...is not what top researchers think--even though it's printed in the MIT Sloan Review.
Recently, while reading a back issue of one of my favorite journals, the MIT Sloan Review, I stumbled on a research article entitled “The Most Underrated Skill in Management.” That sounded interesting, so I wondered what it had to say. At the conclusion of the third paragraph the authors wrote, “We’ve come to believe that problem formulation is the single most underrated skill in all of management practice.”
Good shot guys, but not quite. After thoughtfully re-reading the entire ten-page article, I concluded, that the article was exceptionally insightful from a process standpoint. It focused on a needy issue. But as far as being the “most underrated” skill, it’s nonsense. In fact, this is a research conclusion that needs serious rethinking. Actually amused by the authors’ conclusion, I was reminded of a brilliant and thought-provoking set of articles edited by the eminent psychologist, Robert Sternberg, entitled “Why smart people can be so stupid.”
The authors of “Smart people. . .” come up with a number of reasons for their conclusion. In spite of the MIT quoted research, one of the most apropos reasons for stupidity is what can be termed the mindless assimilation of social (business) biases. With their impeccable MIT Harvard reputation, these patently smart people demonstrate a bias that is clearly that of the academy. If you consult and read widely and analytically in business, it’s obvious that thinking about people competencies is controlled by organizational behaviorists, a solely psychological discipline--but in the work context. So, the authors looked at thinking, the black box and abnormal behaviors, but not at the inadequate conversing, right in front of their noses. That explains too clearly what’s going on in the MIT article.
The business world, since at least the 1970s, has been profoundly controlled by a theory built on both economics and psychology (organizational behavior). Business faculty and leaders are inherently aware of this theory. The consequence is that they tend to make choices according to its dictates. Social, behavioral and physical arrangements and decisions are implemented consistent with the theory’s prescriptions. When this happens, as in the MIT Review article, detriments to practice inevitably surface.
Limiting research methods to their most familiar discipline, psychological behavior, inevitably impacts conceptual thinking and potentially creative solutions. In contrast, extensive research reveals that managers who use interdisciplinary research enable the individual and team to address complex problems more rationally and practically. But org behavior has become tacit when discussing any and all matters regarding humans. It’s like the impact of economics upon government policy. Articles about government policy are inevitably driven by the discipline of economics, even when thinking people have learned that the economic response may be irrelevant or heavily biased. It was no surprise that when Allan Greenspan dropped his economic bias and finally got around to interdisciplinary analysis--shortly after his retirement--he found that cultural orientation (anthropology) often determines important decisions—not economics. And that’s just a start. Just think about the 20 years of the Iraq war, based on the wrong-headed belief and methodology that all nations want a democratic country—whether or not they’re prepared for it. The Bush cronies were utterly lacking in anthropology and sociology disciplines. So, we had a still unresolved, disastrous mess with the loss of thousands, perhaps several million lives and trillions of dollars because of a completely fallacious orientation to an Asian culture. Utterly idiotic.
Though well-trained in modern rhetoric, communication, history and social-psychology, I’ve learned that when looking at a problem you need always to ask what discipline or disciplines can best explain the problem to get beyond Johnny One-Note. In short, the MIT research is indicative of the weakness of American specialization and its lack of interdisciplinary background. So, I’m arguing that when describing management, you need to think through the disciplines of management, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, linguistics, politics and certainly communication and rhetoric. Though I wouldn’t expect that from a business manager, I certainly don’t believe it’s too much to ask from highly educated academics from top schools. Evidently, I’m wrong.
The inarticulate
One of the delights of consulting in nearly all business disciplines, many Fortune 100 and 500 companies, and working primarily with senior execs, but interacting with mid-level employees for more than 30 years, is that you begin to notice what’s typically and uniquely true and prevalent in all companies. Certain business disciplines consistently show up as strengths in American companies and other disciplines as consistently weak. For example, American companies know more about strategy, sales, marketing, managing and technical innovation than the rest of the world. These are our strengths. You have to have your head in the sand not to know that Asians, and especially the Chinese, know a lot about manufacturing. But not about manufacturing innovation. That’s still American, even though being challenged today by the Chinese.
