Mayer, is packed with nuggets of wisdom. Its chorus repeats the central message – Say what you need to say – eight times for emphasis. 

If a message is inherently audacious, sugar-coating it doesn’t make it any less so. This only obscures its meaning. Marketers need to learn this and say the needful, especially when this calls for courage. 

Speak To The Right Needs

I’m slightly perplexed when a shaving stick manufacturer markets their products as being “for the discerning man who knows his worth and place in the world.” Such aspirational messaging is far removed from the obvious problem the product solves. 

This is an error in market positioning. Studies show that consumers are more responsive to messages about their pain points than their aspirations. It results from a bias called loss aversion, which causes negative outcomes to affect behaviour far more than positive ones. Loss aversion can explain why marketing messages that speak to pain points, and how the product alleviates them, are the most impactful. Granted, many product offerings don’t alleviate pain or discomfort. Luxury items are in a league of their own. They are indeed aspirational and are targeted to consumers at the front end of a normal distribution curve. However, for the vast majority of products that classify as necessities, this marketing approach misses an opportunity to connect with consumers through their experienced pain points, for greater impact.

You know?

He would say.

This might actually be a good thing.

And in the following conversation, he would illuminate a unique perspective on things.

It’s a rare gift because it takes something special to extricate oneself from a situation and see it for what it could be. 

On the surface, what resembles blind optimism, disconnected from all reality, turns into a not so gloomy picture, when viewed from a different place. This speaks to what opportunity is. It’s a possibility that comes into view when one takes on a new lens and sees things in a different light.

Opportunities can indeed fall kindly on one’s lap. But contrary to popular belief, it hardly ever comes knocking. If anything, it is discovered. Certain attributes make some people more likely than others to land that discovery. 

We can agree that having more opportunities is generally (if not always) preferred to less. But what does it take to find it? 

In this thought, we consider three factors and their influence on our ability to discern opportunity. 

Change Readiness

To discover opportunity, one needs to be open to – even hopeful for – the changes that would result from it.

Change readiness detaches people from the status quo, allowing them to raise their gaze and see new possibilities. The impetus for it is varied. It ranges from discontent and frustration to curiosity and ambition. But change readiness always does one fundamentally important thing – It helps us make the mental adjustments needed to see and reach for new options. In finance jargon, these options are an opportunity set. Being ready for a change helps clarify and access them.  

My recent experience reinforces this. Late in 2020, my wife and I decided to relocate to Melbourne Australia. Before this, the prospect had only ever come up in casual conversation. But once we made the decision, we immediately began to see how (even amidst uncertainty) it would be possible, and in short order, this ideal became our reality. 

In a nutshell, being comfortable with the way things are, makes it hard to see how different they could be. Change readiness opens you up to possibilities you wouldn’t otherwise fancy. When you’re ready, you’ll see a completely new opportunity set. 

Attitudes To Loss

Change readiness is essential for seeing possibility and (by extension) opportunity. However, it’s one thing to envision a prospect, and another to believe it’s achievable. There’s a bit of internal negotiation involved in which the benefits and costs are weighed on several dimensions.

But this thought process is skewed by a natural human tendency called loss aversion. It’s a cognitive bias that explains why the pain of losing is far more powerful than the pleasure of gaining. So the prospect of losing all the investment required to reach for an opportunity – time, effort, emotion, finances etc – would need to be offset by a far greater gain.

This insight was first shared by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in a seminal journal entry titled: Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. They showed that people are about twice more sensitive to losing than gaining.

Loss aversion implies that threats loom larger than opportunities in decision making. You may recognise the same underlying idea in a commonly cited adage:

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Loss aversion makes us prone to write off opportunities without much forethought. This bias serves very well when the goal is to preserve the status quo and not waste valuable resources. But when opportunities present, loss aversion can stifle progress towards it. So how do we mitigate its effect? 

Those who excel at assessing opportunity are not necessarily more bullish and optimistic than their peers. They are merely less attached to the status quo. This mental disconnect allows for a much less biased assessment of prospects. Why? Because the emotional connection to any potential loss is simply not as strong. Being self-aware can help you recognise your emotional leanings in such instances. 

