Faint signals are whispers from the future

Faint signals are the indirect and unclear clues to impending change or opportunity, from the realm of the unknown yet possible. These signals are potentially invaluable to organizations, but they are frequently missed due to being drowned out by the louder signals coming from what is know and currently active. Guillén observes the connection between lateral thinking and faint (weak) signals:

Indeed, lateral thinking can be further augmented through “peripheral vision,” a concept developed by my Wharton colleagues George Day and Paul Schoemaker. Very much as with human vision, companies and other types of organizations cannot be effective if they do not sense, interpret, and act on the weak signals coming from the periphery of their immediate area of focus.
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In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. They were a victim of a phenomenon well expressed by Judge Taylor in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for”—they’re blind to the unexpected, the unusual, the periphery.^[1]

Varol observes that most corporations perish because “they ignore the baby steps, the weak signals, the near misses that don’t immediately affect outcomes.”^[2] The Cynefin framework suggests that weak signals are important in complex scenarios:

In a complex domain we set a new ‘mode of operation’ for the organization – strategy shifts from planning and implementation toward moving in the right direction at the right tempo. Risk is managed by taking a broad and diverse perspective, detecting the weak signals of change, and responding quickly. Learning from many small failures is like an immune system for the organization. It provides a signal about where to travel and will often oŀer guidance about what not to do, or what to do less of.^[3]

#strategic #systems-thinking #complexity #systems