Maria Konnikova: An interview by Bob Morris

Maria Konnikova is the author of the New York Times bestseller, MASTERMIND: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. She writes the weekly “Literally Psyched” column for Scientific American, where she explores the intersection of literature and psychology, and formerly wrote the popular psychology blog “Artful Choice” for Big Think. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Observer, WIRED, Scientific American MIND, and Scientific American, among other publications. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where she studied psychology, creative writing, and government, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Psychology at Columbia University. Before returning to school, she worked as a producer for the Charlie Rose show on PBS. She lives in New York City.

Here is an excerpt from my interview of her. To read the complete interview, please click here.

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Morris: When and why did you decide to write MASTERMIND?

Konnikova: It grew our of a series of pieces I wrote for Big Think and Scientific American, called “Lessons from Sherlock Holmes.” I stumbled on the idea of using the Holmes stories to illustrate a few psychological concepts—and it clicked into place. The more research I did, the more convinced I became that it would make for a good lens for a book on the mind.

Morris: Were there any head-snapping revelations while writing it? Please explain.

Konnikova: I never realized before just how frequently I multitask and how often my focus strays from my writing. Writing MASTERMIND made me confront my media-tetherdness, so to speak.

Morris: To what extent (if any) does the book in final form differ significantly from what you originally envisioned?

Konnikova: Surprisingly, it doesn’t. I basically followed my initial outline and proposal.

Morris: What are the defining characteristics of “mindful thought”?

Konnikova: Mindful thought is just a way to describe presence of mind: a mind that is focused on the present moment and is able to both acknowledge and dismiss any internal or external distractions that may arise.

Morris: You suggest that for Sherlock Holmes, “mindful presence is just a first step.” Please explain.

Konnikova: To Holmes, mindfulness isn’t an end in itself. It’s a means toward the type of clear thinking that allows him to tackle problems, solve cases, catch criminals. Sure, he gets all of the benefits of mindfulness—mental sharpness, emotional benefits, and the like—but they are by-products and not the end goal. Mindfulness is the prerequisite starting point for the type of thinking he needs to engage in to become—and remain—the world’s best consulting detective.

Morris: In various films about Holmes, especially those featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, the character Dr. John H. Watson’s primary function seems to provide comic relief. Sometimes he asks questions that many of those who watch the film have. In your opinion, what is his primary function in the works of fiction written by Arthur Conan Coyle?

Konnikova: He is decidedly not comic relief—although you must admit, Holmes’s quips at Watson’s expense are fairly hilarious. Watson is a worthy companion; remember, he is a trained medical doctor and not just a random who-knows-what. He helps Holmes clarify and sharpen his thinking, helps him avoid the pitfalls of reasoning to which even the greatest detective is prone, and sometimes even serves as the source of a key insight (or reprimand) that will solve the case.

Morris: What are the most significant differences between System Watson and System Holmes?

Konnikova: For those who have read Daniel Kahneman’s wonderful Thinking Fast and Slow, the difference is simple. Watson is System 1, and Holmes, System 2. System Watson is the fast, natural, largely effortless, reflexive system. System Holmes is the slow, largely effortful, reflective system. The one frees up our cognitive resources for other things; the other, takes them up for deeper reflection.

Morris: Early in the book, on Page 21 to be specific, you observe, “To Sherlock Homes, the world has become by default a pink elephant world.” Please explain.

Konnikova: It’s my way of illustrating a concept that dates back to the work of philosophers like Spinoza and that has more recently been explored by the psychologist Daniel Gilbert. In order to understand something, we must first believe it. Only then can we disbelieve. So, if I say “pink elephant,” you must for a brief instant visualize an actual pink elephant, before your brain jumps in to say that that’s a false statement and pink elephants don’t actually exist. The pink elephant is an egregious case; obviously, it is false. But in real life, false statements get past our correction radar all the time: we believe it and then never take the time to disbelieve. And so, our minds become populated by pink elephants. Holmes is skeptical from the get-go. No matter how innocuous something may sound, he questions it with the same severity.

Morris: I have read most of the research results produced by K. Anders Ericsson and his associates at Florida State University and am aware of the need to supplement mindful motivation with brutal training: deep, deliberate “practice, practice, practice” for (on average) at least 10,000 hours under expert and strict supervision. Here’s my question: Is that what is required to master the Holmes methodology? Please explain.

