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Assume Your Assumptions Are Wrong

By Jack Malcolm / 4.6.2011 / 2 Comments

It’s the part you don’t see that can sink you.

Assumptions are everywhere: they are the foundation of everything we think, say and do. Like the air we breathe, they are invisible and necessary. They save time by allowing us to take certain facts and situations for granted and let us get on with the business of forming and exchanging new ideas.

However, because they remain out of sight and out of mind, we usually don’t realize how many assumptions we take for granted when we make decisions. When our assumptions are wrong, we can commit major errors. When the stakes are high, or when things are rapidly changing, it helps to have a mental tool-kit that allows us to examine our own—and others’—assumptions.

Here’s a list of 10 assumptions that can lead us astray.

Persuasive communication

Of Chickens, British Civil Servants and You: How to Use Status to Persuade

By Jack Malcolm / 3.31.2011 / No Comment

So, you think you’re better than me…

The human drive for status is so strong within all of us that any practical persuader ignores it at their peril.

As a kid, I grew up on a chicken farm, and got to observe first-hand what a real pecking order looks like. Whenever we got a batch of baby chicks, we would have to use a debeaking machine to cut off the sharp pointy end of their beaks, which sounds cruel but actually saved a lot of lives. Each chicken coop contained a couple thousand chickens, and they had rigidly defined status levels that only chickens recognize. Within those orders, it’s good to be at or near the top, and miserable or potentially fatal to those near the bottom, because higher status chickens would peck at those below. By blunting their beaks we gave the bottom chickens a chance to survive and preserve our feathered investment.

If you’re a chicken, low status can kill you. People are a lot like chickens in this regard.

It’s Time to Get Pathetic

By Jack Malcolm / 3.24.2011 / 2 Comments

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. Pascal

I generally try to post new articles on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but as of last night I had no clue what I was going to write about today. That quandary was resolved when I woke up about 5:30 after a series of very vivid dreams with a clear idea for today’s topic, in fact for a series of topics. My dream actually involved sharks, and my reluctance to dive into murky water to retrieve something I had lost because I suspected they were waiting to snack on my bony body.

I think the reason I woke up convinced that it was time to write about pathos is that the dream reminded me how reluctant we sometimes can be to dive beneath the surface of logic and explore the sometimes dangerous passions, feelings and sentiments that lurk below.

Persuasive communication - Sales

Curious, Imaginative and Paranoid

By Jack Malcolm / 3.22.2011 / No Comment

Don’t let the headline fool you, this is not another article about Charlie Sheen. Whether you’re selling a product or an idea, your effectiveness depends on deep knowledge of your “customers”, innovative ideas and extensive preparation. That’s why I‘ve found over my career that the following three personal qualities are indispensable and should be carefully nurtured: curiosity, imagination and paranoia.