Another way to mitigate loss aversion is by reframing loss in a positive light. It could be seen as a learning and growth opportunity. With this mindset shift, moving forward presents potential wins, regardless of the outcome.

Both of these strategies for mitigating the effects of loss aversion are helped by having trusted colleagues whose judgement you can depend on. They offset the bias by presenting you with an independent opinion, void of emotional leanings. So when in doubt, call a friend. 

An Outside View

There’s yet another factor that plays into how discernible opportunity is. 

Sometimes, discerning opportunity is about seeing a unique perspective. This has a lot to do with how opportunities present themselves. It takes one person connecting a need here and an idea there. But the idea in question is not familiar in the context of the need. Those who can discern opportunity and make this connection can bring what’s called an outside view into the situation. 

Outsiders are called many things: curious, open-minded, aficionados and dilettantes. But what they have in common is an eagerness to learn. This opens them up to new insights. And it’s that insight that lends them a unique take on everyday situations. 

As it happens, there’s an ongoing initiative that proves the power of the outside perspective. Where industry experts and leading minds have failed, organisations crowd-source solutions to their most pressing problems by posting them on innocentive.com. The likes of NASA, AstraZeneca and Thomson Reuters are among the organisations featured on the customer stories page. One of the platform’s prolific problem solvers, Ed Melcarek, attributes his success to having too diverse a set of skills and experience. The platform provides an 80% success rate delivering Problem to Solution in 2-6 months!

You can cultivate this outside view in several ways: Reading, listening to podcasts, watching shows etc. Whatever you choose, do bring some curiosity into your process. This way, you’re not engaging with content purely for its entertainment value. This ensures you bring the right presence of mind to bear and that the knowledge sticks. 

Being a keen learner helps with discerning opportunities because the world you see (and imagine) is capped by your view of what’s possible. And your knowledge base informs that view. 

Summary

An eye for opportunity leads to real options. It requires having a mindset sufficiently removed from the status quo. This way, the mental barriers for preserving the status quo are not as strong.

Discerning opportunity also entails bringing insight to bear in novel ways. For this, one needs to somewhat foster a healthy relationship with knowledge, especially outside of one’s domain. This enables connections that pair insights from one area with needs in another, bringing the outside view into the situation. 

The game format is not entirely new. It starts with 128 players, all vying for the title. But after several rounds of elimination, there can only be one winner. And so they tough it out, pushing themselves and their opponents to the limits (and quite often beyond) in the quest for the ultimate prize.

As a proud Melbourne resident, I followed the games with eager interest. The sheer talent and tenacity on display were captivating. And as sporting events do, the games offered a rare insight into the elements that align in the making of a winner. Of course, game-play is hardly an empirical approach to studying success. But it illuminates a great deal about the character and calculus that goes into achieving it.

These are my findings.

Not all wins are created equal. There’s a case for lucrative losses.

There’s an interesting statistic in the game of tennis that makes no sense, until it does. In most sports, you win by scoring more individual points than the opponent. Most tennis games conform to this general rule. But on rare occasions, the winner actually scores fewer points than their counterpart. That’s precisely what happened in the final of the men’s singles, where tournament winner, Rafael Nadal, scored 182 individual points in the match. That’s 7 less than his opponent and silver medalist, Daniil Medvedev.

From this, we note that there’s a lot of losing on the way to the top. But there’s a more crucial lesson to unearth. Not all wins are equally important. There’s a case for choosing your battles (and your wins) carefully.

Talent is not enough. Far from it.

If the last point is anything to go by, talent is not the only factor that makes one successful. Leaning into analogies, it’s more like a buffet of condiments, than a single secret ingredient.

Once again, the men’s final makes this point quite remarkably. In this game, Nadal served 3 aces, compared to Medvedev’s 23. For outsiders to the game, an ace is when one player serves the ball so masterfully that the opponent cannot touch (let alone return) it. It’s one of the common proxies for talent in the sport. And on that score, the winner didn’t even compare.

