“This was the best experience of my professional career: the program you designed kept external interventions to the minimum and allowed us to share our own experiences, learn together and from each other. We now feel that our future does not depend from consultants but is entirely in our hands!” This was one of the most moving feedback we received in our career this week when my partners Tritia Neeb, Ben Clayton-Jolly, Michael Newman and I ran a “Leadership in action” development program with one of our most cherished client.

Inversely, one of our other partners still vividly remembers the Management Conference he recently witnessed; The purpose was to engage the top 300 leaders of the organization and the management team had heavily invested in it: 5 stars hotel, top external speakers (paid a fortune), the “big guys” flying on the compound by helicopter to provide a feeling of power and success to the rest, a rather generous take-away gift under the form of Ipads… If that wasn’t an obvious willingness to engage and celebrate, what else could it be?

It was a disaster… The whole style of the conference went a bit like on the short clip here below where a new leader (Rolo Lee/John Cleese), in charge of a new strategy has been parachuted to engage the whole organization… The  meeting switches people’s energy into passive consumption then silent and disengaged obedience.

Very different are some of the sessions we recently were invited to, in several parts of the world, by different clients. The executive teams had chosen much simpler (and cheaper) residential areas but with a strong informal style and intimacy conducive atmosphere and service.

Leaders were clear about what was non negotiable and presented it in a didactical style (explaining how and why they had come to such conclusions) and invited rapidly their people to join them in co-creating clarity, meaning and ownership about how the new strategy, organization or culture would be implemented. Leaders were not “broadcasting” but constructing, they were connectors rather than directors (as Gerd Leonhard would say).

They were no prestigious speakers: their time was allocated to engage people into talking to each other and get to know each other better.

When observing those conferences where openness and transparency were truly lived, I can’t prevent myself from thinking to the arrogance of a  Personal Assistant, a few years ago, intruding into our debate with her boss (who rapidly agreed with her): we were trying to encourage them to open up, build bridges with their people, show intimacy and approachability while engaging them into owning the strategy. In a shock, she replied: “Strategy is too important to be shared with employees…” There you are, this company is history today…

On my way to Zürich… Have a great week all and a good holiday for those of you taking some!
Didier

“Para descer, todo Santo ajuda” (to go down all the Saints are helpful) say the pragmatic people of the Brazilian state of Bahia (where my wonderful wife comes from).

A recent event brought this old saying back to the surface: the Fundação Dom Cabral (www.fdc.org.br) for whom I design and deliver tailored programs a week/month in Brazil, has just announced at the occasion of its yearly gathering of Brazilian C.E.O.’s that it had broken into the Financial Times 2010 ranking of the world’s top 10 best Executive Education institutions (ranking 6^th, 8^th and 9^th in diverse sub-rankings). One may imagine the sense of achievement and pride which animated the CEO’s and people of the Foundation as it reached this appreciable level in just 4 years of presence into the top 100.

My mail of highly deserved praise and congratulations to the three “founding fathers”, who led us there, was nevertheless accompanied by a word of caveat:

Some years ago, I was supporting the large meeting of 200 executives in a famous global firm. For years, it had been trailing the market leader, being a solid number two. By the end of the day, the rumor spread like a virus: “We are number one!!!” All of the sudden the large room felt like being in Rio de Janeiro in 2014, should Brazil win the World Cup there: people laughed, broke into tears, hugged each other and champaign started to flow…

But in the middle of this “alegria”, the relative quiet and forced smile of one of the very senior leaders were a stark contrast with the general mood. Concerned he might have received a personal bad news, I sat with him.

“Didier, now the hardest bit starts. It is relatively difficult to get to the top and so easy to fall. Maintaining ourselves here will be the toughest part. Have you ever heard about fear of failure? This is what will soon take over. We got here through a very strong, emotional and shared sense of Purpose. Passion, experimentation, “Fail Fast”, seek forgiveness rather than permission, exploration and risk taking are the rule now. Tomorrow, I fear that very well intentioned people will start to want to freeze the image on this success. Procedures, rules, roles, prohibitions and obligations will start to creep-in. We will drift, little by little, from a fantastically energetic and organic firm into a stratified, pyramidal, silo driven, political and fear-driven organization”.

In other terms, success, far from “growing wings”, would open an era of immobilism, loss of purpose and cultural change, all driven unconsciously by a hidden but very active fear of failing, fear of loosing what had been so painfully conquered.

