Information Management for Strategic Thinking
I had been mixing up facts, truth, opinions, news, and rumors without fully understanding their differences. It wasn’t until I began exploring information management for strategic thinking that I realized how crucial it is to separate these concepts clearly. Misunderstanding them can easily lead to poor decisions in business, investment, and daily life. Recognizing these distinctions can sharpen decision-making and enhance your ability to interpret complex information in a world overflowing with data.
In some cases, I even used them interchangeably without worrying about the consequences of using them wrong, especially as a consultant. Today, I gathered my thoughts on how each type of information is used effectively by us - the strategists at Taishi.io and Wyld, and to share with you.
Let’s define these terms clearly before diving into how they affect strategic thinking and design thinking:
Fact: A fact is verifiable and objective. It remains true regardless of personal beliefs or interpretations. Example: “He purchased a ChatGPT subscription”.
Truth: Truth is deeper and often more contextual. It involves interpretation, meaning, or cause-effect relationships behind the facts. Example: “He purchased a ChatGPT subscription in order to reduce time and increase accuracy at work because he is overwhelmed with analyzing 50 pages of documents everyday.” The “why” behind the fact makes it the truth.
Opinion: An opinion is a subjective belief or judgment, shaped by individual experiences or preferences. Example: “5% of the labour today will be replaced by generative AI by 2029. - spoken by economist at XYZ”
News: News is a packaged form of information, combining facts, interpretations, and often editorial framing. Its purpose is to inform, but also to attract attention, often involving storytelling or sensationalism.
Throughout the article, I will highlight how information management for strategic thinking can help distinguish between facts and opinions, avoid bias, and make more accurate business decisions. By mastering this skill, you can better evaluate market trends, business insights, and even daily conversations.
Source: Unsplash
1. Realizing How Information Overload Can Lead to Poor Decisions
When people talk about how “the economy is heading this way” or “a company’s earnings will do that,” those discussions are often based on interpretations or assumptions, even if they are the matter’s experts, it’s still their personal opinions — not actual facts. Accepting such claims as absolute truth can be risky. In such cases, information management for strategic thinking becomes essential, helping distinguish facts from assumptions, even when the source seems credible.
Listening to others’ opinions isn’t inherently bad. But failing to question how much those opinions are rooted in factual evidence can lead to decisions based on unreliable information. When that happens, it becomes hard for you to take responsibility for the consequences of those decisions because the decision was somewhat influenced by other people’s opinions that are not the decision maker that is responsible.
2. Why I Stopped Watching News — Questioning the Nature of Information
I stopped watching news programs a while ago, and the reason is simple: news broadcasting is a business. Its primary purpose is to attract viewers and generate revenue through advertisements. That reality inherently shapes how information is presented intentionally or unintentionally.
News programs must condense complex stories into limited airtime while keeping the content as true as possible and relevant to the recent incident in a timely fashion, and of course, while keeping the viewers hooked. This often results in “presentation over precision”, where the narrative might be fact-based but still designed to capture attention and align the ultimate direction of the decision makers rather than deliver an unbiased truth. Whether that’s a state-owned broadcaster or a private broadcaster, there are decision markers, as nation and shareholders respectively, who have a certain type and amount of interest in one another. This is where information management for strategic thinking comes into play — allowing you to separate facts from media-driven narratives, ensuring a more balanced understanding
For example, state-owned broadcasters may frame stories to align with national broad direction, while private broadcasters might focus on sensational stories that maximize viewership and ad revenue. This is something I personally kept seeing through living crossly with location citizens in multiple countries, from Japan, Thailand, and the UK. I wouldn’t notice if they all broadcast purely factual information and not interpretation, opinion, forecast, and other processed information, resulting in those news to be delivered with an editorial intent.
Once I became aware of this dynamic, I realized that passively consuming news without questioning the context behind the stories could easily distort my understanding of reality. Moreover, I even position “news” to be one kind of entertainment content to converse with other people in the same region, rather than a place to get updated with information. As a result, I concluded that in order to find the truth, it would be more productive to gather purest factual data myself, analyze it, and create my own system of interpretation that I could kaizen over and over.
3. Learning the Difference Between Facts and Opinions
I once heard about a school program in Indonesia that teaches the difference between facts and opinions. A simple example they use is: “Chihuahuas are the smallest dog breed” — that’s a fact because it’s verifiable. On the other hand, “Cats are the most comforting pets” is an opinion because how comforting a pet is depends on personal experience.
