Dan Erwin

Is Job Security Really All About “Who You Know”?

A little exercise in critical thinking.

Recently, I received an email from LinkedIn with the familiar heading regarding job security, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Let’s suppose you have no history with this kind of statement. How would you assess its truthfulness? For that matter, how do you test the truthfulness of any claim, whether email, text, tv or conversation?

 The either/or format of the LinkedIn claim is a common persuasive technique, often called the black or white fallacy because readers are asked to decide between two positions. Many business people recognize decision biases like anchoring, over-confidence and vivid anecdote, but few yet recognize the common fallacies of decision-making such as the false dichotomy, name-calling and card-stacking.  From the get-go, the ability to recognize a dichotomy like the LinkedIn claim is a kind of “sensitivity training” and a cue that the solution being offered is probably wrong.

Vantage point

LinkedIn has over 500 million users and, I assume, is the largest and most prominent professional network, suggesting that their pronouncements come with a lot of clout. So, it’s important to ask whether their claim, like those of other major institutions, is actually true.  Critical thinkers assume that when you construct an entire argument on one cause, you face the temptation to leave out anything that complicates that notion. It’s inevitable, therefore, that LinkedIn minimizes job performance, skips over issues of economic or organizational stability, ignores the job destructive digital technology—and avoids mentioning any other potential issues...

Losing Faith in Expertise?

 
  We are moving toward a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based collapse of any division between     professionals and laypeople. Tom Nichols, US Naval War College

Tom Nichols' engrossing study of how America lost faith in expertise--and why that's a giant problem--is long overdue. On numerous occasions I've listened to one of the least informed persons in the room hold court, confidently lecturing me and others with a stream of banalities and misinformation. And it's not just at a cocktail party. A few weeks ago a masseuse was talking with great confidence about national policy regarding healthcare, a subject about which she knew absolutely nothing. Since I was captured on a massage table, I merely grunted, but I wanted to throttle her.

A New Definition of Political Insanity

I've read Vanity Fair, complements of my eldest daughter, for years. When I pick it up at the apartment PO box, I usually turn the cover against my body, fearful that someone might see I'm reading a girly magazine. But she continues to send it, and I continue to skim it, looking for the three or four brilliant ideas that make it worth the 15 minutes it takes for my quick-eyed research. Besides, Michael Lewis writes five or six fascinating, vibrant commentaries per year, making it well worth my time. Historically, some of the great writers used to pen articles, including Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis and E.E. Cummings. Great stuff!
How do you assess political insanity?
The latest issue of Vanity Fair had the most intriguing and hilarious notion of political insanity, quoted by the publisher, Graydon Carter, I've ever seen. And I've got at least two semesters of abnormal psychology behind me, as well as consulting and pastoral interactions with some psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists and paranoids. But first, a bit about the context...

Trump, Populism and the Election

If you voted Trump, don’t expect too much. If you voted Clinton, the world is not at an end. 

Candidly, I was 80% shocked and surprised, and about 20% merely reflective. What created these stats for me was last week’s blog, What’s the noise really all about?--a blog that defined populism and that has now become predictive of Trump’s success. Populists believe in their own virtue—and that they are being mistreated by a small circle of elites. Added to that belief is the view that “if we work together, we can overthrow those elites.”  That just happened in our election. What’s unique is that Trump’s win is the first time populism has elected a president--even though populist ideas have impacted voting throughout American history.

American history of populism
This morning I rechecked the history of populism and gained a number of fascinating insights...

Inquiry as Influence: An Ancient Technology 2.0

The least used and one of the most productive tools for conversation is high-level questioning. But for a number of reasons, questioning has always gotten short shrift. Traditionally, asking questions is thought of as revealing your incompetence, which is then rewarded with a loss of influence. Even today, when the need ought to be obvious, few actually get questioning. Neither yesterday’s traditionalist nor today’s knowledge worker understands that questioning is a linguistic device that can make great contributions to the organization—and grant profound influence and power to the individual.

All questions are speech actions that affect the way individuals and teams organize their thinking about people, problems, and processes. The better questions can often...

Politically Incorrect

My eldest daughter, like me, is "kinda proud of her alma mater. Actually, very proud." Why? Her University of Chicago sent a note to incoming freshmen that they shouldn't expect "safe places" at their school. 

Here's the verbatim from the dean of students at the University of Chicago, pushing back against recent college trends. 

We do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial and we do not condone the creation of intellectual 'safe spaces' where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.

Think you can guess our political stance? ...

Habitual Striking vs. Mindful “Stucking” (Part I: Knowing)

Most of us in business are strongly driven by the action bias. And if not by the bias, then by our boss or clients. In other words, when you’re stuck in a tough situation, do something. Don’t just stand there; do something. I suspect Yoda had the typical business response to being stuck: “Do or do not. There is no try!” In other words, do it wholeheartedly or don’t do it at all.

Doing something, however, can be a mistake. While there are times to strike, when you’re really stuck, wait. . . . And think.

Because the action bias is so deeply entrenched and the perceived demands so demanding, few take the time to think.  In a recent article, MIT’s Duncan Simester refers—incorrectly--to the “lost art of thinking,” arguing that...

The Upside of Flip-Flopping

Are you a flip-flopper? Do you evolve, or just stay the same? “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything,” wrote George Bernard Shaw.

In career development, it’s usually the little things that derail a manager or exec. Thus, I typically focus on granular career issues. For example, I’ve never quite understood why, even when it’s done rarely, flip-flopping is such an evil. So I was intrigued to read Adam Grant’s recent article on the “virtue of contradicting ourselves.”

Flip-flopping and inconsistency, according to the well-known Wharton prof, can be virtuous. But...

When Should You Start Your Own Company?

One of my very bright young friends in his early thirties occasionally worries that he's let too much time go by and that he should have started his own company several years ago. It's a very prevalent idea, but it's pure myth. So what is the average age of the typical entrepreneur when he/she starts the business?

Debunking the entrepreneurial myth. 
With all the hype about successful 20-somethings, you’d think that they had entrepreneurialism all sewed up. Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Paul Allen and Bill Gates with Microsoft, as well as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with Apple are often touted as typical entrepreneurs. And that once you break 30. . .

Why How We Fight Matters Most

Analysis of business conversations inevitably reveals that they are chock full of misunderstanding, differences of opinion and inherent disagreement. Yet, it has been more than a dozen years since anything significant on managing conflict has been created. But in a recent and highly awarded study UVA’s Kristin Behfar and her colleagues have provided a new, very practical approach to conflict prediction and resolution.

Rather than focus on conflict types, such as task or relationship orientation, they found that by manipulating two dimensions—directness and intensity—they were able to predict conflict success or failure.

Directness is defined as how straightforward—or “direct”—measured by words and body language somebody communicates information to the other person. Intensity is seen as the emotional component. Is the information presented on almost a matter-of-fact basis—or does it involve...