To my question of “So how should we avoid this?”, he replied “We must understand that the reason for our success was into this passionately entrepreneurial culture and continue to nurture it. As senior leaders, we must resist the temptation of becoming defensive. We must continue to move fast and in unpredictable ways for our competitors. We must keep them on the defense and not hand them the battlefield over. Our style of leadership needs to stay humble and connected”.

I felt reassured by his words. Sadly, a few months later, I heard he had left the company and his sad prediction soon materialized, illustrated since by the innumerous reorganizations which characterize enterprises having lost their sense of Purpose.

Romans had this wise quote: “The Capitol (where the nation’s heroes were acclaimed) is not far from the Tarpean Cliff” (where from the traitors were thrown to their deaths).

Seeing the open minded, feedback welcoming reaction of our three wise men, I am reassured about the future of the Fundação Dom Cabral. It will not betray its roots, values and Purpose and intends to continue to nurture what got it there.

Paris, Madrid and Toulouse will be my dropping points this week. Thank you all for continuing to share and spread the word about this blog. The most encouraging feedback I can get from someone acting at your level of responsibility is when you take the personal risk of recommending it to other executives. Have a great week!

Didier

I love this quote from Richard Pascale and am sometimes sadly reminded of it when my partners and I or even a respected client are unable to  break the boundaries from our self-created, self-limiting “mental prisons”.

It is so exasperating when we find ourselves turning in circles (Marcial Losada’s fixed attractor?), drifting into projecting more of the past into the future than daring to dream from a white sheet of paper. Yes, one of the very strengths of mankind is its capacity to “modelize” the world which surrounds us, through language and subsequent conceptualization. This may however become our mental prison: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” Ludwig Wittgenstein used to say…

The amazing experiment here below provides an extraordinary example of what happens when “It is the framework which changes and not the picture in the frame” as Marshall McLuhan[1] (frequently quoted by Gerd Leonhard) explained. Joshua Bell is one of the world’s most admired violinists. However, in the present video, despite of playing with his original Stradivarius worth 3.5 million US$, Joshua will hardly earn 32.17 US$ in 47 minutes.

The “mental model” of the people rushing to work in a January 2007 cold early morning in Washington is understandably not programmed nor prepared for an encounter with talent and virtuosity in such an unusual location. Just like our brain doesn’t immediately register white letters on a black background (we have been used to the reverse for so long), it doesn’t register such an unique opportunity when all we have been used to see that early in a metro station are poor musicians begging for a bit of our time, respect and charity in return for their art.

Seth Godin, in a recent post[2] wrote:

“Where do you find good ideas? Do you often find ideas that change everything in a windowless conference room, with bottled water on the side table and a circle of critics and skeptics wearing suits looking at you as the clock ticks down to the 60 minutes allocated for this meeting?

If not, then why do you keep looking for them there?

The best ideas come out of the corner of our eye, the edge of our consciousness, in a flash. They are the result of misdirection and random collisions, not a grinding corporate onslaught. And yet we waste billions of dollars in time looking for them where they’re not.

A practical tip: buy a big box of real wooden blocks. Write a key factor/asset/strategy on each block in big letters. Play with the blocks. Build concrete things out of non-concrete concepts. Uninvite the devil’s advocate, since the devil doesn’t need one, he’s doing fine…”

When we want to engage our people into a creative “out of the box thinking” exercise, it is important that we start by helping them “unlearn” and be aware of the hidden or implicit assumptions which drive and sometimes limit their thinking.

Back from Singapore, in transit in Doha, a bit “time zone challenged”, on my way to Paris, Clermont and Rome. At least I’ll stay on the same continent this time. Have a great week all.

Didier

[2]http://www.feedblitz.com/t2.asp?/198516/21318247/3834264/http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/HibUFPB9HsY/where-do-you-find-good-ideas.html

Last week’s post on “Leadership as a process” has generated a lot of discussions via direct e.mails (it must be thanks to the football clip…)

I thought useful to summarize and report conversations held with two CEO’s whose challenges were around:

• Is “leadership as a process” another way to encourage conformism and obedience?

• What do I do when my potential successor is very bright but maybe a bit too much of an individual star?

Edson Arantes Nascimento (Pelé) and the Brazilian wonderteam of 1970 you see playing here below are still considered, forty years after their last World Cup, as the best football player and team of all times. For the pleasure, I encourage you to watch this short clip (summary of the final of the Mexico 1970 World Cup) and see the blend of personal skills but also of generosity and altruism of Pelé (who scored one goal and was pivotal into two of the three others).

