Dan Erwin

Is Where You Are More Important Than Who You Are?

 

Exceedingly Astute: Timothy Egan

It's always gratifying to read a journalist who hears a speech the same way I do, makes sense of it, and approves. I suspect that's called somewhat narcissistic, but. . . tough.

So after listening to a number of the talking heads arguing about what Obama did say and mean or didn't say and didn't mean, here's Tim Egan on Obama's West Point speech:  

    Obama didn't specifically say so, but the guiding principle for this era of nuance and shadows may be no more complex than this: Stay out of wars of unintended consequence.

How's that for a big strategy? Cheeky of Egan, eh? No question, however, that it's highly realistic. It's certainly something for HR people and executive coaches to talk about.

Well, as Egan points out, "the map of McCain's (et al) wars is worth considering as a what-if had the would-be vice-president Sarah Palin and her running mate in 2008 prevailed." You really, really should look at this map. It's more than illuminating.

You might also be amused by our future military leaders' response to Obama's speech. "The biggest response from the cadets at West Point came when Obama said, 'you are the first class to graduate since 9/11 who may not be sent into combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.' They cheered....

Selection Bias: The Ivory Tower Effect

As a consequence of my recent blog, Three questions about questioning, I had one of those instructive, aha moments. In the blog I noted that two business profs and one world-famous Harvard professor had drawn conclusions about questioning skills that simply would not stand up to scrutiny. After posting the blog, I questioned why these academics were so unaware of what’s going on in the nitty-gritty of business. After a sleepless night and a few days of restless probing, as well as a lot of reflection upon my own checkered career, the answer came zinging back at me: selection bias—what I call the Ivory Tower Effect. 

Selection bias comes to us out of statistics and it refers to an erroneous selection of data, individuals or groups taking part in a scientific study. Significantly, one distinction of the bias is that it undermines the ability to generalize research results to the rest of the population. In this instance, however, the profs’ assumptions about questioning wouldn’t generalize or apply to any group of business people, but. . . that’s another issue. 

Selection bias is rampant in business books, especially those from elite university profs, top consultants and their firms. Though they never admit it, their target audience is inevitably biased to upper-level managers and execs, not the ordinary entry-level nor the huge mass of workers who do all the grunt work—buy few books--and lack the power to hire the elite....