William Wu Personal Blog

Wall Street Journal had a good article recently titled “Why Good Manager Make Bad Decisions?” by Erin White.  I re-summarized the 4 reasons that Ms. White mentioned in her article:

1. Over rely on experience could be dangerous.  We sometimes overstate experience and situation may not exactly fit our experience.  We may be liable to rely on our experience in a way that’s just not going to be that helpful.
2. Self-interest. Most people don’t realize self-interest operates at a subconscious level. We’re not even aware of how self-interested we are. 
3. Prejudgments. Smart leaders could be vulnerable to prejudgment; that is, they decided on something early on and stuck to it no matter what.
4. Attachment. Attachments to people or places or business that we like or have spent great effort building up could make a decision difficult.  This is particularly true when it comes to downsize or selling off business.

Motivated by our self-interest is what propels everyone to wake up in the morning and get going. However, we have seen too many leaders blinded by their self-interest that they forget what is morally right. These are particularly amplified by the recent excessive executive pays and bonuses in the corrupted financial/banking industries that we saw in the news headlines.   It reminds me of the following Chinese story:

“Many, many years ago there was a man of the land of Ch’I who had a great passion for gold.  One day at the crack of dawn he went to the market-straight to the gold dealers’ stalls, where he snatched some gold and ran away.  The market guards soon caught him.  ‘With so many people around, how did you expect to get away with it?’ a guard asked.

‘When I took it,’ he replied, ‘I saw only the gold, not the people.’”

Ms. White concluded: “People need to recognize that we are biased in every single situation. There’s no such thing as objectivity…. (Therefore, smart leaders) need to walk into an important decision situation saying, ‘Ok, I know that we are potentially biased in a variety of ways. Let’s try to identify what those are.’”

Take a moment to think about it next time:

• Would you want your employees or associates to see you as someone that put your interest ahead of them?
• Do you think they will want to work with you again if you make them feel so? 

The answers are very obviously ‘No!’  As Carl W. Buechner put it, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

William Shakespeare told us, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  Mark Twain said, “We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.” 

This brings up a somber, but true fact.  The person that you most need the power to influence and control is you.

Dr. Phil in his Life Strategies book offers this observation:

“The person whose negative characteristics and behavior patterns you most need the power to minimize or eliminate and whose positive characteristics and behavior patterns you most need to maximize, is you.  Whether the characteristics is depression, insecurity, anger, apathy, loneliness, or any of a number of other possible characteristics, you are the one who will have to minimize or eliminate it.  Doing so will require knowledge.  It takes knowledge about how you developed that negative characteristic, why you persist with it, and, more importantly, how to replace it with more positive, constructive characteristics.”

One of the articles in Seth Godin’s book The Big Moo lists the Three Rules of Life (and Everything Else) which I took some liberty to morph into the following:

1. Your Attitude Is Your Life.  Our attitude changes our life and the lives of those around us.  Hold yourself to a higher standard. Believe that you want to do to other people just like what you want them to do to you.
2. Maximize Your Options. When we lock ourselves into one possibility of how things must be done, our businesses, our lives and the lives of those around us get stuck.  Therefore in all things, big and small, open yourself to the possible options.  Then trust yourself to choose the right one for the moment.
3. Finally, Don’t Let the Seeds Stop You From Enjoying the Watermelon. Doing what is right could be tough, but the reward is going to outweigh any personal sacrifices.

Everyone approaches every situation with at least some concern about “what’s in for me?” This is normal.  To ignore this human nature is unrealistic and even wrong, but choosing the right decision becomes easier if you are aware of how experience, self-interest, prejudgments and attachments are in play.  Take advantage of your personal motivation and take control of it. At the end, you will feel great of what you have done!