The former British prime minister Harold Macmillan was once asked what made his job most difficult. “Events, dear boy, events,” he replied. In this age of information overload, events befuddle and bewilder leaders more than ever. From battles in foreign countries, to explosions in space, to CEOs’ defense of their honor in court, events are relayed to our television screens and computers in real time. Transmission and production delays in the media once allowed time for editing and perspective. Today, news is unfiltered — and rat-a-tat rapid. There are few guidelines (let alone rules) to help senior executives understand how to manage the outflow of information — or assimilate the avalanche coming in.
The best practices for managing information may lie not in business, but in the military. Long a supplier of metaphors and guidance for grappling with strategy dilemmas, the armed forces are also showing business leaders how to manage real-time information.
Brittle Reporting
The war in Iraq illustrates both the problem and the solution. Where the military once could hope to control the flow of information, in Iraq it could only respond. In contrast to earlier wars, when military censors controlled the coverage of war correspondents, in Iraq reporters were embedded with American and British forces. Other journalists roamed the countryside independently, out of reach of any public relations control. Their unfiltered stories were dramatic in their immediacy, but, as the broader picture became clear, the initial conclusions often proved to be overblown or plain misleading. The rush of breaking information often produced emotional, incomplete reporting.
| “Transmission and production delays in the media once allowed time for editing and perspective. Today, news is unfiltered — and rat-a-tat rapid.” |
Businesses today must contend with similar issues. Business reporting used to consist of relaying the publicly released information of publicly traded companies. In an era when share-price growth was incremental and steady — and investors relied largely on dividends — there was little competition among media, and little pressure on most companies from unanticipated events. With changes in investment patterns, pension funding, and communications technologies, that comfortable predictability is now nothing but nostalgia. Investors can choose from an ever-growing array of information providers and channels, all of which are deeply competitive. Like war correspondents reporting from the front lines, business reporters increasingly are “embedded” in companies and industries. Because they have close relationships with senior executives, securities analysts, and industry observers, journalists often report unprocessed breaking news, rumors, and speculation.
| “An erroneous report — or, indeed, an accurate report — on an obscure business channel can affect a company’s stock price immediately.” |