But Pelé, however extraordinarily talented he was, will be remembered for long not just because of his individual prowess but far more because he was a generous and altruistic player. The difference between him and other very remarkable footballers is that he was unconditionally putting his talent at the service of the team: the cause of the Brazilian or Santos teams was more important than the man to him!

When discussing, a while ago with a CEO about his successor, we rapidly realized that his discomfort, coming from his intuition, was that the man potentially called to replace him someday “was in it for himself”. His own interest was first, way before the collective success. The successor was more on an egocentric journey than on an altruistic and generous “Serve to Lead” one, as his the motto of UK’s famous Sandhurst military school. So, choose your leaders not just for their talent but for the way they make their team flourish by forgetting their ego and serving the company’s Purpose.

Going now to point No1, “Is leadership as a process a way to encourage conformism and obedience?”, I would refer back to the Brazilian national team and the very delicate tightrope its coaches are trying to walk. Looking at the four-yearly World Cups, it seems that the CBF (Brazil’s Football Association) is constantly swinging between two poles: either a “let go coach” who will interfere the least possible with the natural skills of the players and let them express themselves freely. “To systematize is to sterilize” used to say Nils Middelboe, a Danish merchant who played as an amateur for Chelsea in… 1913[1]. Then, the seleção goes overboard, players are reported to be partying a bit too often, too hard before important games and disappear before the end. So for the next Cup, the CBF chooses a solid dictator who will keep the team under control and make them play against nature in a style as inspiring and joyful to watch than the “Manschaft”[2] is for non-Germans…

Maybe the point missed here by the CBF and many coaches is that they should encourage the Brazilian artists to show the wonderful magic of their talent. We should create the conditions for the many small Pelés to blossom. But, in the same way, the coaches should be very clear and careful at ensuring that the players do not place their ego first instead of the common good.  Leadership as a process is an encouragement to create and shine, in an altruistic manner and not in a value destroying, narcissistic way.

Joe Sheridan is an exceptional “business-actor” (and a real movie actor too by the way) and I sometimes have the privilege to work with him in business conferences. He summarizes well what differentiates a great play from another: “A real actor is in it for the public and not to satisfy his ego!” The same goes for us as leaders!!!

Two weeks marathon between São-Paulo, Porto-Alegre, Belo-Horizonte and Zürich… Have a great week all

Didier

[1] Quoted by Rob Hugues in “Recipe for success: Let talent blossom” in International Herald Tribune April 28^th 2010

[2] Nickname given to the extraordinarily resilient and competitive but not necessarily artistic and fascinating German national team

What does the shocking vote of 30% of my fellow Swiss citizens (57.5% out of 53% of the people who actually bothered to cast their ballot), imposing a ban on the construction of Muslims minarets, have in common with some Board meetings? Not a lot, except that it is fascinating in both cases to see how those who seek to destroy value (intentionally or not) have it far easier than those attempting to create it and how those who “sit on the fence” in neutral position collude in fact with the “value destroyers”.

Last week, I received a mail from Marcial Losada where he enthusiastically explained: “I’ve been immersed in the world of quantum entanglement, the vibrant new field of quantum mechanics with applications to quantum computing. Computers today will take more than the age of the universe to answer the most complex questions we can pose. In the future, quantum computers will do it in a fraction of a second. As I was pondering on this, I remembered that one of the best-known constants in quantum physics is Planck’s constant. Actually, Planck started the field of quantum mechanics with the discovery of his famous constant. Suddenly, I realized that the mathematical structure and conceptual framework of Planck’s constant has interesting parallels with the variables in my model. Planck’s constant is equal to energy divided by frequency. In my model energy is given by the emotional field and frequency by the P/N ratio; i.e., how frequent is P in relationship to N. Consequently, to derive the negativity bias which is the minimum quantum of energy in the energy field, I need to divide the emotional field value by the P/N ratio. For example, the emotional field value when people reach flourishing is 7.7368 and their P/N is 2.9013. If I divide the first number (energy) by the second (frequency), I get the value for the negativity bias, which is 2.666666… That means evolution imposed on us a heavy weight of 2, 2/3 negatives to lift one positive. Evolution gave us the means to survive but not to thrive. So now I found both the number that makes us survive and the one that makes us thrive.”

Let the purists appreciate Marcial’s original text. It took me a while to understand it. Basically, what Marcial explains is that humans have a natural tendency to use 2.66 times more often “negative” behaviors than positive ones. When we add this to the fact that, following Marcial’s seminal research and finding, we need to actively display at least 3 times more positive behaviors than negative to create the environment for flourishing strategic discussions, it means that people who try to build a constructive climate are at an 8:1 disadvantage (2.66666 x 3) against the “saboteurs”.

