How to Turn Negative Feedback into Positive Progress

How to Turn Negative Feedback into Positive Progress

When faced with negative feedback our common reaction is to immediately defend ourselves with our own rationale. But what if we took a moment to really dig into that feedback, understand what it’s telling us, and use it as a catalyst for improvement?

Negative feedback is usually a result of disappointment.

Negative feedback typically comes when we’ve fallen short of expectations. But let’s not forget that testing things, making mistakes and learning along the way is a crucial part of solving problems.

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take"  - Wayne Gretzky

Remember Wayne Gretzky’s wise words: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Let’s embrace the feedback and see where it can take us.

The nature and source of negative feedback needs to be understood and resolved.

Instead of shooting the messenger, let’s focus on what the feedback is saying. Take economists predicting gloom and doom, for instance. They underestimated factors like consumer behavior, post-pandemic recovery, and the increased participation of women in the workforce. Preschool, for example, is a game-changer for working mothers.

The basis of negative feedback needs to be understood.

Understanding the root of negative feedback is key. The pandemic has thrown data into chaos, with more volatility than we’re used to. We need to scrutinize the sources, consistency, demographics, and how we measure it all. Factors like climate change, politics, demographics, and uncertainty affect our data parameters. Does anyone really think Taylor Swift’s attendance at games is boosting the Kansas City Chief’s scores?

How much do bias and opinion affect negative feedback?

Bias and opinion play a big role in how we perceive negative feedback. Entrepreneurs often have unwavering faith in their ventures despite the harsh reality that 90% of startups fail within five years. Sports fans are no different, believing their team can win even when odds are stacked against them. Go Bears!

Bias creeps in when we ignore relevant information, especially when it comes to social and environmental issues. But the simplest things, like saying “please” and “thank you” and asking people “how are you?” can go a long way in building relationships. And bias is highly influenced by circumstances – getting pulled over by a cop feels very different from seeing one protect a place of worship.

Focus on facts rather than opinions or the general nature of the source.

We need to shift our focus from opinions and the source’s general nature to facts. Negative feedback can be valuable and constructive, regardless of how it’s delivered. We must address issues like crime, prejudice, climate change, hatred and safety collaboratively and without political bias. We need to take context into account. For example, when it comes to parenting, supporting toddlers learning to walk is a far cry from teaching teens to drive.

Recognize the existence of the individual agenda.

Let’s take the work-from-home debate. Arguments for and againstoften boils down to personal situations and opinions rather than hard facts. For people with long commutes and individually focused jobs, productivity and satisfaction can be improved by working from home. In contrast, jobs that require significant interaction and collaboration benefit more from working together in an office environment. However, the real question should be about productivity and what it means in each context, a question that often seems to be missing from the conversation.

We need to focus on the positive and not just the negatives.

Cartoon with person making an office presentation "The good news is we're getting a lot of feedback.  The bad news is we're getting a lot of feedback."

Let’s also celebrate the positives, not just dwell on the negatives. Drunk driving, heart attacks, women’s rights, civil rights, safety, and smoking have all seen significant improvements in recent years. More women are becoming CEOs (currently 15% at public companies), and road fatalities have declined drastically. We should channel our energy into breaking down barriers and seizing opportunities to do more to support these and similar efforts than focus energy on the negatives.

Focus on solutions and not excuses.

Fear, uncertainty, unrealistic goals, and a reluctance to accept mistakes can all lead to excuses. In contrast, embracing risk, maintaining confidence, learning from errors, accepting the unknown, and setting clear, achievable goals can vastly improve performance.

Understand, monitor and react to negative feedback.

Lastly, we need to understand, monitor, and react to negative feedback. It’s too easy to ignore, forget, or downplay the negatives in areas like health, performance, climate, and safety. We need to acknowledge these issues and continue to support positive practices. For example, staying home when sick is becoming a more accepted practice than spreading illness at work or at school.

In Anne Duke’s book Quit, she discusses how terms like grit, persistence, confidence are common management recommendations. She says, “Grit can get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is figuring out the difference.” 

