We all face crucial moments all of the time.
Those moments when our colleagues disappoint us, when our boss is treating us unfairly,
when our spouse is letting us down, or our children are treating us badly.
And we know in those moments we need to confront and yet we don't.
Or when we do, it goes badly.
Why?
I'll tell you why - because I don't exactly understand why as human beings we always ask
ourselves this question, but how many of you have been tempted by this thought?
“What is the worst and most hurtful and personal way I could possibly respond in this
moment?”
Right?
So then our emotions gets going, it's strong, it's out of control.
And what we know is that we tend to to behave not as well as we could.
And in that moment, oftentimes we commit what's called the fundamental attribution error - when
looking at other people's behavior, we jump to a conclusion.
And we believe, in that moment, that people are doing what they're doing because they
enjoy it.
Here's what happens.
In our minds, we think to ourselves, “I don't know why he's acting that way - because
that's the way he is.
Because he's just a jerk, and that's the way he treats people and that's the way it always
is.
He's just selfish, he's lazy, he's arrogant, and there's just really nothing I can do about
it.”
So when we when we jump to this conclusion - and that's of course a bit dramatic in terms
of explaining what our thought process is - but but for many of us the challenges that
we are assigning an attribute as to why people are doing what they're doing.
We are fundamentally attributing people's behavior in erroneous ways.
And what's happening when we jump to the fundamental attribution error is that we are assuming
that people behave the way they behave because they are personally motivated to act that
way.
And this is a very limited view of human behavior.
So what we need to do is talk about what are some potential ways that we can rethink those
conclusions if we want to have more healthy outcomes in our crucial confrontations.
If I decide that you act the way you are acting because you are bad and evil and horrible,
it is very difficult for me to have an effective confrontation with you because I am filled
with judgment.
What we want to do is begin to think more broadly and recognize that there are six sources
that influence human behavior not just the one that we so readily conclude.
So you'll see here that we're talking about both motivation and ability.
We often forget ability we assume that if people wanted to behave differently they would
- not realizing that oftentimes people are behaving badly because it is incredibly difficult
for them to behave any other way.
And so what we want to be able to do is understand that there are lots of different ways for
us to understand what's going on that that motivates people to act in the way that they
do - and it can be on the personal level.
It can also have to do with what others are doing on the social level that perhaps are
affecting their choices, and it might also have to do with some of the non-human elements
- the structural elements in our environment - that could cause people to be acting the
way they're acting.
I'd like to just walk us through the six sources of influence here and you'll find that these
are delineated by numbers so I'll walk through each of these.
The first source of influence is personal motivation.
We've been talking about this.
We decide people act the way they do because it brings them pleasure and it is congruent
with who they see themselves to be.
OK?
But we know that that's not always a full explanation.
Source #2 suggests is that people act the way they do because to do any other action
would require skills and ability that perhaps they might not have.
They might have an ability issue present that we're not thinking about.
Let me just walk you through a scenario here.
I want you to imagine that you are on an executive leadership team and there's a gentleman on
your team named Ed and that you've both been assigned to different subcommittees.
Your subcommittee relies on Ed's subcommittee to get information.
Your task is to make a presentation to the director and you need the report from Ed’s
subcommittee by noon on Friday in order to be able to prepare for your presentation to
the director at 3:00 on Tuesday.
Now let's say it's Monday.
It's 4:00 and you have no report from Ed.
How easy would it be for you to decide in that moment that Ed never makes our group
a priority?
He doesn't care that I have a presentation to do, he's just focused on his own needs,
and it's just always like this.
Right?
We've assigned personal motivation as the number one reason that Ed is a big fat jerk.
Now, what we know is that there could be a personal ability issue present.
Now, I won't know this until I check it out with him.
These are essentially just guesses, but let's at least have more guesses to work with than
just one and see if that moves us into a place where we can check out our guesses rather
than act them which tends not to go so well.
So it could be that there's a personal ability problem present.
Ed does not know how to use the advanced features of Excel that are required to do this report.
So he's struggling to get the report done.