On a personal basis, I find such results helpful in understanding why, it is so easy to drift to below optimal contribution when working in a team. The 8:1 wind we sail against suggests that we do need to make a conscious and focused effort if we are to positively influence a situation. A fantastic example of that is the mythical “Twelve angry men” movie where Henry Fonda has to take a stand against bias, prejudice and above all, the neutrality of those “flying in support of victory” (ie. Taking the easy way out and voting guilty with the rest). The beginning is particularly interesting (see below).

Value Building Behaviours

The whole movie shows how patiently and resiliently, Fonda, while practicing Value Building Behaviors, maintaining a balance between enquiry and advocacy as well as external (other) and internal (self) manages to win, one by one (this is Hollywood) his fellow jurors.

With New Year soon arriving with our traditional good resolutions, I thought we could, in our executive teams, be aware of these facts (the determined individual and collective effort it takes to create the conditions for flourishing strategic dialogues) and agree on some specific do’s and don’ts for 2010 during our meetings. Our experience shows that Executive Teams who spend not more than 20 minutes at the end of their weekly/monthly meeting to review their behavioral dynamics progress rapidly towards better quality discussions.

On my way for a fascinating week to Paris, Frankfurt and Denmark, designing leadership development programs that visibly support their organization’s strategic intent. I wish you all a great week…

Impressed by the quality of some replies of yours regarding the post “Power of Words” and quoting Marcial Losada’s groundbreaking research, I went to him directly and asked to comment and summarize his work for our mutual benefit. Marcial was kind enough to respond and here it is:

“For the benefit of the readers who are not familiar with Meta-Learning (ML), here is a very brief introduction. ML has three variables (dimensions) and 3 parameters. The variables are inquiry-advocacy, positivity-negativity (P/N), and other-self (or external-internal orientation). The three parameters are connectivity (the critical, control parameter), negativity bias and resistance to change (system’s viscosity). The model is driven by a set of nonlinear differential equations that have the same mathematical structure as the Lorenz model (the one that generates the famous butterfly-shaped attractor and is used in many branches of science). ML accounts for 92% of variance in a system’s (couple, team, organization) performance. The best linear models only account for 30% of that variance.

A team is most successful when its members are well connected, is able to balance external vs. internal orientation as well as inquiry and advocacy, and keeps a P/N ratio within the Losada Zone (greater than or equal to about 3:1 and not more than about 11:1). We have taken measurements all the way from Finland to the Patagonia (where there is Methanex, one of the world’s largest methanol company) and I have never observed a team which reaches a 6:1 ratio (5.6 is the upper limit so far). In the Losada Zone, a team is able to flourish (and earn a lot of money as a side bonus) and to be “in the flow” (time doesn’t seem to go by and creativity thrives). Out of the zone, a team languishes visiting over and over the same old routines that keep them stuck, without ever getting to know the best of themselves. This is very sad and it is the main reason why I started a consulting business. I wanted to stop the pain (and make money as a bonus).

Marvin and Michael speak about the power of words and specifically about how, when those words are at least in a P/N ratio of 3:1, we find the best of ourselves. The power of language is indeed something that deserves our attention. Wittgenstein saw it as a prison. And he was right, because language can imprison us. There are two types of prison in nonlinear dynamics: fixed-point attractors and limit cycles. We get there when our P/N ratio (and the words that go with it) are outside the Losada Zone. But language can also liberate us (and Wittgenstein also saw this; he was no fool). Meta Learning is a liberating process whereby we dissolve limiting dynamics such as limit cycles and fixed points and evolve complex order dynamics (that I call complexors–complex order). Lorenz’s butterfly is a complexor and my high performing teams all have butterfly-shaped trajectories when I look at their interaction behavior in phase space. When we are in a complexor pattern we accomplish a great feat: we learn who we truly are and what we are capable of doing. Once you taste this fruit, you are able to transform knowledge into wisdom. You are in a kind of paradise from where you will not be expelled, unless you do that to yourself. When my high performing teams reach a complexor they stay there. I have measured them years later and they are still there. Sustainability is one of the greatest benefits of the training provided by the ML methodology.

