Thinking Analytically

See the original post here. The post describes an interview with a birder and a doctor. They discuss similarities between pattern recognition in bird identification, medical diagnosis and business. Here’s an insightful quote:

HBR: One of the goals of pattern recognition is to quickly narrow down your set of possibilities.  As birders, is there a particular thing you look for first?

Sibley (paraphrased):

[By answering the following,] you can narrow down the likely possibiliites to a handful of species.

1. Where am I and what time of year give a broad idea of which species may be present.
2. Type of habitat the bird is in and what it is doing.
3. The overall size of the bird.

ThinkingAnalytically discussion starters:

• What are the two or three things you look at first when examining a business pattern?
• How do you avoid wearing “blinders” that take you down the wrong path?

Use the comments to contribute.

Purchase full the HBR article here.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Articles, Birds and Business, Lighter Side, Patterns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.