From Halo to Hollow!

The other day, during the IPL semifinal between, Bangalore & Mumbai, I watched with anguish, as the great Sachin Tendulkar, swooped down & picked up an edge, from Rahul Dravid at slip.

While the celebrations were on, Dravid, maybe one of the last breed of gentleman cricketers would not budge, drawing sharp criticism from the commentator Sunil Gavaskar, himself a yesteryear great. Later events indicated that, the catch was not cleanly taken, Dravid was right & Sachin Tendulkar had erred in claiming the catch.

I watched with interest, as to how the press would react to this event & I'm not surprised that there was none, at all. How could you point a finger, at India's greatest cricketer & accuse him of any kind of lack of judgement. Should it have been a youngster, he would have been called a cheat & branded for life!

Putting people on pedestals & assuming that they can do no wrong ( what is wrong is again debateable in India) is an old habit in this country & I'm afraid the halo effect has played its part here.

What is a halo and its effect in the world of business?

Much of our business thinking is shaped by delusions -- errors of logic and flawed judgments that distort our understanding of the real reasons for a company's performance. In a brilliant and unconventional book ( The Halo Effect ), Phil Rosenzweig unmasks the delusions that are commonly found in the corporate world. These delusions affect the business press and academic research, as well as many bestselling books that promise to reveal the secrets of success or the path to greatness. Such books claim to be based on rigorous thinking, but operate mainly at the level of storytelling. They provide comfort and inspiration, but deceive managers about the true nature of business success.
The most pervasive delusion is the Halo Effect. When a company's sales and profits are up, people often conclude that it has a brilliant strategy, a visionary leader, capable employees, and a superb corporate culture. When performance falters, they conclude that the strategy was wrong, the leader became arrogant, the people were complacent, and the culture was stagnant. In fact, little may have changed -- company performance creates a Halo that shapes the way we perceive strategy, leadership, people, culture, and more.

Drawing on examples from leading companies including Cisco Systems, IBM, Nokia, and ABB, Rosenzweig shows how the Halo Effect is widespread, undermining the usefulness of business bestsellers from In Search of Excellence to Built to Last and Good to Great.

Rosenzweig identifies a few popular business delusions. Among them is the Delusion of Rigorous Research:

Many bestselling authors praise themselves for the vast amount of data they have gathered, but forget that if the data aren't valid, it doesn't matter how much was gathered or how sophisticated the research methods appear to be. They trick the reader by substituting sizzle for substance and many a time the reader is lost in a maze of incomprehensible data, but accepts the finding at face value because the writer has a halo!

Seperating stuff from substance, the boys from men, the doers from the pretenders, the fake from the real all involve cracking the halo effect....................I saw a brilliant advertisement a few days ago, where this young wannabe manager, gets up & walks off from a potential interview when he sees a 'trendy'( read short skirted ) young women also turning up for the interview...............he understands the halo effect. How often are we blind and deceived by perception and belive what we want to belive?

As for Sachin lovers, I'm one of them, but lets face the fact that Sachin also walks on two legs & goes to the toilet!