Blog posts on psychology

Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• Better Meetings

  Meetings are perennial problems. People sit through meetings and then complain about how big a waste of time it was. Here are a couple very simple tips to try and actually improve (instead of just agreeing that meetings are wasteful, but doing nothing to improve).

  • Have an agenda
  • Document decisions

  ...

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• Systemic Failures Lead to Many Fatal SWAT Raids in the USA

  ...people being killed in raids by police on the wrong house: police in full swat gear storming the wrong house by accident and then killing occupants. The media in general sees these as “special causes” – isolated incidents. So while tragic the strategy is then to examine what mistake in this unique situation lead to tragedy. I believe this is a systemic problem and therefore see the proper examination to undertake is to look at the whole system. That is, to use the common cause improvement strategy – when the tragedy is seen not as an isolated incident but the result of a system.

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• Motivating Employees

  When a manger views the problem as one of motivating workers that puts the problem within the worker. They need to be changed. That is the wrong strategy, most of the time. People want to do a good job; the job of a manager is to remove the de-motivation within the system.

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• Errors in Thinking

  An understanding of theory of knowledge is helpful to counteract errors in thinking. How we think is not perfect, and an understanding the weaknesses and faulty conclusions we are susceptible to making is helpful. That can help avoid jumping to conclusions that are faulty and to design systems that counteract such behavior.

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• Stop Demotivating Me!

  ...What should a manager do? Eliminate the de-motivators. Provide coaching (building the capacity or employees and the organization). And manage a system to allow people to take pride in what they do. Holding pizza parties, pep talks, displaying posters and annual performance reviews are not what is needed. But those actions are really easy so that is what some people do – instead of what is needed. How sad.

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• Don’t Empower

  Using the term, "empower", implies that it one person empowers another person. This is not the correct view. Instead we each play a role within a system. Yes there are constraints on your actions based on the role you are playing. Does a security guard empower the CEO to enter the building?

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• Toyota, Lean and Management Consultants

  ...Serious attempts will also be frustrating at times and can also fail but most organizations won’t even commit to attempting serious change. Most will just look for some items from current fads to dress up how they have always managed.

  That management consultants will also jump from fad to fad, without conviction, is not news. Deming called them “hacks” in the 1980’s. Bob Sutton’s excellent article calls 90% of management advice crap...

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• Learn From Success and Failure

  ...how the PDSA improvement cycle should be used: results are studied to increase knowledge. If results exceed expectations that should not be a reason to avoid learning. If you only study what results tell you when results are unsatisfactory you can fall into the trap that “you only learn from failure.” I guess many people only learn from failure, since that phrase is so popular, but that method leaves plenty of room for others to learn faster than you thus gaining an advantage (a more effective method of learning). Don’t wait to fail to learn.

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• Be Careful What You Measure

  Behavior can be changed by what is measured. The problem with arbitrary numerical targets (to take one measurement related example) is not that attempts to achieve those targets won’t have an affect. They very well may have an affect. However they may not lead to the desired result. When focused on improving a number (which can happen when focused on measures – especially as the focus on those measures is tied to bonuses, favorable treatment…) the focus is not necessarily on on improving the system. Often distorting the system is the result.

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• Illusions – Optical and Other

  Optical illusions provide a simple reminder of how easily we can think we know things that are not so.

  It is important to question what you believe; even when it is as obvious as the A square being darker than the B square. Understanding the ease with which we can reach false conclusions can be a powerful aid in improving management decision making.

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• Warren Buffett’s 2016 Letter to Shareholders

  The fairly simple idea of hiring trustworthy, capable and ethical people and giving them freedom to manage for the long term seems too easy to provide an advantage. But it does. Warren Buffett is very careful to pick people that are more concerned with providing value to customers over the long term than promoting themselves and seeking massive short term rewards for themselves. This simple act of hiring people that are willing to put customers and shareholders before themselves allows your organizations to function in its long term best interest.

  In so many other companies short term incentives destroy value (Warren’s point 4 above). This failure can extend to companies Warren is significantly invested in: such as the long term and deep seeded mismanagement at Wells Fargo due to very poor leadership at that company for years. But in general, Berkshire Hathaway is much better at avoiding these toxic behaviors driven by very poor executive leadership when compared to other companies.

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• Predicting Improves Learning

  Personally I have found the act of actually making predictions and examining the results incredibly helpful in improving the speed and depth of my learning. You can also learn tendencies for missed predictions (predicting greater improvement, prediction faster adoption of new idea, underestimate additional costs required by new procedures…) and then adjust to make better predictions over time.

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• The Problem with Targets

  ... Brian Joiner provides another reason why targets are harmful: there are “3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult.” And so most often targets results in distortion of the data (faulty data) or distortion of the system (meet target by shifting resources and effort from other parts of the system). Both of those actions are harmful to the system.

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• Getting and Keeping Great Employees

  I think the main thing to do is to respect employees (and have that visible in the management decisions made in the organization). Stopping the demotivation would be a big step for many organizations. And to manage your organization with the understanding that the organization’s purpose should be to benefit the various stakeholders (shareholders, customer… and employees).      

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• Critical Thinking is Needed to Counter Propaganda

  That Russians used propaganda and misinformation to attempt to get voters to vote for Trump is important. But the main thing that should have prevented those attempts is sensible critical thinking. The best defense against propaganda is critical thinking and transparency. If the population is trained and accepts being lead to conclusions with obvious propaganda it doesn't matter if you shut off one path for propaganda, others will emerge.
  
  What you need to do is create an expectation of reasoned debate. Sadly the USA has done a very poor job of this. We have allowed politicians get away with obviously false claims. We have promoted not critical thinking but the unthinking following of propaganda.
  
  Until we greatly increase the respect for critical thought and debate we are in trouble. It doesn't matter much what form those seeking to use propaganda use to manipulate people what matters is how susceptible a large number of people are to propaganda.

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