Lessons from Lebowitz

“There’s nothing more contagious than a bad idea, whereas good ideas take decades to be accepted”

On Friday, I had the pleasure of listening to Fran Lebowitz, American author and social commentator, speak at the Barbican in a packed out auditorium. Her observation on ideas, struck me as something I've experienced time and again in the workplace.

Over commitment to unproven concepts is a classic pitfall, because everyone involved realises partway through they've made a mistake, but in most cases they feel they've already invested too much to be able to change direction. Such occurrences tend to be followed by loud PR roadshows and selective statistics that tell a success story.

"You think nothing, you’re just yelling at me how you feel"

Another great 'Fran-ism' from the evening, sums up how bad ideas gain momentum in the first place. I'm not saying we shouldn't listen to our guts, intuition stems from unconsciously processing past experiences (which is data in its own way), but I have seen the benefits when a team embraces data-led decision making and a culture of experimentation.

Shifting to test and learn practices, backed by proper measurement frameworks, enable ideas to be quickly qualified with less cost. Where this model really comes into its own, is the removal of subjective opinion or preference, for instance it can be hard to say no, especially when the bad idea pusher is your boss. Although, I don't think Fran Lebowitz would have much trouble with this...