The headlines, surveys and news stories are everywhere. Trust is down – in world leaders, in legislatures, in financial institutions, doctors, even religious leaders and educators. It is very, very easy to draw one conclusion from all this – that we have a crisis of trustworthiness. Not so fast. That is a half-truth. Trust is […]
Nowhere am I so desperately needed as among a shipload of illogical humans. –Spock in ‘I, Mudd’ Star Trek’s iconic Mr. Spock was half-Vulcan, half-human. It’s the former we first notice in Spock – Vulcans are governed entirely by logic and rationality, unencumbered by emotions. But it’s the latter that takes Spock from caricature to […]
It’s the opening to dozens of gangster movies. The mob guy with a rakish hat and a sneer sidles into the hard-working good citizen’s retail establishment, knocks some cigarette ash on the floor, and says, “Nice little business you got here, mister. It’d be a shame if something were to happen to it, know what […]
Many of us go around repeating a mantra that we think is self-evidently correct: Under-promise and over-deliver, we say. Always exceed expectations. There is a website ExceedAllExpectations. Another website, HowTo.gov, tells governmental agencies to use metrics to exceed expectations. And as you well know, it’s a common mantra in business. Not so fast. Why Always Exceeding Expectations […]
Sometimes we don’t think right. Often we don’t think right, and we don’t even notice it. (This is well-described in a book called Blind Spot, by Banaji and Greenwald). People in business have big blind spots, just as we do in other social milieu. Recently I’ve run across two items that, together, highlight one of the […]
Business travelers know the taxi expense fiddle. You ask the taxi driver for a receipt. He winks at you and gives you a blank form, implying you can fill it in later, and who’s to say how much that ride cost, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. How honest are you about the number you write down? How honest […]
Noel Burch is credited with formulating the Four Stages of Competence model. It describes the psychological states involved in a progression of competence, as in: 1. Unconscious Incompetence 2. Conscious Incompetence 3. Conscious Competence 4. Unconscious Competence The model has always struck me as one of those so-obvious ideas (like spreadsheets) that the miracle is no one ever […]
Credibility is one piece of the bedrock of trust. If people doubt what you say, all else is called into doubt, including competence and good intentions. If others don’t believe what you tell them, they won’t take your advice, they won’t buy from you, they won’t speak well of you, they won’t refer you on […]
I was grocery shopping Saturday. It was 2PM, 96 degrees out – pretty hot for New Jersey – and I was in the checkout line. The cashier had started sliding my purchases through the register, when suddenly I noticed a bag left over from the customer before me. She had left and gone to her car. The woman […]
We’ve all read tales of corporate wrongdoing – think Bernie Madoff, Enron, LIBOR. In most cases, managers engaged in nefarious behavior, knowing they were doing wrong. There are a few cases where the miscreant could plausibly argue ignorance, or good intentions – Martha Stewart, perhaps. But a recent courtroom defense by Standard & Poors in […]
You’ve graduated from Question Obsession 101. You’ve learned not to pepper clients with endless questions or craft that perfect “Keystone Arch Question” expecting miracles. You’re focusing on relationships, creating insights, and empowering clients. But have you fallen into the next trap? The Answer Trap. Many consultants who overcome question obsession swing to the opposite extreme, […]
Question Obsession: The Silent Sales KillerMay 6, 2025 - 5:00 pmHave you counted how many questions you ask in your typical client meeting? Do you find yourself carefully crafting the “perfect” question sequence before every sales call? Are your meeting notes filled with question frameworks rather than real insights? If so, you may be suffering from Question Obsession—a condition that’s quietly sabotaging your client relationships […]