Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This influential non-fiction book explores the power of snap judgments and rapid decision-making. Gladwell argues that some of the best decisions are made in an instant, based on intuition and limited information, rather than prolonged analysis. The book is filled with real-life stories where quick thinking leads to effective outcomes, capturing the American preference for speed over perfection.
Knowledge Is Power, But Not In The Way You Think
She was that person everyone liked, but no one could work with. Eventually, she was fired. Her biggest issue was that she was a hoarder—of knowledge. Jenny (not her real name) thought knowledge was power and while she was smart about creating it, she never wanted to share it.
Jenny was right. Knowledge is power. But she was wrong about what do to with it. Actually, knowledge can change the world—or the company—but only when it is shared, and shared in the right ways.
Information density describes a situation where many people in a company know many important things. They know them in the moment—in real-time when it counts most to inform their decision making. The information-dense company is one in which people are informed and in which there is a level of radical transparency.
Don’t hoard information
Is it just poor workflow or is it willful information hoarding! A good friend emailed me recently about the concept of information hoarding at work. I write and speak extensively about individuals who sabotage coworker performance and productivity at work.
The act of withholding information is a common tactic used by difficult and uncooperative employees. This article outlines examples of information and power hoarding, both aimed at maintaining the offending employee’s informal power at work.
Making collaboration across functions a reality
Fast-changing global markets put a premium on simplifying processes radically and breaking through silos.
Companies have long struggled to break down silos and boost cross-functional collaboration—but the challenge is getting more acute. The speed of market change requires a more rapid adaptation of products and services, while customers increasingly expect an organization to present them with a single face.
Even well-established multinationals routinely fail to manage operations end to end. The result: interactions with customers are sluggish; complex, customized products are hard to create on time and on budget; and blocked lines of communication make new sales and distribution channels difficult to navigate.
The basic principles for improving performance—imposing stretch targets from the center, empowering cross-functional teams, standardizing processes, tightening up execution—are mostly familiar. But making these things happen is a different matter. In many companies, ownership of processes and information is fragmented and zealously guarded, roles are designed around parochial requirements, and the resulting internal complexity hinders sorely needed cross-business collaboration.
What’s more, in our experience, companies that apply traditional solutions (such as lean and business-process reengineering) either exhaust their managers with efforts to rework every process across business units or, by contrast, focus too narrowly within functions.
Our observations of 25 companies in a wide range of industries in Europe, Asia, and North America have led us to conclude that perspiration is as important as inspiration in addressing these challenges.
Here’s the story of how two companies launched new approaches successfully. One needed to focus narrowly to fix a critical process that compromised its core business. The other, swamped by the complexity of its processes, required a broad-based transformation.
comprehensive
Comprehensive: covering completely or broadly. First known use 1614. Synonyms: all-embracing, all-inclusive, broad-gauge, compendious, complete, encyclopedic, cover-all, cyclopedic, embracive, exhaustive, full, global, inclusive, in-depth, omnibus, panoramic, thorough, universal. Antonyms: imperfect, incomplete, partial.
Intuition
Intuition. Latin intuitio: immediate understanding, recognition, seeing; to understand a situation, problem, dilemma immediately and without discussion or reflection. “Dein Verlangen nach Intuition blockiert den natürlichen Fluss der Wahrnehmung.” Your desire to be intuitive blocks the natural flow of perception. (Irina Rauthmann, German writer)
“Intuition, sprunghafte Einsicht, deren Schritte nachzuholen sind.” Intuition, sudden and erratic understanding whose steps need to be retaken. (Dr. phil. Manfred Hinrich, German philosopher, professor, journalist, author of childrens books)
“Intuition ist der natürliche Gegenpol zur Konzentration – nutzen sollte man beides, jedes zu seiner Zeit.” Intuition is the natural opposite of concentration. Both should be used, but at the right time. (Rüdiger Keßler, German philosopher)
“Intuition ist Intelligenz mit überhöhter Geschwindigkeit.” Intuition is high speed intelligence. Unknown.
Check with Colleagues and Manager
Agreements of substance and importance have effects, ramifications, influence on the work of others. And since Americans work in teams, many of them in several teams at any given time, they are not inclined to enter fully into an agreement until they have checked out what those effects might be.
Why invest additional time discussing the details of a potential agreement, if one or two aspects of it are counter to their other responsibilities? Instead, Americans will check with key colleagues in those organizations potentially influenced by the agreement. In many cases, they will also briefly discuss the case with their direct manager.
This approach is often mistakenly interpreted as a sign that many Americans are either incapable or unwilling to make decisions on their own, without having to run to their boss for permission.
American team leads ultimately carry all responsibility for what occurs within their organization, and are therefore keenly interested in what obligations their team members make in their – the team leader’s – names.
Disaggregate
Disaggregate: to separate into component parts; to break up or apart. Americans not only aggregate, they also disaggregate.
A manager has a spontaneous idea, calls a meeting with more than a handful of experts to discuss it, then just as quickly disbands it noting that she and they should continue thinking about it. A corporate-internal project, generously funded at first, but which does not produce the initial results expected, has the “plugged pulled” on it quickly.
When low earnings over three straight quarters has investors grumbling, executive management reacts quickly with corrective action: close plants, layoff workers, hire a consulting firm to recommend a cost-cutting program.
At least until the end of the Second World War, the United States maintained a modest standing army, forcing it during war to ‘ramp up’ as rapidly as possible, only to then after the war demobilize just as rapidly.
Aggregate. Disaggregate. Quickly. It’s how Americans utilize resources.
Scope Creep
Scope creep is when a task or project grows beyond its original intent, requiring more people, time and money than originally planned. It is typically a result of poor task definition, change control or internal communication. A precisely defined decision limits scope creep.
Scope: The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant; the opportunity or possibility to do or deal with something.
Creep: To move slowly and carefully, especially in order to avoid being heard or noticed; moving very slowly at a steady pace; occur or develop gradually and almost imperceptibly; increase slowly but steadily in number or amount. Old English crēopan, meaning to “move with the body close to the ground”. Of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kruipen.
According to Economic Recovery Measures, Financial Rescues Have Only Temporary Impact by Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Bush-era tax cuts and its extension during the Obama presidency, in addition to the deficit-financed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, account for “almost half of the $18 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019.” Deficit-creep.
English Composition
Americans learn as early as in grammar school to break down complexity. They are taught in English Composition to formulate short, simple and clear sentences ordered in a logical sequence. Good composition avoids sentences with complex grammatical twists and turns. Simplicity and clarity are the goals.
Complexity: The state of quality of being intricate or complicated; a factor involved in a complicated process of situation.
Grammatical twists and turns: Convoluted structures in the English language that often obscure meaning for the reader:
“Although the blue whale has been protected for over thirty years and its numbers are increasing, especially in the North Pacific, where whale hunting has been banned, it is still at risk of extinction as its habitat is being polluted by waste from oil tankers and its main food, the plankton, is being killed off by harmful rays from the sun, which can penetrate the earth’s atmosphere because there is a huge whole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.”
Ernest Hemingway, considered to be one of America’s greatest writers, shied away from convolution in grammar and style. He never used big words or complicated sentences, yet he succeeded in painting vivid images. Overly sophisticated does not necessarily equate to good writing.