Konnikova: Yes, that is certainly part of it, as I say repeatedly. Nothing comes without practice, and Holmes has been honing his methodology for years and years. We can’t expect to catch up right away. That said, no, we don’t need 10,000 hours to begin to change the way we think and approach the world. We don’t have to become first-class detectives; just more mindful thinkers.

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To read the complete interview, please click here.

Maria cordially invites you to check out the resources at these websites:

Her website

Her blog at Scientific American

Her Amazon page

Dan Pink on “the puzzle of innovation”: A TED video

 

I check out TED videos every chance I get because they comprise a treasury of information, insights, and wisdom provided by thought leaders in one or more of three fields: Technology, Entertainment, and Design. Dan Pink has much of value to say about all three.

 

He is the author of several provocative, bestselling books about the changing world of work. His latest book, DRiVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, uses 40 years of behavioral science to overturn the conventional wisdom about human motivation and offer a more effective path to high performance. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future charts the rise of right-brain thinking in modern economies and describes the six abilities individuals and organizations must master in an outsourced, automated age. A Whole New Mind is a long-running New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller that has been translated into 21 languages. Pink’s first book, Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself, was a Washington Post bestseller that Publishers Weekly says it “has become a cornerstone of employee-management relations.” His next book, To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, will be published in December (2012).

 

His articles on business and technology appear in many publications, including The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired, where he is a contributing editor. A free agent himself, Dan held his last real job in the White House, where he served from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. He also worked as an aide to U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and in other positions in politics and government. He received a BA, with honors, from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. To his lasting joy, he has never practiced law.

 

To watch a video during which he discusses “the puzzle of innovation,” please click here.

 

To check out my interview of him,  please click here.

 

 

 

Why your “to-do” list doesn’t work

Photo Credit: Flickr user Banalities

Here is an article written by Dave Johnson for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here

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(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY If you’re like most folks, you have some sort of “to-do” list at work. And since you’re not an anarchist, you probably assign each task some sort of priority and tackle the workload in order. “Getting Things Done” guru David Allen — someone who it’s fair to say is a master of to-do lists — says that approach sets you up for failure.

At the very least, it’s not the most efficient way to work. According to Allen in the GTD Times, a typical to-do list doesn’t account for the way priorities can shift rapidly through the work day. They also don’t consider human factors, like what time of day you are most productive and the fact that no matter how many “red bangs” you put next to a work item, you probably won’t tackle it at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

Says Allen, “On a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, there is no algorithm or formula that will last very long or is really worth trying to nail down in some written or coded system.”

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Dave Johnson, who worked for Microsoft from February 2004 to April 2012, has written three dozen books, including the best-selling How to Do Everything with Your Digital Camera, and covered technology for a long list of magazines that include PC World and Wired.

TheAtlanticCities.com, the New Digital Property of The Atlantic, Launches Today

I have just received this exciting announcement from Cynthia Rabe and am pleased to share it with you. As we proceed through the so-called “Age of Information,” an age that seems to be more like a blizzard each day, some sources are much more valuable than others. The Atlantic magazine offers an excellent case in point.

I urge you to click your way through the material that follows. Check out the resorces, become familiar with the options, and as you do so, put some white caps on your gray matter.

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TheAtlanticCities.com, the new digital media property of The Atlantic, is live online today.

With more than half the world’s population living in cities, the new site is dedicated to covering the global centers where we live, work, and play. Featuring the work of Richard Florida, economist, professor, and Atlantic senior editor, TheAtlanticCities.com explores and explains the most innovative ideas and pressing issues facing today’s cities and neighborhoods.

In addition to Florida,  TheAtlanticCities.com will feature leading voices in the urban planning and community building arenas. Regular correspondents will include: Allison Arieff, former editor-in-chief of Dwell magazine; Ryan Avent, economics correspondent for The Economist; Sarah Goodyear, former cities editor of Grist; Eric Jaffe, author and former staff writer for The Infrastructurist, and Matthew Ygelsias, blogger and fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The site will also feature contributions from thought leaders and academics in urbanism, such as Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, and Don Carter, director of the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

The new site is edited by Sommer Mathis, the former editor of DCist.com who also worked at TBD.com and Washingtonian magazine, where she was online editorial director. Full-time staff includes Nate Berg, a four-year veteran of Planetizen, where he wrote, produced, and edited content about transit, the environment and urban planning. Berg has also contributed to The New York Times, Wired, Fast Company, and various design and architecture magazines. He is based in Los Angeles.