Looking at the other statistics, Nadal did not particularly outclass his opponent either. Yet he somehow managed to outshine him.

How often do we see successful individuals being asked to articulate the one thing that led to their success? Due to what’s called the vividness bias, we are prone to overestimate the significance of attributes that manifest through moments of brilliance, like talent, and miss the less spectacular things. Indeed, we’re predisposed to explain success through the things we marvel at.

But talent, dazzling as it is, is not enough. While it has (many) benefits and is great to have, it’s simply not the only condiment in the buffet that feeds success.

Calm under pressure.

Winners know how to diffuse pressure with uncommon composure. Especially useful if the winning performance is not dominant. There are moments in the game where it could go either way. Winners have the mental resilience needed to navigate those big moments.

Ashley Barty, ranked number one in the women’s singles, exemplified this is the finals of the women’s event. Having won the first set quite comfortably, she trailed in the 2nd set by 5 games to 1. If she had lost the 2nd set, her counterpart, Danielle Collins, would have had the mental upper hand going into the deciding set. Not ideal.

What happened next was not just a treat for every Australian, but a show of resilience and character. Ashley fought her way back to parity, forcing the 2nd set into a tiebreaker, which she won, casually making history in the process. She became only the 2nd Australian to ever win the women’s title on home soil and the first to do so in 44 years.

It wasn’t a single magical moment that turned the tide, but a series of calculated wins. As the commentary went, she problem-solved her way out of a tight spot to get to the top.

Your Why Matters. That’s your North Star.

The motivation that carries winners through to the end is always bigger than them. You’ll hardly hear a winner say how proud of themselves they are while giving a victory speech. Or how satisfied they are with their own effort. They tend to have a bigger reason. A more compelling why. It’s about giving fans and team members some validation. Or raising the bar and inspiring the next generation of greats. It’s about leaving a legacy. It’s also about making family and country proud. All these reasons have nothing to do with playing the game for fun and prize money.

To be sure, it’s not just winners who need a bigger why. This is true for everyone who plays the game at the highest level. A bigger why is an essential piece of the puzzle. I’ve noticed that the speeches from consolation prize winners draw from the same themes as the winning speech. They always acknowledge everyone and everything that inspired them to succeed.

During her post-match press interview, women’s runner up Danielle Collins jumped at the opportunity to speak highly of Marty, a friend who believed in her when it mattered most.

There’s always a bigger why at play. Here’s a corollary to this truth: If you want to be on a winning team, find someone to believe in, and start believing. Getting behind someone (or something) is just as important as leading the charge.

Final Thoughts

It would be remiss of me to conclude without giving context to the preceding points.

It feels good to win and achieve success, no matter the endeavour. I wish we all experience more of this feeling. What makes a win all the more validating is being able to look back on the journey that’s been. It’s the journey that makes the success meaningful, not the other way round.

Why does this matter?

Because it’s easy to miss the significance of where we are (in life, career, or business) when it’s a less than ideal place. But no matter where you are right now in your journey, you can find meaning in it, by reflecting on the milestones that got you there, and (just as importantly) the milestones you’re working towards.

Relating the present to the past and the future in this way helps us interpret things. It brings meaning and clarity to bear. And that’s always a good thing.

The study shows that children who can self-regulate and delay gratification tend to do better in school and life generally.

Delayed gratification is not a challenge that only children face. Indeed, it is an integral part of the human condition. There is nothing inherently wrong with instant gratification. The issue is that, much like the marshmallow experiment, it often forestalls more benefits further down the track. This predicament has many variations, some more subtle than others. 

Leaders Vs The Marshmallow Test

Even leaders have to navigate the tensions between instant and delayed gratification. But there’s a twist in how it presents, and the decision is not always black and white. There’s an element of grey. 

Consider this familiar tale. An issue that still plagues multinational conglomerates is the work conditions that their offshore labour force is subjected to, typically in developing markets. While this is more pronounced within textile and food supply chains – where child labour and hazardous factories are rampant – the phenomenon is not exclusive to these sectors.

Although activist groups continue to voice these concerns, it is tempting to place profits over supply-chain reform in the longer term. Business leaders often struggle to decide which stakeholder interests to prioritise. Not an easy balance to strike. Taking a long term view would pacify customers and activists but at the shareholder’s expense. Moreover, the benefits of a long-term view are difficult to measure and therefore justify. How do you quantify trust or a vote of confidence? Profits would seem like a much simpler, more straightforward, and gratifying path to take in the short term.

This type of ethical dilemma brings the marshmallow effect into focus. It is a major friction point in decision-making, showing up in an ever-expanding array of guises. Other ethically polarized spheres of business decision-making include climate change, inclusive hiring and honest marketing. But ethical dilemmas are not the only ways that the tensions between instant and delayed gratification manifest. 

Another (perhaps more classic) example of this phenomenon is businesses that display a level of risk aversion that stifles innovation and growth. As a result, only incremental gains – within the scope of short term planning – are ever made. This mindset precludes the leaps that come with longer-term thinking. The growth investment is hard to justify in the short term. In a striking display of missed priorities, mediocrity can feel like prudence.

A Mckinsey study of 615 publicly listed US companies from 2001 to 2015 found systematic evidence that a long-term approach can lead to superior performance for revenue and earnings, investment, market capitalization, and job creation. The results are shared in an article aptly titled: Where companies with a long-term view outperform their peers.

Finding Balance

A long term view would seem more plausible in comparison. But could the framing of different perspectives as mutually exclusive be a part of the problem? After all, there is no universal stencil for decision-making. And the more intractable the problem is, the more comfortable decision-makers need to be with ambiguity and (frankly) greyness to master it. 

Like instant gratification, there’s nothing inherently wrong with short term thinking. Indeed It’s ideal for taking advantage of opportunities in real-time. There are, however, certain incidental benefits to longer horizons, which are often (and notably) beyond reach in the short term. These include a sense of clarity and direction. You may also recognise these as benefits of good leadership. And so it’s not that short term thinking is fundamentally flawed, but on its own, it leads to mindless opportunism, a hazard in its own right. 

I believe the best way to straddle both viewpoints is to calibrate short and long term goals using key priorities. This forces leaders and managers to reflect on what long term goals look like in the present. It also helps resolve the questions of what is relevant and why. 

From Apple’s Playbook

Within the group of top five tech companies popularly known as FAAMG, the Apple brand stands out. With every new product, they have boldly reimagined the role of technology, often creating entirely new categories in the process. Sometimes this has been a miss (remember the trash can), but overall, their batting average remains enviable.

True to character, they’ve been pioneering again. Last year, Apple released a new type of processing chip with astounding capabilities, the M1, casually revolutionizing the sector in the process. This year, they’ve added even more computing power to this lineup with their newly announced M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. These technical marvels are still shaking up the tech community, but it’s Apple’s brand character that interests me.

For all their innovation, Apple as a company says no to a lot of ideas, perhaps more times than yes. For example, they’ve infamously refused to bring desktop software capabilities to their iPad Pro devices, a move pundits argue effectively caps their usefulness. In like manner, they’ve not obliged requests to add touchscreen capabilities to their desktop (Mac) product lineup, despite their competition creating “hybrid” laptops that bridge desktop and tablet markets with a 2 in 1 form factor. Apple could have moved to take advantage of these short-term opportunities years ago, but they left them on the table and moved on. 

Here’s why this all matters. If the Apple story teaches us anything, it’s that

relevance is not always popular in the short term.

As a company, Apple is clear on who they are, and what they stand for. This clarity anchors their thinking in every way, enabling them to take on ideas that add value to their proposition. 

And lately, even the fiercest critics are applauding Apple’s achievements.

The other flavour (uninspiringly) assumes the worst. Think of it as a survival toolkit, a failsafe plan. This strategy addresses the question of what to do when the chips are down. 

