How ‘Timing Cascades’​ Would Turn Tables in business? (Hint: following systems thinking…)

N. Sahin, Ph.D.
6 min readMar 12, 2023
Photo by Black Chitsulo on Unsplash
Photo by Black Chitsulo on Unsplash

One does not need to be a genius to acknowledge the fact that ‘timing is important’ in business. But how important it is and how much we are considering its existence in the decision making process is not as clear. And unfortunately, what happens next, meaning that the ‘timing cascades’ is even considered less…The reality, however, does not align with us on this and unconsciously we all are aware of it.

Let me materialize this with a more concrete example, World Cup 22 final: Argentina vs. France. When we were watching the match the other day, we were all convinced that the match was Argentina’s until the minute 80. Then something interesting happened, France scored two goals in two minutes, leaving Argentina in awe. Not just Argentina, almost all the fans were confident that France would be the champion then, considering the time left in the match. It took some time for Argentina to pull itself together to score another goal but France tied up before the end of the playing time again.

Statistically speaking, a 3–3 match score would definitely suggest that the teams would start penalties at the same conditions. Yet we all know by heart that they did not. Despite the same score, we all felt that the outcome of the whole match was already determined before the penalties…

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N. Sahin, Ph.D.
N. Sahin, Ph.D.

Written by N. Sahin, Ph.D.

Data Scientist, Storyteller, System Biologist, People Analytics expert, And a huge fan of systems thinking, organizational design,

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