Gillian Tett: Why Smart People Make Dumb Decisions | WIRED

"Why do very bright people so often do things that are spectacularly stupid?" asked Gillian Tett at WIRED 2015.
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Tett, an anthropologist by training, is also a senior journalist at the Financial Times. In her book 'The Silo Effect', she says that artificial divisions that tend to naturally develop between people are at the heart of why companies make big mistakes.
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WIRED 2015 is our annual two-day celebration of the innovators, inventors, artists and entrepreneurs who are reinventing our world. For more from the event, head over to our WIRED 2015 hub. www.wired.co.uk/wired2015
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Gillian Tett: Why smart people make dumb decisions | WIRED
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[@joegrizzly999]

*grabs stomach* "Boss i got a headache."

[@RunToEternity]

Sometimes the hierarchy says to stay in your silo, no extra thinking from you. OK boss, as you mentally give him the middle finger.

[@temperedskin781]

It's a saying, "ignorance is bliss". What's bliss? Depends.. some people aren't happy being or doing intelligent, just as easily as some people aren't happy being or doing ignorant. 😊

[@stanleymazur9728]

She is so sweet :-).

[@vxrdrummer]

Gorgeous

[@Suav58]

Dunbar number? Let's think of it like this 150! is a number of possible relations (that's without any "colouring" of them). In a Roman centuria there was about 80 people which were managed by a centurion but this only due to violent suppression of any voluntary conduct, so, instead of 80! one has just about a hundred and only in one direction. Did you say, madame, that Facebook (as understood as what it is on the outside) is it's own opposite (on the inside)? I would agree with this one.

[@Lewa500]

I think she misspoke there and meant to say anti-Sony, instead of anti-Facebook.

[@allatsea2746]

Great talk and I just ordered her most recent book (Anthro-Vision), BUT I don't buy the walkman argument. It has never been a problem for companies to "compete with themselves". Take Coca Cola or any car or guitar company (2 weeks after having bought my first Reverend guitar I already started saving for my second one ;-)...) The problem only arises when none of these products are any good.

[@tripptank]

Even if all three walkmans were competing with each other, why would it matter if all the profit went to the same company?

[@bilaltv2914]

Fu

[@80beanz]

simple...they are not that smart. maybe intelligent in one area and stupid in every other. Stop trying to make something complicated that is simple. Anything that is complicated is just a bunch of easy things put together.

[@Lewa500]

Or maybe give her the benefit of the doubt, instead of dismissing everything out of hand? There's nothing complicated about what she's saying and she has the observational data to back it up, too.

[@supanerd5558]

Why did they put a Karen on stage