In addition to in-depth reporting and analysis on topics like jobs, commuting, housing, infrastructure, design, culture, and politics, TheAtlanticCities.com launches with a number of recurring features, including: “The Big Fix,” a weekly exploration of how cities attempt to solve problems, one issue at a time; “Democracy in America,” offering tales of the occasionally noble and often absurd nature of American civic life at the local level; and “Why I Love My City,” an interview series about all the reasons why we choose to make a particular place home.

The site also features one-stop landing pages for top U.S. and international cities, including key data and information as well as Florida’s original city and state rankings on everything from the healthiest places to live to the best cities for recent college graduates.

“We believe the challenges and opportunities facing cities merit deeper exploration on the web,” said Bob Cohn, editorial director of Atlantic Digital. “We aim to do that with intelligent, compelling, and entertaining coverage on a range of issues. I can already see that Richard and Sommer, supported by a talented corps of writers, make a killer team.”

“More than three billion people live in cities, with an estimated 60 million more moving to urban centers every year. As population and economic activity concentrates more and more into these rich, dense communities, the challenge of maintaining prosperity, vibrancy, and livability in all cities-not just a few great metropolises-becomes absolutely vital to the overall health of our society,” said Florida. “TheAtlanticCities.com represents an important platform by which we can help shed light on these critical issues, both nationally and globally.”

Dow, a long-time partner of The Atlantic, is the exclusive launch sponsor for TheAtlanticCities.com. Jay Lauf, publisher and vice president of The Atlantic said of the sponsorship, “We’re delighted to embark on a new chapter of the relationship we’ve had with Dow over the years and are grateful for their support of the launch phase of this exciting new venture.”

Florida was named a senior editor of The Atlantic in March and has a long relationship with the magazine, website and events division. He is Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and the founder of the Creative Class Group. He has written several national and international best-selling books including The Rise of the Creative Class, Who’s Your City?, and The Great Reset. He was named one of Esquire‘s ‘Best and Brightest’ and one of TIME Magazine’s top 140 Twitter feeds with more than 130,000 followers @Richard_Florida. His ideas are being used globally to change the way regions, nations, and companies compete.

Follow The Atlantic Cities on Twitter at @AtlanticCITIES.

About The Atlantic:

Since its founding in 1857 as a magazine about “the American Idea” that would be of “no party or clique” The Atlantic has been at the forefront of brave thinking in journalism.  One of the first magazines to launch on the web in the early 1990s, The Atlantic has continued to help shape the national debate across print, digital and event platforms. With the addition of its news- and opinion-tracking site,  TheAtlanticWire.com, and now TheAtlanticCities.com, The Atlantic is a multi-media forum on the most critical issues of our times, from politics, business, urban affairs, and the economy, to technology, arts, and culture. The Atlantic is the flagship property of Washington, D.C.-based publisher Atlantic Media Company.

Contact:

Natalie Raabe
Director of Communications
The Atlantic
(202) 266-7533
nraabe@theatlantic.com

5 Ways to Write a Really Useful List

Although I remain convinced that Atul Gwande’s The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right is the single best source for information and counsel on how to formulate and then use a list most effectively, there are other worthy sources. For example, here is an article written by Martin Douglass for BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

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Everybody loves a good list, right?

In our time-starved world, numbered lists help readers (and writers) get to the main point while still allowing a little room for flavor. But to paraphrase Aristotle, too much of a good thing is not necessarily better.

In my last post, I compiled the “worst” of the “worst lists.”

Here’s my compendium of five of the best “5 Best” lists of recent years – and what they tell us about how to do this thing right:

1. “5 Best Career Tips for Young People” (US News)

Too many “Top 5 or “10 Most …” lists consist of things you or I could have thought of ourselves, given two minutes and an iPad. Not so these five tips, which were culled from the book, Generation Earn, by Kimberly Palmer. The advice is refreshingly counterintuitive (”Raise your rates”) and pragmatic (”Free up your time and energy by outsourcing chores”).

Lesson: Say something new

2. “The 5 Best Toys of All Time” (Wired)

This list of “best toys” include such time-tested classics as “Stick,” “Cardboard Tube” and “Dirt.” Yes, dirt. Not what you expected, right? Especially in the tech-geek environment of Wired. That’s what so fresh about it: it’s actually fresh. While seemingly tongue-in-cheek, the list actually says something profound about how technology can distort kids’ lives.

Lesson: Be counter-intuitive

3. “Top 5 Best Complaint Letters” (The Telegraph)

Disgruntled customers are always a good source of dark online humor. (As United Airlines, among many others, can tell you.) This compendium includes a Chrysler Neon owner who wrote: “I don’t want the car to explode while I’m in it. Frankly, I do want it to explode when no one is ….”

Lesson: When you can’t be funny yourself, quote funny people

4. “The 5 Best Unintended Uses for the Apple iPad” (PC Magazine)

At the height of iPad mania last April, PC Magazine released a collection of five user-generated videos showing people employing their iPad as a cat toy and a golf tee, among others. In a subtle way, it helped put the hype in perspective.

Lesson: Where possible, include video

5. “MyFiveBest.com” (MyFiveBest.com)

This website describes itself as “User Submitted Trivia and Opinion.” Users post their own lists of “five” things, which range from the serious (”Five Countries That Censor Your Internet”) to the strange (”Five Animals That Have Been Used as Weapons”).

Lesson: When you can’t create … curate Do you have any favorite “best lists” to recommend?

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Martin Douglass is the pseudonym of an Emmy-nominated former TV and magazine writer who threw it all away to get an MBA. He currently toils anonymously in middle-management at a large Midwestern corporation.

The 6 Toxic Beliefs That Lousy Bosses Love

Here is an article written by Geoffrey James for BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

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Why are there so many lousy bosses in this world? Simple.  These six toxic beliefs have taken hold in the business world, and they’re turning otherwise sane individuals into raging management jackasses.

This post describes those 6 toxic beliefs so that you can protect yourself against them, primarily by avoiding those managers who hold them dear.
Be forewarned, though.  If some of these beliefs make sense to you, you might very well be on the road to becoming a lousy boss yourself.

[Here are the first two of the six. To read the complete article, please click here.]

TOXIC BELIEF #1: “We are a meritocracy.”

You hear this all the time inside high tech firms, and it’s becoming increasingly common elsewhere, too.  The idea is that management only awards promotions and salary increases as the result of proven performance.  That’s the theory.  But it’s total BS.

The idea of a “meritocracy” ignores that many other factors influence who gets what inside a corporation.  For example, tall men and pretty women have an inside track that’s purely genetic and has nothing whatsoever to do with their actual contributions.

Similarly, many employees enter a company with pre-existing connections, both through colleagues and family members.  A son with minimal talent takes over his father’s job. An executive comes in at the top and pulls a bunch of his cronies in with him.  Somebody has an affair with the CFO and then becomes the chief auditor.  (This actually happened to somebody I know).  Deals are cut between drinking buddies.  Talent has little or nothing to do with it.

Beyond that, the corporate world is full of toadies and lickspittles whose sole ability to survive and thrive is based upon an unerring sense of who in the corporate structure needs periodic sphincter osculations.

Even if those factors were absent from the corporate milieu (which they’re decidedly not), the Peter Principle still remains valid.  As anyone who looks at any business carefully can tell you, people are FREQUENTLY promoted to their level of incompetence, where they remain for years.

The reason that this belief is so toxic?  People who are lucky, connected, or oily use the “meritocracy” belief to justify the fact that they’ve gotten ahead.  It makes them feel that they “deserve” their success, and therefore owe nothing to anybody else.

Back in the day when belonging to an aristocracy meant automatic advantages, they had a concept called noblesse oblige.  Aristocrats knew that they didn’t really deserve their privileges, so they felt obligated to treat the hoi polloi with a modicum of kindness and restraint.

Not so the meritocrats.  Once they get ahead, they rapidly become insufferable snobs who complain about government regulation and quote Ayn Rand.

How vomitable.

TOXIC BELIEF #2: “I must control employees.”

The idea that the role of management is to control employee behavior is common, but that doesn’t make it right.