However, terms like quit, fail, lose, etc. all have negative connotations. For example, when I was a new consultant at SCORE, I expressed my disappointment at the large number of people we were unable to help. The response was, “One of the best things we do at SCORE is to help people keep their day jobs”, as if the mere desire to quit a day job to strike out on one’s own was something to squash.

Measurement is also a critical tool for evaluating success, failure and potential. For example, I’m type 2 diabetic and have blood tests done every three months to adjust my behavior and medications. Managing diabetes involves constant monitoring and modifications of diet, exercise and medication. Recently I had added a drug with weight loss potential and have lost over 15 pounds in four months. The next goal is to test how that affects other factors involved. 

In the end, it’s about finding solutions to negative feedback and the data that’s been excavated from it. Constructive criticism offers an opportunity for improvement. On the flipside, when feedback is irrelevant, it’s okay to let it go. What long experience has taught me is that getting defensive or ignoring feedback won’t improve anything. Instead, let’s use it to inspire understanding, explore alternatives, and craft better solutions.

Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of www.startupconnection.net, offers experience, skills, and a team devoted to developing and executing winning strategies.  Our strategy includes clear steps, and over 150 free articles and templates to facilitate your efforts and guide your process. We’re here to help you get on track and stay there as you move forward. You might start with our quick video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhZ3LvSmZfw

We welcome comments, suggestions, and questions. You can write us at: bshlensky@startupconnection.net or call at 914-632-6977.

Never Underestimate the Importance of Perception

Never Underestimate the Importance of Perception

Which line is longer? You may think it’s the middle line because the arrow points jut out.  But the truth is, they are all the same size!   You might not have figured it out if it was not pointed out to you. We tend to hang on to our initial perception of a situation or a problem, because we believe in deciding things as soon as we can.  In some things, such as the belief that grandparents are allowed to spoil their grandkids, you will run into no arguments. But in other things, a little perspective can help immensely.

Optical illusion using lines to show perspective

The economy has several measures of progress and each of us uses the one which support our perceptions of growth or decline A current trend since the pandemic illustrates how critical perceptions can affect our opinions and policies. For instance, income inequality is increasing as evidenced by the fact that 69 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 2.5 percent of the total wealth. and that many Americans don’t have $400 to pay for an emergency. On the other hand, the collective net worth of the bottom one-fifth went up from $3.3 trillion in 2019 to $4.2 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2022, indicating they can finance a better lifestyle.

What is critical is that we understand our perceptions and their impact on our decisions, activities, and behavior.

A critical factor is our perceptions of the presenter, the environment and the communication. Licensing agreements, celebrity endorsements and great environments are all designed to make the audience comfortable with presentations, but we seldom acknowledge how they affect our individual behavior. It’s great to have a convention in Honolulu to present your ideas, but if everything about the presentation is solid, it should work just as well in Dubuque, IA or Nome, AK.  Environment is important but it should supplement and enhance a convincing presentation, and not be used to make up for incomplete or inadequate data.  For instance, a steakhouse can have the right look, but if the meat is not tender and does not deliver the expected flavor, no one is going to dine there after a while; they might find the local diner more appealing because you get what you are looking for in a meal.

Cartoon with bearded diner telling the waiter "You probably don't recognise me - I was clean shaven when you took my order."

Our perceptions frequently exclude key data or are based on highly uncertain information. While they are present in our environment and affect our decisions, we usually avoid consideration of issues like religion, intelligence, politics, wealth, sex, morality, and appearance in our discussions. Part of that is simply out of politeness, but it never hurts to take that into consideration when deciding on a course of action or a strategy to take.  In contrast, we may express opinions about issues like climate change, politics, immigration, electric cars and artificial intelligence with insufficient knowledge or analysis.  Again, we often let our initial perceptions do the analyzing for us.   Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are great football players, but do they really know so much about life insurance that you would automatically go with State Farm?  One would hope you would do as much homework on which insurance company to go with as they did as to which insurance company to endorse!  After all, they don’t want to waste their time and money either. 

