A few weeks ago, I read something about the fact that too much experience gets in the way of successful innovation. It was on the HBR Blog Network, written by the CEO of a "managed innovation company" (my words) and flagged by the owner of a boutique firm advising on strategy. I guess they both have some interest in this proposition being true.
Strange to think that they are both offering their wealth of experience to avoid you being weighed down by your own! All experience is equal but some experience is clearly more equal. That's what self-help is all about, after all. And it's a hundred and fifty years old. Snake-oil anyone?
The HBR article talks about the curse of knowledge and the situation where some variant of pattern recognition causes us to make assumptions that are simply wrong. Sound familiar? The technical term is cognitive bias. All organisations and people have cognitive bias and there are many ways around to try to assist us in thinking out of the box, but in a structured way. Why is so much of management speak "oxy-moronic"?
You may well ask why I am coming back to this idea. It's part of my own self-help regime and I wanted to share it. I am at a stage in my career where I might easily fall victim to excessive cognitive bias - ECB - (being a know-it-all or inadvertently positioning as a know-it-all). So, this post offers some gratuitous (see definition 2) advice on how to avoid the pitfall.
I had a conversation today about a CEO position. Just an early exploration. Just a friendly exchange. Would it be interesting? Small company, so would I be able to "re-size"? Could there be a cultural fit? Is the industry interesting for me? Is relocation an issue? You can guess the format. It was not a cold call. We had set up a time.
Thankfully, the call turned out fine - we will explore further and the role is very interesting - but looking back, I feel my interviewer had to make unnecessary allowances. In short, I was trying to close a sale and the potential customer was just browsing the aisles. This customer was even kind enough to make their intentions clear from the outset. I didn't listen carefully enough. I did not pick up the signs well enough.
It's always a temptation to want to take control in these situations, seeming to know intuitively what needs to be said, in what tone and at what point. Our ECB sends twice as many signals to our mouth than it does to our ears. And that is precisely the wrong ratio. Evolution/God (delete as appropriate) gave us one mouth and two ears, maybe to be deployed with that same balance!
I am sharing this now because it was not intuitive. If it's not intuitive for you either, learn from my error.
I felt very wise when posting my views on dealing with recruiters in February, somehow pushing the idea that you always have to take the initiative and create the momentum. The reality turns out to be that this is perhaps not always appropriate, or even necessary.
As in all things tantric, getting to the end takes time. Be calm. No worries. Let it build.
Thursday 16 May 2013
Tuesday 14 May 2013
It's not fair - nar, nar, de nar, nar!
Larry Page once opened the door for me as I went to have lunch in Google's canteen. I think I said Thank You but otherwise we didn't speak. I was visiting to discuss co-operation.
And this week, another Google personality has got me thinking. Not about what to have for my free lunch but about progress. That other "googler" (a normal employee being a "googlee") is Eric Schmidt being interviewed by McKinsey. I like the interview, especially as I don't think he mentions Big Data once!
About a year ago, a close friend brought some of his grandchildren to stay. We had a great time but one rather precocious youngster had an annoying habit of shouting "It's not fair", if she didn't get her own way. She shouted a lot, until my wife told her that life isn't fair and she had better get used to it. She shouted a little less after that.
So how do you build a bridge between such a brat and my friend's grandchild?
Well - you ask MIT, of course.
Erik Brynjolfsson (MIT Prof) co-authored a book (short title Race Against the Machine, followed by a longer, worthier codicil) about how technology is marginalising mankind. This gloomy assessment is mine but, in less than 100 pages, the book paints a pretty bleak picture - offering only truisms as hope. Schmidt uses less threatening language and talks about Man not "against" but "with" the Machine, with computers becoming quasi-friends.
I tend towards Schmidt and I am sure that will make him sleep better at night. In getting to understand robotics better, I looked at the implications of Technology Singularity Theory - easy version stating that humankind gets overtaken by machines by around 2050. I coined My Best Friend's a Robot to describe my positive view on how this would impact the future.