We’ve been told for so many years that managers are supposed to be “in charge” that any other definition of management seems absurd or naive. All too often, well-meaning managers try to control their way out of problems, control the behavior of the people who work with them, control events that are going to happen whether they like it or not.

But thinking of management as control misses the entire point (and real power) of management. Ideally, a manager should be a servant, coach and mentor to the people who work inside the group. The goal of the manager is to make everyone else in the group successful, and thereby make the group success. You can’t “control” that outcome. It’s just not possible

The reason this belief is ugly that it leads organization to concentrate power at the top. It causes the proliferation of complicated rules and regulations, the growth of bureaucracies, and the need for expensive reporting mechanisms to pass information up and down the management chain.

Even so, the need to control can be very seductive. The illusion that we can bend other people’s hearts and minds and get them to do exactly what we want is a comforting one in a world that’s admittedly chaotic. What’s most dangerous about “control” is that it works-at least for a while, but it eventually creates massive resentment.

The controlling person looks around the conference table one day and finds that he or she is surrounded by enemies-people who would stab the controlling manager in the back, if given half a chance. So the manager comes up with some new way to control or manipulate, while the employees continue to maneuver and posture to avoid the heavy hand of management.

And so the cycle continues.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Geoffrey James

Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men’s Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO, The New York Times and (of course) BNET. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (translated into seven languages and selected by four book clubs), and The Tao of Programming (widely quoted on the Web as a “canonical book of computer humor”.) He was also co-host of Funny Business, a program on New England’s largest all-talk radio station.

The Greatest Marketing Geniuses of All Time

Here is an article written by Geoffrey James for BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

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Marketing talent is rare enough, but marketing genius only happens once or twice in a lifetime. Here are more than a dozen men and women throughout history who changed the face of marketing, creating entirely new concepts, or bringing good ideas to full fruition.  

If you think you might be a marketing genius, or just wish you were one, these are the luminaries whose thinking processes you should learn to emulate.  Although, in some cases, you might want to pick a different industry than the ones these geniuses chose.

[Actually, here are five of the 16. To read the complete article, please click here.]

John R. Brinkley, Inventor of Broadcast Advertising

Hard to believe it now, but radio was once originally considered akin to a public library, a cultural asset free of commercials.

All of that changed when Quack Physician John Brinkley built his own radio station in 1923 to hype his cure for male impotence, which consisted of implanting goat testicles in the human body.

Brinkley combined entertainment (booking some of the great country music acts of his day), bible readings, and a strong sense for the memorable turn of phrase.  His most memorable catch phrase: “You’ll be a ram-what-am… with every lamb.”

Now THAT’s infotainment!

Mary Kay Ash, Inventor of Network Marketing.

Network marketing (recruiting independent-agents to serve as distributors of goods and services, and then encouraging them to build and manage their own sales force) had been around for several decades when Mary Kay Ash founded her world famous cosmetics firm in 1963.

But older companies, like Amway and Weight Watchers, failed to do what Mary Kay did: turn the network marketing concept from something on the fringe into an integral part of America’s middle-class culture.
She did this by tapping a great underutilized workforce: the housewives who were sick of the June Cleaver act, but didn’t want a traditional 9 to 5 job.

Her most brilliant move: awarding top sellers pink Cadillacs, thereby transforming them into mobile advertisements for the company’s products.  Beautiful.

George Wilkes, Inventor of Eye Candy

The journalist George Wilkes, along with his friend Enoch Camp, founded the world’s first girlie magazine, National Police Gazette, way back in 1845.

The Gazette was packaged as a trade magazine for law enforcement, but featured numerous engravings and photographs of scantily-clad actresses, strippers and prostitutes.

These pictures were often facing pages of advertisements, which in those days were dull by comparison.

Later, of course, the eye candy ended up in the ads, but Wilkes was the first to use sex to sell an unrelated product.

Andre Citroen, Inventor of the Electric Billboard

The founder of the Citroen automobile firm was always something of marketing genius.  He was one of the first auto execs to sponsor car races, for instance, and he promoted his car plant to tourists as “the most beautiful in Europe.”

However, his real masterwork was renting the Eiffel Tower in 1925 and having the Citroen brand name emblazoned with in 125,000 incandescent lights. The sign remained in place until the company went bankrupt in 1934, partly because of the incredibly high electricity bills.  (The first act of the new owners was to flip the off switch.)

