Perception, Agility and Intuition - Attributes Needed to Navigate These Turbulent Times

Read the 'Chairman's Letter' introduction to IMAP's publication Creating Value - issue no.10

Perception, Agility and Intuition

Perception, Agility and Intuition Welcome to the 10th Issue of Creating Value (CV), a small, yet important milestone. Over the past several years we have seen CV grow into a serious, industry respected publication. In this era of soundbites, tweets and superficial (often false) answers to complicated questions, CV goes into depth on what matters to business owners navigating change and highlights the accomplishments of our world-wide teams helping our clients meet their objectives. So, congratulations to our editorial team on the publication of CV10: Carsten Lehman and Gabor Szendroi, our Editors-In-Chief; and Megan Bestic, Claire Smedley, and Carl Kelly at IMAP HQ, who have perfected the art of finessing contributions from our busy IMAP partners and molding this material into a reference work on what’s happening in the M&A market around the globe! Thank you, all.

It’s fair to say, using an often-used cliché, that we live in interesting times. But, instead of taking it as a curse, as the ancient Chinese meant it, I think we should consider it as a gift - the opportunity to escape the ordinary and rise to meet the challenge of change. Several sector insight articles in CV10 are a result of the recently completed 6 week “Project Dragonfly” series of virtual sector roundtables, each panel viewed by hundreds of IMAP colleagues, many of whom had never attended an IMAP live conference, much less an IMAP sector panel – a prime example of triumph over adversity.

The first phase of the “Project Dragonfly” series concentrated on the theme of “Performance in Crisis”: how individual sectors have been affected by the COVID 19 crisis and how they are expected to perform under various macro recovery scenarios, especially in relation to M&A. Our experts looked at sector trends, how these were accelerated during the crisis, analyzed factors driving M&A activity, and, especially interesting, pronounced on “what’s hot” and “what’s not”, leading to bursts of IMAP-wide BD activity in those “hot” sectors. I hope that we can give you at least a feel for the dynamism of those sessions.

A word about why “Project Dragonfly”, which started as an idea from a book about poker (Konnikova, Maria. The Biggest Bluff (p. 82). Penguin Publishing Group. 2020. Kindle Edition):

What do you picture when you think of the most successful hunter in the animal kingdom? … a lion, or a cheetah, … or perhaps a wolf... They are all striking beasts. They are all powerful. They are all deadly. And none of them is even close to being the most successful. The cheetah comes in highest, killing approximately 58 percent of the animals it hunts. The lion is next, at less than half that…the wolf captures only 14 percent of what it stalks. The true deadly killer is one that hardly anyone would think of: the dragonfly... (which) manages to capture an astounding 95 percent of its targeted prey…. Its eyes have developed to spot the tiniest deviations in motion. Its wings allow it to swerve and swoop in unimaginably quick configurations. And its brain has evolved to not only see possible targets but predict their future movements with startling accuracy. The dragonfly is so good not only because it sees what its prey is doing, but because it can also predict what it will do and plan its response accordingly.

Perception, Agility, and Intuition – the attributes of the Dragonfly that make it the animal kingdom’s most successful hunter – are the same attributes we need to navigate these turbulent times. So, as we take stock of the events of 2020 and prepare ourselves for 2021, I wish you all the best and look forward to catching up again next year. Always remember what’s really important - family, friends and community.

Take care and stay safe.

Jurgis

Click here to read >> IMAP Creating Value - No 10 December 2020