The Titanic was the greatest ship of its time. It was the Edwardian equivalent of the Airbus 380, designed to transport a large number of passengers quickly and safely across the Atlantic.

All of the elements in the story of the sinking of the Titanic can be abstracted out and seen every day in any large organisation. This is particularly true when it comes to communication breakdowns. The Titanic and the events surrounding it serve as a metaphor for the modern hybrid organisation.

Like the Titanic, modern hybrid organisations are technologically complex. There is frequently an overreliance on technology to manage systems (resulting in a decrease in developing robust human systems) and a belief that technology will save us. Because everyone had the brief that the Titanic was unsinkable, they underestimated the risk. The Titanic was unsinkable... until it sank. Too Big to Fail is a book by journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin about the collapse of the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers (Sorkin, 2010). Of course, Lehman Brothers (and Barings Bank) were too large to fail, just as the Titanic was too large to sink.

The radio operators on the Titanic were overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks, just as we are often overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks at work and struggle to see the bigger picture. We have a tendency to overlook what is important…

Someone asks for help to sort out a problem or situation, and when you offer a few suggestions, they spend ages telling you why your ideas won’t work, how they have tried all of those ideas before, and that they just don’t know what to do. Does this sound familiar?

This podcast will give you some ideas to help you effectively manage and support the help rejecting complainer, leading to improved performance, reduced conflict and a smoother work environment for everyone.

You were really sure that you were right, but you have found out that you were wrong.

How many times have you been in that situation? How many times have you said to yourself, ‘how could I have been so stupid?’

Becasue when you feel you are right it does not actually mean you are right.

It’s just a perception. It's a belief and a feeling and not a fact. Your feeling of being right could be right - or it could be wrong. This tendency that we all have - to experience our perceptions as facts is one of the biggest factors that our internal saboteur uses to derail us.

The next time you know you are right...pause and, just for a moment, accept that you might be wrong. Treat your feelings as being hypotheses - as beliefs rather than objective truth (this is hard but possible). 

Here are some awkward questions that you can ask yourself that will help you achieve this:

• What do I believe about this situation?  
• What evidence do I have for my belief? 
• Is there any evidence to indicate that I’m wrong?
• In what way could I be wrong? 

Because even the most intelligent people can sometimes be wrong...