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Start failing so you can start succeeding.
The Fallacy of Expertise
Before you look to expert insight for help in planning, ask yourself: What is an
expert?
The Wall Street Journ a l periodically matches the nation’s leading stock
analysts against a handful of darts. Over the past year, the randomly thrown darts
consistently have hit better stocks on a dartboard than those chosen by the
experts, after months of study and years of experience.
What is an expert? Is an expert anything more than someone with lots of data
and experience? But to what end? The data on most subjects will support totally
opposite conclusions—a fact which explains the popularity of The McLaughlin
Gro u p and similar televised debates.
The value of an “expert”’s experience is dubious for another reason. Every

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experience in life is unique. Anytime that we apply the apparent lessons of one
experience to another one, we tend to assume that the two experiences are
essentially identical.
They never are.
Don’t look to experts for all your answers. There a re no answers, only
informed opinions.
The Fallacy of Authority
Chances are, your organization runs on the Alpha Principle. Ideas do not follow
the good thinking in an organization; ideas follow the power.
Most organizations work like the groups of apes from which we evolved. The
alphas dictate what the group does and thinks.
But are alphas better at decision making? Not necessarily. Alphas are just
better at getting and keeping power. In most organizations, in fact, alphas are the
people who just look and sound like they should have the power (a conclusion
suggested by several studies that show that height, not business school
performance, is the strongest predictor of an MBA’s starting salary).
If your smart people don’t kill your ideas, chances are the alphas will.
If you’re an alpha, learn to shut up. Imitate Ben Taylor, the alpha who runs
the Executrain franchise in Minnesota, often the most successful of America’s
very successful Executrain franchises. When asked to explain his success,
Taylor’s first response is “I listen.”