By Eric F. Douglas B usiness leaders should be thinking about inspiring, teaching, and cajoling people to become highly-skilled communicators. By that I mean that leaders should be helping people to become skilled at defining, dissecting and solving tough business problems. By so doing, they'll confer the single greatest benefit to their organizations. Most people tackle business problems using the following approach. The result is the type of culture in which anointing winners and losers becomes high religion.
Departments square off against departments.
CEOs are put in a position of choosing sides. Meetings take on the characteristics of a high school debate class with points awarded to those who can more eloquently undercut the opponent's argument. Life is too complex for this paradigm. We need groups of people, skilled in inquiry and discussion, to root out the best solutions to complex problems. We need to be trained to see the kinds of assumptions that infiltrate our discussions and undermine our ability to see clearly.