Speaking Truth to Stupid

Is functional stupidity holding your organisation back?

In an interview about his book, "The Stupidity Paradox", Mat Alverson discusses how we hire intelligent people but create environments where they are discouraged from thinking. Better to bump along than think it through.

He says you can tell you have a functionally stupid organisation when there is:

- no justification given or sought for a course of action

- a failure to reflect on assumptions

- a lack of accounting for long term implications.

I love some of the suggestions he makes to support organisations dispel their stupid. He says,

"Devil's advocates are helpful. You can create pre-mortems - which encourage people to imagine everything that could lead to a disaster in a project before you begin it. You can also play bullshit bingo or have sessions where people are encouraged to raise issues, possibly anonymously. One can also have people interview newcomers about their experiences of surprising/odd/problematic features. Or have task forces on anti-stupidity management."

Doing ONE THING deep can help surface and eliminate unwanted stupid - seeking diverse opinions, doing things over time and in different ways, and knowing you are doing something that matters.