Dealing with Dilemmas: Where Business Analytics Fall Short

Preface

"Synthesis is the essence of managing: putting things together, in the form of coherent strategies, unified organizations, and integrated systems. This is what makes managing so difficult—and so interesting. It's not that managers don't need analysis; it's that they need it as input to synthesis. Where to find synthesis in a world so decomposed by analysis?"

—Henry Mintzberg, Managing, 2009

We are obsessed with analysis. We believe that if we have all the data, and are smart enough, we can solve any problem. In looking for smart people, we test their analytical skills. We invest millions in computer software to analyze customer behavior and business performance. Many professional people even call themselves analysts (I was one for many years at industry analyst firm Gartner).

Why is everyone so obsessed with analysis? Analysis is only one style of solving problems. Analysis means taking one big thing (like a problem) and breaking it apart into separate pieces to understand the whole thing. We seem to have forgotten all about synthesis, the opposite approach. Take two or more ideas and combine them into a larger new idea. Tackling a problem in this way might lead to entirely new insights, where problems of the "old world" (before the synthesis) do not even occur anymore. Where analysis focuses on working within the boundaries of a certain domain (breaking one big thing into smaller pieces—inside the box), synthesis connects various domains—out of the box.

Why are there no people ...