The lesson here: no matter how brilliant the marketing, it’s got to pay for itself somehow.

Conrad Gessner, Inventor of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing consists of creating a trend that carries along by word of mouth, creating demand for a product that previously wasn’t on anybody’s radar screen.

People tend to think of it as an Internet phenomenon, but it’s actually far older.  Some scholars believe it began way back in 1559, when the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner waxed lyrical about the beauties of the tulip — a flower then not well known in Europe.

His remarks eventually spawned (in 1634… thing move a bit slower without the Web) what’s now known as “Tulipmania.”  During the craze, some bulbs sold for the contemporary equivalent of several million dollars.

One tulip fancier actually murdered his manservant for eating a particularly prized bulb, believing it to be an onion.

Now, that’s brand loyalty with a vengeance!

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Geoffrey James

Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men’s Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO and The New York Times. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite and The Tao of Programming.

Selling to Top Execs: 10 Easy Rules

Geoffrey James

Here is an article written by Geoffrey James for BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

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Sales professionals want to “call high”, but often they’re confused about what to do or say when they finally get a meeting with a bigwig.

Fortunately, it’s not all that complicated, if you follow ten easy rules.

[Here are five. To read the complete article, please click here.]

RULE #1: Do your homework. Prior to the meeting, research the exec’s “business agenda” and try to ascertain his or her “personal agenda” as well. You’ll want to address both during your first meeting.

RULE #2: Don’t assume context. While the meeting is a huge deal to you, it’s probably not for the exec.  Don’t assume he knows why you’re there.  Introduce yourself. Explain the meeting’s purpose.

RULE #3: Get to business. Executives are busy folk. Don’t try to schmooze or talk about sports unless the exec initiates the conversation.

RULE #4: Prove your value. Within the first few minutes, demonstrate you have done your homework and understand the company, its challenges and its place in the industry.

RULE #5: Focus on business issues. Make the conversation about how you can help the exec achieve the two agendas (see Rule #1).   Do not attempt to wow an exec with “bells and whistles.”  It won’t work.

The above is based on a conversation with Dr. Steve Bistritz and Nicholas A.C. Read, authors of the bestselling book Selling to the C-Suite.  They interviewed several hundred executives and figured out what they wanted from the sales professionals who call on them.

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Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men’s Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO, The New York Times and (of course) BNET. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (translated into seven languages and selected by four book clubs), and The Tao of Programming (widely quoted on the Web as a “canonical book of computer humor”.) He was also co-host of Funny Business, a program on New England’s largest all-talk radio station.

The 5 Dumbest Management Concepts of All Time

Geoffrey James

Here is an article written by Geoffrey James for BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

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It’s a truism that “nothing is certain in this world except death, taxes and bad management.”  But why?  Why does bad management remain so pervasive, even after decades of MBA courses, millions of management books, and billions spent on management training?

The root of the problem lies in five basic management concepts that became popular in the 20th century and continue to propagate stupidity.  As long as the business world kowtows to these obsolete management concepts, we’ll be plagued by managers who screw up.

Some of these concepts are dearly held panaceas for much of the business world.  Even so, they were ill-considered and ill-conceived from the start, and should be jettisoned for the good of everybody.

[Here are the first two. To read the complete article, please click here.]

Dumb Concept #1: “Downsizing”

Thousands upon thousands of articles in the mainstream business press characterize CEOs as “courageous” because they instituted a downsizing.  Apparently, the decision to fire people is so difficult, that the CEO who takes that path must be a brave and lonely soul.  He’s putting the interests of the investors ahead of his own kindhearted inclinations, and making the difficult decisions that will allow the company to remain profitable.

But, wait a minute, Chester!  How, exactly, did the company get into a situation where it needed to fire people in order to remain competitive? Sure, markets change like crazy in today’s world and business conditions become challenging.  But isn’t it the job of the CEO and the management team to predict those changes, and to staff the company appropriately, and retrain people, so that those challenges can be addressed?

Here’s the truth.  Downsizing is a sign of failure.  It means that management has failed and rather than doing the right thing — which is to quit without severance — they’re passing along the penalty for that failure to the people who, in good faith, tried to execute the flawed strategy that top management pursued.

