The value of skepticism

The recent shameful incompetent withdrawal of the US in Afghanistan and the betrayal of its obligations to thousands of people who helped it there makes it hard to go back to “business.” I considered skipping a post as I am deeply angry at the careless disregard to decency expressed by Biden’s defense of his decision, and some on the Left who toe his line. The narrative of “this was unexpected” or “not anticipated” will be debunked quickly as reports already surface that the intelligence community warned the administration on the Afghanistan military's quick collapse. Even on LinkedIn, laymen and experts alike (including little me) expressed deep skepticism of Biden’s “unlikely” comment on a Taliban quick win

An incompetent President and his sycophant supporters on MSNBC make the following important opinion piece in the WSJ (thank you, @Mark Montgomery for sharing it) even more relevant to business. If you are considering your role as competitive intelligence professional, you better read it.

It’s titled “Climate Change Has Consumed Journalistic Standards.” Its message, though, is way broader.  If I have written this for my trainees (I could only wish) the title would have been: “Competitors’ noise has consumed competitive intelligence standards.”

As the author, @Gerard Baker, an editor-at-large at WSJ, details in this short piece, “In its heyday journalism demanded skepticism and curiosity...[these days] …editors and reporters simply cull from the innumerable events around them those that fit the prevailing narrative.”

Conformity to the prevailing narrative dooms both modern day “journalists” and competitive “intelligence” providers to little more than “culling functions”, shuffling routine data between sources and recipients without a shred of what Barker describes so succinctly as true skeptical mindset. In his wise words,

“The good reporter doubted whatever he was told, even what time it was. He’d weigh competing accounts and explanations and actively seek out alternative versions. Read the bios of great reporters from the past and they’ll be scattered with adjectives like ornery and insubordinate.”

That’s how a job description of a CI professional should start. Did your job description have insubordinate in it?

Skepticism may just save your job

There are some fundamental differences between competitive intelligence and reporting, of course. For one, CI is always about the future. If it is about the past, the stick fetcher should call himself a historian. If it is about the present, “reporting up” data and information, management is wasting its professional resource on a glorified distribution channel, and I would tell CEOs to read WSJ or just watch Fox Business with Maria Bartimoro instead and save a bundle. Market insight (i.e., real CI) is never about the data and always brings forth implications for a different move than the current one. It’s hard work and it is not about culling. But for way too many “CI” practitioners, their work is defined by culling information (the abbreviation CI may still apply, but the essence of the task doesn’t.)

Baker’s piece is a marvel because he can afford to write it. His career no longer depends on toeing the line on the current narrative. His admonishment of the woke journalist is simply amazingly in its precise characterization: “His primary ambition is to be part of the expert class, to identify as a member of the cultural elite, happily swaddled in all their shared nostrums. He’s most content when he’s wagging a finger at the selfish fools who continue to doubt climate extremism, express skepticism about vaccines, or deny their innate white sinfulness. His virtue thus signaled, he luxuriates in the knowledge that he’s on the side of the chosen ones. It’s just a pity it’s no longer journalism.”

Now you know why I could have never written such masterpiece. In one sentence, Baker forced me to look up words in the dictionary three times.

If you are a “progressive”, you instinctively hate Baker’s sharp observation, ignoring the deep insight underlying it. The lesson to competitive intelligence though is not about being woke or not. You can be a woke schmok and still be a great analyst. It’s all about skepticism. Losing skepticism means losing all credibility as an analyst. In Corporate, losing skepticism means losing the ability to see the unexpected (insight), thus contributing minimally to the company’s performance. The pros are clear: Routine culling is easy (if busy). The cons are sharper: Giving up on respect as a bright mind thus “luxuriating” in a “pipeline” of facts forever with no prospect for advancement. A culler is a culler forever.

Losing skepticism means losing all credibility as an analyst

Read Baker’s take. Memorize it. Internalize it. Teach it to your children. This journalist is one of a kind in the barren landscape of conformist outlets and blind following. Oh, yes, barren landscape. Must be the result of climate change. Or is it flooded landscape? No matter. Also climate change.

Toeing the corporate line (or the political line) and just culling means the end of your value as intelligence professional. Say bye-bye to your career.

Alternative perspective: I always try to read different perspectives even if I find them nauseating. On MSN, I read pieces by Salon, Mediaite, Slate, Talking Points Memo, Insider, Business Insider (not sure what the difference is, the bias is same), The Daily Beast, Newsweek, The Week (I guess it’s not News) and CNN (did I miss any of the parrots on the Left?) Their pieces are everything Baker says: They have Left their journalistic integrity far behind. “On every major topic—climate, Covid, race relations, electoral law—almost every story blares out at us with censorious didacticism,” Baker observes, “the journalist’s smug disdain for the unbelievers poring through the prose.” We can now add the shameful attempt to place the disaster in Afghanistan on anyone but Biden to this list.

I also read The Hill. This last one is my favorite- I never know whether they are right or left wing. Or wing at all.

And oh, almost forgot. I do peek at CelebWell. Sometimes they have gorgeous women in tiny bikinis, but I don’t pay attention. I am wholly focused on their inspirational messages to the masses.

If you can’t be ornery like me, at least be skeptical for your career’s sake. Do you want to be culling when you are 50?