Page 116 - The McKinsey Mind

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Interpreting the Results 91

That analysis has its limitations is no reason to dispense with
it, however. Beware what one of our alumni described as the
“ready, fire, aim mentality.” Even if you are a skilled decision
maker with reliable intuition, good analysis helps support and
communicate your solution throughout your organization, as Bill
Ross describes:

In many cases, executives, being smart business leaders, have
already gone through the problem-solving process internally
without laying it out for others to see. If you go through their
thinking with them, however, you’ll often find they’ve
missed an option. More importantly, they may be ready to
move quickly, but they still have to pull their whole organi-
zation along with them. Without having documented and
communicated some of their thought process, there’s no way
that they can bring their organization along except by brute
force. We know that doesn’t work for very long, because if
you keep at it, then people just wait for you to tell them
where to go next.

While some like to think of intuition and data as polar oppo-
sites, yin and yang, they actually work together. And like yin and
yang, each needs the other to thrive. Data without intuition are
merely raw information, and intuition without data is just guess-
work. Put the two together, however, and you have the basis for
sound decision making.

IMPLEMENTATION GUIDANCE
At this stage in the problem-solving process, you need to figure out
what the facts are telling you. The economist John Maynard
Keynes, when berated by a critic for contradicting one of his ear-