|
|
Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday April 22, 2002 Volume IV Number 16 |
FOCUS - Dartboards
The Wall Street Journal announced this week, after fourteen interesting years: the Dart Board will officially be retired.
As long as the free market exists, investors will speculate strategies for “beating the street.” How can you anticipate market trends? It doesn’t really matter if that trend is up or down. It’s the ability to anticipate the trend that makes for profits. If you can predict with any degree of accuracy what will happen next, you make money. As long as there has been a stock market (and that’s been a long time) there have been plenty of bold assertions about what makes the market work, and no shortage of people who will advise you on how to stack the odds in your favor. But everyone knows, short term speculative wins are no easy feat. The market can humble the best track record in a surprise shift of momentum; the mystery of the market remains a riddle that will continue to attract the best minds and a perpetual round of new theories as long as markets remain free.
We crunch lots of numbers looking for those predictable outcomes. Even in medicine. When statistics are compiled, and you attempt to make some sense out of the data, you need a standard of comparison. A control group. For example, if you are working to determine if a certain medicine has an impact on this disease or that, you assemble, as best you can, two groups with the identical condition and set of symptoms. One group gets no treatment. The other does. If group B does better than group A, you can reasonably assume that your medicine works.
Even then, you can’t be sure - because of the placebo effect. Researchers well know that some people get better, not because of the chemistry of a particular medicine, but simply because they swallowed a pill. If a person who ought to know, like a physician, prescribes treatment, the expectation of improvement alone can be enough to make it so. The body is quite capable of healing itself, when it decides to. This is also a mystery. So when a physician suggests that this capsule will cure your disease, it just might, even though it’s no more than a sugar tablet (a placebo).
So if you are really serious about learning whether your medicine therapy is effective, you need three groups. One remains untreated. Another gets your medicine. A third group gets the sugar pill.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could bring the same scientific method to the stock market? Some would like you to think it’s possible. Investor beware. To make the point, fourteen years ago, the Wall Street Journal introduced the Dart Board as a method of choosing stocks on the New York Exchange.
Back in 1973, a Princeton University economics professor, Burton Malkiel, wrote a widely read book (A Random Walk Down Wall Street) suggesting this: since all economic data is universally and readily available to everyone, all stocks will ultimately move together up and down, and suffer the same fate, and have an equal shot at gains and losses. Almost tongue in cheek, he postulated, “taken to its logical extreme, a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by the experts.”
WSJ put his theory to the test, for fourteen years. One group; several of the top recognized managers on Wall Street (paid professionals assisted by a stable of highly skilled analysts). A second group; non-professional WSJ readers willing to participate in the experiment (do-it-yourselfers). The third group; portfolios selected by an official tossing of the darts during a lunch hour break in the editorial offices of the Journal (a random sample).
Every six months the Journal posted the results. For fourteen years straight.
No one considers this entertaining little exercise “scientific.” Over all, the pros and the amateurs remained pretty close – neck and neck. And managers generally beat the dartboard… but only a bit more than half the time.
Every one of us lives in the same tension – whether it is medicine or finances or life-plan. We all have the same question. Is our life a random reaction to forces outside our influence (much less our control)… or can we truly manage the outcome?
Do we just go with the flow? Or is it possible to manipulate the process?
* * * * * * *
A little more than a year ago, my twenty five year old nephew, Matthew, remained a bachelor. Not that there were no match-makers working overtime. There was no end to the long line of “suggested” life mates coming in from every quarter.
But Matt, following his dad’s example, was committed to building his financial and professional base as a foundation to a future life before he settled down. So he got his education squared away. He sped past the entry level in corporate life. His leadership skills got recognition, proving his capabilities as a producer, building a network of friends on the inside. One rung at a time, he progressed up the ladder, and at an early age he earned a management position. When the company needed a trouble shooter to solve problems at one of the global offices, they sent Matt on the mission. His successes became building blocks for greater responsibilities.
His innovations contributed to the growth of his company and increased loyalty among customers. One of those innovations was submitted to the U. S. Patent Office, and just this year, a patent was recorded and issued in his name, “Matthew Michels, Inventor,” the plaque reads.
He also learned the value of smart real estate investing from his father. So, he purchased seventy-five acres of prairie land well outside of town, and built his bachelor pad. He set aside a parcel of the property under the big Colorado sky and built a long driveway, brought in the utilities from the main road, and set a long used mobile unit on a foundation and established his bachelor home out on the open range.
He commuted to his corporate job in a ten year old Honda. “I hate car payments,” he explained. And as his paycheck grew, his living expenses declined. He socked away the excess, knowing the time might well come when he was ready to start the next chapter of his life.
He wants a family.