One of the most significant aspects of behavior is our perception of information. For example, I believe people don’t take enough risk. How much freedom do you allow innovative people to break rules?  When do you provide support versus challenging subordinates and colleagues? While there may be analytical solutions to some of these, our predispositions are frequently more important in determining how we respond.  But thinking outside the box, stepping away from perceptions, can lead to greater clarity.  Risk does not always mean throwing a dart blindfolded; it simply means going against what you consider the norm, through research and analysis.  Remember what Davy Crockett said:

"Be always sure you are right, then go ahead." - Davy Crockett

Bias is critical issue in perceptions. Bias is one of the greatest complications when it comes to accuracy in the scientific analysis of decisions. This includes statistical problems like sampling, measurement, and development of information. For example, assessing Covid accurately is problematic due to varying demographics such as age, race, and other factors that convolute the analysis. In many cases, these can be understood, but are still challenging.

Have you considered unconscious bias training?

I also believe that social bias can be more impactful than statistical bias. This includes our preconceived perceptions and assumptions. I’m always amazed that many programmed employee selection tools outperform interviews especially in jobs requiring specific skills. Such tests remove things like unconscious age, sex, and racial discrimination.  At the end of the day, you want the best person to handle the responsibilities you give them, and you want to remove anything that impedes that decision.  Again, what seems like a risk has been whittled down to where the risk is minimal.

Cultural and environmental factors also affect bias. Dress, demographics, weather, location, and culture all affect perceptions in the decision-making process. These can also be used to your advantage in talking to colleagues by increasing bonding with similar people. Whenever I meet someone who is also from the Southside of Chicago, agreement on differences becomes much easier.

Style and personality greatly affect perceptions. Race, sex and age are the most common factors. Differentiating personality types like “right brain or left brain” or analytical versus creative greatly affects perceptions. For example, we greatly underestimate the positive or negative impact of using math in many arguments. 

We also need to consider the timing of perceptions. In general, the audience, whether on the internet or in person, forms perceptions of a presentation in the first 90 seconds. That does not seem to be much time, but the right focus and the right keywords can get the train going and make for an exciting ride.   Now, as an admitted nerd, my presentations can be a little boring. Thus, I try to improve their acceptance rate through tools like editors, comedy, stories, and pictures. I have learned the hard way that my poor spelling has sidetracked some of my best arguments.  Thank goodness someone invented spellcheckers!

For further information see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y17YaZRRvY

Let’s start a conversation – no matter what stage you are in with your business.  As an exercise, tell us how you have better managed perceptions, or been victim to its bias. Then, tell us what areas you to need focus on in order to see improvement.

bshlenksy@startupconnection.net  914-632-6977 

Dr. Bert Shlensky earned a PhD from the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T., mentored a few thousand clients at Score and his own practice, grew Sure Fit products from $ 50 million dollars to $150 million in sales including $ 60 million of direct internet sales, was President of WestPoint Pepperell’s Apparel Fabrics Business and headed the $400 million Culet Shirt Group.

In short, he knows what works and can help you lead your company to greater profitability and success.  Find out more at StartupConnection.net, or email Bert at:

bshlensky@startupconnection.net

Testing Assumptions Can Result in Better Decisions

Testing Assumptions Can Result in Better Decisions

There is an excellent Jewish expression called “bubbie-meise”, which refers to old wives’ tales. Some examples are: It’s bad luck to open an umbrella in the house! You can’t go swimming for one hour after you’ve eaten or you’ll drown! Eat all your food, there are starving children in Europe!  And my favorite, Chicken soup can cure anything!

One does not have to belong to any religion to believe in such things.  We generally tend to accept assumptions, beliefs, or superstitions as valid. Such anecdotes have been passed down for generations. But in the world of business, clinging to faulty data and being too stubborn to accept change cannot be cured buy a bowl of chicken soup, however tasty it may be.  We need to test assumptions to ensure better decisions.

Perceptions and inherent patterns cause us to rely on invalid assumptions.  People tend to be risk adverse, avoid change, and accept the most comfortable alternatives. However, just as we can develop routines to help us through our day, we can also develop routines to reduce the chance our assumptions are wrong.  Risk can never be fully eliminated, but understanding how it can be reduced can help us immensely.  It’s why we check the weather forecast before going outside or use the crosswalk to cross the street.

