Harnessing Early Warnings for Organizational Success

In this week’s Thursday Thought, we explore the crucial role of 'Helpful Cassandras'—individuals with heightened perceptions of change within business environments. Drawing on analogies from nature, quotes from visionaries like Warren Buffet and Andy Grove, and the concept of 'Umwelt' by Jakob von Uexküll, we discuss how different sensory frameworks shape our understanding of market shifts and disruptions. The episode highlights the importance of recognizing and supporting these perceptive individuals to stay ahead of crises and seize new opportunities. Don't miss out on the launch of The Reinvention Summit, featuring a workshop led by Rita McGrath on early warnings and trend detection.

00:00 Introduction: Focus on the Playing Field

00:30 The Role of Helpful Cassandras

00:46 Developing Organizational Antennas

01:53 Understanding Umwelt in Business

03:14 Rodents: Masters of Olfactory Perception

04:26 Economic Signals: Smelling the Sausage

06:45 The Cassandra Story: Andy Grove and the Helpful Cassandras

09:16 Embracing Early Warnings

10:51 Conclusion: Join The Reinvention Summit

https://www.thereinventionsummit.com

Article:

Navigating Change: The Hidden Scents, Sausages and Trip Wires

 “Games are won by players who focus on the playing field - not by those whose eyes are glued to the scoreboard.” - Warren Buffet.

Just as different species perceive their environments in unique ways, individuals within a business environment experience and interpret the world around them through their subjective lenses. Some of these individuals—like modern-day Cassandras—are particularly attuned to early signs of change or disruption, but their warnings are often ignored. Using the analogy of rodents' heightened sense of smell, we explore how these Helpful Cassandras can guide companies away from crisis or towards new opportunities.yet are frequently overlooked. Embracing their foresight is crucial to navigating an uncertain future.

"The capacity of an organization to read its environment somewhere out there, which requires hiring some people whose sole job is to pay attention to the things that we're not paying attention to. If you think about any system, any [00:01:00] creature has only certain antennas. Which means that those antennas allow them to be in touch with this part of the world and not that part of the world. And they get in trouble when the world suddenly has something as a threat to them that they have no antennas for. So it's very important in an organization to develop the capacity here to have these kind of emergent antennas. And or to have at least parts of things that are paying attention to what people are not paying attention to, because, in most every case, when a crisis is coming, there are people who know nobody wants to listen to them because things are going well. And you certainly don't help your career by talking about them. So I think organizations, if they want to really be on the edge of things, have to build in as capacity here to surveil parts of environment. That it has not been paying very much attention to." - Stan Deetz, Innovation Show 559

 Jakob von Uexküll was a pioneering biologist interested in how living beings perceive their environments. [00:02:00] He argued that organisms experience life through species-specific, subjective reference frames he called Umwelt (The German word for environment). Each species experiences the world through its own unique sensory lens. A tick, for instance, uses the smell of butyric acid to locate a mammalian host, while a star-nosed mole relies on touch to navigate underground. Despite sharing the same physical space, animals perceive their surroundings in vastly different ways. This idea of Umwelt applies not only to biology but also to how individuals in a business environment interpret signals of change.

In the business world, we each operate with different sensory frameworks. Some colleagues are tuned into technological advances, others are adept at sensing shifts in consumer behaviour, and some focus on regulatory or financial changes. Like animals in nature, they have adapted to perceive the same "business environment" in their own distinct ways. These [00:03:00] individuals, with their heightened perception, act like von Uexküll’s animals—sensing things others might not. This diversity of perception is invaluable, yet, much like in nature, it is often underestimated.

 Rodents: Masters of Olfactory Perception

The world of a rodent is defined by smell in a way humans can never fully understand. With around 1,200 functional olfactory receptors compared to the 400 that humans possess, rodents can detect a vast range of smells and subtle environmental shifts long before we ever would. Their survival relies on this heightened sense of smell, enabling them to find food, avoid predators, and navigate their world with precision. They have adapted for their unique experience of the world and this adaptation, in turn, influences how they experience the world.

In business, there are people who, like rodents, possess a refined ability to detect changes in the "scent" of their environment. They can sense market [00:04:00] shifts, disruptions, or emerging opportunities earlier than others. But like rodents—often overlooked or even reviled in society—these individuals’ warnings can go unheeded. Their insights, though crucial for the survival of the business, are too often dismissed by those who don't perceive the same signals. (Like rats leaving a sinking ship, perhaps it is why your best people are first to leave a declining organisation.)

 Smelling the Sausage: Diverse Signals

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson

As economies grow, people tend to consume higher quality meat. This a trend linked to rising incomes and a desire for higher-quality diets. Western countries have traditionally led this trend, and now emerging markets are following suit. For instance, China’s per capita meat consumption rose nearly 13 percent between 2008 and 2017, with the country now accounting for over a [00:05:00] quarter of the world’s total meat consumption. As nations grow wealthier, meat consumption often symbolizes status and prosperity. However, recent shifts in American consumer behavior are signaling a different economic reality.

