Evolution Of Business: We Care Too Much
by Richard Barrett
Now let’s tackle some truly challenging differences between evolutionary variation and our business process for generating variations.
Last week we said, Evolution does not care about an individual organism and it does not even care about an individual species. In contrast, we care which particular variations fail and we care passionately about the success of our business. It’s not just business, it’s personal. Quite simply, this difference is insurmountable.
Prejudice makes your world go down
On the surface it seems outrageous to propose that our desire to succeed actually is one source of our failures, but the evolutionary model points in that direction. We cannot eliminate our preferences, but perhaps we can understand the impact of our preferences.
Note the polite reference to our preferences, when the more accurate word is bias or even prejudice.
Literally, a prejudice is a pre-judgment. While judgment is good and even necessary, pre-judgment, that is judgment before the data is available, is not good.
By understanding our prejudices, perhaps we can reduce the negative impact of those prejudices.
As business leaders we like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, dispassionately weighing the facts and evidence, then rendering a judgment—like Solomon—upon the wisdom of any particular issue at hand.
Our self-image depends heavily upon this viewpoint, because it supports and justifies the many decisions we must make every day, usually with insufficient time and almost always with inadequate information to make the decision.
Many external factors affect our ability to make decisions, most of which are beyond our control. For instance, air temperature has a measurable effect on our attitude, so much so that we refer to a person as cold or warm. In a warm room our decisions tend to be more expansive and more generous. Lower the temperature a few degrees and we become colder, more calculating and stingy. Blood sugar level has a similar impact, with lower blood sugar correlated to cautious behaviors and higher blood sugar levels correlated to increased risk-taking.
No doubt you have experienced these variations in your own work. In the morning, after coming into the office from a cold commute and then drinking a cup of coffee, your actions may be just a little quicker, a little more cautious, a little less expansive and open. In the afternoon after lunch, you may be a little more relaxed in a meeting, a little more agreeable and willing to consider an unusual idea.
Also we are affected by internal chemicals such as testosterone, adrenalin, and endorphins. Testosterone, the ultimate male chemical, is correlated with feelings of power and control. Any perceived victory or accomplishment will tend to raise testosterone levels. In stressful situations our bodies release adrenalin, which triggers the well-known “fight-or-flight” responses. Endorphins tend to produce feelings of peace, and euphoria. Exercise typically increases endorphin levels, which leads to the feeling of relaxation and peace after a good work-out. We can change our levels of each of these chemicals by physical activities and also just by our own thoughts.
Outside the chemical and physical realms, our own brains tend to betray us. Tests demonstrate that our estimate of our own knowledge affects our decision making, even when our knowledge is wrong. As Will Rogers said, “It isn’t what a fellow knows that does him any harm. It’s what he knows that isn’t so.”
In today’s business, where change is so rapid, much of our knowledge is outdated, if not plain wrong. Small, subtle differences can have significant impact on the outcomes. Our ability to spot those subtle differences is limited to areas where we have very deep, very current knowledge. Technology and business change so rapidly that it is almost impossible to stay current across a broad range.
Finally, in business we work under short time frames, with incomplete information, and we care passionately about the outcome. Guessing what our customers will want tomorrow is particularly hazardous to our business health. Truly we don’t have knowledge so much as prejudices, opinions and hunches. As Alcoholics Anonymous states, “The first step is admitting I have a problem.” So let’s confess together, “I am addicted to my prejudices.”
Prejudicial Checkup
- You just admitted you have prejudices. What are a few of your favorite prejudices? Name at least five.
- What external events or situations trigger your prejudices?
- What internal signals indicate that you are replaying an old, familiar prejudice?
- What internal images do you see, what words or voices do you hear internally when a situation triggers one of your prejudices?
- How can you interrupt your internal cycle of prejudicial thoughts? Perhaps you can stand up, count to ten, take a few deep breaths, or stretch.
- How can you protect your development teams and processes from your internal prejudices?
Nurturing New Variations—especially the ones we do not like
With this fresh understanding of our own prejudices firmly in mind let’s return to the first problem that limits our ability to produce variations – killing off new ideas too soon.
Knowing that our prejudices will inevitably lead us to kill off certain types of new ideas too soon, how can we design an environment within our business that protects them from our “best” instincts?
To thrive, new ideas need
- a champion;
- some time to grow;
- a few resources; and
- early exposure to testing by customers.
How do you provide these resources to your teams? It is not your job to nurture every new idea, but it is your job to provide the resources and patiently observe which ones grow. Most new ideas will eventually die, but a few unlikely ones will thrive, just like weeds.
How to move projects along
- Reinforcement from customers is extremely powerful—a few encouraging words from a customer can overcome almost any prejudice;
- set up small tests to demonstrate and validate critical elements early in the process;
- drive your development teams to put every new product in front of customers very quickly, much earlier than the development team believes it will be ready;
- full functionality of a few subsystems is much better than 90% functionality of the whole system; and
- remind your teams to fail fast, fail often, and fail small.
Checkup for Nurturing New Variations
- How do you encourage and support champions?
- How do you protect champions and new ideas from your own prejudices?
- How do you provide just enough resources to allow new ideas to grow?
- How do you expose new ideas to the testing of the marketplace? How quickly?
- How do you keep yourself out of the role of premature judge?
Next week join me to learn how our prejudices feed the vampires that suck the life out of our business—and what to do about it.
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