Analytics alone cannot resolve a conflict; it needs to be supplemented with passion, effort, commitment, and focus. Analytics can be less reliable when the data is wrong, when relationships are invalid, when sampling is inappropriate, and when risk is not considered. For example, the more creativity and uncertainty involved in any given situation, the more intuition and a little luck will be required.

Many economic proposals ignore that the economy is getting even more diverse. In 2023 nearly all the stock market gains are in seven stocks. The comparable returns of stocks and bonds seem to gyrate every day. Inflation, bank results, foreign activities and other factors seem to affect the economy every day. 

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."  - Lao Tzu

Some suggestions to better test assumptions are as follows:

Review and evaluate processes and decisions. For example, it is unreal to me that objective testing regularly outperforms personal evaluations in employees’ personnel decisions. The reason is mostly poor training and bias.

Data needs to constantly updated. The latest census shows some dramatic changes in the makeup of our country, and that diversity needs to be considered when we gather and analyze data. Different regions have significantly varied ethnic as well as economic characteristics. A great amount of data also needs to be adjusted for the impact of the pandemic. For example, comparisons to last year or 2019 can show quite different results because of social changes brought on by the pandemic; there are more stay-at-home workers than ever before.

Facts are frequently more independent that we think. If you flip a coin a certain number of times, the odds will always work their way back to 50-50 regardless of any streak of heads or tails.   Cause and effect are frequently assumed rather than analyzed. Differing and multiple goals (such as short-term and long-term goals) can impact the understanding of cause and effect. Medical symptoms are frequently attributed to certain issues, while other factors may be the real cause.  That’s why it’s important to get a second opinion if something does not sound right to us.

Bias is one of the greatest complications when it comes to accuracy in the analysis of decisions. This includes statistical problems like sampling, measurement, and development of information. I also believe that social bias can be more impactful than statistical bias. This includes our preconceived perceptions and assumptions about factors affecting decisions. Cultural and environmental factors also affect bias. Dress, demographics, weather, location, and culture all affect perceptions in the decision-making process.  It is important to never assume anything based on the past.  I would refer to the Odd Couple episode “My Strife in Court” to illustrate what the word “assume” is made of.

"You know what happens when you assume..."

Risk assumptions and tolerance are critical to effective actions. Predicting results where there are significant and consistent historical data can be fairly simple; however, predicting results for new programs or with little or inconsistent data requires developing educated estimates. Assumptions regarding risk tolerance also need to be considered. For example, you generally need to be more cautious with regards to safety than low investment high reward opportunities like the lottery.  It’s crucial to know where every dollar is going, and where it can reap the greatest benefits.

Have you considered unconscious bias training?

Organizations need to be open to measurement and feedback and understand cultural parameters. Observing, understanding, and sharing financials, operations reports, and sales reports are the first step. A management style such as “walking around” and checking in with employees can be priceless. Balancing short-term and long-term goals, understanding challenges, and tolerance for failure are examples of understanding the cultural environment.

Analytics, tradition and experience are all valuable tools to improve decision making. However, you need to ensure that the assumptions behind those tools are accurate and reliable. In particular, our rapidly changing environment involving issues like Covid requires regular testing and validation. Similarly, creativity and intuition that defy some analyses and are becoming increasingly required. We can help you objectively search alternative causes and solutions. Understanding that there are various solutions to the problems we face out there only helps us improve our business practices.  It does not mean that chicken soup still does not hit the spot.

Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of www.startupconnection.net, offers experience, skills, and a team devoted to developing and executing winning strategies.  Our strategy includes clear steps, and over 150 free articles and templates to facilitate your efforts and guide your process. We’re here to help you get on track and stay there as you move forward. You might start with our quick video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhZ3LvSmZfw

We welcome comments, suggestions, and questions. You can write us at: bshlensky@startupconnection.net or call at 914-632-6977

Balancing Decisions for Effectiveness

Balancing Decisions for Effectiveness

When an entrepreneur is inspired to begin a new business, balancing decisions between two essential concepts consistently critical to success are: Passion and Reality. Passion was best described by Steve Jobs:

scale balancing decisions between passion and reality

“…Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” 

If you are reading this blog, you must already be aware how difficult it is to conceptualize, to begin and to implement your new business. As an entrepreneur, you must first understand and then clearly pursue your passion. One effective way to accomplish this task is to develop a mission statement and a plan. This mission statement will not only solidify your goals but will also provide clarity for your potential clients. 

