The price of
awareness
Today’s
blog while a bit dramatic and spiced with some movie references will attempt to
highlight the correlation between the pursuit of knowledge, the challenges that
we have to overcome to achieve this enlightenment and more importantly the
moral and ethical obligations that we contract once we achieve this knowledge.
The
human race is defined by its curiosity and the motivation to learn more: from
our humble beginnings on Earth, we have been able to achieve a highly
technological and evolving society. These inherent personality traits drive
entrepreneurship and business expansion from the CEO to the entry-level clerk
in an organization.
If
we take a typical Fortune 500 company and we apply this logic, we will find
numerous individuals that work every day to improve their day-2-day. In order
to do this, these individuals must make a significant number of decisions and
there is no better way to make these decisions than by having the right
information.
However,
getting the right information is typically not easy. There are multiple systems
and thus multiple sources, not to mention that there are many interests in the
organization that might influence how the data is captured, stored and
reported. In order to address these challenges, historically organizations have
started large Decision Support System programs, typically with a Data Warehouse
strategy at its core. However, the implementation of these programs took a long
time and it was always a very risky enterprise, not necessarily because of
technology but due to the fact that the effort challenged the status quo where
particular individuals or team where the guardians of information. In spite of
these challenges, many companies prevailed and they were able to successfully
implement Enterprise Business Intelligence systems. However, not many of these
systems were able to deliver the value that it was promised. In fact quite a
large number of implementations was left without use after the initial pilot or
testing.
A
group of researchers from a prestigious consulting and delivery firm started
looking into this and they realized that in many of these situations the
systems were working properly and the information was being reported with
extreme accuracy but people still refused to use the system. When they explored
a little deeper, they found two some surprising things:
a)
The new system had different results for some of
the key metrics that the organization was using in the past
b)
The organization decision makers were getting
access to new information that they did not have access before
The
researchers were puzzled, as the results seemed to indicate that the new
programs had been extremely successful both correcting past mistakes and
providing light to previously dark areas.
However,
what they failed to consider initially was the price of awareness. On the surface,
while it looked that the new system had more accurate values for key metrics,
they found out that some people had made their entire career in the
organization reporting the old values and sometimes these values had been
reported to top management and Wall Street itself. Publicly acknowledging that
the old values were incorrect would have caused a severe reputation hit to the
individuals who built their careers using the old ways not to mention a
possible catastrophic stock drop for the organization.
In
regards to the second situation - where people had new data available that they
did had before, they also found that these new data insights were holding
people accountable to new standards and as such they both limited the amount of
freedom the decision makers used to have before the new systems became available
and it was also binding them to perform an action or set actions based on the
new information available.
So
in a way it was like in the matrix when Neo was offered two pills: red (to
start a new path on the search for knowledge) or blue (to forget and go back to
his old life). While Neo took the red pill and he never regretted the decision,
there were other individuals who did not have the same strength of character
and got to the point of betraying the entire Human race for a false hope of
going back to the bliss of ignorance.
There
is no denying it, with new information comes new power and with new power comes
new responsibility. There are moral, ethical and sometimes-financial
implications that are implicitly accepted when we leave our ignorance behind
and choose to see the truth as it is. However, history has proved that we will
always be better off if act according to the right, truthful information and as
inconvenient as it can to be “ahead of your time” it will always pay off to do
the right thing.
If
you are in this situation, don’t be afraid to take a leap of faith and trust
that everything will eventually be all right. After all, there is no greater
legacy that you can leave behind than preparing yourself/your Team/your Company
to face the future with the right tools and perspective having started the
change while there was still time left in the clock.
