Strategy and spotting trends – one take

In response to Steve’s post about it being “hunting season” with many people doing their best to bag-a-strateic-plan, I started thinking about how I spot trends. There are so many varied ways to do this – most real strategists simply have the natural ability to find patterns in a wealth of data that would overwhelm others. Many of us aren’t exactly sure how we do it – so a discussion on “here’s the techniques I use” can be fairly short. In a bit of a diversion that is not politics or technology but just story and history, I hope to give some examples of how I’ve spotted trends without giving away the trends I’ve spotted recently (remember the comment about strategic planning season…. )

Personally, I’m a big subscriber to Solomon’s statement that for the most part, “there’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:8-9). Unfortunately this is most particularly real when talking about humanity, the stories that resonate with humanity and how similar themes and behaviors ebb and flow in history. So, when it’s clear that throughout history the idea of the progress of mankind has continually been resisted, it’s normal to see modernity & the age of enlightenment cause 3 very different backlashes - post-modernism, deep green environmentalism, and Islamist fundamentalism. All of them are attempts to wrestle with the losses and gains in light of consequences caused by industrialization.

Another example: as I was reading a Harry Potter book for the first time, I was struck with the familiarity of the themes in the book. I still can’t make up my mind if the story is more “Arthurian legend in modern English boarding school with a twist of 12th century magic” to keep it from being inordinately boring, or more “messianic figure with 12th centurty magical frame of reference”. Perhaps a little of both. Does the theme resonate because the story is familiar, or is the story familiar because the theme is so resonant with human aspiration that we keep re-telling it in our stories throughout history?

A final example – perhaps a more stark one. There are multiple examples throughout history of the paths taken by civilizations that strayed from the concept that life is sacred and moved to the concept that the quality of life is measured before a that life can have value.

 It’s a slippery slope and often leads to some very unexpected – or just plain chilling – unintended consequences. Ex: so common was infanticide in ancient Greece that Polybius (205-118 BCE) blamed the decline of ancient Greece on it. (Histories, 6). It was “decimating pagan society,” Durant, op. cit. 68 plus 18, and was the leading cause of the tremendous gender gap of men to women in the ancient world…