Are You Perfect?
Published May 9, 2011 | 
If you’re like most people I know, you’re not perfect – and therefore susceptible to the common causes of failure.
In business strategy and leadership courses, we often focus on Best Practices to help guide students. Some courses now also focus on the flip-side: why leaders commit key errors. For instance, Confronting Reality: Doing What Matters to Get Things Right, includes a chapter on “The Six Habits of Highly Unrealistic Leaders”. I thought I’d share it with you.
According to Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan there are six common causes of failure to confront changing realities. I add a seventh:
- Filtered information. Given the increasing complexity of life and the overwhelming amount of information available, filters help us avoid overload. But in doing so, key information challenging basic assumptions may not get through.
- Selective hearing. As humans, we do the same thing: we filter the information to which we attend and often seek information to corroborate our initial decisions
- Wishful thinking. In a world of complexity, doubt and uncertainty, people sometimes resort to wishful thinking. The Bay of Pigs fiasco of 1962 is an example.
- Fear. Facing uncertainty and the unknown, Kahneman and his fellow Nobel prize economists proved that people prefer to avoid losses than seek out gains.
- Emotional overinvestment. Adopting new behaviors and attitudes means giving up older ones; when people are emotionally overinvested, they downgrade the logic of the argument in order to resist change.
- Unrealistic expectations of capital markets. Capital markets focus on quarterly changes, even though true changes, such as a product branding or business development effort can take much longer.
- Inertia. Human nature, like the real-world, resists change. Once we’re comfortable with what exists, it’s hard to recognize that change may be essential. Think of all the companies that were successfully making a nice profit on products (e.g., floppy disk, buggy-whips and netbooks) while other companies were building new products (flash-memory, cars and ipads).
One of the reasons I agreed to chair a CEO group for Vistage, is that the 12+ members of a typical group know that their job is to provide each other with:
- Objective perceptions when a member is falling into one of these traps
- Creative new solutions to overcome business challenges
- Accountability for taking steps necessary to get quality information, avoiding these psychological traps.
My CEO group, which calls itself the Game Changers, is especially focused on avoiding these causes of failure and facilitating adoption of best practices. If you’re in NYC and want to join, feel free to contact me.
How the internet changes relationships?
Published January 2, 2011 | First, welcome to the new year!. May it be filled with good health, happiness, and the realization of your dreams.
Second, I’ve been planning on starting a blog for quite some time, to share with you the many things I discuss with colleagues, clients, writers/editors, students, association and corporate audiences, interns, etc., and there’s no better time than the start of a new year. So, here goes. I look forward to many insightful conversations!
Someone recently asked me, “How has the Internet changed relationships?” We brainstormed on the many ways the Internet is changing our lives and how we communicate with one another, and considered what future implications and directions might be. As with all technologies, it’s not all good or bad; the issue is how do we harness the trends to improve our lives.
Thus, the issue is; What’s changing from a psychological, social and business perspective?
Here are a few trends I’ve noticed.
1. We’re always connected. On the positive side, it’s now possible to stay in touch with people with whom you want to be connected. You can monitor and communicate with aging parents and children. It’s easier now to reach out and converse with a friend who may live half-way around the world as well as your local group of friends. Portable devices allow is to access news, opinions, advertisements, music, op-eds etc., anywhere and anytime. On the negative side, we’re losing some of the quiet time or “slack” in our routine; our sphere of “personal privacy” is shrinking as our purchases, responses, comments reveal aspects of our lives.
2. Our access to information has skyrocketed. We can access facts, statistics, definitions, photos, movies, opinions (blogs),news, lesson-plans, company descriptions, resumes, medical information, etc., within seconds. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.
3. Quality of care, such as health care, is increasing exponentially with increased access of medical records, second opinions and long-distance medical advice, monitoring of vital signs, and new methods of cost-controls.
4. People are relating directly with institutions, cutting out the middle “middle-men”. For instance, organizational control of information is giving way to social media’s empowerment of individuals for civic journalism (blogs), people’s discontent and resistance to governments (Twitter and Facebook) and whistle-blowing. People are taking on greater responsibilities for their lives as they interact directly through on-line banking, investing and purchasing.
Which of these issues are most relevant to you? How the internet is changing your relationships and others? As the internet’s role in our lives continues to increase, what other transformations should we expect?
Someone once said that the best way to predict the future is to create it. So, let’s get busy!
Jerry
Posted in Internet, Leadership, Personal Improvement, Psychology | 
Business, commerce, communication, Internet, leadership, relationships | 
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