That’s why top managers (and the kiss-butt journalists in the mainstream business press) love the word “downsizing.”  It makes the results of failure sound like a strategy, rather than a desperate way to remain profitable after top management has made a complete pig’s breakfast of thing.

So, as we go forward, let’s stop calling it downsizing.  Let’s call it what it is: firing productive workers because top management  was a bunch of overpaid pinhead losers who shouldn’t be allowed to run a company again.

Dumb Concept #2: “Leadership”

A few years before he died, Peter Drucker was interviewed on NPR.  In that interview, he pointed out what should be obvious to everyone — that all this talk about “leadership” is a bunch of horse manure.

Yeah, yeah, the idea of leadership sounds neat — especially if you’re in management — and it makes a manager sound all charismatic and exciting.

But what is a “leader,” anyway?   What does a “leader” do?

I can’t hear the term without thinking of the leader of a marching band.  That’s the person who takes a big stick and makes it go up and down, while the band does the work of actually making the music.

One reason I think of that image is that, in my experience, most of the time the “leader” of the team is the person who found a parade and then got out in front of it.  (I once heard an executive in Fortune 50 company describe that odious behavior as “smart business practice.”)

The concept of a “leader” means that credit for what the team does goes to the leader.  And you see it every day, in the bloated salaries paid to “business leaders” and in the ridiculous way that some CEOs parade themselves as if they were rock stars.

You see it in the lower levels, too, where managers bloviate about leadership and “inspiring” people, when in fact they’re usually just making everyone under them want to puke.

What Drucker said — and I agree with him — is that the business world doesn’t need leaders. It needs managers — people who can actually manage a team of people.

Being a manager means being in service to the team.  It means giving the team credit and making everyone else successful.

So, as we go forward, let’s stop enabling all these tin-pot “leaders” by pretending that they’re doing anything other than grandstanding.  Let’s value the real managers, who actually do the hard (and largely thankless) work of making other people productive.

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Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men’s Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO, The New York Times and (of course) BNET. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (translated into seven languages and selected by four book clubs), and The Tao of Programming (widely quoted on the Web as a “canonical book of computer humor”.) He was also co-host of Funny Business.

How To Find the REAL Decision-Maker

Geoffrey James

Here is an introduction and link to an article written by Geoffrey James for BNET, The CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the BNET newsletters, please click here.

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Corporations have complex power structures.  It’s not always clear who makes the decisions, and how they get made.  In many firms, even middle management isn’t sure exactly how decision are made, which presents a huge challenge for a sales professional.

If you’re developing a complex deal that involves something new (a new type of automation process for instance), it can be difficult to identify the exact senior executive who should be heavily involved evaluating, deciding or approving the decision.

Most sales professionals wrongly believe that the decision-maker is the person who has final sign-off.  But that’s actually naive.  The real decision-maker is going to be the person who will care enough to put your project into motion and who has enough influence to make sure that the purchase actually goes through.

This REAL decision-maker will have direct involvement, influence and vested interest in a venture’s successful outcome, plus sufficient rank and power to affect the results.

To find this holy grail of B2B selling, simply research the firm (on the Web and through interviews) to discover the person with the following six characteristics:

1.    A job title that is relevant to the area that your offering addresses.
2.    A position on the org chart that is relevant to the area your offering addresses.
3.    A history of being a successful leader within the organization, implementing similar projects.
4.    A reputation among other executives in the firm as a genuine contributor to the firm.
5.    A reputation for being closely bound to others in the organization “by mutual advantage.”
6.    Sufficient influence to control company events and activities and to alter the firm’s status quo.

The individual who has all those characteristics is the REAL decision-maker for your offering.  This is the person whom you must contact, cultivate and work with to make sure that your offering actually gets purchased.

The above is based upon a conversation with Dr. Steve Bistritz and Nicholas A.C. Read, authors of the HUGE bestseller Selling to the C-Suite.

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Geoffrey James has sold and written hundreds of features, articles and columns for national publications including Wired, Men’s Health, Business 2.0, SellingPower, Brand World, Computer Gaming World, CIO, The New York Times and (of course) BNET. He is the author of seven books, including Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (translated into seven languages and selected by four book clubs), and The Tao of Programming (widely quoted on the Web as a “canonical book of computer humor”.) He was also co-host of Funny Business, a program on New England’s largest all-talk radio station.