Texas business leaders in the food and manufacturing industries are noting signs of strain, including rising agricultural costs and weakening demand for higher-end products. As inflation rises, many consumers are opting for more affordable proteins like sausage, a pattern that often intensifies during economic downturns. This small shift in food choices, while seemingly minor, is part of a larger picture of household financial strain.

Other signals from consumer credit data suggest that Americans may be nearing their financial limits. Federal Reserve data reveals that revolving credit—primarily credit card debt—contracted in June for the second time in three months. Consumer debt growth slowed. With credit card [00:06:00] interest rates averaging a record 20.73 percent and some reaching as high as 28 percent, financial pressures are mounting. Notably, 9.1 percent of credit card balances have transitioned to delinquency in the past year.

Taken together, these subtle yet cumulative signals—rising demand for budget proteins, slowing consumer debt growth, and increased delinquency rates—paint a picture of economic strain. By shifting focus from immediate gains to early warnings, companies can better adapt to the “playing field” of consumer behaviour rather than relying solely on the “scoreboard” of broad economic headlines. As always there are always Cassandras crying wolf, but very few listen.

 The Cassandra Story: Andy Grove and the Helpful Cassandras

"It is extremely important to be able to listen to the people who bring you bad news and who are typically divided... These people tend to be lower level people. They have to bring you bad [00:07:00]news and be Cassandras against the senior management, against the fear of management of repercussions. Unless you deal with this fear, unless you live this fear you will never hear from those helpful Cassandras and you are going to be late in responding to the Strategic Inflection Points." - Andy Grove, Former CEO Intel.

This phenomenon of foresight being ignored is embodied by the story of the ancient Greek prophet Cassandra, who was cursed to predict the future accurately, but never be believed. In the modern world, Andy Grove, the visionary CEO of Intel, was famously paranoid about market changes, often sensing disruption long before his competitors. Grove's book "Only the Paranoid Survive" reflects on detecting early signs of threats or opportunities.

Despite their ability to foresee change, most helpful Cassandras are often ridiculed, ignored, gaslit or even pushed out. Their warnings can seem exaggerated or irrelevant to those focused on short-term gains [00:08:00] or immediate goals. As Stan Deetz tells us on the Innovation Show, 559, "Most organizations I work with are deeply in trouble before they really talk about change. Because they keep thinking before that they can fix it. And part of that is deeply embedded in organizational life. Managers don't get a lot of support for telling people what's wrong. They get a lot of support for telling people what's right , and their ability to fix what's wrong. And, and so, you know, the organisation itself typically becomes, especially at the upper levels, quite out of touch with the growth of difficulty until it's at some kind of crisis point. And of course, once you're at a crisis point, we always forget that people change least well when they're scared. people do the greatest changes that are good when they're happy. And so what happens is that we're out of touch, we're out of touch, we're out of touch."

The story of Cassandras in business is a common one: these individuals, while sensing the dangers ahead, are marginalised [00:09:00] rather than embraced. They are perceived as naysayers rather than gainsayers, even when their insights could help companies avoid catastrophic failures. This tendency to ignore early warnings results in companies being blindsided by crises that could have been averted had they listened.

Instead of dismissing these voices, businesses should seek to identify and support their Helpful Cassandras. They need to create spaces for these individuals to be heard, and build processes—like setting clear "trip wires" or "kill criteria"—that allow for timely interventions when changes are detected.

In Seeing Around Corners, my friend and guest at The Reinvention Summit in April 2025, Rita McGrath suggests what she calls an early warnings exercise. It helps leaders take action on hidden scents and weak signals. The way it works is to specify a “time zero” event which is a potential future inflection point with either good news for you and your organisation or not such good news. [00:10:00] Then, working backward, you ask yourself “What would have to be true if this were becoming more likely?” Then, you work with your team to think about what action you would take if a combination of weak signals were to begin to come together in a compelling way – Rita calls this the process of establishing tripwires.

In a world where organizations often value success indicators over the subtle warnings of change, Helpful Cassandras challenge us to pay attention to the “playing field” of emerging threats and opportunities. By recognizing and supporting these voices, companies can avoid potential pitfalls and harness early warnings to stay ahead. Just as von Uexküll’s animals navigate their environments with unique sensory lenses, businesses must foster environments that value diverse perspectives, enabling them to act on weak signals before they reach crisis proportions.

 Join us for the launch of The Reinvention Summit to detect subtle signals of change and to act on those signals. Get your tickets to not only [00:11:00] hear from experts like Rita McGrath, but to take part in a unique "Seeing around Corners" workshop and experience a Trend Party. This is not just a series of talking heads on a stage, it is about inspiration and action. Tickets are selling fast: www dot the reinvention summit dot com

Have a great week,

 Aidan