Erik and Eric both make another valuable point - that progress does not by definition reward everyone. Indeed, progress will tend to reward fewer and fewer people with more and more. As Orwell said "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
So that young lady was right after all - it is indeed not fair.
But that is how it has to be. We need to recognise and over-reward innovation and step-function change. That creates egos and, occasionally, monsters. Against these latter beasts, we need to protect ourselves.
Over the weekend, I saw a brilliant old movie. It's called The Man in the White Suit - excuse for some sound effects - and tells the story of a chemist who invents a fabric that never gets dirty and never wears out. The really interesting thing is how big business and ordinary workers unite to destroy the invention. The film shows how hard it is sometimes to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
Alongside such shifts, we need more than ever to work on societal solutions that recognise that growing the economic pie is unlikely to benefit us all and will likely rather create bigger divisions between richer and poorer - dixit OECD Report. That is indeed the biggest challenge that technology will bring in the next 20-30 years.
The problem is that we are not always good at solving problems this big - tending to quick-fixes and band-aids. Maybe we just need to wait a while and ask a computer for the answer? Or a Big Brother? Or maybe a poet?
FWIW
Nar is a Dutch word for a fool - something of an English court jester. The jester was a critical position at court. The Nar was the only person able to make fun of the King, and live to tell the tale. Through the Nar's buffoonery, the King could gently be educated - sometimes to be told he was not wearing kingly clothes before others found out!
And this week, another Google personality has got me thinking. Not about what to have for my free lunch but about progress. That other "googler" (a normal employee being a "googlee") is Eric Schmidt being interviewed by McKinsey. I like the interview, especially as I don't think he mentions Big Data once!
About a year ago, a close friend brought some of his grandchildren to stay. We had a great time but one rather precocious youngster had an annoying habit of shouting "It's not fair", if she didn't get her own way. She shouted a lot, until my wife told her that life isn't fair and she had better get used to it. She shouted a little less after that.
So how do you build a bridge between such a brat and my friend's grandchild?
Well - you ask MIT, of course.
Erik Brynjolfsson (MIT Prof) co-authored a book (short title Race Against the Machine, followed by a longer, worthier codicil) about how technology is marginalising mankind. This gloomy assessment is mine but, in less than 100 pages, the book paints a pretty bleak picture - offering only truisms as hope. Schmidt uses less threatening language and talks about Man not "against" but "with" the Machine, with computers becoming quasi-friends.
I tend towards Schmidt and I am sure that will make him sleep better at night. In getting to understand robotics better, I looked at the implications of Technology Singularity Theory - easy version stating that humankind gets overtaken by machines by around 2050. I coined My Best Friend's a Robot to describe my positive view on how this would impact the future.
Erik and Eric both make another valuable point - that progress does not by definition reward everyone. Indeed, progress will tend to reward fewer and fewer people with more and more. As Orwell said "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
So that young lady was right after all - it is indeed not fair.
But that is how it has to be. We need to recognise and over-reward innovation and step-function change. That creates egos and, occasionally, monsters. Against these latter beasts, we need to protect ourselves.
Over the weekend, I saw a brilliant old movie. It's called The Man in the White Suit - excuse for some sound effects - and tells the story of a chemist who invents a fabric that never gets dirty and never wears out. The really interesting thing is how big business and ordinary workers unite to destroy the invention. The film shows how hard it is sometimes to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
Alongside such shifts, we need more than ever to work on societal solutions that recognise that growing the economic pie is unlikely to benefit us all and will likely rather create bigger divisions between richer and poorer - dixit OECD Report. That is indeed the biggest challenge that technology will bring in the next 20-30 years.
The problem is that we are not always good at solving problems this big - tending to quick-fixes and band-aids. Maybe we just need to wait a while and ask a computer for the answer? Or a Big Brother? Or maybe a poet?
FWIW
Nar is a Dutch word for a fool - something of an English court jester. The jester was a critical position at court. The Nar was the only person able to make fun of the King, and live to tell the tale. Through the Nar's buffoonery, the King could gently be educated - sometimes to be told he was not wearing kingly clothes before others found out!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)