Brainware

Why Intuition Fails

What is the best way to go about making personal career decisions?  Business doesn't often set a trustworthy example with the faddish decisionmaking that follows the recommendations of the latest so-called guru.  And decisions about careers are either mandated by the organization or ignored.  What is clear, however, is that to a significant degree both business and career development decisions are largely  relegated to intuitive decisionmaking.  The failure rate for intuitive decisionmaking, however, is terrifically high.

As a result, today there's a strong movement afoot to reject a great deal of both intuition and conventional wisdom in favor of research-based, or what's often called evidence-based, decisionmaking.  And rightly so.  Pfeffer and Sutton get at the issue in the title of their book: Hard Facts.  Dangerous Half-truths and Total Nonsense.  They reveal numerous reasons to reject much of intuition: it's based on guess or hunch, lacks data to back it up, shows poor results and puts organizations at risk. 

So what does that say about intuition?  The best studies on the subject say that intuition is actually rapid pattern recognition: the ability to recognize patterns in masses of disorganized data.  As the mind works with data, similar experiences from the past, which have been internalized and resolved, suggest a comparable way to resolve a current problem.  However, as I've already alluded, the data we've internalized and stacked away in our long term memory, as well as the old resolutions, are often dated, inadequate or wrong.  On top of that, two major threads of research make it very clear that we cannot usually trust our memory and certainly not "gut feel." 

At the most elementary level, since intuition is built on previously internalized problem-solving experiences, it takes quite a while to develop much in the way of intuition.  It takes a career history with a set of similar problems for intution to be very trustworthy.  A few years ago, my client architecture firm hired a bright MBA as COO.  In numerous situations, the CEO told him to use his intuition in solving problems as they came along.  Jamie, the new COO, complained to me that he didn't have enough experience with architecture to have developed trustworthy intuition.  His insight was exactly correct.  His comment about intuition was so unusual and so accurate that it immediately surfaces whenever the issue of intuition comes up.

So the real students of thinking are attempting to build a deep repertoire of evidence-based solutions that can be internalized to eventually become intuitive.  Expertise development is a slow process, but students of decisionmaking have found that developing fact-based deep smarts is the best way to go at the whole process of intuition development if you want good results.

The Sunday New York Times Magazine has an insightful, even brilliant article on the distinctions between intuition and evidence based medicine by David Leonhardt, a Times economics writer.   Leonhardt contrasts the orientation of the eminent Jerome Groopman, chief of experimental medicine at Harvard's Beth Israel Hospital, and author of the recent blockbuster, How Doctors Think, with the evidence-based medicine of Brent James of the Intermountain Hospital Group. Groopman argues that evidence-based medicine is useful in only limited run-of-the-mill situations like distinguishing between strep throat and a simple sore throat.  Human beings are not uniform in their biology and as a result diseases act differently on different people.   Groopman argues that the way to do effective medicine is not evidence-based, but to train physicians in the ways in which their instincts can lead them astray and teach them to reflect, learn from previous mistakes and act with more accurate intuition. 

As an educator I'm very skeptical, and so is Atul Gawande, Groopman's Harvard Colleague at Mass General.  In his book, Better, Gawande points out that the research shows that physician expertise is no different than expertise in other fields: only a few physicians actually become experts, while the rest are merely competent.

In contrast, Brent James of Intermountain Hospital Group argues from results, pointing out that the use of evidence-based medicine at the Intermountain centers has saved thousands of lives a year across that hospital network, and he has the data to prove it.  James tracks patient outcomes and adjusts patient care.  As conclusions are drawn from the data, he creates protocols that are institutionalized by the hospitals and their health care professionals.  The protocols are not left in concrete.  They are revisited, the data is followed, and then they are fine-tuned. 

The contrasting positions of Groopman and James have an extensive history.  These arguments, as  Leonhardt rightly points out, are as old as Plato, who thought that knowledge came from intuitive reasoning, and Aristotle, who preferred observation.

So why does intution bring such poor results?  As I've suggested, few of our original experiences or conclusionis are fact-based.  Typically, the narrow set of career experiences provides too little focus on the consequences of our decisions.  Following Groopman's line of thought, very, very few are trained in the thinking skills necessary to manage bias.  Then there's also the well-known fact that most of us stop learning after the first four to six years of experience, by which time we've become merely competent.  

