One of the most insidous behaviour that prevails in the Corporate world is that of the devastating intellectual put down. Executives have unfortunately learned that one of the ways of sounding clever is by being critical of other people's ideas or suggestions. There is this idea of point scoring in meetings if you 'poo poo' someone's contribution and diminish their status and thereby increase your own - especially in front of senior management. Just look at how this is glorified in The Apprentice.
I came across an experiment by Professor Teresa Amabile of the Harvard Business School titled 'Brilliant but Cruel' that showed that people who gave negative book reviews were perceived by others as less likeable, but more intelligent than those that wrote positive reviews. She said "Only pessimism sounds profound. Optimism sounds superficial". I don't agree with that last statement funnily enough and that's not because i'm trying to come across as smart!
Trouble is that if all organisations are filled with smart talkers there will be little implementation...little action or results. If executives are so determined to posture as 'know it alls' and critiquing everything to death, what impact does this have on the organisation? It's often easy to find reasons or excuses why things won't work. It takes a wise leader to be wary of those who shout the loudest and find fault with new ideas. These people are shrewd enough to stop things from happening, but are they action orientated to find solutions to the problems they've identified?
Do business schools and management consultancies contribute to this by reinforcing the view that prestige is achieved by being hyper critical and dominating the airspace i.e. a blabbermouth as opposed to being a 'doer' and turning smart ideas into organisational action?
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