Now Squared

A skydiver jumps from a plane and marvels at the patchwork of fields and forests below. From 10,000 feet above the earth’s surface, the jumper sees how the roads connect and where the rivers and creeks drain. Subtle changes in shading outline the hills and valleys. The diver flips, turns and rolls by manipulating her body shape, doing everything a bird can do except one – climb back up.

Instead, the skydiver plummets at 120 miles per hour until she deploys her chute at 3,000 feet, slowing the descent. The view is narrower with the ground approaching. The fields and forest directly below become clearer with the diver able to make out individual trees and the planted rows, but she can no longer discern the broad patterns of roads and rivers.

With the drop zone in site, the jumper directs the chute with hand toggles attached to steering lines. The video below captures the final descent.

There is no better way to illustrate intuition works best from higher strategic elevations than a skydiver crashing into a tree.

Intuition means pattern recognition. Patterns can’t be discerned when you are rushing headlong into an oak. There is only one data point and there is precious little time to react to it.

Higher elevations provide more data points for pattern recognition. Just as a skydiver is better able to see road connections and drainage patterns from 10,000 feet above the surface than from 500 feet, we can better discern the pattern and direction of events from higher strategic ground. In other words, focus on the big picture rather than minute detail.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, illustrated this concept in an October 2007 Harvard Business Review interview. At Amazon, one of the questions they constantly ask is what is not going to change over the next 5 to 10 years. They then design their activities around the broad patterns they identify in answering that question rather than more transitory items, such as who their customers will be or what technologies will be available. In Amazon’s case, what they believe won’t change is customer demand for large selection, low prices and fast delivery. Perhaps that seems too simplistic, but the brilliance comes from what they do with that information.

They plant seeds.

Having determined what they believe will not change over the next decade, they are free to conduct experiments in areas that will improve the items that won’t change.

Bezos said, “We are willing to plant seeds and wait a long time for them to turn into trees. We may not know that it’s going to turn into an oak, but at least we know it can turn out to be big. I think you need to make sure with the things you choose that you are able to say, ‘If we can get this to work, it will be big’”

What won’t change?
What will change?
What is the rate of change?

These are questions intuition can help answer. They can produce insights into what may happen and help decipher trends and determine which are likely to continue. They can point to the areas where we should experiment, where we should plant seeds.