The Study of Stupidity
BABETTE BENSOUSSAN, MBA
The Decision-Making Maverick? Life, Leadership & Business Coach, Competition and Strategy Specialist, Author - Improving your life, decision-making and the competitiveness of your business.
Being stupid is one of the main characteristics that distinguish humans from animals. Animals have an instinct for their own best interests. Humans, by contrast, occasionally act in a way that is contrary to rational behaviour - and contrary to their own best interests.
Much attention is paid to ‘best practice’ in business courses, but perhaps we need to pay more attention to stupidity.
A definition of stupidology is ‘doing the same thing again and again, and expecting a different result, as in the example of repeating the same types of campaigns, strategies, etc., and getting only limited results - yet somehow expecting to do better next time.
Organizations (governmental and commercial) get locked into doing the same thing - instead of standing back and asking whether a particular policy is effective. The tendency is to repeat it with more gusto. Perhaps too many careers are vested in the original policy to question it. Instead of lateral thinking, people and organizations just dig themselves deeper into the same hole.
Here are three recommendations to break the cycle:
Educational institutions should teach worst practices.?Those that currently teach ‘best practice’ courses in the hope that students can discover a. formula for success, would perhaps also gain from looking at ‘worst practice’. What are the lessons to be learned from the failures?
领英推荐
There should be a study of ‘bad role models’. People are often encouraged to follow positive role models, but what about the worst examples they have encountered? They need to reflect on why they thought the bad role models were so bad and how they ought also to avoid behaving as badly.
Within each company, there should be the recognition that mistakes are an opportunity to learn, rather than burying them.?There should be a culture where mistakes can be admitted and explored, and lessons learned before moving on.
After every project, a company should sit back and ask: “What were the lessons to be learned? What did we do right and what did we do wrong?" Consider how ‘open’ your culture is and whether it enables staff to admit that mistakes have been made.
Adapted from: “Stupidology - The study of stupidity” by Keith Suter, Leadership Excellence Magazine, April 2007.?https://www.keithsuter.com.au
This article resonated with me back in 2007 and still stands today.?What do you think??Should this be a topic of study in business?
High-powered innovations in competitive strategy: ForesightSims? simulations, business war games, workshops on strategic thinking, teacher, prolific author including 12 HBR digital articles, nonprofit board member.
2 年A BIG and vexing subject, BABETTE. Thank you. People say hindsight is 20/20. If it were so, why do we tell such different stories about the past? Those different stories about the past produce different best and worst practices for the future. Part of the BIG subject: I think we have a problem when we can only identify "stupid" after it's happened.
I am passionate about helping people and companies change the world in a meaningful way.
2 年Absolutely. Aviation education deals with much of this: airline disasters, bad choices by pilots and more. Aviation is very procedural in nature and when things start to go wrong, critical thinking is pivotal. By learning about mistakes from others in the past, you can help mitigate them in the present and future.
Founder, Academy of Competitive Intelligence
2 年Definitely!
Celebrating Breakfast through YMCA Schools’ Breakfast Program filling children’s tummies with healthy options for a level playing field- improving behaviour, engagement, learning, self worth, physical & mental wellbeing
2 年BABETTE BENSOUSSAN, MBA another brilliant article Babette!! The first two I’d love to try! The third totally had the opportunity at AccessEAP who supported learning and backing us (Eleni van Delft James Bell Ross Kordakis Marcela Slepica ) and sharing this with my team now! It’s so liberating allowing people to learn, back them , support and review how choices actions behaviours let them thrive and be their best versions as these leaders did for me!! ??????
Consultant & Coach for managers LINC Profiler, Certified Business & Systemic Coach; Life Kinetik Trainer & Coach
2 年Dear Babette, you certainly have a point there. Learning from mistakes, faulty decisions or purely from wrongly positioned leadership personalities would be an excellent means, not only in business school but team trainings or leadership coaching sessions. Another Aspect is the decision making process - looking how teams or managers come up with decisions is unbelievable! There are many "how not to.." in business- many untold true stories...