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This is where my friend the middle manager makes his category error. Data all come from the same place: the past. When we review risks, catastrophes and step changes; when we consider [[punctuated equilibrium|punctuations to the equilibrium]], fair or foul our wisdom, our careful analyses, our sage opinions, our hot takes, our [[thought leader]]ship — ''all'' of these are [[Second-order derivative|derived]] from, predicated on, and delimited by [[data]] which, at the time the event played out, ''we did not have''. | This is where my friend the middle manager makes his category error. Data all come from the same place: the past. When we review risks, catastrophes and step changes; when we consider [[punctuated equilibrium|punctuations to the equilibrium]], fair or foul our wisdom, our careful analyses, our sage opinions, our hot takes, our [[thought leader]]ship — ''all'' of these are [[Second-order derivative|derived]] from, predicated on, and delimited by [[data]] which, at the time the event played out, ''we did not have''. | ||
And herein lies the tension and profound dilemma of the received approach to modern legal practice. For we commercial lawyers are charged with anticipating the future and provided with a methodology drawn exclusively from the past. Just occasionally this dissonance rears up and hits us: the financial controller who must charge capital to provide for shortcomings in a contract documenting a transaction that has now matured: the formal imperatives of [[legibility]] taking priority over the logic of practical common sense. | |||
It is a persistent frame: by the time I'm we get around to analysing the catastrophe and how it played out all circumstances are known all all options crystallised all discretions hardened. The employee who, with imperfect information and in the fog of war, tacked port when hindsight revealed a safe port to starboard is short a very ugly option. Those with executive responsibility for his performance will be mightily tempted to exercise it. This is the lesson of {{fieldguide}}. | |||
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