A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

24 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
capital punishment. In this high court, there were no prosecuting or
defense attorneys and no appeals. The Sanhedrin court consisted only of
judges. Some historians say 71 judges, others 23. The actual number is
unimportant to some factual points.
The judges could examine the defendant, the accusers, and any witnesses
either side brought before it. To exonerate a defendant required a
majority of one, while to find him guilty required a majority of two. But
perhaps the most interesting aspect of this ancient Jewish legal body was
that if all judges found the accused guilty of a capital crime, he or she was
allowed to go free! This was because the ancient Hebrews were convinced
that there is a defense to be argued for every individual accused, regardless
of the gravity of the crime and the persuasiveness of the evidence. If not a
single judge thought that the defendant’s case had merit, then it was clear
that no matter how heinous the crime, something was wrong in the situation
and it was likely that the accused was innocent. In other words, when
every judge “knew” something to be “true,” it probably wasn’t.
In modern times, the impact of mass agreement on an issue has been
addressed and confirmed in psychological research. In one experiment,
subjects were asked to rate the attractiveness of individuals depicted in
selections of photographs. However, there was only one real subject and
the results were rigged. Unknown to the subject, the other participants
were part of the scientist’s team of experimenters. These participants were
to agree about the most attractive individual depicted in any particular set
of photographs at random. It was found that the subject could usually be
influenced to agree <strong>with</strong> any photograph that the group selected, regardless
of merit. This experiment demonstrates the influence of social proof,
while it confirms one reason why <strong>Drucker</strong>’s theory that what everyone
knows is frequently wrong is correct. Accepting what everybody knows
<strong>with</strong>out any examination will often result in faulty decisions.
The Tylenol Case
Is <strong>Drucker</strong>’s wisdom valid or important in business? Back in 1982 someone
laced a popular over-the-counter drug <strong>with</strong> cyanide. A few who bought
the poisoned product died. This led to an almost instantaneous nationwide
panic. One hospital received 700 queries from people suspecting they had
been poisoned <strong>with</strong> the tainted product. People in cities across the country
were admitted to hospitals on suspicion of cyanide poisoning. The Food