Of course, your mission statement merely lays the solid groundwork, but there are more tasks ahead of you.  You will need a fully-loaded toolbox in order to succeed.   Enthusiasm, energy and persistence are a few of the core tools needed.  If you are able to maintain a positive and strong outlook, you will then be able to effectively market your business concepts to suppliers, customers, and investors. You must be willing and able, as an entrepreneur, to scale seemingly daunting summits.  Upon reaching the peak, you will be rewarded for all your hard work and persistence.

When we understand reality, we understand the problems, limitations, and constraints associated with any undertaking. As Thomas Edison said:

“A vision without execution is hallucination.”

Passion and reality are key to developing and executing strategies in your business. However, there are other elements that will greatly affect your process:

 •  Support and Culture: These are critical organizational factors that you will need to balance. There will often be a trade-off between flexibility and support versus the stability of rules/discipline.  Preparation, discipline and expertise are certainly crucial in dealing with the uncertainty that accompanies change.  But maintaining flexibility and support will lessen the stress of change.

•. Balance of Excellence and Innovation: Your Gramma’s cookies may already be perfect, but you still need to develop and test new products and methods.  Try to remember, failure is frequently part of the innovation process, so don’t let the fear of setback deter you.

Mountain climber reaching the summit

•  Environment: Understanding the environment and establishing a successful culture is crucial for the overall progress of your company. In order to succeed, you must face numerous challenges–whether economic, demographic, or political. However, you need to maintain a positive atmosphere with clear expectations to facilitate employee performance. A great strategy lacking a supportive culture is sure to fail, while an environment where people are given the resources to excel will yield positive results.   

Dramatic changes are occurring in our society: income inequality, partisanship, racial equality, and diversity, as well as the roles of minorities, women and the aging population.  There needs to be greater awareness and adaptation to create new practices in our organizations.

•. Developing Goals:  Whether you are faced with long-term versus short-term; quantitative versus qualitative, or objective versus subjective goals, the process and complexity need to be considered.  Decide if your goals are realistic or are you stretching to achieve them.  Simplistic goals may fail to address important issues–whereas more complex goals may divert your focus. If goals are too simple, they can ignore important aspects of a situation. On the other hand, if there are too many aspects to consider, there can be a lack of focus.

•. Communication: This element is as important as analysis in developing your strategies and decisions.  You will encounter many demands while trying to achieve the goals of your organization. With so much to manage, critical issues can arise in the areas of prioritization, comparison, and measurement. Therefore, communicating goals and their measurement frequently become secondary. But you should stop and consider, why not manage them effectively?

•  Let measurement work for you:  Ask yourself how important are the results, speed, innovation, and quality when measuring performance? For example, I believe automation has improved the speed and efficiency of many customer service processes. However, customer service and satisfaction are frequently sacrificed. How many times have we been completely frustrated with ineffective electronic customer service efforts? It goes without saying that there’s a tradeoff here that needs to be taken into consideration.

•. Alternatives, External Solutions and Perspectives: These include the assistance of objective third parties, market research, small tests, and simple analytical thinking. The most important tool is to focus on facts, alternatives, and solutions rather than personalities, partisanship and biases. Overall, you need to allow for mistakes and to focus on your wins and how to improve, rather than focusing on any losses. 

 More data and more analytics can improve the quality of decisions. In using analytics, be sure to consider the validity of the data, its sample size, bias, uncertainty, and risk. The greater the uncertainty, the more you will need your intuition to develop alternatives. More intuition is also required whenever you are seeking the exceptional or outlier solutions… since there are no rules.

