By David Stewart

“Okay welcome back from the lunch break. I hope you’ve all refueled ready for this afternoon’s session. Now this morning we learnt about received opinions and how much damage they can do to a company like yours if you don’t challenge them. Remember the three rules: Challenge what you know, Learn what you don’t, Assess what you find.  Now we’re going to take what you learnt this morning and with some practical applications see how your firm can overcome received opinions and be ultra-competitive in the 21st century marketplace.

Here in this box I have some things that will help us deal with received opinions. I’m just going to tip them onto the table!

Now who can stop and tell me what you’re doing right now! You see you’re all reacting to a received opinion but this is a chance to Challenge what you know – No don’t do that! It’s okay, stop screaming, I need someone to have a stop-moment and clarify for the group – No it’s okay they don’t bite, they’re harmless carpet snakes – please stop screaming! Can we bring the room back to order please we need to – Well of course it bit you, I’d bite you too if you hit me with a ring-binder. I said they don’t bite but what I meant was they’re not venomous. He’ll let go if you just stop shaking your arm. Please everyone calm down! It’s just a few snakes and some blood and your scaring them! No there’s no point trying to get out I’ve locked the door so – Oh No! You didn’t have to do that these snakes are really expensive and – NO HE SHOULD NOT TRY AND KILL THE REST AS WELL! Just calm down people! I’m going to bill your company for the death of a trained snake and if anyone else gets any wild ideas with a pair of scissors I’ll have to – No the table won’t support everyone’s weight, can we get off the table please! People can we – Oh see that was always going to happen, it wasn’t designed to support an entire sales department. Shit there were at least three more snakes under there when it collapsed. I don’t give a stuff about your broken leg I’m more concerned about your ability to deal with received opinions and my trained snakes… Oh I knew I shouldn’t have quit my teaching job.”

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