Bad Apples? A Fundemental Attribution Error Leaders Make

Many leaders I've worked with often make the mistake of labeling "problem" teams or departments as "hopeless" or "worthless". By seeing the problem as occuring at the individual level rather than the organization level, these leaders are making a mistake.

A fundamental mistake.

Referred to by social scientists as a "fundamental attribution error," this error occurs when leaders attribute the source of problems to personal defects/flaws, while ignoring the larger systemic factors as play.

In an excellent article entitled, "Bad Apples or Sour Pickles?
Fundamental Attribution Error and the Columbine Massacre" authors Gary K. Clabaugh & Alison A. Clabaugh point out the fundamental attribution error that many leaders, including the FBI, made around the Columbine school shooting.


Bottom Line:
The next time you're tempted as a leader to blame the "bad apples," have the courage to step up to the plate and consider the organizational and systemic factors that might be supporting the "problem" behavior.

Are Aikido principles Effective? They’re Good Enough for the 21st Century Marines

Are Aikido leadership principles effective? The U.S. Marine Corps. thinks so.

When the U.S.M.C. wanted to bring their soldiers into the 21st century, they tapped psychologist Richard Strozzi-Heckler, an Aikido instructor and leadership expert from Marin County, California, to bring Aikido principles to the Corps. Richard documented his experiences in his fascinating book, “In Search of the Warrior Spirit.” I read "Warrior Spirit" several times through while I was researching my "Leading People the Black Belt Way" book. I I highly recommend "Warrior Spirit" for anyone interested in leadership. (Which is why I am very proud that Richard was willing to write a foreword for my latest leadership book, "The Way of Leading People: Unlocking Your Integral Leadership Skills with the Tao Te Ching.")

In the past several years, the program that Richard began has been institutionalized into the Marine Corps. Currently called the Marine Corp Martial Arts Program taught out of the MACE (Martial Arts Center of Excellence), over 45,000 soldiers each year are taught some of the core underlying principles of Aikido.

The focus of MACE is three-fold:
1. Character development
2. Mental Discipline
3. Physical Discipline

The MACE program is being continuously refined and revised … and yet Aikido principles remain at their core.

Aikido leadership principles … if they are good enough for the Marine Corps, they’re good enough for YOUR organization.

Lonely employees, Emotional Engagement, and the Bottom Line

A new article entitled "Genes Get Lonely Too" from Newsweek by Sarah Kliff reports the growing body of research that demonstrates that the experience of loneliness can cause people to become ill.

Importantly, the research shows that it is not only the actual state of being lonely, but the perception of being lonely can also trigger illness. The article states ...

" ... loneliness actually changes how the body functions at a molecular level. The research links feelings of social isolation to an alteration in the activity of specific genes—ones that put lonely people at higher risk for serious disease. And the study, published in the current issue of Genome Biology, also points to the startling fact that it is the perception of loneliness that triggers the adverse health conditions, independent of how much social interaction an individual actually has. Even someone with hundreds of “friends” on Facebook or at the office might think of herself as a lonely person."

So why is this study important for leaders? A simple syllogism:


Employees who are emotionally engaged work are not lonely.
Lonely employees are more likely to become ill, negatively impacting the bottom line.

Therefore, one way to improve the bottom line is for leaders to increase the emotional engagement of their employees.

How do leaders increase emotional engagement?

Many increase emotional engagement by reading my books, Leading People the Black Belt Way and/or The Way of Leading People

BOTTOM LINE: Lonely employees (read: emotionally disengaged employees) are a symptom of serious problems in your organization. Effective leaders improve their bottom line by increasing the emotional engagement of their employees.

Destroying Trust with the iPhone

Did Steve Jobs make a historic blunder?

When asked about cutting the cost of the iPhone $200 (from $599 to $399), Steve Jobs offered up the rather lame excuse:

"In a letter on the company's Web site, Jobs acknowledged that Apple disappointed some of its customers and said he had received hundreds of e-mails complaining about the price cut.

Jobs added that "the technology road is bumpy," and there will always be people who pay top dollar for the latest electronics but get angry later when the price drops.

"This is life in the technology lane," Jobs said in the letter Thursday."


Mr. Jobs is playing with fire here: his customer's trust. Apple Computer has done a significant amount of work in the past decade to win it's small but vital marketshare from Microsoft.

Playing with your customer's trust might be the surest way to tank Apple. By dropping the price so soon after the much heralded iPhone roll-out, Steve Jobs is risking:

1. Highly dissatisfied customers ... who will be that much more reluctant to return.
2. Having new customers delaying their Apple purchases in hopes of even further price cuts.
3. Negative media buzz putting off customers who were riding the fence.
4. ... and so much more.

Bottom Line: Cutting the price of the iPhone this close to the release date was a dangerous strategy that will more likely HURT than help Apple's bottom line.

Even if you're not in the business of providing the latest technology, every leader should make certain that their business processes are not alienating more customers than they attract.

New Video about My Newest Book ...

Here's a video preview about my newest book, THE WAY OF LEADING PEOPLE: UNLOCKING YOUR INTEGRAL LEADERSHIP SKILLS WITH THE TAO TE CHING:


... or click here: