What you don’t know can hurt you.
Just about everyone reading this is a knowledge worker, so it’s ironic that sometimes our results are affected more by what we don’t know (DK) than by what we know. For example, if you’re in sales, have you ever lost a deal that was a “sure thing”?
If you’ve been in sales for any length of time, it’s probably happened to you. In my case, it was the “big deal of the year” that went to a competitor who saw how well-positioned I was in the decision-making process and successfully went for broke by going directly to the CEO. I had been assured that the CEO would not get involved in the decision, but my competitor changed the rules on me.
It was a very expensive lesson for me, and that is why I’ve learned that one of the most useful personal qualities for a salesperson in complex sales is a bit of healthy paranoia. When everything seems to be lining up just right—that’s when I look extra hard to figure out what can derail the sale.
In any complex sale or persuasion campaign, there is a tremendous amount you know, and there is also a lot you don’t know. These DKs are normal; in a complex situation you will have a lot of DKs and when you admit it to yourself and others at least you can do something about them. The real problems are caused by what we call a (DK)², which occurs when you don’t know that you don’t know something. Some people call them “unk-unks” for unknown unknowns. A (DK)² can kill your deal faster than anything, because you usually find out about it when it is too late.
When things hit the fan, we all love a hero who can rise to the occasion and fix the problem. But if your organization has too many heroes, you’re probably doing a bad job of preventing problems to begin with. Einstein said, “Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”
I hate to disagree with old Albert, but it doesn’t take a genius to prevent problems; a few simple practices described by Michael Roberto in his book, Know What You Don’t Know, will help you a) find problems before they become major and b) get the attention of those who can do something about it.
How to find problems
Get out and look. Listening is not enough, because the gap between what people say they do and what they actually do can be pretty wide. Also keep in mind that the higher you rise in an organization the more likely the information you get is filtered through gatekeepers and several reporting layers. You have to get out and observe people at work. Toyota calls this “getting your hands dirty.”
Get diverse points of view. Salespeople know how important it is to develop coaches within your customer accounts because there is so much information that is not available any other way. But beware of relying too much on a single source. No matter how well connected or well-intentioned, one person simply can’t be everywhere at once, and they will also tend to tell you things from a self-interested point of view. While a coach is good, more than one is better.
Try to surface objections. Intellectually, salespeople know that objections are a good thing because they let us know what stands in the way of making the sale. Psychologically, though, it can be hard to do. Objections tend to grow in importance as you get closer to the decision, so make it easy for your customers to object.
Question your analogies. Learning from experience is usually a good thing, but it can lead to problems. We all tend to reason by analogy, so when we see a situation we compare it to a previous familiar situation. The problem is that we tend to overstress the similarities and deemphasize the differences. Before you make an important decision based on an analogy, take a sheet of paper and brainstorm two columns, one for similarities and one for differences.
Communicate
It’s not always enough to spot signs of an upcoming problem; the right people have to know about it. Sometimes, as in the case of the failure to connect the dots among various intelligence agencies before 9/11, sheer size and complexity makes that extremely difficult. But even in smaller organizations, there is room for improving the flow of information.
Make it safe for people to speak up. In some organizations, people are afraid to speak up even when there is an obvious problem because messengers bearing bad news suffer. Even if your organization is not that harsh, there may be subtle but powerful deterrents to speaking out. Because many signs of an impending problem are not that obvious, there’s a chance of a false alarm and someone may be afraid to speak up without collecting hard data, by which time it might be too late. It’s important to let people know that false alarms are OK.
Meeting facilitation. If you’re a manager, hold back on your opinion until subordinates have a chance to weigh in. Make sure that everyone is heard from and don’t let one or two individuals dominate the discussion. Seek dissent, at least in the early stages. There’s a story about Alfred Sloan, the President of General Motors, who closed a meeting once by saying: “Gentlemen, I take it that we are all in complete agreement on the decision here. Then I propose that we postpone further discussion to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”
Teach people how to speak up effectively. A NASA study in 1979 determined that more crashes were caused by failures in communication and leadership than by mechanical problems. One major problem was the mystique of the airline pilot as the top authority onboard—crewmembers who noticed problems were afraid to speak up or did so ineffectively. The aviation industry developed a process called Crew Resource Management (CRM) which has been credited with saving many lives and has spread to hospital operating rooms and firefighting teams, among others.
Being actively alert to what may go wrong does not mean living in fear or being subject to analysis paralysis. On the contrary, knowing your early warning systems are working can boost your confidence and let you charge ahead to your objectives.
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.
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.
It ain’t rocket science, but to some, it may as well be
I had an amusing, albeit slightly disturbing experience today that may say a lot about the state of critical thinking in our society.
I was in Border’s business section, drawn by their store-closing sale which advertised 25% off every book in the store. There was a young couple in the same aisle, and she was showing him a book that she was interested in. She said, “It’s ___ ; I wish I knew what 25% off that was.”
What struck me was the finality of her statement, which sounded to me like she didn’t have a clue about how to begin figuring it out, and could not contemplate even trying. Her companion was a little more enterprising, though. He said, “I can figure it out,” and extracted his phone from his pocket.
Now, if there are things I freely concede my kids can do better than I can, they usually have to do with phones. They can do everything with them, while I’m still pretty old school. Having not seen my first electronic calculator until my senior year in high school, I’ve always had a good head for figures, so I knew the answer about a second or two after she had finished her sentence, and I wanted to see how long it would take him to get the answer.
It took him a few seconds to push the right buttons to get to the calculator application. Then he said, “Let’s see, 25 divided by 45 is…Hmm, that’s not right. 45 divided by 25; no, I don’t think that’s it either.”
As he tried other combinations, I admit I had a dilemma. I wanted to help them out, but I knew that they might not appreciate it and besides I knew what I really wanted to do was to show off, not really to help them. So I kept quiet, and pretended to study the rack of titles in front of me.
But then the fellow looked up and said, “Excuse me sir, do you know how to figure out what 25% off is?”
I said, ”Sure, it’s .75” (No, I don’t always speak in dollar signs when I talk)
“How did you get that?”
“Well, 25% of ____ is .25, and if you subtract that it gets you .75”
“Oh, so you have to subtract. I knew I was missing something.”
He then turned to his companion and said, “I took college math, but it just confused me.”
While this encounter made me chuckle (a bit smugly, I might add), it also was troubling. Obviously one incident does not prove anything, but it is emblematic of the many stories in the press about the lagging math scores of our students. These two were in the business section of a bookstore, so they were obviously reasonably well-educated, and had enough interest in business success to buy books about it. If you’ve ever listened to John Spence speak, you know how rare that is. Yet they were seriously deficient in one of the most important business skills of all.
You can study strategy and leadership and innovation and all those other fascinating business topics, but business is fundamentally still about getting the revenue equation right, and about getting a reasonable return on investment, and how can you do that without being able to put two and two together?
Even if you’re not in business, you are bombarded by hundreds of sales pitches and persuasive efforts every day, and many of those compare themselves to other choices or use pseudo-scientific statistics to back their claims. If you can’t make basic comparisons or don’t have at least a passing understanding of statistics, how can you make intelligent choices?
I’m reminded of a time that I had lunch with an older banker, when I was about the same age as those two in the bookstore today. His name was William Moy, and the bank he chaired was extremely successful, so I asked him what was the secret of his success. He said, “To succeed in banking, you need to be able to do just four things really well.”
I had my notebook out, ready to write down his sage advice.
He said, “Add, subtract, multiply and divide.”