But when it comes to very significant conversational competencies, Americans--and the Brits--are almost uniformly inarticulate. Of course, a big reason for the huge lack of conversational skills is that more than 100 years of traditional business simply didn’t require them. Assembly line managing is essentially authoritarian, sometimes fascistic. Having worked on an assembly line in Detroit in 1953-54, I can tell you that the assembly line was all about control, command and top-down managing, requiring little to no conversation. If I got a new job on that assembly line, the full extent of a conversation with management looked like this. “Now here’s how to finish that bushing. (Leader demonstration.) Got it?” “Yeah, I think so.” “I’ll come back in a couple hours to check on you.” “OK.” Two hours later he comes back to check and one of two responses takes place: “That looks good,” or “No, you’re doing that wrong. (Leader recycles first demonstration and commands.) Got it now?” That's not a conversation!!
When I write that the MIT article is “almost, but not quite,” what I’m referring to is their use of the term ‘problem formulation.’ Their psychological dependence showed up in that they researched the context with psych tools, focusing on reasoning and analysis competencies, leaving out the most obvious, the talking, conversational development of problem formulations. The final form of big ideas or behaviors always comes about as a result of conversations. Of course, poor conversations equal poor consequences. And the notion of the single genius, who doesn’t converse or collaborate, has been firmly disposed of by research. So, impactful formulation and strategy are always the result, not of individuals, but of articulate, business conversations.
In short: the most underrated skill in American business is conversation—not problem formulation.
In fact, a big reason that problem formulation (and problem resolution) is so weak is the profound lack of conversational expertise. Effective business conversation is highly demanding. Essential to success, far beyond the given technical/digital language, is a command of several language competencies, along with the ability to take the perspective of the other person (s) and an expert understanding of how one’s own language impacts others. That’s a lot more than the mere ability to use words. Research has shown that what’s critical to success is the ability to act effectively in the business interaction—the ability to cooperate through verbal interactions, rather than display mere intelligence or pure verbal agility.
Some years ago, I worked with a very bright Stanford MBA who was verbally agile to the -enth degree. But she showed no awareness of how her language, including tone, sophisticated vocabulary, nonverbals, and personal demandingness impacted others. She lacked the ability to take a visual perspective of another person, recognize the causal links in social events, or understand other people’s inner feelings. Of course, research reveals that most of us, most of the time, are largely incapable of identifying the true causes of our failures. But she was clearly a conversationally impotent female, who never gave serious thought to the conversational nature of her failures. And was actually not open at all to either feedback or coaching—from anyone. To put it bluntly, she was a snarky, malicious, female, both egotistical and ego-centric.
Research reveals a number of highly important issues tying to that Stanford manager’s failures. For example, there was no significant linkage between self-awareness and other awareness. You can be very aware of your own feelings and abilities, but incapable of understanding others’—and vice-versa. These kinds of skills require a speech community, often originating in the family and built upon by one’s education and chosen colleagues. Furthermore, she had little skill in conversational regulation or the ability to identify emotion in others—her tools were essentially and profoundly self-centered. So, she consistently failed to build teams and collaborate with others. She viewed herself as the smartest person on the block, and was not shy about letting others know. Most significantly, I never observed her in an interaction mode. She was always command and control. I consulted in that firm for five or six years, but she was never promoted to the vice-presidency she aspired to. She was one of the few I ever worked with who was not coachable. But because of her education, she eventually got a directorship. She ended that directorship in conversational failures of collaboration, and was quietly let go.
Desperate need
That Stanford grad is indicative of the acute need for understanding modern rhetoric and conversation. And the problem is getting far more serious than when I first worked with her. Sherry Turkle’s diagnostic study dating from 2015 (“Reclaiming Conversation”) emphasizes the difficulty we face, a difficulty tied to that MIT “formulation conclusion.” We live in a technological world and yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection. We turn away from each other and toward our phones. We are forever elsewhere. But to empathize, to grow. . . to fully understand and engage with the world around us, we must be in conversation. . . it sustains the best in business and in education. It is good for the bottom line.
Happily, I can point to numerous clients who picked up on their conversational needs and developed a mature communication awareness of others and enlarged their conversational repertoire, all leading to high levels of performance. And in some cases, saved their jobs.