Well - what a week. Our forecast as reported in PT on 11th July and my blog last week seems to have been followed by a daily avalanche of 'foreboding news' and 'forecasts' - obviously we are not alone!
The market seems to be at last moving out of its collective denial and accepting of a harsher reality. I say 'denial' because every piece of 'adverse' news regarding the economy was preceded by the word 'gloomy' even ours.
Receiving a piece of news that is in some way 'adverse' even though it is a measure of reality and then labelling it 'gloomy' says more about the recipient and his/her biased preconception.
What's 'gloomy' is people using the term 'gloomy'. I presume that many would prefer to keep on hearing good news/forecasts even if it was false - what does that tell us about our psyches. Are we unable to deal with it?
I've listened to a lot of people including so-called 'experts' who have been in denial for the last twelve months (including the Government of course) talking up the game when mounting evidence suggested otherwise.
I am a CEO which means I have to balance optimism with realism, not balance bulls**t with more bulls**t. That doesn't mean you have to go around with a bluderbuss blasting off barn doors like some well known PLC CEOs.
FACT: Good forecasting is there to provide 'intelligence' for decision-making. Full stop. You can choose to use it and act on it given the evidence or you can ignore it. If you ignored it and you are caught 'napping' then there is no-one else to blame. Labelling in a derogatory manner doesn't change the nature of the evidence or insight.
Economic/market forecasting is not in the same category as forecasting the end of the world. Let's keep it in perspective..........
The 'Denial' phenomenon
I'm not going into a big piece on why 'denial' is so prevalent today. All I will comment is that my 'Denial Detector' goes off the scale daily spotting 'denial talk and behaviour' - its all around me/you. Once you see it you see it everywhere - a kind of 'Sixth Sense' movie.
Why so prevalent?
Well - it's a base instinct that helps us to survive but after that it just gets in the way....but there's a fine line (I continually evaluate whether I'm in denial about people in denial everyday - its the only way to stay sane!!!)
Take for example last week where I presented data/evidence of organisations' surveys back to a number of HR practitioners.
Much of the data for the first time presented some great evidence to act upon. However, the reaction was shall we say 'defensive' and 'not believing' to the extent that individuals preferred to rely on their own limited experience as against the evidence. If you extend their logic they were effectively saying that all the staff who completed the surveys were basically lying - a complete absurdity but nonetheless the 'reality' of their reaction. It's worse because behind it, is a breathtaking arrogance or conceit (forget the 'change curve' as a 'mitigator') - no place in an expert practitioner's toolkit.
I'm afraid though that this is no isolated incident - it happens quite often - with senior management and unfortunately I have to admit with the majority of HR practitioners.
What I find gloomy and depressing are not the 'gloomy and depressing' forecasts but the lack of management professionalism on display when it comes to accepting/non-accepting evidence presented.
Even worse are those who are 'too cautious' to carry out an assessment or evaluation of their people management who are either 'too afraid' of the 'answers or worse, know 'what it will say' - really - with that capability, these people should do some forecasting........
Evidence....the only way forward because without it you're going backward - I just wish a few more HR functions would use it...........
Perhaps a new course for the School to offer entitled 'Getting out of denial - a case for action'?
The only problem being that to attend a delegate would have to admit denial in the first place - thus nobody would turn up.........what a paradox...........
