I have often asked why CEOs or managers or biz leaders keep making the same mistake.

The question came up again this week, as I was reading about Pharoah chasing after the Children of Israel in the wilderness. He had just suffered for weeks with ten plagues. And even though he had relented briefly and let his slaves go, he now wanted them back with a vengeance. However, as the story is related in Chapters 14 and 15 of Exodus, he and his mighty army charged ahead only to be drowned in the Red Sea.

This story was part of the weekly reading for Jews. And the question was posed: What made this great king and leader believe that even when he had been defeated by plagues, suffering the death of his own son and the humiliation of his gods, he would finally defeat this enemy?

I noticed a very interesting answer tucked away in one of the commentaries. The man was so concerned for his own self interests that he could not see the larger picture. In other words, in a clearer moment, given all that had happened previously and if he had provided himself withadvisors who were not afraid to tell him the truth, then he would never have launched what proved to be his final hurrah.

Now let’s hook back to the business world. How often do we see people make decisions based on similar egocentric whims?  For example, I know of a case where extra stock was purchased because sales had risen a fraction. The assumption was that future sales would continue positively. Dangerous assumption, especially as the CEO had ignored the fact that he was still overstocked due to a weak market. Enter the world of cash flow crises. Big ouch!

Or how many organisations do I know, where the chiefs complain about low sales but refuse to invest in a marketing team; training, proper salaries, clear lines of responsibility, dedicated advertising, etc? And this ritual continues while very little changes on the revenue side. In this case things matters usually have a hope of changing when the execs want to award themselves a pay raise. However, this frequently produces cuts in his staff rather than a revised sales strategy.

In effect, these leaders are lying to themselves. They are covering up the truth to meet their own needs. As Dan Ariely noted in his recent book “the honest truth about dishonesty”, we somehow contrive to blind ourselves and think we can get away with it – yes, just about all of us.

If there was one person who bucked this ‘rule of life’, it was my father, Joshua. I suppose that it is not without some mystical force that I was able to string these comments together in the week that he passed away at the age of 89. My sister and I have been greeted by a tidal wave of kind comments about him from people we know and do not know. And if I had to sum up these recollections?

It is not that he was famous or successful or brilliant at sport. What people really appreciated was my father’s ability to put aside the nonsense around many a subject in order to help others. He was deeply dedicated to making society a better place for all, especially children. As far as my dad was concerned, in order to do that you needed to play things straight, ignoring what your ego told you to do.

In effect my father would approach ever issue with a similar methodology. That means time and again he would carefully map the subject, conduct frank discussions with all those involved, not be afraid to explain to those who opposed, and then act and also take responsibility for his actions. Needless to say, he was highly successful on many charity committees.

It is maybe 5,000 years since Pharoah’s arrogance plunged his country towards military and financial disaster. Despite that distance of time and the magnitude of the disaster, people continue to make mistakes in business and in life for the same base reasons.

Somehow, my father found a way to teach us otherwise. He has left us a series of lessons that we will all benefit to learn from.

Joshua Stanley Horesh (1923- 2013). Missed desperately by his wife, his children, his grandchildren, his brother, his sister and a whole host of good people he met along the way.