Wednesday night in London, original thinker and the master of irrational thinking, Rory Sutherland, challenged the audience to consider the power of “diagnistic momentum”. The hardwired framework through which those with power, control and influence insist all risk-taking decisions are ultiamtely made.

The cardioligist whose heart health determinations must follow through their rigid health diagnostic framework and the politicains who insist every valid policy must pass through their economic and legal diagnostic framework.

Biases are embedded, and alternative ideas and opinions ejected (don’t fit the rational decision-making framework).

It leads to a narrow set of alternatives and close to zero opportunities for “alchemy”, the title of Rory’s bestseller. Decisions and benahvioural changes promplted by irrational logic which are often more effective than the rational answer, in the real world. Why? Humans don’t act on rational decisions in many instances.

Is your organisation or your competitiors beholden to diagnostic momentum? As an entrepreneur, does that create hidden opportunity? When everyone views value-creation through the typical banker lens and metrics, is there an opportunity to think and act differently in an exisitng and new market? If so, why?

If every competitor is obsessed with AI-driven revenue and cost synergies and data centre capex, can you find hidden value in doubling your investing in superior human intelligence?

If you run a chain of UK funeral homes with a sector under deep regulatory scrutiny, might there be hidden value in having your best people design better fulfillment processes, communication practices and identification procedures not to impress the regulator but to give customers and their families greater meaning, smarter risk management and powerful reassurance that you have their self-interests at the top of your agenda? The human before the technology.