In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem.

One day an

acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your

friend?"

"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little

test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good

idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter

test. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me

is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and…."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now

let's try the second filter, the filter of goodness. Is what you are about to tell

me about my friend; something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him,

but you're not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because

there's one filter left: the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me

about my friend going to be useful to me?"

"No not really …”
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you
want to tell me is neither true nor good nor
even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

This is why Socrates was a great

philosopher & held in such high esteem.
 A global pharmaceutical company has had a more than its share
of challenges over the past few years
 Sales are down, has got bad press, stock is down, complaints
about products are up and one major customer has become very
negative
 The company had a proud history
 Since company is in bad shape, it is expected that its HQs would
look like an army HQ in war
 But it shows nothing of the sort; instead of aiming at enemy
lethal weapons are aimed inwards: worker at managers,
managers at workers, sales at manufacturing etc
 In one on one conversations, employees admit there are
problems. Then comes the ‘Buts’
 But the whole industry is having these problems. But we really
are making some progress. But the problem is not here, its over
there in that department. But there is nothing else I can do
because of my thickheaded boss
 Typical management meeting befools all your data
regarding revenues, income, stock price, customer
complaint and morale
 Reference is rarely made to any indexes of unacceptable
performances. Issues discussed are of marginal importance.
Energy level is rarely high. Discussions become heated only
when one manager tries to grab resources from another.
And every once in a while you hear someone sincerely make
a speech about how good things are.
 In this complacency filled organization, change initiative is
dead on arrival. Even if someone tries to discuss new
approach, within few minutes the discussion shifts to some
new amiable subject
 These conditions can be found everywhere!
1. No highly visible crisis existed. The firm was not losing money. No
one had threatened a big layoff. Bankruptcy was not an issue.
Employees saw no tornado-like threat.
2. The meeting was taking place in a room which screamed
“success”. The corporate HQ was the same way: marble, rich
woods, deep carpets and oil paintings. The subliminal message
was clear: we are rich, we are winners, we must be doing
something right. So relax
3. The standards against which these managers measured
themselves were far from high. It was a common saying “ profits
are up 10 percent over last year”. What was not said was that
profits were down 30 percent from five years before and industry
wide profits were nearly up 20 percent over previous one year
4. The organizational structure focused most people’s
attention on narrow functional goals instead of broad
business performance. Marketing had its indexes,
manufacturing had a different set, personnel yet another.
Only the CEO was responsible for overall sales, net income
and return on equity
5. Various internal planning and control systems were
rigged to make it easy for everyone to meet their
functional goals
6. Whatever performance feedback people received came
almost entirely from faulty internal systems. Data from
external stakeholders rarely went to anyone
7. When enterprising young employees went out of their way
to collect external performance feedback, they were often
treated like lepers
8. Complacency was supported by the very human tendency
to deny that which we do not want to hear
9. Those who were relatively unaffected by complacency
sources mentioned above went into a false sense of
security by senior management’s “ happy talk”.

Much of the problem here is related to historical victories-

for the firm, departments and individuals. Past success
reduces sense of urgency and encourages us to turn
inwards. For individuals it creates an ego problem and for
firms cultural.
Never underestimate the magnitude of the forces that
reinforce complacency and that help maintain the status quo
Increasing urgency demands removal of
complacency or minimize their impact: like
eliminating signs of excess, setting higher
standards both formally in the planning and
informally in daily meetings, changing
internal measurement systems that focus on
wrong indexes; increasing the external
feedback; rewarding honest talk and honest
workers; and stopping baseless happy talk
from the top
1. Create a crisis by allowing a financial loss, exposing
managers to major weaknesses vis-à-vis
competitors, or allowing errors to blow up instead of
correcting at the last minute
2. Eliminate obvious examples of excess
3. Set revenue, income, productivity, customer
satisfaction, and cycle-time targets so high that they
cannot be reached by conducting business as usual
4. Stop measuring subunit performance based only on
narrow functional goals. Insist that more people be
held accountable for broader measures of business
performance
5. Send more data about customers satisfaction and
financial performance to more employees, especially
that demonstrates weaknesses vis-à-vis the
competition
6. Insist that people talk regularly to unsatisfied
customers, unhappy suppliers, and disgruntled
shareholders
7. Use consultants and other means to force more
relevant data and honest discussion into
management meetings
8. Put more honest discussions of the firms problems
in company newspapers and senior management
speeches
9. Bombard people with information on future
opportunities
 Visible crises can be enormously helpful in catching
people’s attention and pushing up urgency levels.
 A Japanese entrepreneur regularly stopped his
management from becoming complacent. Just when
people would celebrate their achievements, he would
set new standards which on the face of it looked
difficult but people trusted his vision. His five year
goals became little bombs which periodically blew up
pockets of complacency.
 Real leaders often create artificial crises rather than
waiting for one to happen.