Can anyone know what they don't know?

We say that someone does not know what they don't know. There are lots of people who act as though they know everything and do not have anything more to learn. Well, none of us know what we don't know. The critical characteristic is to recognize that there is more that we do not know than we do, and that there is no shame in it. In fact, the shame is in not recognizing this. An eagerness to question what we know and to learn more is part of being a mature adult of any age. As I grow older, I am humbled by the immensity of what I still have to learn.

Are business people handicapping themselves?

The more senior the manager, the higher the proportion of his or her time spent in meetings. Meetings rarely drive the business forwards. In fact they magnify the inefficiency by using up the time of many people.

Similarly, many managers have to deal with hundreds of emails a day. Most of these are informational, courtesy copies or purely political. Yet they have to read before being deleted.

Turnover of senior managers is much higher than it used to be. Spencer Stuart recently published a study which stated that the average length of stay for a Chief Marketing Officer in Fortune 500 companies is 23 months.

None of the above improves effectiveness ot efficiency. Yet it may be getting worse.

Is Business Managment about Analysis?

MBA courses and Strategy consultants operate on the assumption that Management is about analysis. Professor Henry Mintzberg has recently pointed out that it is even more about synthesis. To this, I would add that it is about insight as well. The best analysis is worthless without both of the latter.

What do companies under attack have in common with Michael Jackson?

Over the years, from Detroit when Ralph Nader seized on them for safety, to drug companies when pharmaceuticals are found to be be dangerous; tobacco companies denied that cigarettes caused lung cancer and food companies that too much eating causes obesity, we see the same patterns. Top management thinks that if they repeat their defense often enough and loudly enough they can drown out the critics. They often even believe it is true. However, this is parallel behavior to Michael Jackson continuing to spend social time with children after being accused of pedophila. Whether true or not, the appearance of impropriety or bad behavior may be all that it needed. Unfortunately, lawyers may advise denial, but this only serves to increase the enormity of the crime in the public's eyes. The manufacturer's of silicone breast implants denied any fault, and while there is still scientific doubt, the public condemmed them. Asbestos manufacturers denied all flaws. The public believes that corporations lie, and certainly that any data which seems to prove innocence that comes from the company, or is sponsored by it, is unlikely to be true. Any inaccuracy or ambiguity in the data is the end of any credibility the company has.

Comanies should not stonewall, and have to make the public part of the solution.

Irrational actions

People persist in trying to explain their own and the actions of others in rational, logical, terms. Sometimes, they are so clearly nonsensical that we ascribe them to psychological or characterological disorders. People may have thinking which is so distorted by psychoses, neuroses, or character issues, that that are incapable of thinking and reacting logically. However, on a lesser level, most of us behave in ways which are the result of past experiences. Just as the burnt child fears the flames, so we may associate some rational act with something which turned out badly, and so we avoid performing it.

This carries over to interpersonal relations as well as business decisions. Knowing yourself objectively is the only way to avoid this.

Why is a 175 year old soap company in Cincinnati, Ohio, the most consistently innovative company on earth?

In each year, business magazines publish lists of the top companies in each field of excellence. Books, dating from In Search of Excellence to Built to Last, extol the virtues of this company or that. Yet over its 175 year history, Procter & Gamble has demonstrated an ongoing eagerness to challenge the accepted wisdom and reinvent itself. From organizational innovation, such as the creation of the Marketing function and invention of the Brand Manager. It has created new tools of business, from mundane promotional tools to moving close to WalMart in a new defintion of supply chsin efficiency, or creation of the Tremor process to harness word-of-mouth to build businesses. It has a record of innovation in new products, from new potato chips to the spinbrush, which is unequalled in business.

The fundamental reason for this is the company's eagerness to challenge all that has gone before. It assumes that if something has been done for a number of years, it can probably be done in a better way. This is rare in any organization, and while other companies try to copy Procter & Gamble, the very thought process of "copying" means it starts off on the wrong footing.