Business
People have egos, but organizations appear to have them, too. How else can you explain Blockbuster's hubris in shrugging off the offer by a then-fledgling company called Netflix to join forces, the disastrous decision by Borders to outsource their e-commerce business to Amazon or the infamous 1962 decision by a Decca recording executive to pass on signing an unknown, 4-person Liverpudlian band “because guitar bands are on their way out”? As author Ryan Holiday put it well, “ego is the enemy” - of everything from sound business strategies to talent spotting and even, as we'll explore in this show, of being a good consultant. In today’s episode, we tackle the issue of overconfidence and how people and organizations fall prey to it at their peril. As the country song goes, it’s hard to humble … but it pays to keep your ego in check, to be “professionally paranoid”, and to not be afraid to be the dumbest person in the room.