When you analogize from medicine to careers and career development, the weakness of the intuitive approach applies directly.  Furthermore, the history of the career discipline is largely anecdotal, in spite of the recent availability of huge research resources on careers.  As I noted in a previous blog, if you check out the 3,000 or so tomes for sale on career you're going to find very little substantial help.  Although they offer advice on everything from resume writing to the color of your career parachute, they're all built on a single 75 year-old notion of what a career should look like.  If you're older than 30 you probably know what I'm talking about--a step-by-step climb up the corporate ladder.  Since the 1970s the corporate ladder has been going the way of the Dodo bird--killed by technology, global competition and flatter and flatter organizational structures.

Two of the most prominent conclusions on career are largely intuitive, and based, at best, on half-truths.  Follow your passion, we're told.  I point out that the notion will not stand up to scrutiny.  [See the research here.]  When it comes to career choice, there's other research [here] that shows a far better approach.  The second prominent conclusion focuses on choosing careers that will leverage your strengths.  But too often, we don't know what our strengths are until we've fumbled around in several jobs, and/or had some astute person define our strengths for us.  This is all like the notion of personal branding.  The major limitation is that our clients or colleagues determine our brand, not us. 

Furthermore, both of these conventional, intuitive conclusions stand or fall on the marketplace.  Unless the marketplace has need for our passion and our strengths, we're going to be out of luck.  So I'm wary of intuition, mine as much as that of anyone else.  

Quotation of the Week: Drew Gilpin Faust

I never planned my career. I never planned to be president of Harvard. People would have thought I was crazy, probably, at the age of 8 or 10 or 20, if I had said that. So what I would say to people planning their careers is to be ready to improvise. Be ready to follow up on opportunities as they unfold. Be ready to jump in directions you never thought you were going to jump if that is what unfolds before you. Watch for the opportunities.

Drew Gilpin Faust, President, Harvard University

Ignore the fact that she never planned her career.  That would be a disaster for most.  I comment on that issue here.  All the rest is right on.  Explore and adapt is the nature of the new business world.

Three Keys to Your Work Promotion in The New Economy

About the middle of the 1990's a lot of ideas began to shake out as the technology revolution took control of business.  One of the most important bits of clarity surfaced around the issue of careers and career promotions.  What's driving this post?  Over the past ten years, as more and more research has on organizational behavior has surfaced, the way to get a promotion has become pretty straight-forward. 

But let's get rid of one dumb idea.  That's the notion that if you suck up to your boss, he or she will get the promotion for you.  First, I don't believe in sucking up, and second, the idea is false.  Unless your boss owns the company, very few bosses have much in the way of "promotion power."  Promotions require all kinds of input from all levels, and organizations try to limit promotions to the few because they're expensive.  Furthermore, most organizations don't have an overweening need for managers in the world of flattened organizational hierarchies.  I should add that that situation will be changing over the next five to ten years.  There's going to be a dearth of talent as the boomers retire and technology makes more and more complex demands.  But why wait it out?

People get promoted for three reasons, and all three of them need to be operative: 

1. A quality network. 
2. Competent, high performance on the job. 
3. Calculated luck--you're in the right place at the right time. 

Now let's look at each of these.

The research on network quality has been stacked high for nearly ten years.  It shows that people with a quality network have access to rewards, early promotions and better opportunities.  It does take six months or more to get a network going, but it's well worth the investment in your future. 

In this day and age, performance means a lot more than in the past.  The ability to solve complex problems, demonstrate significant people skills in complex environments, set a pace for creativity and innovation, deal with problems of ambiguity, etc. etc. etc.  The new research on deliberate practice shows that we can grow our way into most any expertise.  

But you've got to advocate for yourself.  The basic way the important people know about the excellence of your performance and the quality of your growing expertise is to advocate for yourself, keep your bosses and peers and internal clients updated, and manage up.  Do it tactfully and indirectly.  Remember that the people with the power to assist you rarely know of your contributions or the value you bring to an organization unless you tell them.  So learn and practice the skills of self-advocacy.

