What Everybody Knows is Mostly Wrong

The reality of this statement can be seen, observed and proven all around us.

What everybody knows is mostly wrong because people make one or more erroneous assumption and then like a herd everyone buys in without questioning the assumption.

Take one look at the current airline crisis – the Jet Airways Pilot strike and it becomes clear.

All the other airlines are collectively, wholly and astoundingly acting stupid. Jet is virtually shut down for lets say five days or so. Here is an opportunity for other airlines – What do the smart brains who quickly huddle into the boardroom on hearing the news do? They identify an opportunity, discuss and arrive at a decision that at this struggling time, here is an opportunity to capture some 15cr of revenue – not just that – also hike prices and make the best of these five days – its festive season, why not?

Can you see the shortsightedness? In reality here is an opportunity to acquire market share. Thousands of Jet customers are troubled. Not one airline thought about the ‘basic fact’ on which their entire business depends upon – the customer. Not one airline thought that lets think in the interest of the customer.

The real opportunity is in acquiring the loyal Jet customers who are now frustrated and disgusted with the whole think. Imagine the impact that could have been made if someone though clearly and challenged the assumption to make a quick buck. Imagine if one of the airlines (say a Kingfisher or Air India) was to release a simple two line message like – “We understand your frustration. We respect you and want to extend you, your right to travel with ease. We offer you unconditionally ‘the same’ membership status that you enjoy with Jet. We want to serve you long term. We are not raising prices like other disrespectful airlines. We respect you and furthermore if you shift your membership to us, we are reducing the fares by 5% till the pilot strike is called off.”

Don’t you think that they would have at least acquired a 5% shift in share for a long term and gained instant reputation as a customer-focused airline. Their managements certainly didn’t think so, but then, what many people know is mostly wrong!!

The Tylenol Case

Back in 1982 someone laced a popular over-the-counter drug with Cyanide. A few who bought the drug died. There was an instant national panic in USA. So much so that people who had taken the drug in last month even started suspecting that they had been poisoned. There was complete chaos and hysteria.  The newspapers did their job in fuelling it further. Tylenol was overnight now synonymous with poison.

At the time this was a thirty year old brand. The brand owner Johnson and Johnson launched a recall and stopped all sales. Virtually everyone they consulted with or hired predicted the demise of the brand. One well known advertising guru wrote in The New York Times, “I don’t think they can ever sell another product under that name. There may be an advertising person who thinks he can solve the crisis and if they find him, I want to hire him to turn our water cooler into a wine cooler.”

The  Wall Street Journal commented that the product was DEAD, any other notion was an executives pipedream. A survey of “the man on the street” found that not one person would buy the product regardless of what the company did to guarantee safety.

Despite what everyone knew, Johnson & Johnson retained the product Tylenol and now its very famous brand name. They didn’t heed in to any suggestions of experts of launching it under a different name. They launched one of the most effective public relations campaigns. Sales began to climb after a few months and before a year Tylenol captured its position back of 35% market share as number one analgesic in a two billion dollar market.

The case is studied in business schools for an example of an excellent public relation campaign. However the basis for all of this is that the executives at Johnson & Johnson, knowingly or not decided that “What everyone knows is mostly wrong.”

Examine how decisions are made in your board room. Someone thinks of an idea. Places a suggestion. The CEO seconds it. So one or two more do. The one odd person who has a counter probably gives-in to the majority in no time. The majority wins by consensus. What everybody thought gets implemented with complete harmony and agreement. Collective dumbness like a target of some millions in an pilot strike crises prevails!!

The process is no different in families, in decisions therein. Think back… think the key decisions… Think, reflect, see, REALIZE….

You can almost take it as a thumb-rule that if without disagreements, you or your team or your family is reaching a consensus -  you are about to take a stupid decision.

Another example of this is the Peter Principle. In 1968 Dr. Lawrence J. Peter, a professor at University of California, wrote a bestseller called ‘Peter Principle’.. The concept is “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Thus being incompetent they would be promoted no further in terms of job responsibility. Basically as it exists in most organizations, an employee joins and then gets promoted and goes on in that manner till he reaches his level of incompetence, beyond which he can’t be promoted further. Obviously it almost impossible to return the employee to his previous position. Thus Peter’s thesis concluded that the danger is that many organizations have their top managements filled with people who are there because they were good in previous positions but incompetent for the current one. The suggestion Dr. Peter gave was that since one cannot demote them, one has to research if this was true in your organization – if so, take corrective action by may be getting rid of them. It found and to this day finds resonance with many organizations. The consulting companies would even carry out a detailed statistical Peter analysis if you wish and prove it.

