Answers are Cheap, Confusion is Expensive
- 4717
- Apr 14
- 4 min read
Half a dozen tabs across two monitors are staring at you: dashboards, Slack channels and that ChatGPT that’s really getting to know you well. With all that pre-processed information on demand, you’d think that you’d know what to do next. The answers are everywhere. So is strategic confusion.
Back in 1971, economist and cognitive scientist Herbert Simon wrote: “A wealth of information created a poverty of attention.” The man called it. And with that, welcome to the debut of the 4717’s Outwit newsletter.
The working memory of most humans can process about three to five “elements” at a time. So, of course, we developed a technology to deliver a near infinite stream of information against that biologically restrained capacity to process it. That fire-hose of information isn’t going anywhere, but the cognitive overload it creates will degrade your ability to make decisions on everything marketing strategies to where to eat lunch. You’ve probably noticed the effects on your lunch plans, and are ignoring the other. The trick then, is to reframe the dilemma as one that you can control: a misallocation of resources. In this case, the resource your attention: It is a strategic asset - but a finite one. The second order effects sloppy allocation will get expensive.
Studies show that cognitive overload reduces decision speed as we subconsciously wait on that one more bit of data to deliver us from a crippling mental paralysis. The default work around is the quick, intuitive decision, which looks efficient but relies on mental short-cuts, called heuristics, to find a familiar pattern. It isn’t a bad way to handle a situation in a pinch, but it increases error rates and degrades judgement quality. It’s superficially rational, but a lot of mistakes are. The psychological attraction lies in that a decision, even a bad one, temporarily cuts off the overwhelming torrent of data for the feeling that something - anything - is getting done. This isn’t intelligence failure, but a normal system response to information overload and uncertainty.
So we upgrade to a disruptive technology that can solve the overload created by the last disruptive technology. But there are blind spots. You can address painful uncertainty with the AI model you’ve been monkeying around with but the certainty with which a conclusion is delivered may be more helpful in ending a debate than gaining clarity. AI is brilliant in many applications, but reducing the sheer volume of noise isn’t one of them - another 15 page report is a one-line prompt away.
Even with the AI assist, you may end up exasperating false correlations: AI is very good at quantifiable in-model relevance, but less so in wider-context, less quantifiable relevance. This brings us to what is called a signal and noise collapse. Herbert Simon’s work shows that humans aren’t very good at distinguishing high-value “signals” from low-value “noise.” A successful con-man instinctively knows that to persuade someone to make a bad decision, it helps to overwhelm a mark with low-value noise to bury critical signals. This makes false correlations appear more convincing as we search for a convincing pattern.
As for you and your team, the QED is that you will spend more time processing information than achieving a strategic insight.
So What?
Attention isn’t just scarce, it’s fragile – as anyone who has ever been interrupted in a state of “flow” will furiously attest. This can include anything from giving a presentation, writing a book or lining up a golf shot. Studies indicate that reviving an interrupted flow can take up to twenty minutes. If that focused thought needs to be abandoned, it takes about as much time to get fully immersed in the second task. The result, either way, is shallow, fragmented thinking instead of deeper analysis. Understand that you aren’t managing information, but fragile, expensive attention. So how to structure focus?
The 4717 Field Guide:
AI does a superhuman job of crunching data, but if your ambitions extend beyond being a larger information system’s spare part, you need to develop the skill of information selection and interpretation. That skill starts with treating disciplined focus and attention as a strategic asset. To do that simply take the pressing question of the post-IT revolution market: “Do we have enough information?” And reframe it as “ What is the minimum amount of information needed to make a high-quality decision?”
It will be less than you’ve been conditioned to think, but more that the quick, intuitive decision maker would have you believe. Reframe the decision system by:
Reduce inputs: Fewer dashboards, tighter briefs. Take that information and…
Organize information for a clear “signal” visibility. Then…
Allocating attention and focus with fewer interruptions and structured decision windows.
There is a reason it feels so good to shut down a fire-hose of information, it allows the brain to shift gears to process the situation in a way that cross-references the intuitive and hard to quantify with the purely rational. You might want to check your internal monologue the first couple of times you do it, it isn’t an easy sell. And yet it is the function, cost and reward for disciplined focus.
The resulting insight is clarity, and clarity is power.
Need to filter the noise from the signals?
