There is nothing more painful than looking back and saying "All the signs were there. Why didn't I see them?" And nothing more wasteful.
My daughter received a diagnosis over the weekend that was devastating. I spent many hours saying to myself and others "Oh, remember that time" or "No wonder she did that" or blah blah blah.
The next day a client representative informed me that the results we received were for another girl named Ashley and that my daughter had not actually been tested at all for this particular malady.
So much for seeing the signs.
I started thinking about that from a business owner's perspective. Looking forward we need to use the Black Swan perspective. Think about and write down every single event that might occur in your business even ones you cannot imagine happening. This would indicate you plan to succeed even in the face of extreme difficulty. By the way this is particularly applicable in family businesses where emotions can override common sense.
Looking back is an application of False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear that you may have received (or caused) irreparable harm because you weren't paying attention. Fear that others on your staff are not reliable. Fear that what you have worked so hard for will be duplicated and used for another company's benefit.
Living in fear makes for bad decision making. Understand that you can't know everything, trust everyone or prevent every cataclysmic event. You sure aren't going to be able to work through and learn from these events as they occur when you are only looking backwards.