Definition: Blahbot – A person who because they can’t see beyond the end of their own nose, blindly and without even considering other alternatives, purposefully and willfully does exactly what has always been done before without thinking.

In 1914 Thomas J. Watson Sr. took over the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company that became eventually became IBM. He believed there was great potential in producing machines that would help people think. He also believed if a company was to be successful and take advantage of this potential, everyone in the company needed to be a thinker. This belief came to him at an NCR sales meeting in 1911 when the sales managers couldn’t come up with any good ideas to improve the business. He said this, “The trouble with every one of us is that we don’t think enough.” This was followed by “Knowledge is the result of thought and thought is the keynote of success in this business or any business.”

Last time I checked the ability to think and reason is supposedly what makes human beings the superior animals on the planet. Dogs, horses, monkeys, porpoises, elephants and a lot of other animals you can think of can be trained to do a number of repetitive things, but teaching them to think and reason will probably be unsuccessful. So why in the world, given these unique abilities, does a number of people in organizations go stupid and act like they were sick the day thinking was taught in school.

So you can recognize a Blahbot by some of the incredibly stupid things that come out of their mouths. Such as:

“Gee, I never thought of that.”

“I didn’t think about doing it that way.”

“Are you sure we can do that?”

“We’ve never done it that way before.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

“I didn’t think that applied to me.”

“Where is that in the employee manual?”

You get the picture.

Have a Great Blahless Day!