It seems that “doing the numbers” doesn’t necessarily provide the dose of realism that it’s claimed to give. All that data is subject to interpretation — and the interpretation depends on very human kinds of thinking. Allowing your optimism to run away with you isn’t just something that happens to entrepreneurs keen to establish the business of their dreams; it afflicts sober managers too.

What if individuals and organizations are responding to the pressures of today’s business climate by dealing with the wrong issue — trying to manage and extend time, when what they need to be doing is managing peoples’ energy levels? That’s the argument of a paper in Harvard Business Review. But the well-intentioned actions offered as answers miss the fact that both overwork and the long-hours culture are deeply embedded in the systems that organizations and top executives live by.

Researchers at the Wharton School of Business claim to have shown that playing fair with customers and suppliers, and being transparent about who gets what out of any deal, can be the best way for everyone to benefit in the long-term. Despite the predictions of classical economic theory, it seems many people value fairness highly enough to walk away from any deal they believe won’t give them a proper share of the rewards, taking nothing rather than allowing the other side to profit unfairly.

The commonest problem facing businesses (and individuals) today is too much emphasis on efficiency and not enough on effectiveness. Efficiency is all about doing what you already do — only faster and cheaper. Effectiveness is about doing whatever you need to do to be a success — typically something new and different. If you can’t see the difference, you’re in deep trouble. Survival is about being more effective in changing circumstances. I guess the dinosaurs were efficient at what they did — and look at what happened to them.

One of the major foundation blocks of trust is that people keep their agreements; yet life at work often seems rife with disagreements, betrayals, dishonesty, and disharmony. In working cultures without trust, there are no healthy relationships — just a constant watching of your back. Why should this be?

Continual busyness and overwork amongst well-paid professionals today is more likely to be for purely social reasons than because it is essential. Many people work harder than they need to build up social standing and display their importance. In terms of becoming an “alpha” individual in the herd, is the equivalent of the dance of the Lyre Bird or the bellowing of the stag. That’s why, while there are plenty of folk who must work excessive hours, just to survive (if you think about it, a disgrace in a modern society), what we are seeing is the odd phenomenon of the rich working just as hard, purely to display their status — followed by the “wannabe” rich doing the same in imitation.

The media have invaded the boardroom and brought with them many of the characteristics of melodrama: the continual sense of crisis, the stereotyped behaviors, the tendency to hype and overstatement, and the tricks that turn illusions into reality. It’s time we got back to reality, especially as managers and leaders. In stories, you can write the ending to the script in the way that you want it to turn out. In real life, the Seventh Cavalry may well not come over the hill in the nick of time to save you from being scalped.

Management learning, or learning that can enhance your career and success in almost any aspect of your working life, doesn’t have to be “heavy” or serious. Using the example of his own interest in birding, and how that has helped him in organizational life, Carmine Coyote explains that you never know where some technique learned elsewhere will pay off big-time in your career.

Today’s constant mantra of cutting costs, saving time, and avoiding the unknown and untested is making those who practice it less and less creative. Soon, they’ll be so stuck in their chosen rut that they won’t even by able to see anything outside it — only back where they’ve been and forward to where they’re going, whether they like it or not. Efficiency, systems, cost cutting, “management by numbers” — all of them are deadly to creative thinking. That’s true in your personal way of working as well.

Human beings are the only species that thinks, reflects, questions, wonders, daydreams, imagines, and allows for curiosity. We can reflect on the past and ponder the future. However, in an age of 15-second sound bites, 24-hour in-your-face news, and the constant bombardment by, and use of, electronic devices, many folks are spending less and less time thinking. Why do we seem to be doing more while thinking less? What are we allowing to get in the way of using our mental faculties?