I cannot tell how disgusted I was to read this book. Its appalling. Its almost unbelievable to me that people actually implement this. The concept has many downsides. Number on that the solution to ‘incompetence’ is dismissal. Even before that what concerns me most is the assumption that failure is due to incompetence.

There is a true story that Thomas Watson, founder of IBM once asked to see a newly promoted vice-president who failed in his first assignment and cost the company a million dollars. The young man reported to the chief ready for the worst. “I guess you called me in to fire me,” he said on entering Watson’s office.

“Fire you!” Watson said, “We just spent one million dollars as a part of your education.”

Organizations that knowingly or unknowingly apply Peter Principle and I know many who do, puts it’s manager into a unconscious process of ‘zero failure’. No mistakes might happen and neither might development.  The Peter principle doesn’t even leave room for hope. Imbibed in this theory is an assumption that if a manger is incompetent for one job, he or she wouldn’t function better in another. It assumes a person cannot rebound. Both assumptions are an error and yet further proof that ‘What many people know is mostly wrong’

A man who didn’t believe in Peter: Winston Churchill reached his level of incompetence as First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I, during which he convinced the British Cabinet to undertake the biggest Allied disaster resulting in the worst Allied defeat with 200,000 casualties and followed by his forced resignation from the job. Yet, the same man with much higher responsibilities as the Prime Minister during World War II saved England and possibly the world when for a year the British stood alone against Hitler. This “incompetent” is considered the greatest British political figure of the 20^th century.

One can go on about these examples and cases, they are everywhere. However, please look in to the past, present and future, professionally and personally – What things have you done, or continue to do because everyone thinks that it was the right thing to do? In hindsight is it really right? If not, how will you abandon it?

We are all in the business of either being part of or creating organizations. Our collective thoughts, actions and decisions determine the character or our organizations.

Does this organization exist?

Can you think of an organization which has ALL of the following characters.

-       The workers work very hard physically, including weekends if needed, with no complaint.

-       The workers are happy with whatever compensation they get for the job. The job itself is a compensation for most.

-       The work is dangerous and workers are frequently injured on the job.

-       The workers usually have a very high morale.

-       The organization always has more workers than can be employed.

-       The workers are highly motivated to achieve organization’s goals.

Can you think of the answer? Not many can. It’s your high school football team? Yes it is.

You might say, “hey that’s not work, football is play.” Exactly right. That’s part of the secret to engaging workers, you need to convert work into a volunteering game.

The point am trying to make is this – High School Football Team knows how to unite people into a dream. Everyone becomes part and everyone becomes glorified if the dream were to come true. They all will share the success almost equally. They will all have opportunities in success. The high school soccer team also runs within a budget and time constraint. They too operate with infighting, jealousies and bickering. They probably face more disappointments and fiercer competition. However the high school team manages an organization described above!!! They do it because the Students yet, DON’T KNOW WHAT EVERYBODY KNOWS. They haven’t been to management schools or exposed to ‘our’ concepts of an organization.

All of us have in some form been a part of such an organization in school, whether sports or otherwise. We ran it very well with great passion. Unfortunately, then, over time, we started believing in what everybody knows. We co-create organizations, cultures, families, societies, countries – no matter which family, company, society you investigate – we find same kind of people issues, management issues, leadership issues, market issues – Why? Obviously because we start to operate in a framework that is generally perceived to be right by all.

But how many organizations live to see the future they hoped for? Not that organization created in this manner aren’t successful, they are. Though the concept of success and it’s definition again is something that everybody thinks it should be. How then will we ever see what truly the highest level of success, a breakthrough could be?

What Everybody Knows is Mostly Wrong, be it the perception of what success is or the process to get there. It’s a safe way to operate though and why not? It would seem stupid to question collective wisdom, even though being a part of that greater stupidity is not considered stupid. Again that’s what everybody knows…..

However, eventually, collective wisdom will only lead to destruction. Examine the history, the organization, societies, countries, cultures destroyed. Examine the present and look into the future, we collectively with all our wisdom coming together will repeat the history!!!

yours,

Chetan Walia