Our fixation with DATA often make stunning deficiencies and risks. We have lost touch with HUMANITY. If we lose our perspective on human behavior our insights or INTUITION have no power. We have become too digitized, depending on algorithms. We must return to a process that feels “old-fashioned.” It is called CRITICAL THINKING.

To develop a more acute perspective on our world, we have to experience what the HUMANITIES can teach us on how to imagine other worlds. Then we can develop a better perspective on our world. This kind of perspective, rather than a cage full of DATA, will be more profitable—to both your bank account and your life.

Human intuition is the only intelligence that can cultivate such a perspective. We gain insight when we lose a part of ourselves. Aristotle described this intuition as PHRONESIS. This is an intuition based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE and VIRTUE (honorable, moral). Many masterful leaders describe this system as an extension of their body. It is part of them and they are a part of it. (review past post LONG BODY).

When in a room with others, we have to stop seeing individuals and start to see the structure that forms a cultural reality. (refer to past post THE TALKING STICK). In algorithm DATA we pull these worlds apart. The assembly of DATA will have you miss almost everything that can shed light on human behavior.

If you want to truly understand the people in your world, you must do what they do and see what they see. Strategy is about finance, but also about CULTURE, PEOPLE, EMOTIONS, BEHAVIOR, and NEEDS. This is not obtained through focus groups or DATA.

In collecting DATA, we should deal with the concept of culture, not the individual. This KNOWLEDGE, this INTUITION, this PHRONESIS will help us understand. This is not found with a banal fact or some isolated data.

Categories: Leadership PERSPECTIVES Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.