Finally, promotions come as a result of calculated luck.  This means that you'll you need to understand the business, the industry and the economy and work to be in the right place at the right time.  The information is out there with vendors, trade magazines and business journals. 

Recently one of my clients, stymied because of limited opportunities within his firm, talked to me about moving on so that he could get a promotion from another company.  Here's his thinking:  Over the past four years he's developed unique expertise in a business and industry that is undergoing monstrous transitions.  Unique technology has come into the industry.  Very few manager have his background, and most organizations know they've got to make changes and integrate that technology to maintain their competitive advantage.  He's got the network, the competency and he's calculated his opportunities. 

Smart thinking.  The business world is his oyster and he'll eventually get the promotion.  The stuff is out there for every fast tracker.  So, go for it!

And for Gen-Yers?  Wow, this process really works.

What's the Best Job Network?

The people who really study and understand networks have found that there are two kinds of networks:  strong ties (social networks) and weak ties (casual acquaintances).   In a previous post on who should be in your network, I talked about work networks and the role of strong ties for getting things done inside the company.  You need to have strong ties with people to spread information, manage teams and build influence inside the organization. And, long term, it's very important to build those strong ties.  But for certain tasks, like job search, weak ties are more valuable than social networks.  When most managers talk about the power of networks they're usually referring to networks built on strong ties.  Job search is a different animal.   

In Christakis and Fowler's fascinating new book, Connections, the authors take up the strength of weak ties and discuss the research of Mark Granovetter who wanted to find out the best kind of network for those of us who are looking for a new job.  Granovetter surveyed technical, managerial and professional workers in a Boston suburb who had recently "relied on a personal contact to get a new job." 

Here was his simple question:  "Prior to switching employers, how often did you see the person who helped you get the new job?"  The responses were revealing.

• 17% responded "often."
• 55% said "occasionally."
• 28% said "rarely." 

When he dug into the detail Granovetter found that most workers got jobs via old college friends, past workmates or previous employers (another reason to never burn bridges).  The contacts that he had with these people were "sporadic," and very few of the workers had ever spent any time with the job contact outside the workplace.  And surpisingly, most of the workers had never had a strong relationship with their contacts.  "Chance meetings or mutual friends reactivated the ties."  In other words, most of his (Granovetter's) subjects had acquired their jobs by relying on the kinds of strangers.

The conclusion has an implicit recommendation:  people find jobs by searching beyond their immediate social network, beyond their immediate ties.  Wayne Baker studied the job search process nearly 20 years ago and learned that most people find their job through a friend of a friend of a friend.  That's the same weak tie method.

That, of course, was before the web.  It's important to recognize that the web does not make the old methods obsolete.  Instead, it just provides additional ways to find a new job.  But don't ignore the old ways.  Most of my friends who are beyond Gen-Y age, still get their jobs the old way.  If they're having a great deal of difficulty, often, it's because they have a limited social network to begin with.

Important Announcement: Slackermanager.com is Dead

Slackermanager.com is quite dead, but my friend, Phil Gerbyshak still lives.  All the content from slackermanager has been moved to Phil's new site:  www.themanagementexpert.com.  He's going to continue blogging at the new site.

Phil also has a new site on social media efforts:  www.philgerbyshak.com

Phil wasn't cued into the decision, but all the business blogs on the site were eliminated.  When you blog on a business organization's site, you face one set of difficulties.  The organization may decide that there's not enough money in your blogging.  When you blog on your own site, you'll find a different set of difficulties--all the responsibilities are your own.

Oh well, always remember the Spanish proverb:  Purchase what you may, but pay for it.

Best wishes to Phil.

Are There Similarities Between Business Strategy and Career Development?

Thinking about the focus or direction of your career is not as easy as many think--of course, most of you know that anyway.  But I was intrigued by a reminder that Harvard's Drew Faust brought up in the NYTimes interview on Sunday.  The interviewer focused on her leadership learning in her new role as president, and one comment jogged me.  She's using Michael Porter, the Harvard strategy genius, and one phrase in particular she said, was, "Strategy is what you don't do.  That's very important."

Since I have an unrelenting focus, some would say a ruthless focus, on career development, I wondered whether Porter's comment can be applied to career development.  Could you say, "Career development is what you don't do?"

