The Power of Predictability

The fluidity of the regulatory, political and economic environment has reached a point where the amount of uncertainty at play in making everyday business decisions has reached a critical level. Terms on contracts, healthcare for employees, the very viability of your customers and more, are really up in the air. The global economy thrives on certainty. It’s one of the reasons, historically, we’ve seen strong economic growth during periods that mixed a multitude of different variables in different combinations.

 Consistency and predictability make planning for the future possible. It’s what allows people to take risks and build. As uncertainty increases so does the potential opportunity cost of making the wrong decision. Usually it’s interest rates, commodities prices, currency swings that create the uncertainty. But it seems that now more than ever in my lifetime the biggest variable in the equation is coming from our political system. Sometimes gridlock IS a good thing! Gridlock can prevent too many logs from getting thrown on the fire at any one time and it forces a laser focus on priorities.

I think the founding fathers expected big game changing decisions would come from consensus where a good solution means everyone is equally displeased about the outcome. I don’t believe they would have welcomed a political system overloaded to a point where business can’t reasonably sort things out. Once the government crosses that line, all the stimulus in the world can’t pull it back. It’s time for some serious soul searching from our political leaders, a paring back of the game changing agenda items and a refocus on creating the certainty and predictability our economy desperately needs.