I must end by saying that the power of words when viewed from the P/N ratio is much more that what we ever imagined. There is a fascinating study by Dr. Grazyna Rajkowska with chronic depressive patients who lose cerebral mass in the prefrontal cortex and hypothalamus. It turns out that the average chronic depressive has a P/N ratio of 0.5 (two negatives for every positive). I discovered a mathematical function that I call “gamma function” which links P/N to gains or losses in a system. The gamma function predicts a 30% loss of cerebral mass in chronic depressives. This prediction was corroborated by Dr. Rajkowska who measures the loss quite precisely using laser interferometry.

I find this astonishing. How can it happen? What is the mechanism by which P/N destroys cells if it is too low? In my view, the explanation goes back to Einstein formula relating energy to mass. To act on the cerebral mass we need energy (or lack of it to feed those cells in the case of depressives). When you look at the P/N pattern over time, you realize it is an oscillatory pattern, a vibrational pattern. Hence an energy pattern; its frequency increases as the P/N ratio does. This being so, we should also be able to predict the opposite effect: a gain when the P/N ratio is above the Losada Line (3:1). Richie Davidson did a famous study published in the Proceedings of the U.S. National Academy of Science on Tibetan monks doing loving-kindness meditation whose P/N ratio is 4:1 as shown by the differential activation of their left and right prefrontal cortex. My gamma function for that ratio predicts a gain of 30%. Richie discovered that gamma synchrony in the monks is increased by about 30%. Gamma waves are the fastest (higher frequency, hence higher energy) and they connect different parts of the brain which makes creativity and intuition available to us. In this case the gain is not so much in cerebral mass as it is on connectivity. I have shown in my paper, The Role of Positivity and Connectivty in Business Teams, that connectivity and the P/N ratio are mathematically equivalent. This might be the explanation at the brain activity level of Barbara Fredrickson’s findings that P/N broadens our thought-action repertoires.

So watch those words! You might be increasing (or decreasing) your cerebral mass. Perhaps we can start our next team meeting with a mission statement: let’s not lose cerebral mass today!”

I AM A (suffering) NOKIA FAN!!!  Increasingly felt like “the last of the Mohicans” when our 11 years old, Thaïs, told me: “Pai, I bought an I-Phone, as one of their applets emits a powerful sound based repellent against mosquitoes…”

Against that, I see in Friday’s Financial Times that my favourite brand seems to have chosen defensive strategies (sue Apple for patents infringement and another regorganization). What could be an alternative?

In 1998, Martin Seligman, President of the American Psychological Association, threw the challenge to his fellow psychologists: to seek to understand what made some people happy and blossoming in life. Positive Psychology has been “booming” since. The first interesting conclusions of their research showed that those who are successful and happy on a sustainable basis have two things in common: A strong sense of Purpose and a feeling that they can influence their environment.

So what for our businesses? Anyone who knows for example the rich Finnish culture has heard about “Sisu”, a word meaning something like resilience and perseverance. Finnish people have consistently demonstrated “Sisu” during their history when their independence was at stake (a very strong Purpose) and won their freedom, each time against all odds, the last when they twice pushed the soviets out of their territory during WWII.

When crisis pops-up (or victory as well by the way), the temptation is high for us, leaders to go and micro-manage. Roles, rules & procedures take over from entrepreneurship and creativity to become… the purpose. This alienates the energy and passion our people need to win their battle against the circumstances. For example, Apple has excelled  at understanding the new “Open Source Economy”, working around an amazing business model where thousands of geeks work for free (until hopefully cashing on commissions) to propose amazing applets which are far more important than the relatively inferior hardware… Apple has managed to create a strong sense of purpose, followership and loyalty amongst the “Geeks & Other Nerds Community” who bring it their best, creative energy, particularly during week-ends…

Feeling that one can influence their environment: When a company grows big, here as well the risk is that it becomes sclerosed in hierarchy, in “seniority is superiority”. People feel that the destiny of their company is not in their hands anymore and that “those at the top should do something” as they feel totally helpless and disempowered. Let us take a look at the many signals in our own organizations which could indicate that our people are in the “doom circle” rather than feeling truly in charge of their destiny. The strength of a Jørgen Vig Knudstorp in his “salvation of LEGO” has been to make people feel that LEGO’s survival was in their hands: his messages were simple and clear, people were given time and space to “own” the new strategy, rules and procedures were kept to a bare minimum, energy was unleashed to a maximum…

I am inviting you all to explore how you create a strong sense of Purpose in your organization and how you ensure that your people feel that they can influence its destiny. At the moment of closing, the wise words of G.B. Shaw strongly resonate: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them”… and sometimes our people need our help for that!!!