Before you answer that question, let me summarize Porter's argument from his terrific HBReview article which you can find here.  Porter says you have to make your choices about business strategy and inevitably that means you're not going to do some things if you're going to keep focused.  You differentiate yourself from the competition.  In my experience there's also a scary sense of being different from your career competition if you're going to be successful.  I happily talk about competitive advantage in business, but I get nervous talking about being in competition with friendly colleagues.  Are you the same?  It's true, but maybe one of those things I don't like to admit.

What bugged me about Faust's comments was her near complete rejection of career strategy.  The web had much more from the interview than the paper, and one of her comments was that she never planned her career.  Sounds like that's a recommendation. 

But I do agree with what Faust said next:  Be ready to improvise. Be ready to follow up on opportunities as they unfold. Be ready to jump in directions you never thought you were going to jump if that is what unfolds before you. Watch for the opportunities.

The other meaning that I take from Porter and Faust's comment is that you simply don't do things that are not at the center of your career focus and other people can do just as well.  

Dan Schawbel, the personal branding guy, has just initiated a new blog, the Student Branding Blog, for highschoolers and others starting college.  But he goes on to say that he's not going to be writing the blog and he's got a great team to do the writing.  Here's the important piece for my subject:  I will not be contributing at all to the Student Branding Blog for two main reasons.  First, I don’t have time to.  Second, I’d rather invest my time in marketing all my web properties because that plays to my strengths and is the best use of my time.  Sounds to me like his strategy is what he doesn't do.   

This raises a great question.  Does my conclusion makes sense?  Do you have some examples of saying no because of your own career?  Or, do you disagree?  And why?

How to Succeed with Failure

A few weeks ago, while teaching an MBA class at a local university, a student asked one of those questions not usually surfaced in front of one's peers:  "How do you deal with failure?"  Obviously, he isn't the only person dealing with the issue.  In a recent blog, one well-known guru shared a few suggestions about building self-confidence and dealing with failure.  He went on with recommendations to quit worrying about being perfect, learning to live with failure, and showing courage, even when you're scared on the inside.  Another blogger interviewed a number of CEOs, all of whom stressed that their failures were not preventable, so they were able to pick themselves up and go on.  Hmmm. . ??

Back to the student's question about how to deal with failure.  At the time I had a few suggestions, but on further reflection, I've realized that's the wrong question.  The better one is, "How do you succeed with failure?" Furthermore, when I'm dealing with an issue like that, the first question I ask is not about the conventional wisdom or blaming the circumstance, but whether or not there's some relevant research about the subject.

Why bother with conventional wisdom, when research on the subject is at hand.  You'll find a stack of relevant research on dealing with failure by Stanford's Carol Dweck and her colleagues.  The highly consistent research pooh-poohs answers like the above, and rightly so.  Basically, she finds that your mindset determines the meaning of failure.  If you live your life out of the traditional mindset, the belief that your talents and abilities are set in stone, and you fail, the responses are obvious.  You'll keep quiet about your failure, stuff it, blame someone or the environment, and, perhaps never try that option again.  As Dweck writes, In the fixed mindset. . . the loss of one's self to failure can be a permanent, haunting trauma.  What's important to recognize is that the traditional mindset gives you no good recipe for overcoming failure.  Ohhh, yahhhh.  Some recipes, but long term they don't work very well, and that makes failure pretty difficult.

Admittedly, failure doesn't feel good for any of us.  It can be a painful experience.  But it needn't define you.  Instead, if you have a growth mindset, failure is not a signal that you're not perfect.  It's a signal that you've got something to learn.  You can face it, deal with it, and learn from it. 

My son-in-law, a research physician, tells me that failure is actually very useful.  Failure lets you  know what strategy won't work, and that can be useful data for a research project.  In other words, failure is a signal that you're going to have to try some other alternatives. 

So change your mindset and think of failure this way.  Failure can hurt, but it doesn't define you.  It's merely an annoucement that you've got to figure out some other alternatives.  Change and growth are nearly always possible, and there are still many more paths to success.

