-By David Diamond

One morning a few weeks ago, I was riding my bike in the hills of beautiful Pawling, N.Y., when I looked up ahead and saw what I was sure was a large black dog running through a swamp. It appeared to be in danger, and immediately, I began thinking about what I needed to do. Should I get off the bike and try to grab the dog? I was, all of a sudden, very concerned about what my responsibilities were as a good citizen with this poor lost dog.

But as I got a bit closer, I realized that it was actually not a dog at all, but a black bear. Now, my attitude changed radically. All of a sudden, I wanted to stop and enjoy the opportunity to see a bear up close and watch how it behaved.

As I got closer still, I had yet a third radical change in my point of view. It became clear to me that I was very close to the bear, and that it was  aware of my presence (it had looked up and begun staring at me). Taking all this into consideration, I concluded that I would probably be better served by getting right back on my bike and pedaling out of there as fast as I possibly could, which is exactly what I did.

Within the space of minutes, my perception of the situation had altered three times, turning me from concerned citizen to nature lover, to potential meal for a wild animal.

And just as perceptions change quickly while one is biking through the woods, perceptions change quickly in our business lives, and these rapidly changing perceptions can play tricks on our abilities to make good judgments.

So, how can quickly changed perceptions lead us down the wrong path? Let's look at Whole Foods Market. About three years ago, it appeared to be a model grocery chain. It was growing at impressive rates every year, it was delivering a gross margin higher than the typical food retailer, and it was the darling of Wall Street.

And then, all of a sudden, disaster seemed to strike. It made what seemed like a critical acquisition by buying Wild Oats, it increased the pace of new store openings, and it prepared itself for an upcoming recession by emphasizing that its pricing wasn't as high as some consumers believed. And, all of a sudden, same-store sales started to fall, momentum started to fall, and Whole Foods looked like a chain in trouble. It appeared that the chain had made some critical strategic and tactical mistakes. The stock price declined significantly and other retailers stopped looking at Whole Foods as a model grocery retailer.

What happened to Whole Foods is it became too busy and too distracted with the acquisition and related issues to execute with the quality that it had become accustomed to. Because of that distraction, site selection quality diminished. And, because the management team was distracted by those issues, the business suffered.

Whole Foods had the sense to realize that it had these issues, it made the tough choices that needed to be made in completing the Wild Oats acquisition and integrating those stores, and then it was able to slow down new store openings and focus on the key issue of running its stores as best as it possibly could. And now, just a year later, sales are recovering, the recession appears to be managed, the stock price has soared, and Whole Foods is once again a model competitor.

So, what lessons can we learn from this? The key thing to learn is to stay the course. When you know you're doing something right, just keep on doing it, and eventually, you'll reap the benefits of operating your stores in the right way and following the right strategies.

Contributing Editor David Diamond is an independent consultant focused on marketing and strategy, and was most recently chief vision officer for Catalina Marketing. His e-mail is david@ddiamondassociates.com.