However, this made me think deeper. Sometimes, an opinion can approach the truth when enough people agree with it, just like the case of news broadcasting where the majority of the population in the region consumes the same content. And I think that’s how a shared understanding is created or a cultural norm is formed. For instance, some people might consider dogs to be trainable animals, while some other people might see them as beloved family members. But when people in a particular region or place (e.g. country) get concentrated with the population with the same opinion, that opinion would naturally become a “truth” for them. In other words, whether something becomes widely accepted as “true” depends on social context and collective perception.
In business and investment, this means you can’t just accept others’ opinions without acknowledging whether it is a truth-based opinion or a that-person opinion. Hence digging into their background and reasoning is often required. Relying on “common knowledge” in business and investment decisions can be a source of stability because it confirms that you are not out of the line from the business best practice, but without fact-checking can be a major opportunity-cost.
Source: Unsplash
4. The Hidden Risks in Business Decision-Making
As a business owner, I’ve often seen how “consulting” with employees, external partners, or acquaintances like friends and family can create potential risks. The word “consult” itself contains the seeds of misunderstanding that can derail even the best intentions.
When you consult someone, what you usually get back are opinions or assumptions of a person who is not even responsible for the consequences, not facts. The real danger lies in mistaking those opinions for facts when making crucial business decisions.
I once trusted an employee’s suggestion that “we’ve got to quickly purchase this investment management system” without fact-checks. I acted on that assumption, only to face major waste of money due to insufficient understanding of its necessity. The system was not as useful as what that employee suggested, rather it was as useless as what I had already guessed. I could have prevented that unnecessary expense by fact-checking more thoroughly and being more responsible with my own decision as the decision maker.
Since then, I’ve learned to ask the right questions: “Let’s do a fact-check: Why do you think so?” “Let’s see the evidence to support it.” If someone can’t provide concrete data or reasoning, it’s clearly not a fact — just an opinion. The worst part is, it’s an opinion that is not even near to your company’s truth. Distinguishing between the two can prevent costly mistakes.
5. Misunderstandings in Business Communication
Another example comes from how requests are made in a business context. If a manager asks a team member, “Can you do this?” or “Would you be able to handle that?” it might come across as a “request”, giving the impression that refusal or not completing it is an option.
However, when such tasks fall under the employee’s responsibilities based on their employment contract, they should be understood as “directives” rather than requests. Just like in the previous section, where the questions for fact-checking wouldn’t be “consulting”, it would essentially be categorized as a “directive” command so don’t worry if you feel like asking too much, because you are not.
I once saw this happen when I framed an assignment as an “asking” for a favor. The person I asked gets an illusion that they have an authority to participate in the decision-making, resulting in unauthorized actions that caused significant disruption, as well as irresponsibility through disclaiming no liability. This experience taught me that clear communication is essential in business to avoid confusion and ensure proper execution of tasks, especially clarifying with absolute facts.
6. The Sunk Cost Trap in Investment Decisions
The world of investment offers a particularly clear example of why information management is critical. In the stock market, hearing news like “semiconductor stock just surged!” often triggers impulsive buying — a classic investment mistake.
Why? Because by the time the news breaks, the market has already reacted, and the stock price has likely priced-in. Assuming that “so it WILL keep going up” just because “it just DID go up”, is a common misconception driven by emotionally charged interpretations rather than rational analysis.
I’ve personally fallen into this trap before (quite many times). I once bought a stock just because someone recommended it without fully understanding why she did and even what the company does. When its price plummeted, I couldn’t bring myself to sell due to the sunk cost fallacy — the belief that selling would “lock in the loss.” I don’t know why I keep holding them, but it might be just a natural psychological reaction of humankind, so let’s pretend like it did not happen (just kidding).
7. Conclusion
Whether in business or daily life, managing information effectively means distinguishing facts from opinions of those without responsibility, digging for deeper truths, and ignoring rumors. This approach helps you avoid critical errors and make better decisions with responsibilities.
From my experiences with Taishi.io (investment strategy consulting) and Wyld (branding strategy consulting), I’ve learned that success depends heavily on information management for strategic thinking, enabling businesses to base decisions on reliable data rather than speculation. That means understanding what is factual, what needs further clarification, and what should be discarded as mere speculation.
The key to innovative and creative success lies in mastering the art of information management — seeing signals through the noises, questioning norms and assumptions, and making decisions grounded in your own truth.
Let me know if you liked my sharing or not at taishi@taishi.io or taishi@worldwyldwork.com. See you then!
About the Author
Taishi Hasegawa is the CEO of WYLD, a branding agency based in Bangkok. With extensive experience in brand strategy, branding design, and go-to-market strategies, Taishi has management skills and experiences under innovative context. Connect with Taishi on LinkedIn and explore his personal portfolio.
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