Over Christmas, we sipped Starbucks in one of the local coffee shops late one afternoon, and the talk quickly turned to the subject of a young woman he met. After a brief backgrounder, he switched to me. He wanted to know how and when I decided that Carolyn was “The One.”
I was there when Matthew was born, the first of twenty-three grandchildren. Six months later, his parents were there when Carolyn delivered our first-born, Kristyn. The two cousins grew up together. No – we all grew up together. From pre-school through high-school, and then through college, though at times miles separated us, we were never far away.
And now, suddenly I’m sitting on a wooden stool, that unmistakable Starbucks aroma filling the air, sipping on a rich dark brew, with a grown man. My nephew – a man. And for the first time in our lives, he’s asking me how I knew I was in love. What attracted me to Carolyn? How did I know I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her? Was I sure? He’d never before asked me such questions. We’d talked many times. But this was a new level of dialogue, and he drew me out. Pressed me for detail. These were memories I had not rehearsed for some time, and I found myself falling in love with my wife all over again in the telling.
I also saw something revealing in his eyes.
As I told my story, filling in the gaps, coloring up some of the dull parts with a slight exaggeration here and there, and as he checked out the light in my eyes - I could see the fire in his.
Matt met plenty of girls through the years. They were class-mates. Work-mates. Church-mates. The daughters of his parents’ friends. The niece of a co-worker’s. A friend of a friend. You name it. But Matt met Someone, I could see, who sparked the fire in his eyes. She was the one who created this keen curiosity about my past.
I wanted to know more about Her.
We ordered more coffee.
Her name is Ann, he said. There was a smile across his face and a smile in his voice as he said her name. Unmistakable. The boy’s in love, I thought.
“You are in big trouble, buddy,” was all I could say.
* * * * * * * *
The living room is piled high with packages. Wedding gifts fill the room. It’s the morning after for Matt and Ann. They are holed up in local hotel. Their five week long honeymoon begins this week.
It’s a mysterious chemistry, this love and marriage thing. Some cynics call love a placebo. Some figure the dartboard method is as good as anything else. The “how-to” books line the shelves of the local bookstore and load up the data-base on Amazon.com, professionals all, with sure-fire advice on how it is that you’ll find a perfect match.
Statistics have been compiled. They reflect back, to some degree, the successes and failures of all the methods.
But none really tell the story.
I sat in the balcony yesterday afternoon, my video camera on the tripod, recording the moment when my nephew Matt, scrubbed and groomed in a crisp tuxedo looked deeply into the eyes of a striking beauty, glowing from behind the veil, and repeated a promise he’d written and memorized, a summary of all he’s dreamed, and all he’s believed, and all he’s valued, and all he’s accumulated and all he’s become, and he gave it all away to the woman looking back at him ready to promise the same. And she did.
When they held each other in a warm embrace, in the company of all under the stained glass in the light of glowing candles, in the presence of God and these witnesses, the whole congregation sighed, as though just one more time, one more evidence, dreams really do come true. Ideals are good. Right is a whole lot better than the alternative.
No wonder then, everyone clapped and laughed out loud, and turned to each other in head nodding approval, as Matt swept Ann off her feet half way down the aisle, and carried her out of the Sanctuary in celebration of a life that’s only just begun.
My lens followed them all the way out the door.
* * * * * * * *
It’s Monday morning. You are a leader.
Occasionally, you’ve been cynical about your management team. Your colleagues. Your fellow leaders. More than once, you’ve said out loud that a dartboard would be a better way to choose than the half-baked, irrational, out-of-touch, space cadet remarks of people who ought to know better.
You’ve tried to do it by book. You’ve followed the steps. Worked it just the way they said… and it didn’t work. The chapters never addressed the unique complexities of your situation. You looked in the index for a toll free number giving you access to the author, but no luck. You’ve got some serious questions, but the writer is unavailable. You are on your own.
One might ask, how did Matt find Ann? How did Ann find Matt? In Matt’s universe, what made Ann different from all the rest? A statistical formula? The advice of a professional? The toss of the dice? A dart board covered with the pages of telephone book randomly open to a select page?
I’m OK with the mystery theory… and the notion that the mysterious hand of God directs people to certainties that can not be fully explained.
God speed Matt and Ann. Their happiness brightened several hundred people this weekend in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies.
As you struggle with your choices, your relationships – read the experts. Experiment with alternatives. Check out the random samples. Find some do-it-yourselfers whose credibility comes from their experience, not their resume. Gather all the good resources you can.
But ultimately, go ahead. Run with your intuition.
Just like the Wall Street Journal, put the dartboard away.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2002
LeaderFOCUS is brought to you by Good Stewardship Associates
Special Thanks for Design by my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
|
|
|