tag:blog.jackvinson.com,2007://1/tag:blog.jackvinson.com,2007://1.8489- 2007-12-07T21:35:44Z Comments for Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things Jack Vinson writes about knowledge management, personal effectiveness, theory of constraints and more. As of December 2007 Jack will likely start writing about product management too. Movable Type 4.01 tag:blog.jackvinson.com,2007://1.8489.19127 Comment from Brett on 2007-12-05 Brett http://nsl.gbrettmiller.com I remember this question coming up in an Organizational Behavior class many years ago. The professor had what I think is a very interesting insight: Everyone behaves rationally.

The caveat, of course, is that they behave rationally within their own mind. The trick for someone observing that behavior is to understand why the person thinks their behavior is rational. (Any parent knows exactly what I mean.) I haven't had a chance to read all the articles, but it looks like thats what they address.

If you find yourself in this situation, it is also worth exploring why you think the behavior you are observing is irrational. I've been surprised several times when I realized that it was, in fact, me who was being irrational (though I emphatically deny ever doing anything dumb ;-)

]]> 2007-12-05T22:20:15Z 2007-12-05T22:20:15Z tag:blog.jackvinson.com,2007://1.8489.19131 Comment from Jack Vinson on 2007-12-07 Jack Vinson http://blog.jackvinson.com Brett- Thanks for this comment. It reflects what I was attempting to say above. Pretty much everything we do -- even when it appears to run counter to the needs of the organization / individual -- can be checked against fairly rational logic. It is usually NOT that people are irrational, it is that the rules and measures they have in place are forcing people to operate in certain ways.

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