•. Balancing Decisions Regarding Risk and Reward:  These factors are critical to your decision-making process.  We tend to think of risk as a taboo concept, but it won’t be once you understand it.

"What would you do if you weren't afraid?" -- Sheryl Sandberg

In order to benefit from risk, you need to define what risk is to you. Some people view risk as the “potential for harm or hazard” (think bungee jumping). I view risk as an “uncertain circumstance in which one manages to maximize the gains.”

Understand the perceived importance of the reward. People generally regret losses more than they appreciate gains—and that is a key factor to consider when making any decision. Fear is an innate instinct meant to protect us from harm, but too often fear dictates our decisions and inhibits our success.

Traditional and detailed startup recommendations are necessary for understanding the environment and balancing decisions considerations. If you are able to continuously analyze, measure, and adapt to ever-changing parameters, programs, markets, and risks, you will have a higher probability of success. Don’t be afraid to pursue excellence and take reasonable risks. Success also requires positive thinking and high expectations. If you truly believe in something, you’ll work tirelessly to make sure it’s successful. So, why can’t that something be you?

Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of www.startupconnection.net, offers experience, skills, and a team devoted to developing and executing winning strategies and results. We guide your plans for business success and unlock your profits. Our strategy includes clear free steps, and over 150 free articles and templates to facilitate your efforts and guide your process. We’re here to help you get on track and stay there as you move forward. After a few results we can discuss a long-term relationship with mutual goals.

We welcome comments, suggestions, and questions.

You can write us at: bshlensky@startupconnection.net or call at 914-632-6977


How Multiple Decision-Making Approaches Can Add to Success

How Multiple Decision-Making Approaches Can Add to Success

One of the key responsibilities of an entrepreneur is the ability to make great decisions. If you choose the right approach, you’ll likely make faster and more effective decisions. But if you choose the wrong decision-making approaches, you could be courting disaster.

One of the most common decision-making approaches to making business decisions is by using data-driven analytics rather than intuition. However, I believe you’ll make better decisions by balancing these styles rather than by choosing one over the other. Take a look at the video Passion and Reality to get an idea of what I mean.

There are times when using analytics is the right call and times when it isn’t. Using data to make decisions is critically important because it reduces the tendency to make poor decisions; however, there are times when you need to trust your gut instincts.

Dilbert cartoon comparing relying on intuition to guessing.  Careful choosing your decsion-making approaches!

So how exactly do you balance analytics and intuition? If you have the necessary data at your fingertips, then you should analyze that data to identify patterns, obtain actionable insights, and use those insights to make your business decisions. However, you shouldn’t avoid making decisions just because you don’t have all the pertinent data. Rather, this is when you also need to rely on your intuition to get the job done.

The fact is that many of our great innovators were highly intuitive people. In the words of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

A Flexible Business Plan Is Key

It’s important to develop a business plan that specifies your goals and explains how you plan to achieve those goals. This plan should include sections on your products and/or services, marketing strategy and analysis, and budget.

The fact is that the business world is in a constant state of flux and if you can’t change with it, you’ll be left behind. That’s why it’s critical to ensure that you create a business plan that’s flexible—one that will adapt to market changes and advancements in technologies as this will give your organization a competitive edge.

A flexible business plan lets you keep track of your progress and adjust, when necessary, by showing you where you’re going and how you anticipate getting there. And it also helps you remain focused on what’s important, enabling you to achieve your long-term goals.

In addition, if you need to secure funds from lenders, investors, or other sources, a flexible business plan will help you get the capital you need because these sources want to see that you’re able to adapt and pivot as the market changes. If you have a flexible business plan, you can show them that you’re able to handle whatever the future holds.

The Importance of Understanding Risk

Your life as an entrepreneur involves taking risks that can impact you and your business. So, before you decide to launch a new venture, it’s important that you understand the risks as well as the rewards associated with owning a business.

Every business operates in extremely uncertain environments that can produce significant levels of risk but also generate substantial rewards. Taking risks means identifying, evaluating, mitigating, and experimenting with potential strategies and opportunities that could help you build your company.