Perhaps there's a social motivation issue present.
Perhaps there are actions that other people are doing that are making it less motivating
for Ed to focus on this report.
Let's say his boss has been peppering him with urgent deadlines all week and he could
not even come up for air for even a minute until Friday afternoon.
So his boss is now making it less of a priority for him.
Perhaps there's a social ability issue present and relies on others.
You know Jeanie, his assistant, has always done these reports for him.
She's out on maternity leave.
She didn't teach him how to do it and there's no one else who can help him.
So he's relying on somebody else for assistance.
She's not there.
He's stuck as a result.
We know that non-human elements come into play as well.
When we think of structural motivation issues we're talking about what kinds of things reward
or punish - what kinds of things provide incentives?
And for many of us we look to processes and systems and bonuses and incentives and payouts
as a kind of incentive for helping us prioritize and motivate us in our work.
If I told you that it was never part of Ed’s job description that he was going to have
to be involved with the subcommittees and his performance review does not take any of
his subcommittee work into account, why would he be incented to make that a priority above
all of his other work?
He's a busy busy man, right?
And finally if there's a structural ability issue present, we know that things can sometimes
make it difficult.
For example, if his computer breaks.
Pretty difficult to churn out an Excel report, right?
So what we know is that all of these can go in tandem, sometimes we just have a few working
together but we limit ourselves and we just see one option in front of us.
I want to ask you to help me out here now that you have a sense of the six sources of
influence.
Take a look at this horrible horrible example of what's going on in my neighborhood.
My neighbor who lives across the street from me has let his lawn go to pot and it's looking
really bad - in fact it's bothering me so much because I believe that it's affecting
the property value of my house.
Now it would be so easy for me to jump to the fundamental attribution error which would
suggest that the reason my neighbor's lawn looks like this is - what?
He's lazy.
He's just too lazy to care.
Right?
But maybe, just maybe, there's something else going on here.
So let's think about what else could be getting in the way.
We'll walk through a diagnosis here.
Perhaps he doesn't enjoy mowing.
That could be true.
It could also be that there's a personal ability problem.
He grew up in New York and he never learned.
Never had a yard, right?
Maybe there's a social motivation issue going on.
He is ticked at his wife and he is making a point.
He is not mowing that lawn until she treats him right.
OK?
So now what is my beef with?
The wife.
Right?
If I want to see change on my neighbor's behavior I need to start talking to the folks in his
family.
We know that there could be a social ability challenge.
Maybe he's looking to re-landscape and he doesn't know what kinds of plants are indigenous
to the area and he's put in a call to the Garden Club and nobody's calling him back.
He can't mow until he gets more information.
Perhaps there's a structural motivation issue.
There's no incentive for him.
You know we live in a neighborhood where there are no deed restrictions suggesting that he
needs to be maintaining his lawn, and this guy owns his own business.
How is he going to better spend his time?
Bringing in cash by doing his day job or cleaning up the yard when there's no incentive the
reward there?
OK?
And finally if there's a structural ability problem it could be that something's broken
- his lawnmower isn't working.
So as interested as he is in having an award winning yard he's got no tools to get it done.
OK?
So you can see here how many of these can come into play.
What I'd like to offer you is a gift for when you run into those moments where it's so tempting
to jump to the fundamental attribution error.
Here's my gift to you - it is a metaphorical set of dice for you to keep in your pocket
at all times.
OK, Now picture die - when you roll a die, there are six possible outcomes.
If in troubling moments, we took a moment just a half a second and rolled a die even
if it were just mentally and entertain the notion that perhaps it is not just source
#1 that is causing us grief, but perhaps there are other potential reasons people are acting
badly, it forces us to evaluate what those other potential options might look like.
Having more information - having a better understanding of what the problem might be
- puts us in a better position to confront effectively when we do.
I'd like to share with you that a friend of mine could have benefited greatly from from
this this gift a couple of years back.
She and I walked through a very painful journey together.
This is a dear friend of mine.
Her name is Leanne.
We grew up together and Leanne is an only child and Leanne lost her mother Marian at
a rather young age and it was quite unexpected.
