Why Groupthink Is Making You Dumb | Don’t Listen to Uninformed People (And Most of Your Employees) – A Knowledge Bomb

Show Notes

“Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.” – Ray Dalio. Is your team struggling to get things done? Are you necessarily allowing employees to voice their opinions on key strategic decisions?

https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/attend-a-meeting-lose-iq-point-science-says-meetings-actually-make-you-dumber.html?cid=sf01002&fbclid=IwAR2xfapAK84PcU7CRPrJLA_NwgmAEt1Hb38QnVBKmhGgL8Uc3bwtMunZZFQ

Concept #1: Some activities are better done alone and some activities are done better as a group.

EXAMPLES OF ACTIVITIES THAT SHOULD BE DONE AS GROUP ACTIVITIES:

1. One on one football is weird and doesn’t work.
2. One on one concerts are weird and don’t work.
3. One on one church services are weird and typically work very well.
4. Companies and small businesses that have one cold-caller are dramatically less effective than companies that have multiple cold-callers or even two cold-callers working next to each other.

EXAMPLES OF ACTIVITIES THAT SHOULD BE DONE ONE-ON-ONE:

1. Accounting
2. Book editing
3. Strategic thinking
4. Business coaching

Concept #2 – Don’t listen to most people because most people are wrong about most things

1. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.” – Ray Dalio
2. TD Jakes Sound Bite
3. FUN FACT – A 2016 Gallup poll found 55% of those then aged 18-29 said they had a positive view of it
   1. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/democratic-socialism-millennial-politics/index.html
4. Most People 101:
   1. FUN FACT – “78 percent of the men interviewed had cheated on their current partner.” – 5 Myths About Cheating – https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-cheating/2012/02/08/gIQANGdaBR_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05ab54a87466
   2. FUN FACT – “17 percent of couples are content in their partner.” – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/contemplating-divorce/201709/are-you-among-the-growing-number-unhappy-married-people
   3. FUN FACT – “75% of employees steal from the workplace and most do so repeatedly.”
      1. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/employee-theft-are-you-blind-to-it/
   4. FUN FACT – “9.4 percent of the population—had used an illicit drug in the past month.” – https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
   5. FUN FACT – The average American watches 5 hours of TV per day. – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/media/nielsen-survey-media-viewing.html
   6. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” – Andrew Carnegie
   7. FUN FACT – “22 percent of them said they arrive late for work at least once a week.” – https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/03/how-often-are-americans-late-for-work-infographic/#42a41d20db4b
   8. FACT – “ The average American spends will spend more than five years of your life on social media.” https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/306136
   9. FUN FACT – “A study reported that the typical smartphone owner interacts with his or her phone an average of 85 times per day. This includes immediately upon waking up, just before going to sleep, and oftentimes in the middle of the night.” – Are Smartphones Making Us Stupid? – Psychology Today
      1. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “In the future, the great division will be between those who have trained themselves to handle these complexities and those who are overwhelmed by them — those who can acquire skills and discipline their minds and those who are irrevocably distracted by all the media around them and can never focus enough to learn.” – Robert Greene, Mastery
      2. FACT – “Facebook has 50 minutes of your time each day.” – https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-the-rules-of-audience-engagement-to-its-advantage.html
   10. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “I don’t think modern science has good answers here. I think that modern world is actually really bad. The modern world is full of distractions. Things like Twitter and Facebook are not making you happy. They are making you unhappy. You are essentially playing a game that’s created by the creators of those systems, and yes, it can be a useful game once in a blue moon. You are engaging in the dispute, and resentment, comparison, jealousy, anger about things that frankly just don’t matter.” – Naval Ravikant (Naval Ravikant is the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. He previously co-founded Epinions (which went public as part of Shopping.com) and Vast.com. He is an active Angel investor, and have invested in dozens of companies, including Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Stack Overflow and Wanelo.)

Concept #3 – Don’t involve your entire team in making strategic decisions or you will perpetually make dumb decisions.

FUN FACT – “When people were placed in small groups and asked to solve problems, on average their individual IQs dropped by 15 percent.” – https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/attend-a-meeting-lose-iq-point-science-says-meetings-actually-make-you-dumber.html?cid=sf01002&fbclid=IwAR2xfapAK84PcU7CRPrJLA_NwgmAEt1Hb38QnVBKmhGgL8Uc3bwtMunZZFQ

The personality types in all groups:

1. The distracter…because they hate to think deeply
2. Captain Sarcasmo – constantly making sarcastic comments and belittling others
3. The funny guy – Ends every deep though with a funny comment
4. Mr. Late – Always causes 10 people to wait on him because he can’t figure out how to get somewhere on time and then he has a wonderful piece of creative fiction ready to go to explain why he was late.
5. The strong willed, passionate and loud idiot – This person is wrong, but they often get their way because they are
6. The chronically distracted person – They check their email and then say…”What was that?”
7. The emotionally or actually hungover person – It’s obvious to everyone in the room that this person has issues…
8. The “I don’t like meetings” or “I don’t like mornings” person – This person doesn’t want to be there and can’t stop letting you know about it.