A young fencer from Beaverton, who won the U.S. saber championship in April 29, 2008, said, “…you take a breath, think about what you need to do, think about what your opponent is doing, and what’s changed.”

• How many emails do you process each day?
• How do you decide what counts?
• How many websites do you visit each week?
• How do you choose which to trust?
• How many people do you talk with per month?
• Who do you go to for advice when you need it?
• How many different organizations does your company partner or contract with?
• Which do you count on when the chips are down?
• How many employees do you supervise?
• Who tells you the absolute truth, even when that’s difficult?
• How many facts do you have to trust on a routine basis?

We heard a story about a decade ago that told of a wise and well-known leader that read the same three newspapers every day in his limousine on the way to work. He knew the difference between the editorial stance of the three papers, liked one business section better and trusted the op-ed page from another.

Today, focused information is a luxury we have to create for ourselves. While the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post are all still in business, many managers are overwhelmed by the world now available at our fingertips. Our computers have given us capacities to access details and information of almost any specificity.

Facts are the cauldron in which perceptions flourish, assumptions grow and diversity of opinion and perspectives can be nurtured or ignored. Our hypothesis is fairly simple: unless your organization knows which facts form the cauldron of who you are and what intentions you share, then – in this information-rich age – it becomes nearly impossible to determine which facts to pay attention to.

Facts give us the opportunity of complete honesty. But only – critical to the fast-moving organization – if we start by agreeing which facts we need to pay attention to.

• How often have you wasted time in a Board meeting because Trustees did not have the same facts as staff?
• How often have you struggled to dissect fact from assumption?
• How many times has someone said, “we should research that first” and the overwhelm of the world wide web stopped an idea cold in its tracks?
• How long has a critical need been back-burnered by a seeming infinity of supplier or service provider or product options?

So – in any situation – how do you decide what facts matter? The facts that matter the most relate to these basic questions:

• What’s happening? Remember, fact… not perception.
• What’s changed? Remember, fact… not perception.
• What negative consequences do we want to minimize? Remember, fact… not perception.

The key to understanding what facts matter is don’t guess… know. Decide how you will gather the facts, who will do it, what you need to know. Armed with facts, then you analyze and interpret, bringing to bear diverse perspectives of key leaders and lead implementers.