In business, as in life, not having a clue what you're doing often ends poorly.

One of the many lessons one could reasonably take away from the Wall Street/Main Street/Bailout debacle is this: It’s dangerous not to understand the intricacies of your work. And if you’re a boss, and you don’t understand these intricacies, you’d better make sure that the people you rely on are on the same page as you. On Wall Street, risk is the name of the game, of course. To a certain extent, risk is inherent in every business enterprise. But the ambient dangers of any business venture (economic factors, competitive pressures, trends that affect the need for your product or service, and all the rest) are sufficient without piling ignorance on top. In the financial sector, we’ve seen a rather pervasive degree of ignorance of factors including:

-What happens when virtually incomprehensible mortgage-backed securities behave badly

-Why a housing bubble might just maybe burst someday

-Why the likely “depth to the bottom” is going to be really, really embarrassing. To say the least.

Now, turning our attention away from Wall Street… the last decade has challenged many businesspeople, especially veterans (yeah, that means old people, like, you know, 40). For many of us, changes in technology alone – whether in computer science, medicine, biotech or the like – have meant long evenings of research or, in some cases, toying with the temptation of early retirement (like, you know, at 40). The fact is that, when managing any career that matters, each of us has to keep our radar turned on, our eyes and ears sharp and our focus firmly on understanding the changing business/tech/financial concepts that, let’s face it, we are duty-bound to master.

It’s been nearly impossible to tear my eyes away from the computer as of late, because the news is as engaging as… a train wreck. We have financial giants on their knees begging for federal assistance. Plus candidates wriggling to get into new, advantageous positions vis a vis each day’s hot issues.

Gumby knows how to bend with the times.

Well, the candidates take it a little far, and tend to be transparent at times. Since yesterday, McCain and Obama have become deeply, deeply concerned about regulating Wall Street. Also, McCain has shrugged off his “experience matters” overcoat to embrace the clearly untested Palin. Obama is sweating to shed his image as an “elitist” and become dearer to the working folks whose votes he so badly needs.

Sure, it’s nauseating to watch. (I said “train wreck”, did I not?) At the same time, I think our illustrious candidates have a lesson for Wall Street.

Think fast! Act quickly! Change when conditions demand it. And most of all, stay agile. Sinking behomoths like AIG are simply too massive and sleepy to respond promptly when market conditions demand.

Responsiveness is one area in which smaller businesses, or larger ones with smaller, “independent” units, have the winning edge. Although maintaining more credibility than a politician…. is good too!