Some ten or twelve years ago I flew home from a trade show via TF Green Airport in Providence, RI instead of the usual Boston Logan Airport. This small airport has (or at least had at the time) one large economy parking lot with shuttle buses.
You were supposed to give the bus driver the number of your bus stop near your car. Running late, I rushed to catch my departing flight and didn’t make note of the number, but I knew where I was in relation to the entire lot.
“Excuse me,” I said to the bus driver, “but I don’t have my bus stop number. Can you just drop me off at whatever stop is near to the far right corner of the lot?”
“What’s the number?” grunted the bus driver.
“I don’t have the number. But I know my car is near the far right corner of the lot from where we are right now.”
A slightly louder grunt this time: “What’s the number?”
Huh…?! After one more similarly circular exchange I said, “Sir, any stop near the far corner of the lot will be just fine…”
One of my compadres from the trade show mercifully interjected with a stop number he knew was somewhat close to my car. The bus driver, now given “the number,” did silently acquiesce to stop there, his eyes forward. Note that there was no language barrier or misunderstanding. The driver could also hear me just fine. But he was simply locked into his own way of thinking to a degree beyond the pale.
The way a person communicates is a major part of their reputation, and therefore, their personal brand. I also suggest the vast majority of communication problems are caused by the personal baggage we bring to the table when communicating, known in sociological terms as conditional bias.
Specifically, a person might pay attention to those bits of a conversation that verify their beliefs about the matter at hand, and ignore other information that doesn’t fit that pre-existing bias. That bus driver was certainly was not communicating with me; for all I know, his conditional bias may have been, who does this guy think he is for not knowing the number…?!
There is an excellent book I am now reading of relevance to this topic: Know What You Don’t Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen by Michael Roberto. A book for anyone involved in management, marketing communication, or business intelligence/data warehousing, Michael Roberto’s book addresses human flaws in how we interpret, communcate and act upon information. Michael Roberto explores why failures to discover informational insight and/or act upon it happen. He draws illuminating examples from business, healthcare and world events (including 9/11). Michael Roberto also highlights the active behaviors and actions needed to effectively communicate and see the forest through the trees of information to prevent crises before they happen. I look forward to sharing more when I finish this book.
I recently read that vast majority of all organizations in a recent survey reported very little benefit from Business Intelligence systems, if ever! While many such BI failures may have been due to various technical problems, I have to wonder: are such lopsided statistics really all due to the Business Intelligence tools and Data Warehousing solutions themselves, or, as Michael Roberto suggests, might it be due to the corporate cultures that discourage asking “politically unpopular” questions based on data analytics, or pooh-pooh “gut feel” when little or no supporting data exists (yet)…? As the saying goes, a bad carpenter blames his tools!
It’s easy to shake one’s head at that bus driver’s refusal to communicate with me. The much harder question that demands an honest answer is, what personal baggage have we brought to a series of communications that caused misinterpretation of information, inappropriate actions, or worse? Did we fail to communicate, filter information to match our biases, and act in our own way at least a little like that disgruntled bus driver?
Thanks for the kind words about my book! Hope you enjoy the rest of it.
Hi Mike. Thank you for responding to my blog post. I look forward to writing much more about your book as I resume reading it again after two weeks on the road.
I am very interested in discussing with you how the points of your book impact Business Intelligence/Data Warehousing (BI/DW) technology and the use of these technologies. As I noted in the post, I wonder how many BI/DW “failures” are really due to technological or implementation flaws, and how many are due to the company not encouaging the right questions be asked or not accepting the answers provided…
I really like the above post (and a lot of the other things you’ve been writing about). I’ve been focusing on the intelligence gleaned from customers. A similar story occurred at a hospital (which had invested millions into quality care), and the CEO’s father refused to interact with the receptionist at the front desk. She had “ruined” his experience the previous time. Talking to your customers can reveal their most important “pain points”, not just what you want them to remember.
Thanks Tamara for your comment. Instead of replying here I think I will incorporate it as a new blog posting…Mike