The first casualty…

Here’s something from Captain Obvious that is often overlooked. The first casualty when you or your company starts to sustain losses is the truth.

Humans, especially the kinda humans who build things, tend toward listening to leading indicators as long it’s good news. Sales are up quarter over quarter for three consecutive quarters, “Dear Lord, we can’t hire ’em fast enough.” Sales drop quarter over quarter for five in a row. “Let’s not panic, fellas. There’s the July 4th holdiday, summer vacations, and all kinda other one time events that led to our demise. We’ll be fine, just give it another quarter, or two.”

Humans, you see, are wired for loss aversion – Even the humans running companies. This is why we build strip malls, commercial real estate, homes, and, today, apartments until, “Dear Lord, what were we thinking.” Ahh, we weren’t…

BTL speaks the truth in anger and the truth in LOVE in good times as in bad. We earn our keep when times are hard, however. The truth takes a hit when you’re down. The truth takes a hit when you lose. The truth takes a hit when your teammates loses. Oftentimes, the hit happens as an unintended consequence of a lousy script the liar’s telling himself. You are wired for loss aversion, my leader. It helps to have a truth teller beside you. Especially in quarter number four…