Excerpt from “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith

Chances are, your organization runs on the Alpha Principle, Ideas do not follow the good thinking in an organization; ideas follow the power.

Most organizations work like the groups of apes from which we evolved. The alphas dictate what group the group does and thinks.

But are alphas better at decision making? Not necessarily. Alphas are just better at getting and keeping power. In most organizations, in fact, alphas are the people who just look and sound like they should have the power (a conclusion suggested by several studies that show that height, not business school performance, is the strongest predictor of an MBA’s starting salary).

If your smart people don’t kill your ideas, chances are the alphas will.

If you’re an alpha, learn to shut up. Imitate Ben Taylor, the alpha who runs the Executrain franchise in Minnesota, often the most successful of America’s very Executrain franchises. When asked to explain his success, Taylor’s first response is “I listen”

The bumper stickers are right: Question Authority. Question alphas.

Excerpt from “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith

You know several things about your business:

“Our customers buy on price.
“Telemarketing does not work with this audience.
“Our clients won’t pay for higher quality, even if we could achieve it.”

You know things like these. Or do you?

You hear similar sacred truths in every company.

Often, these sacred truths start with someone – we’ll call him Will – as a mere opinion. Will then starts seeing everything in light of his opinion. He leaps on any evidence that supports his opinion and ignores all contrary evidence. Before long. Will’s opinion has become his conviction, which he conveys to other employees. Will’s apostles, impressed by his reputation and conviction, spread Will’s faith further. Soon, Will’s mere opinion has become a company-wide dogma.

But many of these so-called truths are false. Just like many of your truths about your service.

This sobering fact – that you, Will, and I are wrong far more often that we know – has been suggested by dozens of studies that test people on subjects on which they consider themselves authorities. The people tested answer a series of questions, and then answer this question about each answer: “From one to a hundred percent, how certain are you about this answer?”

What happens?

On the answers of which people say they are totally – 100 percent – certain, they are right only 85 percent of the time.

In other words, 15 percent of the time you think you are absolutely certain you are absolutely wrong.

In most services, that 15 percent error – those wrong but widespread assumptions that everyone in the company is making – the most leveragable part of your business. Find it, and attack it.

If you are prone to being certain, copy Jay Chiat. The head of Chiat Day, the ad agency behind many of America’s most conspicuous advertisements, Chiat carries a note in this pocket. The note reminds him that whenever he is in an argument he should remember the note’s three words:

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe others are right and you’re wrong – even if you are certain you’re right. These tests, which demonstrate the fallacy of confidence (“the overconfidence bias,” as it is called by psychologists), also tell you not to be overwhelmed by other people’s total convictions. In fact, many businesses unwittingly follow the Path of Greatest Conviction; they consistently do whatever the most convinced person argues they should do.

So the Questions Authority bumper stickers offer good advice. Even when you or someone else feels certain, you should question that authority.

Especially your own.

Beware of the overconfidence bias. Maybe he’s right.

Excerpt from “Selling the Invisible” by Harry Beckwith

At Carmichael-Lynch Advertising in the late 1980s, we conceived several awards for our group’s creative people. My favorite was the Crab Plaque.

This Plaque, awarded for the Stupidest Idea, featured a windup plastic crab, because crabs move laterally, symbolizing the power of lateral thinking. Because lateral ideas do not follow in a straight line from the thinking that preceded them, they usually look stupid at first.

But we need more stupid thinking. We had too much smart thinking; our average Stanford-Binet exceeded 120, easy. We just needed to be stupider – and to be unafraid of coming up with seemingly stupid ideas, which often turn out the best.

As we learned every day, highly intelligent people are the world’s foremost experts at squashing good ideas. That’s because intelligent people have one absolute favorite use fo their formidable intelligence: telling other people, with total conviction and logic, why other people’s ideas will not work.

Planning tends to attract these people, but they are dangerous. As smart as they are, their memories fail them; they always forget that good ideas often sound ludicrous at first.

Think dumb.