Why You Don't (Can) Fix Stupid

There may be no such thing as a stupid question, but there are a ton of stupid answers.

I’m sitting in a discussion with a group of decision-makers for a non-profit organization. As is typical, there are men of some authority and position in their personal lives. They are successful men who have apparent ability. But, in the middle of the discussions, one man says, “We have made the same mistake over and over and over and over”. Me, being me, was ready to direct the conversation to a new solution, but I hesitated because I wanted to see where it would go

To my complete astonishment, what I would have assumed was the obvious answer: it is time for a change, never came out. Instead, there was a historical look at what had been done in the past. That historical approach, i.e., what they had always done, was what the man who made the statement planned on doing again. Wait, what?

He is not alone. Following the path that got us into the mess in the first place was the core problem. He had even identified it in his original statement. They were doing the same thing over and over.

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So let us overtly simplify the problem: the hot stove. You come to my house and I tell you the stove is hot. The reason I tell you is that you have a tendency to touch the stove. No, I do not know why you like to touch stoves but it seems to be your thing. I am not implying you are stupid, I am telling you a fact that you might not be aware of in that you are not familiar with my stove. Having secured the information, you reply that you understand that the stove is hot by communicating that you received the information. Then you touch the stove.

Are you stupid? Of course not, so why did you do something that appeared stupid? (Just in case you do not believe you do it too, think about this next time a server places a plate in front of you and says “it’s hot” and you still touch the plate). Maybe you forgot, maybe you didn’t fully understand what I said or maybe you really did not listen closely and process the information. In any case, you now have a burned hand. Logically you would not do that again. Right?

So the next time you are at my house once again I tell you the stove is hot. Apparently, I am either cooking for you or just mean. I watch as you walk over to the stove without a word, put your hand back on the stove again. Now, is it my fault you keep getting burned? No, you did not listen again and did the same mistake a second time. This pattern of behavior continues until such time as I cannot invite you to my house because you are always burning yourself.

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Now, it is a pretty absurd example, but it shows the way we have a tendency to make decisions. I always do that, even knowing there will be a problem (i.e., I get burned). This has led me to asking why.

Why is it that we make the same decision over and over and over again?

• We really are stupid. Now do not turn away just yet. There is an old saying, “we are all one step from stupid”. In business, that is very true. Why: because we tend to make decisions off limited information, with limited time and limited resources. In a single word: limitations.
  
  Sometimes it is because we are in new territory. You have done it same as I have. We realize far too late how stupid a decision was in retrospect. Most times I even say, “That was just stupid of me”. It happens. Once is a mistake, twice is embracing stupidity, building a new room for it and asking it to marry your daughter.
  
  We do stupid things because of limitations; we replicate stupidity since we do not learn from our mistake. Notice mistake, in the singular form. When you properly examine a decision, there is always one place where the issue started. While it may lead to multiple mistakes, it always starts at one place.
  
  How do you fix stupid? You learn. Does not mean it will not happen again, quite to the contrary it will, but it will happen with a different decision. You choose to replicate stupidity.
  
  
• We are afraid of the unknown. Here is where most people operate. We are completely afraid to do something different because of the unknown consequences. It is the old saying “better the devil you know then the one you don’t” that drives our decision-making. The fact that we know this option we have been doing is not going to work does not deter us from continuing it.
  
  Take the example in your personal life of someone that continually dates the wrong person. You find yourself constantly consoling your friend over and over for dating the same kind of person. Ask yourself, why is my friend doing this? The reason is my friend knows what to expect, he/she works into a pattern dedicated to always failing. Not on purpose, but because this is what I know best. Why engage in something that might lead me to an area I know nothing about? Because, you say, it just might work doing it differently.
  
  This approach is the same for businesses. If what you are doing is not working, stop doing it that way. There will be challenges, but the reality is the possibility of failure and success become 50/50 in a new idea. In the old one, it is a 100% guarantee of failure. That fact alone makes the possibility of success go up by 50%!
  
  
• We do not have the courage to do what needs to be done. To me, this is the one that drives me nuts. I have a big problem with unrealized potential. Not just in people but in organizations. Knowing that there is something far greater that could be accomplished is a point of personal frustration to me. So imagine how much more it bothers me when I consult with an organization and realize they know what to do, but just will not do it.
  
  It takes courage to buck the trend. Most managers are taught that it is better to have a still pond then one with waves. We seek to just maintain the status quo because to make a change would possibly jeopardize my job. What I have found is that organizations need innovative ideas that can only come from people within the company. That is where I always start. What resources does the organization have that they are not employing? More often then not, I end up acting as a communications bridge to people without the courage to implement exceptional ideas.
  
  Courage is the ability to do what you need to when you are in fear. It is the ability to move on a project that may very well cost you your job because it is the way the organization needs to go. That conviction is missing from far too many organizations. Without it, courage becomes a poster, not an action for the organization.

I hate untapped potential. It keeps me up at night. When I have supervised people with far greater ability I have always sought to find as many ways to deploy that potential as possible. But ultimately, fixing the problem requires a radical rethinking of how we do things. Notice, I did not say how we do business, but how we do the things associated with our business. Without it, stupidity will reign and it will have a lot of kids. Before you know it you will be locking the doors for the last time.