Time was when economies flourished, business
was booming and Leaders of Business didn’t have to worry about messy things
that they didn’t understand, like people and all their irrationalities. The rational world of behaviourism
worked wonderfully well on the basis of what you put in predicts what you get
out. Of course it did. Bonuses were dangled and people performed.
Then things started to get a bit shaky. Heads were scratched. The Leaders of Business kind of knew
they were missing something but they didn’t want to admit it nor get their
hands dirty. But the day was saved
by the heroic likes of Messrs Ariely, Kahneman and Thaler. It was a little bit messy they told us,
but not to worry because they had it all worked out so that although it wasn’t
as simple as it was before, here are all the rules that you need to know. Basically you can still have a system
that predicts what you get out based on what you put in. And in a stroke of marketing brilliance
they called it Behavioural Economics, using two favourite words in one neat
phrase. No wonder the Leaders of
Business loved it. They could now
go about their business with the confidence that they Understand People.
But the real understanding remains untouched by
the Leaders of Business, who have MBA’s and who ‘invest in people’. If they did they would understand and
deal with the culture that exists in most organizations where employees have to
succeed, so cannot take risks, who have to know, so cannot learn, who
have to perform so cannot try a new way. They would understand the excruciating anxiety that this
culture induces and the inhibition of creativity and potential that results. They would take steps to model a new
way of being that celebrates trying with its associated failures, that supports
not knowing and learning, that accepts flaws in the face of the impossibility
of perfection. Even in
themselves.
And then, maybe, the Leaders in Business could
start to open up to understanding the real messy world of people with their
anxieties and defenses, emotions, hopes and irrationalities that exist beyond
the doors of their corporate headquarters and the sanitized world of
Behavioural Economics.
