Have you ever heard someone say, or even thought to yourself: That class was pretty good. Most of the things they covered were common sense, though. I knew most of that stuff.
Or: It was an OK book, but it didn’t tell me anything I don’t know already, mostly common sense.
Or: It was a well-written white paper, but we have most of that stuff implemented already. They were common sense concepts that everyone knows.
It is an easy thing, falling pretty to the five deadly traps of common sense.
1. It encourages complacency. Einstein said something to the effect that a problem cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created it. As a company or consultant don’t assume customer service is common sense. Don’t assume you know the basics of selling and the rest is common sense. Your business may be slipping, not because of the economy, but because you’re not stretching beyond the constraints of common sense. Don’t let common sense be the excuse for not learning more. Don’t let common sense keep you from asking: Am I thinking about this at the highest level I can?
2. It’s assumptive. Common sense to a petrographer might not be common sense to an architect. Common sense to a 5-year-old isn’t common sense to a 105-year-old. Common sense to a technologist isn’t always common sense to her client. When you sense the “this is common sense” creature taking a quick dip in your hot tub of rational thought, turn off the jets and take a big step back. Are you assuming everyone should know this? If so, what effect does that type of thinking have on your meeting/project/relationship/article/blog post/phone call? We all know what they say happens when you assume. Or do we?
3. It’s deceptive. Common sense is built through our experiences. Or, more specifically, our pool of common sense is filled from extrapolations of our experiences. Common sense allows us to shortcut areas of our business (“marketing is mostly common sense”) and personal (“how hard can it be to install a dimmer switch?”) lives when it’s convenient. We’re baffled then when our full-page ad in the local newspaper doesn’t bring in any business, yet our competitors seem to be flourishing with nothing but a stupid, free blog. We’re stunned when we move that switch up and down and the room is still dark. Suddenly our friend common sense is nowhere to be found and is replaced by a new friend called ignorance.
4. It’s divisive. Common sense is nothing more than a judgment after all. And what could be more divisive than judgment? Imagine a collective consciousness free of common sense. Would that lead to more or fewer universal goals like world peace, end to hunger, and a cure for AIDS?
5. It’s not measurable. Don’t mistake common sense for common knowledge. Common knowledge is measurable and common sense is not. Common sense is an internal judgment (see #4). There’s an old saying: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Is there a number 6?
Have you fallen victim to the deadly traps of common sense?
Can common sense lead to a lack of execution?
Or is all this simply common sense to you?
Photo credit: aigarius
This is just common sense, I already knew most of this...
Posted by: Jack | June 12, 2008 at 09:43 AM