Guest Post – Essential Leadership Lesson

IMO, this is solid advice for all of us. Sort of a Humility vs. Ego equation applied to our thinking, planning and leading, either our teams or ourselves.

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Greg Satell
• 1st
Global Transformation & Change Expert, International Keynote Speaker & Bestselling Author

DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK!

When I’m in the late stages of writing a book, I start sending out sections to be fact checked by experts and others who have first-person knowledge of events. I’m always amazed at how much I get wrong. In some cases, I make truly egregious errors about facts I should have known. It’s incredibly embarrassing.

That’s why it’s so important not to believe everything you think, there are simply too many ways to get things wrong. As Richard Feynman put it, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.” I would also add a second principle that just because you’ve managed to fool others, doesn’t mean you’ve gotten it right.

Unfortunately, so many of the business ideas that are popular today come from people who’ve never actually operated a business. They tend to come from business school professors and consultants who’ve been told that they’re smart all their lives. They expect others to be impressed by their thoughts, not to check them.

In so many cases, things that supposedly “everybody knows” not only turn out to be wrong, but are so riddled with cognitive biases and other errors that they could never be right. Nevertheless, people follow them blindly because they are presented well and sound smart.

That’s why I send out fact checks, because I know how likely I am to think stupid things. I’ve also noticed that I tend to be most wrong when I think I’ve come up with something brilliant. It’s also why I’m so critical about other ideas I encountered. Much as Tolstoy wrote about happy families, there are infinitely more ways to get things wrong than to get things right.

Do you have a favorite stupid business idea? Have you wondered why business scholars so often lack the rigor of other fields? Why do such obviously wrong ideas get traction and how can we best spot an avoid them?

Greg Satell