"Why Stupid People Get Hired"

Can you have fun with wikipedia? Let's try. There is a tiny book entitled, "Why Stupid Can you have fun with Wikipedia? Let's try. There is a tiny book entitled: "Why Stupid People Get Hired." I Googled it for reviews. The title is worth a million dollars but what's in it? Wikipedia popped up on the subject. I'm not new to stupidity but I am new to the amount of thinking that's been done on the subject.

Who knew historian Carlo Cipolla wrote an essay on the laws of human stupidity? Having a lifelong sympathy for the hand most managers have been dealt, I hope the following eases your pain and helps your understanding of the people that surround you. Here are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity.

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.

It's one of those time release concepts. You feel superior at first reading, then you pause and realize stupid is a bell curve thing. Somebody has to be on the left side of the curve. Looking around, - could it be me?

The management take away.

1. Stupid is contextual. Forrest Gump was brilliant in his own way, and at running.
2. Nobody needs a smart dog. All of mankind's problems happen because some person couldn't stay at home, in their room and just keep quiet. Smart dogs will bring you a leash, push to be taken for a walk, and generally take over your day.
3. Companies need people who keep the trains running. Stupid or smart are not relevant. Reliable, predictable, loyal, - in many roles these are the most important characteristics.

We live in a clever world. It's entertaining but not always necessary. That said, smart is one good way to get out of many situations.

I know I haven't helped you, but like me, you're probably thinking.

Let's build great companies,
Wolfgang

p.s. It's a real book title, "Why Stupid People Get Hired." I found a copy at PBK Executive Reports. So far, I like the content.

p.s. Carlo, - you are so correct.

Walmart, and the Problem with Two Million of Anything.

Walmart, 2.2 million employees, $447 billion in revenues. To put it into context, the Catholic Church does $170 billion. Walmart is the size of two other countries, Argentina and Apple.

Not having firsthand experience with anything 2 billion, my generation willingly confuses abstract with real life. Occupy Main Street, though mostly unemployed are certain they know how to run the economy. Brands are purchased to make us stand out from the crowd, when in reality we become the crowd. Our presidents and priests have no practical experience in what they teach, but many seek them out equally for guidance and joke fodder.

Problem is, in some strange way it all sort of works and I'm grateful to live here. Grateful we're bolted to the world's cop. If there was a 90 mile sea channel between us and the USA, Canadians too would be driving 1959 Plymouths and Gretzky may, or not have made it over in an inner tube.

"OUR Walmart" as I understand it, is a union guided movement without official union organizing going on. Sort of a Sun Tzu, - to win a war without fighting one - idea.

Walmart's sheer bulk has pushed to the edges of its business model. You can't have 2.2 of anything without somebody getting interested in what you're doing. The history of Walmart's employee relations is not good. The low and then still lower pricing model requires low labour costs and huge flexibility which you can only squeeze from a part time, entry level workforce and that's not where thirty year veterans want to stay.

Sixty years, right on time. Disneyland had the same union problem on its sixtieth birthday. The saucer ride operator found he couldn't raise a family in Anaheim forgetting he started at age 16, a summer job helping tourists onto the pink spinning saucers. His manager, fearful of turnover, preferring peace over stretch, let the young ride operator ride for 20 years never dreaming at some point, the employee would sincerely believe he owned the job.

The management lesson about not growing people is this. Grow people's capabilities and responsibilities. If you keep them in the same position for too many years, the will at some point tell you what the job and the salary has to be. They will believe they own their job.

Productivity and quality never increase in the twentieth year of either marriage or work.

Low turnover is possible when you leave people in their comfort zone. We all like warm, cozy, and comfortable. When you raise the bar, you also begin to think about retention.

Be like VW, not Lincoln. Don't talk about your past, talk about your future. Think what's next, be different, dissatisfied, anxious, push the limits. Domestic cars will never win as long as they sport their old badges. Those badges remind us of their failed history.

A strong economy can mislead us into thinking we're great managers. Maybe. Maybe not. Rising tide, boats in the harbour, you know the story.



I don't mean to take this Walmart analogy any further than to point out that if employees don't grow in their roles, over time they truly believe the only problem at work is you. Develop, grow, train up, and expand people in their roles. They'll be happier and you'll have labour peace.

Let's build great companies!
Wolfgang

Michael Buble or Andre Rieu?

Every year around this time, sooner or later I'm asking myself the same question, - who is Andre Rieu and how did he learn his stage craft from Liberace? These are the questions which tell you you're watching the wrong channel. Click. Wait a minute, isn't Andre just like many other problem employees? Pretty good at what he does but annoying as heck?

A few years back I held a seminar entitled, "How to Manage the Oklahoma Bomber." McViegh was another "problem employee." What got my attention was that in the US military McViegh served in the Persian Gulf with honor, and was awarded a Bronze star! After the military, he committed this atrocity. Later, in prison he becomes a model prisoner again. What gives? Structure, freedom, structure. Given freedom he becomes a bad guy. With structure, he became a good guy.

We all have at least one problem employee, and some of them we can recover with tighter structure. Difficult employees have such a negative effect on industry I think any economic turnaround plan should stipulate that nasty people stay home. Canada's GDP would skyrocket!

Companies are not institutions, (such as the military and prisons) who are free to use these structure tools to get good behavior out of otherwise, very nasty people. But let's look at what they do. They reduce or take away degrees of freedom. In business, we reduce subjective decision making range.

They control the person's time. In business, we micro manage, we move closer.

Control their activities. At work we tighten job descriptions and roles.

Increased reporting and relentless surveillance. Managers start directing closely, telling people what needs to be done.

They control their peer group. At work this becomes more difficult but we can break up a nest of like minded problem people.

They control the individual's social life and best friend. At work we're limited to watching for cliques or packs and physically distancing them.



Ken Blanchard went down the same road, he called it Situational Leadership, (required reading). Still true.

I'm sure I'm doing Mr. Rieu a disservice by including him in this story. He's probably not that bad a guy. However, not willing to take a chance, I recorded Michael Buble's Christmas concert. Great, wonderful, fun! I like the guy.

Let's build great companies!

Happy New Year,
Wolfgang

p.s. The Chao plan. Succession planning. Random, how to maintain the culture it's taken you a lifetime to build. How to build in accountability. Defining a key management group. Building a dashboard, (KPIs) so you can manage the company from the beach with your smart phone. Number of shares. Buyouts only from growth money, not profit. If you want to know more, email me at wolf@managing.ca Chao.