Here’s a question for you: When was the last time in your career that a month (or even a week) went by completely as planned with no surprises, setbacks, or last-minute issues?
For most of us, the honest answer is something along the lines of, “I don’t remember.” And that’s not a failing — it’s just real life. No matter how experienced you are, how well-structured your company is, or how much you think you’ve planned for contingencies, the world simply has a way of interfering. We see this almost daily, from honest miscommunications to cybersecurity attacks to changes in the stock market. There’s virtually no end to the list of factors that can derail our goals or require us to regroup. They’re also as frequent as they are frustrating.
It’s an obvious truth that none of us can see the future. But it’s also true that you’re not as helpless in the face of the unexpected as it may seem. The answer lies within a concept called pattern matching. Across the world, truly great leaders use pattern matching to foresee potential risks and devise strategies to tackle them before they escalate.
Read more in The Power of Pattern Matching in Leadership.
As I discuss in my latest blog, founders who take the time to understand and leverage pattern matching — recognizing and identifying regularities, structures, and trends within a set of data or information — are better equipped to lead their company through the 5 Stages of Development and beyond. That’s because pattern matching is a critical skill for something that the best leaders in the world are experts in: strategic decision-making.