It’s also important to understand that while you are focusing on profits and cash flow to ensure your company’s viability, venture capital firms, on the other hand, only expect a fraction of their investments to show good returns, and they frequently focus on growth rather than profits.

In general, entrepreneurs can afford more risk. Consequently, it’s important that you consider that the upsides of many risks are much greater than their limited downsides. Additionally, you need to understand the outcomes and accept failure as part of the process.

Overcoming Decision-Making Bias

For your startup business to succeed, you must make fair and accurate decisions in terms of how you treat your workers and how you serve your customers.

The best entrepreneurs are those who can absorb and analyze all the information available to them to make business decisions that are logical and objective. Of course, you’re going to make some mistakes. But most of the mistakes you’ll make stem from inherent biases that distract you and cause you to make poor decisions and exhibit bad judgment.

Not only that but letting personal preferences affect the objective decision-making process, even unconsciously, can severely undermine your authority and image in your own company.

Dilbert cartoon - man telling office joke - "What do you get when you combine cognitive bias with inaccurate information?  Our business strategy!  Hahahaha!"  Boss gives jokster angry look

While experience and expertise can improve results, one of the worst strategies in our changing environment is to stick fast to the “we have always done it this way” mindset.

This mindset simply ignores change, alternatives, and processes and is frequently fueled by those who fear those same things. Sexual harassment, equal wages, and COVID vaccines are some examples where progress has been exceptionally slow because people are not willing to recognize the need for change and accept and implement new ideas.

However, quantitative analysis does not automatically solve bias. On one hand, quantitative measures are objective, measurable, comparable, and easier to document. Still, we must ensure we are using the right measures as well as measure and analyze correctly.

Qualitative data, on the other hand, can measure issues we don’t always consider and allow for intuition. But these processes can be compromised easily or measure wrong factors. In particular, bias occurs much more frequently in qualitative analysis.

Qualitative data can measure issues we don’t always consider and allow for intuition. But they can be easily compromised and measure the wrong factors. In particular, bias occurs much more frequently in qualitative analysis.

Consider Changes in Parameters

You should also give more weight to external parameters than basic plans and strategies when you’re developing programs and making decisions. It’s important that you regularly review and consider changes in parameters, such as population, the economy, political environment, and social values, as many of these variables are changing faster and more often than ever before. So not only do you need to understand parameters, you definitely need to keep up with the latest ones.

You should also consider your target market. Many businesses think everyone needs their products when, in reality, most people don’t need any product. So, if you want to figure out who will buy you goods or services, make decisions based off supported data and hone in on your demographic.

Replace Hierarchy

Most organizations are based on hierarchy but flatter and more collaborative organizations are actually more effective as they encourage more diverse input by enabling employees at all levels to participate and contribute to the objectives of the business. A flatter organization prioritizes collaboration, clear communication, and the free exchange of ideas.

Through collaboration and analysis, businesses can develop more efficient structures that rely on expertise via a variety of resources. And adding new positions and creating functional groups (where individuals or departments are in charge of their own specialties) will encourage more educated decisions and reactive change.

The Bottom Line

Being an entrepreneur should be an exciting and potentially profitable effort. However, it takes time, analysis, capital, and commitment. As an entrepreneur, you need to understand and express your passion. And to succeed, you must use this passion to overcome any obstacles or challenges that might come your way.

However, that doesn’t mean you should ignore reality. Many entrepreneurs overlook key elements in running a successful business, often ignoring details and analysis. It’s no wonder so many startups fail.

If you want to be successful, you must allow your passion to drive you, while letting reality guide you to where you need to be. Using some basic tools, such as planning and operations, the process can become more predictable. And understanding such things as the environment, bias, structure, and demographics, can help you make the best possible decisions for your business.

Dr. Bert Shlensky, President of www.startupconnection.net, offers experience, skills, and a team devoted to developing and executing winning strategies.  Our strategy includes clear steps, and over 150 free articles and templates to facilitate your efforts and guide your process. We’re here to help you get on track and stay there as you move forward. You might start with our quick video here.

We welcome comments, suggestions, and questions. You can write us at: bshlensky@startupconnection.net or call at 914-632-6977