So Leanne was in her early thirties and Marian was in her late fifties, which in my mind
is far too young to lose a mother and Leanne was obviously heartbroken and full of grief
and was comforted simply by the knowledge that as an only child she had always known
that she would be the sole heir to her mother's estate and so she would be comforted by that
gift from her mother.
Her aunts, Marian’s sisters, were responsible for executing the will and Leanne received
a phone call about three days after Marian passed away from one of her aunts.
Now Leanne wasn't there to take the call so it was in the form of a voicemail message
and this is what her aunt told her.
She said, “Leanne, I just wanted to check in and let you know what's happening.
Marian's estate is set up to be divided or set up to be put into the form of a family
trust which will be divided across you and me and my sister so now the three of us will
be will be splitting evenly Marian's estate.
So let's talk soon and we'll work out details.”
Now I just want to I want to pause there and if you were Leanne, what in that moment do
you think she had to have been feeling?
Shock.
Tremendous pain.
Because what does she believe her aunts are doing to her?
Taking from her?
They’re cheating her out of her rightful inheritance.
Now you have to understand, Leanne’s father is nowhere in her life.
Her mother was is is now no longer there.
Her aunts are her only family members.
And now they've abandoned her.
This is to her just unacceptable and she decides in that moment, “I'm never talking to them
again.
They're no longer family to me if they're going to treat me like this.
I can’t handle I can’t handle interactions like this, I'm too full of grief and this
is just hurting me even more.”
So tremendous, tremendous pain.
She spent a very miserable night recognizing that she'd been orphaned not just once but
several times over that week.
Now I'd like to suggest that in that moment, Leanne rolled a #1.
She jumped to the fundamental attribution error that her aunts were treating her badly
because that's who they are and we know that perhaps there are other reasons that might
have motivated that behavior.
Leanne's husband, thank goodness, had the foresight to suggest that perhaps she think
on it.
Perhaps there might be some other explanation.
When you don't have dice in your pocket a good friend is a nice alternative so find
them, they will hold you accountable to this.
What what we were able to do is get more information over the next couple of days.
Leeann was able to enter into a dialogue with her aunts and as it turned out we uncovered
more information.
It turns out we should have rolled a source #5.
And what that tells us is that there was a structural motivation issue present.
Her aunts explained to her that had Leanne and received the entire inheritance the tax
penalty would have been so great that it would have actually lowered the amount that she
would have received.
So to receive only a third of the inheritance actually increased the amount that went into
her pocket.
So we had a beef with Uncle Sam here right.
Not the aunts.
The other reality is that there was a structural ability issue going on.
And here's what it was: Marian, Leanne's mother, had taken a loan from her own mother, Leanne’s
grandmother, and no one imagined that Leanne’s grandmother would survive her own daughter.
So the will was written years ago to ensure that the loan would get repaid to the grandmother
in the event that the grandmother was still alive upon Marian’s death.
The only way for Leanne to get any money whatsoever from this inheritance was for the grandmother’s
inheritance to be put into a family trust and to be divided evenly amongst all her heirs
which included Leanne and her two aunts.
Can you imagine the consequences had Leanne not managed to get more information?
A family splintered.
You see stories and stories and stories about families who go for years without speaking
to each other fathers and sons estranged for twenty years, go to their grave not working
through issues.
We know that this is real.
If we are able to do this with the only family we have - with the people we love most in
the world - how easy is it for us to do this to our colleagues?
How easy is it for us to do this to our bosses who’ve frustrated us and give us too much
work?
How easy is it for us to blame our organizations for treating us badly and we settle on one
source of influence and we recognize that we are very limited in solving the problem?
My challenge to each of you is roll your dice.
Imagine the possibilities because when we do not, we often jump to problem solving the
wrong problem.
How many of you would respect a doctor who prescribed treatment without first diagnosing
the problem?
That would be scary, wouldn't it?
And yet many of us do this every day all day long with the people we're trying to influence.
So diagnosis - consider the six sources as you think through tough issues.