Together, these two form what looks and feels like a balanced approach. There’s something in it for investors at both ends of risk tolerance. If the plan is well baked, there might even be an attempt to reconcile both extremes with the magic of weighted averages.

Having different ways to forge ahead is an integral part of the strategy plan, and rightly so. It’s called risk diversification, and its purpose is to spread risk exposure across several possible outcomes. 

But could there be unintended consequences to a failsafe strategy? 

And does the quest for optionality impede strategic foresight?

The Other Extreme

It’s tempting to debate and deliberate over options at gratifying length. But let’s consider what happens when options do not abound, and one single, extreme possibility presents.

Thankfully, we have the benefit of hindsight through historical archives.

In 1519, Spanish Captain Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of the new world (Mexico) and famously ordered the destruction of the boats on which he and his unit arrived. 

While the outcome of the ensuing battle was unknowable when Cortés gave the audacious order, here’s what we know to have resulted from his decision: Cortés and his men had no choice but to win the war or face annihilation. There could be no derisking, half measures or dithering. The only way to succeed in this all-or-nothing situation was through unwavering single-mindedness. It’s hard to understate the value of a shared vision at that moment. Anything less would reduce their chances of survival. 

Cortés went on to conquer the occupying Aztec Empire in the two years that followed. A real historical masterpiece, complete with heroics, valour and absurdity. Yet still, it’s hard not to look beyond the entertainment value in this story and land on some real pressing questions. 

In a space where optionality is highly regarded, how relevant are limits and constraints? Should we be putting options on the table or removing them entirely? 

Finding Balance and Fit

Knowing how much optionality is good to embrace in any given setting can feel like a guessing game. At one end of the scale, singularity could either resemble blatant narrowmindedness or determined focus. And on the other end, options could foster indecision or lead to new opportunities. It’s a two-sided coin, regardless. The world of finance might offer some insight into how we balance these conflicting perspectives. 

The thought premise for this Investopedia article titled How to Invest at Every Age is simple: your risk appetite should reduce with age. From this, we can distil something else. Responding to options is as much about weighing those options as it is understanding our capacity to reach for them. The investment landscape indeed offers opportunities at every risk level, but the suitability of an investment is informed, not only by its inherent attributes but by the circumstance and situation of the individual investor. 

How we should respond to options is not revealed through a crystal ball or an oracle. Once we understand the options at hand, the blueprint for charting the way forward can be summed up in two words: Know thyself. This opens up a level of clarity that doesn’t necessarily make the decision right, but it releases decision-makers to own it confidently. And the best decisions are the ones you can own without second-guessing. Something about being able to lock it in carries tailwinds that help the decision achieve its intended goal.

There’s one lingering question. How about the forgone benefits when one decision is made over another? In other words, how do we justify the opportunity cost every time a decision is made?

Keeping Options On the Table

One way to approach this question is to explore the other extreme, where several options on the table are pursued. This implies spreading resources across several pursuits. Where resources are not limited, it’s hardly an issue. But alas, reality is different. Resources are limited, and (ideally) decisions are optimised to make the best use of them. The real risk to keeping options on the table is under-resourcing those options. 

To better appreciate this, let’s consider a simple scenario of multitasking. Here the resource is time and attention, and options are the tasks competing for it. A BBC study found that multitasking makes us inefficient at best. I believe this lesson applies beyond multitasking. Spreading any resource thinly across several goals reduces your chances of succeeding at any one of them. 

Summary

Decisions are crucially important. They present options, each with unique risks and promises. 

It’s tempting to embrace the notion of a right decision, discovered through diligent analysis of the options at hand. The bid to make the right decision, however, comes with the risk of indecision. Even after making a decision, it’s easily second-guessed in light of new information. 

The trick is to view the options through the lens of priorities and capacities. Doing this ensures well-anchored decisions. It also emboldens the pursuit of those decisions by providing the clarity and conviction needed to see them through. 