Here are my steps for succeeding with failure:

1. Go ahead and moan a few minutes.  It's painful.  Sometimes I beat my desk a few times and cuss.  Remember the story of the first grade reading teacher who hit the car in front of her, got out and pointed to the dent, "oh, oh, oh.  Look, look, look.  Damn, damn, damn!"  That works for me.
2. Move on and dig into the failure to see what you can learn from it.
3. Create some other ways of working with the situation.  A little more elbow grease (do they still use that idiom?) or effort will be helpful.
4. Remember that the next failure on the project means that you will know two things that won't work.

It's especially helpful to bring colleagues and experts into the process as soon as possible.  I realize that some are not comfortable admitting failure to colleagues, but you can learn to announce that you blew it.  It's rarely life or death.  And always take advantage of the insights of others.  Problem solving, creativity and innovation are, fundamentally,  contact sports.  You might also want to look at my white paper on asking questions. 

David Silverman's blog on the subject of failure had an especially useful quote from Tom Watson, the founder of IBM:  Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure — or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that's where you will find success.

As Carol Dweck emphasizes throughout her book, Mindset, success is really all about effort.

 

Quotation of the Week: Anonymous Building Superintendent

"The professional makes as many mistakes as the amateur," he said, swinging a wrench onto the main valve and closing off the fountain, "The difference is, a professional fixes them faster."

--Reported statement by a building superintendent, who was fixing a blast of water from a toilet fitting.  The original question was:  "You know the difference between a professional plumber and an amateur?"

That's not just conventional wisdom.  The research shows that the more you work at learning, the faster you learn.  And once you've attained competency, experience enables you to see the errors much quicker and move faster to fix them.

Why Is Changing Your Mind So Hard?

The other day I met a former university colleague who I hadn't seen for several years, and we got into a conversation about how we'd changed our minds on a number of important issues.  We also speculated about some of our mutual colleagues and were deciding which ones, when faced with research or other evidence, could change their minds and which would hold tight to their orginal beliefs and commitments in spite of evidence to the contrary.  As I slept on the conversation, I thought about how necessary it is to change your mind on some issues--and how difficult it can be.

My thoughts went rather quickly to how the financial debacle and the global economy are forcing us to change our minds about a number of issues, some of which seem like small potatoes, yet can have great impact upon our careers.  For example, just a simple mention about the role of government in business can get us into a heated conversation, suggesting that the slightest notion of a shift in that thinking will go nowhere.  On other occasions, there are only small, slightly nuanced environmental changes that we may miss.  They take place over time and we fail to see them and adjust until it's too late, and we suffer the consequences. 

Because my business is focused upon career performance and career development, I'm sensitized to that field and the important career changes and shifts that are taking place.  I also see how difficult it can be for us to change our mind, even though the evidence is staring us in the face. 

How to get promoted.

Take a simple concept like a work promotion.   Who really promotes you?  Everyone will tell you that your boss promotes you.  Oh yeah?  Let's see if I can change your mind. 

Why does a person get promoted?  Boss's favorite?  Not usually?  Quality of work performance?  That probably has something to do with it.  But what, specifically, about a person's performance makes the boss want to support her?  

Here's what execs tell me:  she's an excellent coach, takes care of her people, supports her people, works easily with her peers, makes contributions outside of her own projects, lends her resources as needed, shares her problem-solving skills whenever possible, mentors her people and others also, shares information throughout the organization. 

Actually, the boss just confirms what her subordinates, her peers and others throughout the organization have to say about her.  And managers don't make those decisions without input and agreement from their peers and other bosses.  So does your boss promote you?  Nope.  A promotion is the work of any number of people.  That's also what the research shows. 

Why is changing your mind hard?

Over time all of us build a superstructure of ideas around any mental model we hold.  We think bosses are in charge, so we try to satisfy that boss.  We're probably friendly with our peers, but offer little unsolicited help, and sometimes won't help even when solicited.  After all, goes the thinking, we work for our boss, not a group of people, or even the organization.

If you change your belief about promotions, you're going to have to change a number of behaviors.  You may need to share resources, offer information to a lot more people, take the time to develop new  relationships, mentor and coach outside your immediate group, and take on a dozen other responsibilities.

So you can see why it's hard to change your mind about who promotes you.  There's a lot more involved than just your boss.  You've got to get rid of more than one idea before you can fully accept a different idea.  And for a period of time, you'll be caught in what Rosabeth Kanter calls the miserable middle--trying to figure out the different behaviors your new understanding is going to require. 

