What Happened to Common Sense?

I recently read an article in USA Today that described the deteriorating quality of job candidates as millennials begin to enter the workforce. The problems outlined ranged from a candidate bringing her cat to an interview all the way to a father calling the employer trying to negotiate a higher rate of pay for his child. The article also described multiple candidates texting and taking casual phone calls during the interview process.

If that isn’t enough to get your attention, try this one on for size: HR professionals polled said that 20 percent of candidates exhibit this type of behavior. That’s one out of every five. That means that at least one of every five is unemployable. They may actually have the talent for the position, but nobody in their right mind is going to hire someone that feels compelled to confer with Mr. Puss ’n Boots over their benefit package during an interview. I certainly wouldn’t hire someone that comes with a one-man collective bargaining agreement in the form of his father.

This isn’t meant to be a disparaging commentary on millennials. This is just one illustration of forehead-slapping behavior that is all around us today. That leads me to my point — there is an absolute direct correlation between behavior and outcomes. It’s the good old-fashioned relationship between action and reaction.

Over the last 10 years, I have become acutely aware of, and interested in, how behavior affects outcomes. Individual, financial, relational, societal, and many other outcomes are a direct result of the behavior we exhibit. Think about the housing run-up and subsequent collapse. That wasn’t caused by gremlins or your imaginary friend. That was caused by the behavior of millions of individuals, the majority of which lacked common sense. People like to point fingers at the government or banks for the mess. I point the finger at the intentional abandonment of common sense. Alas, another illustration of behavior gone awry.

As a society, we spend way too much time focusing on how to over-complicate solutions to problems and letting social norms dictate how we operate our lives and subsequent businesses. Overweight? It must be the food companies. Dwindling or absent 401(k)? It must be the Wall Street fat cats. Bad marriage? It certainly must be your spouse’s fault. I think you get the point. We have taken great pains to replace ego where common sense and fact should have been inserted.

Let’s look at the crushing obesity epidemic in this country. Being overweight has everything to do with what you put in your mouth and how much exercise you get. Take it from someone who lost 60 pounds more than 20 years ago — that’s all it boils down to. However, it’s tough to eat the right foods when you’re worried about what someone (i.e., spouse, boss, friend) will say about your changing dietary selection. It’s also tough to fit in the time to get enough exercise when you’re consumed with the next Facebook post or Kim Kardashian story. Getting back to common-sense behaviors while removing the ego from decisions will not only alleviate over-complication, it will also drive substantially better outcomes for you and those around you.

Maybe it’s time we all take a good hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves what impact our behavior has had on our personal outcomes. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but it sure will drive substantial success in the future. So the next time you’re faced with a substantial decision to make or problem to solve, try applying some common-sense behavior as a solution. If nothing else, it’ll save you from having to share the cat food with your feline friend in the not-too-distant future.

Kyle Blumin is an entrepreneur in residence at Syracuse’s StartFast Venture Accelerator. He is a Syracuse native and serial entrepreneur with three successful exits in diverse industries.