Have you ever wondered who is on the other side of the products and services you consume daily? Not just the corporations, but the humans who conceive product ideas and make them market-ready, for you and me.

I have. I’d say these folks have a fascinating job of bringing ideas to life. I do wonder what drives them? How do they see themselves and rationalise their contribution? My efforts to understand their motivations and methods distil into three different personas. Let’s begin with the least audacious.

The Kaizen

The Japanese word kaizen loosely translates to good change. The idea here is constantly striving to change for the better. Product developers with a continuous improvement mindset lean into this – let’s call it kaizen – persona, where the guiding question is: How can we improve?

Here’s an oversimplification of the kaizen method: Tweak, optimise, repeat. In reality, there are exacting standards and meticulous processes at play. Tweaking involves ideation and initiative. Optimising calls for testing and feedback. 

The kaizen approach recognises the importance of moving slowly in one direction over moving swiftly in multiple directions. Albeit the least audacious, this approach is in no way mediocre. It takes unflagging commitment to continuously best your best, never accepting it as good enough. While it’s associated with small gains, they most certainly add up over time. To appreciate this, think of how your social media experience has evolved with platform changes, aesthetics and new features. 

Most product development work today is based on kaizen methods for the simple reason that entirely new products entries are far fewer than already existing ones. Hence the bulk of work goes into improving existing products, as compared to creating new products. 

But sometimes, the improvements are not marginal. They reveal something approaching a thought shift. 

The Inquirer

If the kaizen seeks to modify a solution, the inquirer will gladly redefine the problem altogether – a hard reset essentially. This eagerness to interrogate convention hardly earns the inquirer any plaudits – convention tends to push back – but on a good day, it’s handsomely rewarding. 

With these odds, the inquirer needs a different set of traits to thrive. It may take curiosity to rethink the status quo, but audacity is needed to challenge it. And let’s not understate the role of negotiation and persuasion required to inspire early adoption.  

But the inquirer today is not nearly as frowned upon as before. Recent global trends have profoundly shifted our foundational beliefs, resulting in a willingness to question more. These trends include the financial crisis of 2008, a wave of business disruptions predominantly in tech, large scale data leaks, and most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Even corporations have caught on and are now open – to varying degrees – to challenge their own conventions. It’s now common for large firms with the budget to have incubators – a testing ground for new concepts. Here’s a classic example. Back in 2016, Anjali Sud led an incubator program at video hosting platform Vimeo to explore the business demand for video as a communication tool. Before this, the company planned to invest in original content, competing with the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime. The results of this program were so compelling that Vimeo’s management appointed Anjali to lead the company in this new direction as its CEO in 2017 – a title she still holds. 

The Idealist

So far, we’ve considered product development from two different personas: The incrementalist kaizen with a seemingly insatiable appetite for improvement on one hand, and the inventive inquirer with a pioneering spirit on the other. These both have one thing in common; they start with a problem statement. What happens when the initiative for developing a product is something more elemental to our humanity, like a belief?

In a 2010 TED talk, renowned marketing expert Simon Sinek explained that people follow leaders who embody their beliefs. Why? Because beliefs control decision-making. 

When product developers are inspired by what they believe, the entire process takes on a new significance. The products become a manifestation of those beliefs, a call out statement of sorts. Buyers don’t merely consume the products but also share said beliefs, making this exact statement with their spending. 

The idealist persona sends such a compelling message to users, but it doesn’t map to any process or methods. Operationally, they can lean into the other personas to varying degrees, but they’ll always endeavour to represent their beliefs through the products they develop. 

Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering made this point indirectly when asked in a 2020 interview by tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee why the company had not yet created a weather app and a calculator app for the iPad – a simple technical feat. In his response, he explained that they want to take something “great” to the market, and they’d rather wait than lower their standards. 

Summary

These approaches are not mutually exclusive. The above personas apply differently to various settings. Developing entirely new products may call on the inquirer persona, whereas keeping existing ones relevant would lean towards the kaizen. Still yet, the idealist would want to ensure that products embody shared beliefs. It could lead to some tweaking or a complete reimagining, depending. 

