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It’s Only Common Sense: Fear and Loathing in Business

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt

Sure, when the four-term President Roosevelt said this, he was only in his first term, he was talking about the Depression and, as the history books tell us, that turned out to be the least of his problems—I’m referring to World War II that followed a few years later.

But this statement is as vital today as it was over 90 years ago, don’t you think? I find the fear of doing anything is the biggest challenge most companies face today. It is actually the biggest challenge that most individuals face today.

Years ago, I compiled a list of the “Famous 50 Reasons Why It Won’t Work.” It started as tongue-in-cheek but since then it has become less of a joke and more of a wake-up call when people tell me why they can’t take action or solve a problem facing them at the moment, and how they come up with unique and creative reasons why it won’t work.

What they are really saying is they don’t want to take action. It scares them because they don’t know what will happen, so instead they imagine all the terrible things that could happen. They sit there, frozen, waiting for their business to die. In short, it’s corporate suicide by inaction.

The worst part of this rationalization-justification of inaction is that they dig deeper and invent their own scenarios of what might happen if they do take action and it doesn’t work out, especially when it’s what someone else recommended.

Have you noticed that? Think about it; we all do it. It’s the natural knee-jerk reaction when someone comes up with a new idea. Instead of appreciating that action and considering how that action could be incorporated to help solve our particular issue, our mind goes on a lightning-fast search to find out what could be wrong with it. I cannot believe how quickly we can do this. We look for everything wrong about the idea as soon as it’s put on the table.

When you think about it, most of the time these things that might go wrong are ridiculously inadequate and irrelevant. In fact, most of the excuses involved a minute number of people who will be affected by the action.

Here are some examples:

• You develop a new ad campaign. You create new messaging, the president takes it home, and comes back the next day saying that his wife, son, mother, father, second cousin didn’t like it and he wants to do something else. Ovey.
• A company puts out a newsletter to 5,000 recipients. They send it out once a month for five months and it is well received. In fact, they’re getting a 20% open rate and a 5% click-through rate (which is nothing short of phenomenal). But during a sales meeting one day, a salesperson relates that a customer said the company is sending out too many newsletters. The company then decides to stop sending them out. Whaaat? Don’t laugh, I’ve seen this happen several times. We tend to listen to the worst common denominator no matter how small it is. Just imagine if Proctor and Gamble stopped their ads every time someone told them they hated Mr. Whipple?
• A company needs a new strategy, a new direction. Things are not going well. So, they develop an initiative and strategy with new sales tactics, but they get nowhere because every time a new idea is laid on the table someone quickly comes up with some of those 50 reasons why it won’t work. The people around the table are so adept at this (how do you think they got in this position in the first place?) that after a week of meetings, much to the chagrin of the innovators and the delight of the luddites and fear mongers, they do absolutely nothing. Six months later, they’re out of business. That, my friends, is the classic case of, in the words of FDR, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

Please, please, please: Stop doing this. Stop being afraid of change. When you think of all the world’s great innovators, the only difference between them and us is that they overcame their fear of change and failure. They had the courage to embrace change and the audacity to change the future.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.