If It Smells Rotten It Probably Is
by Miki Saxon
You’ve heard of Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” but the item in the article that grabbed me was a quote from another article by Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker article that “quoted scientists and dance experts analyzing how Mr. Millan’s bearing instills confidence. The conclusion: his fluid movement communicates authenticity better than words could.”
Sadly, the authenticity conveyed by the fluid movements of Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff and a host of recent “leaders” proves that authenticity isn’t always the best yardstick.
People are much like dogs, although the words used to describe their reactions are different.
We talk about dogs and other animals ‘sensing’ things; we accept that children have a kind of built-in radar that makes them pull away from fakes and evil-doers.
Adults insist on giving benefit-of-doubt to either their thinking or their gut, which means they frequently get burned.
I’m not saying that we should ignore the rational thinking in favor or instincts or vice versa; rather we should tune in to both equally and include them in our evaluation.
If there is anything we should learn from the people who brought us to the current economic point, it is that our judgment needs to encompass all the data we can accumulate and that we should ruthlessly strip out any assumptions.
We’ve always been told that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck, but these days it may be a hunter with a great robotic decoy.
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Image credit: Mark Watson (kalimistuk) on flickr
