Have you ever thought something along the lines:
"How the hell has this dude made it so far?!" ?
Well, I believe it's not so rare actually.
And there may be a non-obvious reason for this.
(the obvious reason)
The obvious reason is that you actually have no clue and the person is indeed just good at what he's doing.
But, on the contrary, how often have you thought
"Oh man! These guys are just pure geniuses, respect!" ?
The thing is, there are probably almost always some talented people with amazing skills behind those who you're confused by.
If you listen to what kind of problems people complain about, in the workplace, it's almost always the same thing. Fighting between people, people who treat others badly, crazy expectations which are super unlikely to be met.
Also, who do you feel is more honest when answering a question?
The ones that confuse you or the ones you're amazed by because of their level of skill? My feeling is the latter ones.
Now, what do we do in business?
We sell a product or service that solves a problem. That problem is often not clearly defined and you'll discover what really works for whom along the way. And the customer often doesn't know what they want anyway.
They may know it when they see it, better, when they use it.
The logical conclusion therefore is, that in order to sell something, you have to convince the customer that you can solve the problem, even though no one knows what the problem is.
This is where real skill would really come in handy! If you're an expert in your field and you're being honest about the process of finding the solution, I'm sure you'd be able to convince a potential customer, that you can help them solve the problem.
But in reality this is actually where all the human psychology and manipulation steps in and serves as a wonderful shortcut.
You end up in the so well known situation of
"Yes... absolutely! No problem! We can do that, no worries!"
when in reality, later at the company the salesman works at, it then is
"Whaaat?! How are we supposed to deliver that? Till when?! Oh my god!".
So, now we have stress.
Stressed people, stressed relationships, high expectations, people pushing responsibilities around and more psychological manipulation to somehow get the goal which may not ever be achieved in the way it was intended in the beginning.
You end up with a problem on the inside (the company) and outside (the customer). But the outer is deferred into the future. And perhaps people are even happy for some time... until the deadline approaches!
Who's fault is it? Probably the people lying, in the first place. But when everyone, or, most people are lying to sell something, and it sounds great, would you listen to the one telling you the truth?
After all, you (as a customer) will only pay for something finished, right?
Well, it often turns out that even then you'll end up with a problem as the customer:
Bad quality, things that just don't work, more cost and time than expected.
But how come that this sub-optimal process and situation wins so often and in the end it looks like
"How the hell did they come so far?! Well, they must know what they're doing, otherwise they would've been gone by now".
If you now take investors into the equation and valuations of companies, it gets even worse.
If the right KPI has the right value at the end, everything else doesn't matter.
Sooo, the whole thing is "approved" as being good and the right way to do it.
There's a lot more to unpack here, so stay tuned for the next part of this blog post series.
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