Stepping back, it’s very hard for human beings to face the facts when certain things might not be going in the direction they would like. In such circumstances, humans will often bias data by attempting to show certain things and not others or to show part of the data but not all.

In general, people want to do well, and this kind of regular feedback gets people on the right track. As the person gets more and more positive feedback, I’ll guarantee you will see the confidence and the results rise to new heights.

Why do big, smart companies often get run over by the obvious? Think about Kodak, who had lots of R&D folks studying digital photography in the early 1990’s, and got wiped out. They are now a struggling printer company that might not survive. For 25 years GM was described by the press as have boring, mediocre-quality cars and excessive labor costs, and they ignored it all for decades and went bankrupt.

So…why was it that P&G was just as willing to consider a religion major as an MBA for the marketing-intensive work of brand management? Because, after studying the issue for years, they concluded success was primarily due to four attributes which don’t really relate to any particular academic major.

While we don’t like to admit it, it is even worse to have a situation where you know you messed up a few things, but the boss doesn’t discuss it with you. You know he is thinking bad things, but you don’t know what he or she is going to do in response.