Ten Powerful Business Lessons from Vladimir Putin’s Failed Invasion

It's a sad fact of life that one can take lessons from both the good and bad things that happen in the world. Putin's failed effort to conquer Ukraine offers some classic mistakes that every business leader can learn from and avoid.

1. Surrounding yourself with "Yes Men" leads to bad decisions

When the only people around you are people sacred to challenge your ideas, you rarely get an accurate picture of what the possible outcomes might be. Including many bad outcomes you never even considered.

Who do you have as a sounding board or mentor who will challenge your ideas?

2. Overestimating your own abilities leads to very bad decisions

Putin has exhibited classic signs of the Dunning-Kruger effect. This effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain vastly overestimate their knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or the performance of their peers or people in general. We all have examples of that in our business dealings.

What do you do monthly to increase your knowledge and skills in key areas?

3. You can learn a lot from history