On my way to a marathon week between São-Paulo and Lyon… Have a great week all!

One year ago, “Scientific American Mind” published an article[1] claiming that “How we characterize an issue affects how we think about it!” The authors analyzed the Bush administration’s choice of words in response to 9/11 events.

For the authors, the words and metaphors that were used, determined the strategic response the US administration. They compared the response suggested by these words with those that could have been generated by a different characterization.

“War on Terror” (the terminology chosen by the Bush administration) implies:

• Threat perceived as global and coming from another nation, ethnic group, religious confession, race etc…
• National unity, no dissent tolerated (unpatriotic)
• Military solution, the President as commander in chief, Restriction on civil liberties accepted, Torture tolerated, “Collateral damages” unavoidable

The strategic consequences of this “social construct of reality” were disastrous:

• Combating terrorist violence by state violence alienates population
• Military warfare is counterproductive in fighting an ideology
• Al Qaeda is an organic body, not an organization nor a nation with territory, government, buildings and army: an amorphous network does not capitulate as a country. How do we know we won?

The authors compare this with another three very different scenarios, coming as a result from the use of different wordings: “Fighting crime” (a police operation with different ethics and consequences to an army one), “Containing epidemic” (where the problem is the epidemic and the priority is in understanding where it comes from and what caused it) or “Stemming prejudice” (building bridges with the “other side” and isolating the trouble makers). Analysis in hindsight is an unfair exercise, but it is obvious that the results of G. W. Bush “war” would have been very different should he have chosen other words and metaphors.

The same is true for business leadership: the words we use in our business meetings, the metaphors by which we describe our challenges shape-up the construction of reality that our people will architect in their minds. “Leadership is about creating conditions for people to do and be their best” says Chris Parker (www.mobilizingteams.com): the words we use are creating our people’s context and response to it. Two short clips illustrate it:

• The awareness test (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jprOQB3DDL0) builds on a known research. How many passes does the white team make? See how these words condition your vision of the environment.
• The violin player (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC9IvjrgZ7I) suggested on our blog by Alexandre T. Pauperio, is another great example: since the context, mental construct isn’t properly set, nobody on that rush hour notices the privilege of been entertained by one of the world’s masters in violin, until a lady…

Prior to engaging our teams intellectually and emotionally, we would be well inspired to reflect on the choice of our words and metaphors.

Thank you for the many of you who commented our latest post by e.mails and via this blog’s comments, have a good week. On my way to São-Paulo…

Financial data are lagging indicators. Corporate myopia consists of obsessing about them and failing to see the Tsunami or the (Blue!) Ocean of opportunity ahead.

Companies therefore seek to identify and work on “leading” indicators.
During a recent meeting in Brussels with colleagues and friends (N. van Heck, M. Newman, N. McRoberts and F.D.C. Professor D. Sardenberg) the notion of using “Cognitive Dissonance” as an indicator came up.

Wikipedia provides the following definition of the phenomenon: “an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The “ideas” or “cognitions” in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one’s behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance).

In other terms, when there is dissonance, our brain has learned to rapidly build a bridge over the contradiction to reduce our malaise. A simple example is about smokers: They all know their habit to be deadly but have each found more or less consciously a way to pseudo-rationalize a justification it so that they may enjoy each cigarette instead of feeling torn between two opposite ideas in their mind.

As we see, this very useful “coping” mechanism (enabling us to live with apparently contradicting ideas) can also be deadly and lead to dangerous blindness: recently, the CEO of a much respected consumer electronic goods manufacturer appeared in the press, blaming it and the consumers for failing to see the superiority of his company’s latest product against the much celebrated one of a competitor. He added that his company was now going to go head to head against the enemy. My first feeling was “Sell short!” followed by: Could this be cognitive dissonance? A well intentioned and passionate CEO believes in his firm ability to produce superior technology and finds it hard to cope with the enthusiasm generated by a lower technology competing offer. Unfortunately, the way to cope with it (denying markets feedback, blaming the press and attacking the competitor) will probably not help him regain users’ affection nor market share.

Recognizing Cognitive Dissonance and its potentially dangerous coping mechanism is a very rich mine of information for leaders in their firms. The stronger their reaction “against” the dissonant comment coming from the outside, the deeper their rejection from the maverick’s suggestion coming from within their organization should be a leading indicator that they risk falling into corporate blindness.

We welcome your comments and reactions to help us progress in that promising filed.
Kind regards