The Next Level of Analysis - It Makes All the Difference

Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” is a treat. It gives fascinating insights into what really lies behind world class performers, destroying the superficial romantic myths about poor kids defeating the odds with a combination of god-given talent, inspiration and succeeding against the odds. I’d sum up the Gladwell’s conclusion of what makes world class performance with the phrase “practice makes perfect”, though I’m sure my performance coaching colleagues would justifiably emphasise the importance of creating environments and cultures that stack the odds in favour of practising the right things.

Gladwell’s conclusions were fascinating, but what caught my attention was his method – how he got to the insightful conclusions that gave the myth to some romantic, but ultimately incorrect and misleading, received wisdom. In a nutshell, all he did was this: he took the analysis to the next level. That’s it. Here’s an example from the book.

A US study analysed the improvement in reading performance of school children from different social classes. Though the social groups had similar aptitude for the youngest children studied, the gap between wealthier and poorer classes grew as the children got older. Policy makers had concluded that the education system was failing the poorer children.

However, analysis of reading performance before and after summer recess revealed an interesting insight – that the entire difference in improvement could be explained by what happened when children weren’t in school. During the main school holiday, children from the wealthier classes improved their reading ability, whereas the poorer children regressed. In fact, during the school year, the poorer classes actually improved marginally more than the richer children. So by trying to raise the relative level of the poorer children through the traditional school system with traditional school hours and a traditional school year missed the crucial point - that they regressed outside class. A simple answer was a very popular, successful school that kept children at school for longer and kept them focused on their work.

The useful insight for me here wasn’t about schools or policy or social justice. It was that by getting under the skin of things, you get the insight that allows you to take the most effective actions.

Critics of Gladwell's book say he's superficial. But all these critics are saying is that he'd have got even more insight if he'd gone to the next level, so the importance of analysing to the next level still stands.

So what is the relevance of this to business strategy? It is the immense value of analysing to the next level, beyond the superficial received wisdom, and the risk of not doing so and missing the obvious actions. I’ve been analysing businesses and their markets for more than 15 years, with more than 200 companies, including my own. From that 200+ sample, I cannot think of a single example of a company that hasn’t understood its markets or the value of its services differently after making that next level of analysis. Some of these companies even acted on that insight and turned around their performance as a result.

So does this mean for the provider and buyer of strategic advice? I was speaking at a Chairmen’s dinner recently about the benefits of performing an external review, and the host asked me a very similar question: do I, as a reviewer of businesses and markets, provide information or do I provide advice? I bungled an answer, but I should have said this:

"If you keep asking the right questions; if you get under the skin of the issue, not being satisfied or fobbed-off by superficial hearsay, then the answer and the advice comes out all by itself."


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