I started off in college not knowing what I really wanted to be or do. I began as a psychology major enjoying the mind and the factors of influence as well as people but I didn’t want to spend 8-12 years pursuing a degree. I wanted to serve as quickly as I could.
I then changed to business because of my ability to connect with people and my personality. Also, it left many doors open as well as unlocked. Even though I was a business major, all of my friends were biology majors and this has been one of the biggest influences in and on my life.
For one thing, when you hang out with your friends who are biology majors you spend a lot of time in the library. I estimate that at 80% of my college career outside the classroom was spent in the library.
There were times when the library would close I’d have to follow my friends to other parts of campus looking for places to study. Even though I didn’t have any classes with them or homework as complex, I usually went along and used this time to study things they don’t teach you in business school.
The more I studied “along side them” the more I would learn. The most important and most career changing thing I learned from them was simple and logical in terms to what they studied but not when applied to the world of business.
See I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know very much about the science and biology world but what I do know is basic. See in the world of science there is one basic truth that lays the foundation for the rest and it’s the scientific method. The scientific method goes to sustain that science is highly structured and very methodical.
Now without trying to get too technical, the scientific method states that in order to be termed “scientific” the item in query must be based on and proved using evidence, hypothesis, and experiments which must result in the same outcome when the experiment is repeated.
So in order to prove something, you must first make a statement or hypothesis, gather evidence, run experiments and finally make conclusions based on the evidence.
So I was curious as to how all this started and how I could learn from it and I did some research. I’m going to share it with you now. But first we must go back in time.
Way back in the beginning, the lack of technology and science made people do some pretty crazy things, and doctors were no exception. At one point in time, no matter what the sickness was you had doctors thought the best method of treatment was “bloodletting”. What is bloodletting you ask?
Let me explain.
Bloodletting is where doctors would cut you open and drain some of your blood with the thinking that if you were sick it was probably caused internally therefore letting out the “bad blood” should make you feel better. Have a stomach virus? They’d cut you and let you bleed. Have the flu? Yep, they’d also cut you and let you bleed. Pneumonia? You guess it. You’re going to bleed.
Well it should come to be no surprise that a lot of people died from this. That all changed around 1830, when the French Scientist Pierre Louis (nice name huh?) performed one of the first evidence based experiments. Pierre noticed that the bloodletting method didn’t seem to be working very well. So he did an experiment dealing with patients who all had pneumonia. He put them in two groups. The first group of patients were treated by, you guessed it, getting cut while the second group weren’t treated at all.
The results as Pierre found was the second group died much less than the group who were treated by bloodletting. Pierre spread the word, duplicate experiments were conducted, and the world was changed forever.
But get this. You know one of our founding fathers Ol’ George Washington? Well he died two days after he went to the doctor for a sore throat in which they drained several quarts of his blood. Ouch.
But in the business world, not very many things are run by science better yet evidence. Want proof? I figured you would. Most of what you are taught in business school is governed by theories. Let me give you a prime example. Layoffs are one of the most widely used management techniques to get a grip on costs (notice I didn’t say the best).
The logic and theory goes that if labor is your biggest expense and you cut that expense via jobs, you should gain an advantage and an increase cash flow right? Well not when you look at the evidence. You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth.
The evidence is everywhere but you and I see layoffs everyday. It’s not just the layoffs but the thinking that is behind them.
Therefore, this type of thinking runs most of the business world along with today’s management’s inability to change flawed practices and adopt better evidence inspired practices and philosophies. Here’s another example for you. Of the over 300 documented organizations that had to experience a turnaround or bankruptcy, 8 out of 10, experienced their decline solely because of management.
This whole let’s take a look at the evidence before we make a decision way of life has changed my outlook and I have no one to thank but the people who have became my closest of friends in and after college.
As they all are in medical school pursuing their dreams and quest to make a difference in the world and the communities they will soon serve, they’ve showed me it won’t be possible unless you partake in the never ending search of the truth.
Regardless of your occupation, business, or job title there is so much out there for us to learn. What this world needs more than anything right now is talent. Leadership. Not the flawed thinking that has gotten us to where we are today but talent and leadership that can change and adapt to the people and the environments we will soon serve. We need to be able to adapt to change instead of having change adapt to us. We need to share this talent with the world today. Talent that only you and I can bring.
Do Big Things.
Remember, there can never be another you
