Navigating today’s business climate is riskier than ever. Business leaders must increasingly hone their ability to peer into the future to make strategic decisions for their companies and themselves. Often the first step is to look at the overwhelming amounts of data and to listen to the conflicting voices of gurus and pundits. The result is often confusion and paralysis.

So how can we be like the men of Issachar? I Chronicles 12:32 (NIV) describes them as men who

understood the times and knew what Israel should do

I recently came across an insightful answer in an interview by Strategy + Business, published by Booz Allen Hamilton, on Joseph Ellis, former partner at Goldman Sachs and research analyst covering the retail sector. For 18 straight years he was ranked as the #1 retail analyst on Wall Street. This article gives us insight into his thinking, which we can apply to developing our strategic mindset.

Most leaders make management decisions based on superstition.

Ellis focused on looking at correlations of economic trends. He developed a theory about what causes economic cycles that he used for his forecasts. Most leaders do not use well-developed theories, but (as Edwards W. Deming said) make management decisions based on superstition. Every businessperson needs to develop a mindset from which to look at data. Ellis’ counterparts on Wall Street had access to the same information that he had, but his theory and mindset were better, propelling him to be #1 for 18 years.

The article points out that Ellis’

method for tracking causal relationships is narrowly focused on a few key indicators, [and that] his insights also provide a more complete intuitive understanding of the factors that drive the economy. If decision makers everywhere learn to see trends and interrelationships as he does, they can avoid many of the false starts and pitfalls that come from following the curve, rather than leading it.

For example, as pertaining to his industry and how decisions are made the article states that the

unsystematic approach misses the consistent sequence in which the cycle passes through our business sectors. In every single cycle, momentum starts in retail and consumer spending and then moves to manufacturing and then to capital spending…And corporate profits, in turn, drive the employment rate, which is the last indicator in the economy to turn.

One obvious lesson: We can’t just look at data. Data is a measurement of something that has already happened. We need to ascertain and study the forces that cause the data to move. And we need to distinguish between all forces at work and zero in on root causes.

For our purposes, the article provides an example of how to think about the massive amounts of information available to us in a systematic manner. There is much to be learned by examining his thinking and theory-making process. When this mindset is informed by a biblical worldview, we may begin approaching the example of the men of Issachar.