I think of clarity as a calibrating force that puts everything else in its place. It’s not certainty, and it’s definitely not eloquence. Like truth, clarity is one of those attributes that are easy to appreciate but hard to define.

Since the word is used widely in different ways, it’s helpful to note that we are concerned with its meaning in thought and decision-making. We explore this enigmatic theme through four distinct situational lenses, with the view to grasp what it is, and more importantly, why it matters. 

Reporting 

When information is required to support decision-making, the need for clarity comes into focus. Here the lack of clarity can lead to poor decisions. But what does clarity mean in this reporting context? To answer that question, we turn to a form of reporting that is both loved and loathed. With the stakes being what they are, these reports are highly regulated to ensure the information is up to par. I’m referring to financial reporting – financial statements specifically. To explore clarity in this context, I’ll rely on what the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) refers to in its Conceptual Framework guidance as characteristics of useful financial information:

1. Information is relevant when it is consequential to a decision or an intended outcome. Not everything belongs in a report. Due care is needed to ensure that only what matters to the end goal is included and clutter is left out. 
2. Information is faithfully represented when it is complete (nothing that matters is left out), neutral (there is no bias in preparing it), and error-free. Faithful representation means the information has integrity and can be trusted.

So when presenting information, clarity means relevance and trustworthiness. These two qualities are broadly applicable in any form of reporting. But it doesn’t end there. The framework goes on to list four more attributes that enhance informational value. I would argue that these attributes also add clarity. Let’s explore them with four questions. 

1. Comparability – Are there reference points to contextualise the information?
2. Verifiability – Is it possible to confirm the information?
3. Timeliness – Is it outdated?
4. Understandability – Has due care been given to information density, format, sequence, simplicity and other presentational aspects? 

These ideas serve as guideposts for achieving clarity when presenting information through any channel. 

Thought

Next, we consider how clarity also comes to bear in reasoning and critical thought. Why should we care? Because this skill set helps us to process information in real-time. To achieve this requires scepticism – a questioning mindset. It’s helpful to differentiate scepticism from cynicism. While both involve a measure of disbelief, there’s a world of difference between them. Sceptics seek evidence to substantiate statements, adhering to a standard of intellectual honesty in their inquiry while remaining open to a different viewpoint. The cynic, on the other hand, distrusts any position they don’t already hold. 

If you’ve ever had a conversation where you needed to probe a bit further, teasing out unspoken assumptions, you’ve demonstrated scepticism. 

Critical thinking also entails defining your scope. For example, if you’re having a conversation, you want to make sure it stays on track. You’ll need to have a clear purpose for it. This boundary-setting can take different forms, like research questions, meeting agendas, or simply an introductory statement of purpose. 

Finally, critical thinking fosters fair-mindedness in how we engage with alternative viewpoints. This intellectual empathy helps connect to the other person’s views meaningfully, recognising that they may have a valid point. It seeks to discover this point and, when done right, results in a nuanced understanding of the issue. 

You may recognise these ideas as overlapping with the principles of scientific inquiry. The goal here is not to embrace a comprehensive set of exacting standards – that would understandably overwhelm anyone – but to recognise that these robust modes of inquiry already exist and graduate them into our thought process. 

Reflection

It would be nice if we had superpowers to observe everything we need to know instantly. But our senses can only go so far. Sometimes we need to look to our past for clarity. Through reflection, we can observe patterns in ourselves and our environment and make sense of things. For example, through reflection, I’ve learned that I love inspired conversation, and my enduring passion for writing is really a way to connect with people on topics of mutual interest. Notice how reflection has helped me to reconcile these two passions in a coherent narrative. 

Reflection is a powerful way of observing things over extended periods of time. 

Partnership

The fourth and final situation where clarity shines is when forming partnerships. In this context, it helps us recognise how different efforts converge towards a shared goal. Partnering can take many forms, both within and outside an organisation. Fostering a mindset of “stronger together” makes it easy to notice opportunities and act on them. This is because you’re not limited to a vision of what you can achieve in your own strength. You get to think big. For a sustainable partnership, the proposition must share the risks and rewards equitably between partners.

