Deming was fond of saying, management is prediction and, in this, I think he was exactly right. Management never takes action or makes decision to affect what happened yesterday, but rather to bring about what is hoped to be a desirable outcome tomorrow. Even when a manager is reacting to yesterday’s crisis, the action taken will bear fruit (or not) in the future. The instances where one is interested in a problem only in the here and now are extremely rare in management. This may be one of the principle ways that the business world is different from the academic world. Most businessmen do not find issues intrinsically interesting.
