A Time for Iconoclasts.

Image: Coningsby Gallery

In what we now know were the good times, we created enormously long supply chains for just about everything. We moved manufacturing to Asia. The blueberries on my cereal this morning came from Peru, and the raspberries from Morocco.

When we hit a challenge in our business we would call in advisers who had never done the job for real trained by other people who had never done the job for real, working for organisations who provide advice without liability.

We encouraged and created an environment of "learned helplessness". A term coined by Martin Seligmann, it describes what happens when we are exposed to multiple instances of failure and come to believe that we cannot succeed at anything.

Commercially, it's a winner. Easy to advertise, demonstrate and reinforce, particulalrly when times are tough. It's easy to create a slide deck, and a model that demonstrates our superior knowledge and what a wonderful ROI using our services will be.

Returns on external consultant…