Overcoming the Booby Traps of Predigested Questions
And how to stop groupthink from destroying your team
All animals have to digest their food before they can gain energy and needed nutrients from what they ate. Carnivores feed on other animals. Their saliva does not have the enzyme ptyalin and they cannot predigest starches. Vegetarians have enzymes that contain ptyalin that they use for the predigestion of starches. These latter group of animals cannot digest meat.
Luckily, humans fall in between these two groups. As omnivores, we can digest both flesh and vegetables. The food industry predigest some food with enzymes to aid digestion in the body.
Similar to predigestion of food in the food industry, humans are prone to giving predigested answers to predigested questions arising from predigested thinking.
While the predigestion of food is a must for the sustenance of life in humans and in all animals, predigested thinking lead to predigested questions that lead to predigested answers. All three often proceed cyclically. In individuals, teams and organizations, this combination is a recipe for disaster.
According to Professor Robert Thouless βMost true statements about complicated matters of fact cannot be adequately expressed in a few wordsβ. As humans, we all have theβ¦