We can point to several fortune 500 companies that started out as partnerships between friends. One of my favourites is the story of two PhD students at Stanford University who came together in 1996 for a project then codenamed “Backrub.”  

Fast forward to 2006, the company built by Larry Page and Sergey Brin is already a household name and the verb “google” is added to major dictionaries, meaning “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.” The company has continued to grow exponentially both in value and popularity. According to Statcounter.com, Google currently holds a commanding 92.49% of search engine traffic.

A Human Voice

Small businesses have a unique advantage over their larger counterparts in that their messaging is inherently more authentic. This is purely a function of their size. When large organisations put a message out there, you don’t know who is speaking: marketing, product design, or the CEO. You wonder who initiated the message. You also wonder how much of that initiative carries across to the final copy, post a legal review. The message loses the very essence that connects it to its intended audience: the human voice. Small businesses have no such problem. They get to speak from the heart and to the heart. We can already see small businesses taking advantage. This coincides with the reality that organisations today are held to a human standard on topics like diversity and inclusion, the environment, and ethics. Small businesses get to speak to these issues in a recognisably human voice. True, actions indeed speak louder than words, but words still matter. Through their words, small businesses are effectively defining their posture on a growing list of pressing issues. And by doing so, they’re forming deeper connections with consumers and other stakeholders in ways that their larger counterparts simply lack the humanity to muster.

An Avid Listener

Here’s where it gets interesting. Without making any effort, small businesses are naturally good listeners. There’s a logic to this truth. These (small) businesses often serve a demographic of which they are an integral part. As bona fide members of the community, they are in close contact with their stakeholders. Close enough to discern changes in interests, preferences and sentiments. Proverbially, small businesses are on the ground when it happens. 

Contrast this with large business and the dividends of smallness are telling. In large businesses, insights may come through the door but they hardly reach executive ranks. As a result, large businesses rely more on data than observation. They’ll typically have dedicated roles for this, and depending on their size, it could be an entire team. Since insights come to light through dashboards and data, and not lived experiences, large businesses have a second-hand awareness of reality. It doesn’t translate as deeply. The irony is that large businesses commit a lot of resources to discover what small businesses already know.

A Nimble Navigator

In a fairy-tale world, organisations would go to market with a proposition that’s eagerly embraced. Automatic validation. Reality is a bit more nuanced. The market will test an idea, accepting only the most relevant and compelling. What plays out is a symbiotic relationship through which both organisations and the markets shape the proposition. But markets are not so patient. Being able to respond speedily is critical to realising both new and evolving value propositions. 

This is precisely where small businesses outshine their larger counterparts. To understand this better, we hold businesses (large and small) up to Mckinsey’s 7-S Framework for organisational effectiveness, examining their ability to generate value by coordinating activities on these critical levers. Due to their size, small businesses are nimble. As such, they can better negotiate and renegotiate their value proposition in an increasingly dynamic marketplace, making the necessary changes fast enough to seize opportunities. 

Larger enterprises can do the same, but it’s not as easy. They’re typically at a stage in their life cycle where the value proposition is clear and compelling enough. They have several safeguards in place to assure consistent delivery. These critical controls (both policy and otherwise) often get in the way of change, stifling their ability to respond quickly to the market. 

Final Thoughts

The last time I bought from a small business was just yesterday. I ordered beef pad kea mao and my wife had the kimchi fried rice with chicken. We don’t patronise them nearly as much as we’d like to. But every time we do, we’re reminded that we’ve done the right thing for two reasons:

1. We can taste the value and
2. They’re in our neighbourhood, part of our community

I’m guessing you can think of a small business you’re fond of.

While the fundamentals of business don’t change with size, the dynamics are remarkably different. When exploited, the right levers can help small businesses thrive and gain market share, or at least outlast a storm. 

These are benefits that small businesses can’t afford to leave on the table.