Changing your mind is never just an item by item process, and that makes it tough. 

How Do You Assess a Job Opportunity?

Recently a reader in an email asked me a pointed question:  How do you assess a job opportunity?  He has been giving thought to his career and has decided that now is the time to move on to another firm.  He has a couple ripe opportunities (lucky guy in this recession) and wanted some guidance in how to make the choice.

Before I answer the question, I need to lay out some career development assumptions.  You should be thinking three to five years ahead.  Admittedly, in this recession that seems difficult.  Still you have plenty to gain from the process and a lot to lose if you don't develop some kind of career strategy.  I also assume that if you have been in a position more than three years, have learned everything possible from the work and the people in that situation, can't move on within the company, then it's time to start looking.  Continuous development is the rule, not stability.  Successful careers are always messy. 

I think it's important to attempt to work with talented people, those who have more brains and ability than you, if possible.  However, it's still more important to work for a firm that has a number of cutting-edge processes in place and has demonstrated its strategy success with its financials.

Find out as much as you can from organizational filings (if they're public corporations), web info, trusted colleagues and industry reps.  Vendors, however, are often the best source of information regarding firms.  Not merely because they know a lot about their customers, but importantly because it's to their advantage to ingratiate themselves with potentional employees of a firm.  If they help you, they'll expect repayment in the form of business and contacts.  Vendors are nearly always a win/win for information.

So what kind of questions would I ask to surface the information I need from the interview?  Let's suppose that I'm being recruited for an HR training position.  Here are the kind of issues that will give me decision information:  

• Does HR sit at the executive table?  How is HR brought into the strategy decisioning?
• What is the training relationship between HR and line managers?
• What vendors does the firm use for training materials?
• What proprietary training does the firm regularly provide?
• Describe typical training offered to the various organizational levels?
• How is training success measured?
• How do they prioritize training programs?  And who prioritizes the programs?
• What training over the past five years has worked exceptionally well?
• What training needs to work a lot better?
• Who has input to training needs, and how is that input gathered?
• What are your training expectations over the next five years?  And why are they important to you and the firm?
• Why did the last three training directors leave the firm, and what are they doing now?
• What training programs has the firm actually developed over the past five years?  Describe their strengths and weaknesses?
• Where would you like organizational training to be in the next three years?
• How do the various organizations of the firm perceive HR training?  Which organizations have a relationship with HR and which do not?  Why?
• What kind of support has management given to HR training?  How is that support demonstrated?
• How do decisions get made in the firm?  Walk me through a couple important decisions.

That's probably ten hours of discussion, but after they've interviewed me, I could readily pick and chose the important questions? 

FYI:  I suspect budget responses are meaningless, however I'd want to know how the recession impacted the training budgeting, and how budgeting was cut in other functions.

With this framework of issues for HR, most would be able to create a similar framework in IT, Finance, Marketing, R&D, etc.  The tough issue is understanding the responses to the questions.  So you'll need to ask them to explain their answer, give illustrations, be specific about data, etc.  Tone is always important, supported by warmth, a lot of listening and a bit of obvious smarts.  Some of these questions will be threatening, but your livelihood is also important.  I'd be ruthless about getting answers to the important questions--but I'd do it tactfully and with a smile.  I've found that it really pays off to be direct, but supportive, clear and almost demanding of information, and fairly transparent. 

This all sounds very tough, callous and demanding.  However, any hiring manager will describe an interview with me as direct, but a lot of fun, a lot of laughter and even teasing.  But I've all my antenna out as I insert relevant questions.  And that's the model that I've found works best.  It may sound contradictory to the questions, but it's very complementary.

FYI:  Gen-Yers need to get a lot of interviewing under their belt.  Take every possible opportunity to interview.  You need to build that skill for your future.  You have nothing to lose in fumbling when you're not especially interested in an opportunity, but you've got a lot to gain from developing the skill.

FYI:  The hiring manager never makes a decision alone.  There always other people giving input to hiring decisions.  Depending on the level and the importance of the decision, there could be as few as three decision makers, and as many as ten or twelve.  You want to work the hiring manager so that he/she wants you to interview with the decision makers.  That's his role.

Remember:  No interview is a life or death matter.