Introduction: There’s an old expression that points out that, “If you don’t
Some people are brighter than others. Some people have a higher intellectual quotient (IQ) than some others. However, regardless of the raw intellectual potential someone possesses, their intellectual effectiveness can be honed or blunted by the quality of their thinking skills.
Thinking skills can be learned. They can be built. Too often, Americans think of intellectual prowess as being an all or nothing distinction. You have what you have and that’s all you’ve got to work with, forever. That’s a mistake.
This assumption about a fixed amount of intelligence is an example of sloppy thinking. The assumption isn’t explored and validated. There isn’t any evidence of deep thinking behind a quick superficial analysis.
Are correlations confused with cause and effect? (Simple correlations do not prove cause and effect, but rather, describe the likelihood of their happening together.)
Business pressures tend to make people impatient for quick solutions. We like to think that bright people can shoot from the hip and still hit the target every time. Watch an Olympic shooter some time, or the biathlon athletes. The winners take the time to do it right, each and every time.
Organizations that tolerate bright people becoming intellectually lazy are throwing resources away. The rigor of thinking, of preparation, and of inquiry demanded by the company’s culture can significantly leverage its thinking capability or it can waste it. In thinking of the organization as a living organism, we can create some provocative images.
Is your company similar to the bright kid who coasts through classes trusting innate ability to see him or her through? What happens to those kids is that they tend to rise to the top, until they run into others who are equally gifted, but who have also worked to develop their thinking skills.
Then, all of a sudden (or so it seems) the kid who is used to being good enough just by showing up, doesn’t cut it any more when competing against others more his/her equal. Does your company coast on its raw talent or do you insist on the intellectual rigor necessary for extraordinary results?
Then, there’s the kid who practices, drills, does the homework, works the examples and raises his/her performance level to the point where s/he surprises people who didn’t expect as much out of this youngster.
Do your people come to meetings having thought about the agenda items before hand? (Do they receive agendas before the meeting, for that matter?) Have they done their homework? Are they prepared to dig into situations and analyze what’s going on or are they simply gathering information to support their preferred solutions?
Are they presenting a thorough analysis of the problem or are they making a sales pitch for a course of action?
Do your people generate solutions from their own functional perspectives or do they seek solutions from the whole enterprise’s perspective? Do your people collaborate, debate issues (rather than personalities), and encourage thoughtful challenges to their thinking? In your councils and discussions, do the most aggressive dominate the more thoughtful? Is the best idea generated or do people fight for their own idea above all else?
Do the same issues resurface on the agenda even though you thought they’d been resolved? Do you having lingering operational problems that remain intractable? Does your business plan fade into obscurity as the fiscal year wears on and operational crises steal the company’s focus?
What Does An Organization That Tolerates Weak Or Sloppy Thinking Look Like?
Obviously, these are companies that spend significant periods of time redoing things that weren’t adequately done the first time. People discuss pending issues extemporaneously, without doing homework.
There is an uneven adherence to fact-based decision-making. These companies are often caught up in a whirlwind of activity as brushfires are constantly reigniting, and the organization lurches from one crisis to another with little time for proactive maneuvers.
This doesn’t mean that these companies that are filled with stupid people. They aren’t. They are often populated with people who are bright and action-oriented, but who tend to problem solve on the run. It is the organization as a whole that isn’t acting smart.
People don’t think together in ways that magnify their capabilities. Rigor is not demanded, it’s not expected. People make sweeping generalizations and operate from assumptions that they don’t validate. In some organizations, people are discouraged from challenging the “sacred cows.” The boss is looking for people who agree with, rather than challenge, his/her thinking.
People in these companies tend to look for ways to make their jobs more doable. They resist changing their systems. They try to bring some order to their little corner of the world and then work to remain unnoticed and below the radar. It becomes a frustrating workplace and yet it can be difficult, when you’re in the middle of it, to understand what’s going wrong.
So What? This one isn’t hard to figure out. If your organization isn’t thinking well and acting smart it will be difficult to realize your potential. Good people wind up producing a lot less than what they should, given the sum of the individual parts. Even if your company is profitable, there is much that is wasted or lost.
Diagnosing Problems Caused By Weak And Sloppy Thinkers
Tolerating Weak Or Sloppy Thinking Indicates:
- The presence of a company-wide feeling of inadequacy. The leaders of the organization underestimate their capabilities and their underlying professionalism (“we can’t compete with the big guys because…”).
- Those in charge may be fearful in such a way that it affects their leadership style. The unconscious dynamic here is that the boss keeps the organization in an unsophisticated state in order to stay “top dog” (see Fear).
- On a less personal level, these conditions may also indicate a naiveté, almost a provincial quality, pervading the thinking of people who have spent all or most of their careers within this inward looking company.
- These conditions may indicate an arrogance that comes from being big fish in small ponds. Until recently, they might still have been better than their immediate competition, which was good enough not to lead anyone to worry about style.
- Other issues relevant to your specific company’s situation.
Remedying Problems Caused By Weak And Sloppy Thinkers – Steps To Take
Steps to take:
- Many of the steps for these shortcomings have already been discussed elsewhere. However, they bear repeating here. Both Fear and Amateurishness need to be addressed in the prevailing mindset of the organization. You can’t just say, “don’t be fearful or amateurish.” Instead you must build the habits and capabilities that make those feelings obsolete.
This includes encouraging collaboration and thought partnerships within the company, and making a concerted effort to ensure that people are rigorous and disciplined in their thinking. It means that people work to develop a culture of inquiry – where it is safe to question, challenge and explore.
- Another countermeasure is to institute a program of after action reviews. This sort of practice leads to an expectation of thoughtfulness about what we do and how we do it.
- For a successful transformation process to take place, it is important that the boss and key organizational leaders commit to modeling rigorous thinking themselves. Staying safe and secure within a cocoon of authority will ensure nothing changes.