Keith Suter: Wisdom of studying stupidity

Being stupid is one of the main characteristics that distinguishes humans from animals.

Animals have an instinct for their own best interests. Humans, by contrast, occasionally act in a way that is contrary to the evidence - and contrary to their own best interests.

There is a lot of attention to "best practices" in business studies courses. Perhaps we need more attention to stupidity. There should be more "stupidology" - the study of stupidity.

I got this idea from my Club of Rome colleague Professor Manfred Max-Neef, vice-chancellor of a Chilean university.

He was so intrigued by what makes humans stupid that three decades ago he taught courses on stupidology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Wesleyan University in the United States.

Unfortunately, his other commitments (including running unsuccessfully for the presidency of Chile) precluded his following up these pioneering courses.

The American historian Barbara Tuchman wrote a book on stupidology, her March of Folly. She examined why governments continued to persist with policies that were obviously failing, such as England's attempt to hold on to the 13 American colonies in the War of Independence, and the United States' war in Vietnam.

At the national government level there is a tendency to repeat in one country what is already showing signs of failing in another.

For example, the privatisation of government assets, though it has brought some successes, has also resulted in failures.

Finally, at the individual level, there is the example of some people (even in the medical profession) who continue to smoke.

There is now a great deal of evidence that shows the harm that smoking does to a person's health. And yet people still smoke, somehow expecting that they will not suffer the same adverse consequences as those who have become ill.

People continue to drink alcohol and drive, even though it is clear that such actions are risky.

A definition of "stupidity" is "doing the same thing and expecting different results". People continue to do, over and over again, the same thing in the hope that eventually there will be a different result.

For example, governments conduct anti-smoking campaigns. They repeat the same types of campaigns and get only limited results - and yet somehow expect to do better next time.

Organisations (governmental and commercial) get locked into a momentum of doing the same thing. Instead of standing back and asking whether a particular policy is being effective, the tendency is simply to repeat the policy but with more gusto.

Perhaps too many careers are tied up with the original policy to call for a questioning of it. Instead of "lateral thinking", people and organisations just dig themselves deeper into the same hole.

Here are three recommendations. First, educational institutions that currently teach "best practice" courses in the hope that students can detect a formula for success would perhaps also gain from looking at the failures. What is the "worst practice"? What are the lessons in the failures?

A variation of this is the creation of non-role models. People are often encouraged to follow positive role models. But they could be invited to think of the worst examples they know of and reflect on why they thought the non-role models were so bad and how they ought also to avoid behaving as badly.

Second, there should be the recognition that mistakes are an opportunity to learn. There should not be an organisational culture that punishes mistakes.

Instead, if a mistake has occurred there should be an open culture where the mistakes can be admitted, an exploration made of the lessons learned, and a desire to move on. Instead of quietly burying the mistakes, there should be a desire to learn from them.

Finally, organisations should not be risk-averse. Lawyers should be on tap - but not on top.

* Keith Suter is a member of the Club of Rome, a global think tank.