Skeptical

by, Doc McIntyre

Ten middle managers were asked by the boss to complete a short task. Nine did. I was talking to the one who didn’t.

Me: How come you didn’t do it?

Him: I was too busy.

Me: Are you busier than your colleagues?

Him: Probably not.

Me: So why didn’t you do it?

Him: I didn’t see the purpose of it.

Me: Your colleagues saw the purpose. Did they have different information than you?

Him: No, I guess I’m just a skeptical person. If I don’t see the purpose, I get skeptical.

Me, dropping the truth bomb: You don’t see the purpose because you’re so skeptical. The purpose is fairly obvious, but your skepticism keeps you from seeing it.

Lessons for Leaders

1. Skepticism gives you tunnel vision. It makes you focus on finding faults rather than seeing possibilities.

2. Skepticism is a defense mechanism. It protects you from things that might hurt you, but unfortunately, it also keeps you away from things that might help you.

3. Skepticism belongs in the same bucket as cynicism, distrust, and pessimism. I’ve asked thousands of people over the years to describe great leaders—these words never come up.

It’s better to be trusting and occasionally wrong than skeptical and always right.

Leaders set the tone. If you’re skeptical, your people will be too, and that can hold an organization back.

I’m totally okay with a trust but verify approach—but notice that the first step there is trust.

From my own mind (25 years ago).

When I started my lean career 25 years ago, I stood there beside the man that would eventually become my Lean Sensei as he committed: we would find at least a 25% improvement in throughput over the week.

Skeptical wouldn’t quite cover it for me.  And the folks in the production area we were about to apply this thing called Kaizen to were snickering.   I assumed there were ways we could tighten things up, but 25%? Seemed ludicrous.

Fast forward to the end of the week, and we did NOT find 25% throughput.  We found 32% improvement!  To say that week was life changing would be an understatement.  25 years later and here I am still looking for 25% improvements (as the baseline) for each kaizen we do.  Most of the time we get close, sometimes we exceed, but we always make improvements.

And over the last 25 years, although I hear a lot of people talking about kaizen.  My experience is that less than 5% of companies have ever truly experienced kaizen. I wonder how many of those who haven’t are because they are skeptical?

It’s so easy to fall into the trap of we’ve always done it this way, and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and so many other lazy cliches.  However, if you can open your mind and allow yourself to truly try new things and be open to new ideas, you’ll have a much happier and successful life.

I wonder sometimes if I’d rolled my eyes and left that kaizen 25 years ago.  I was certainly skeptical enough to do so, but I am so very glad I didn’t.

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