Following the advise of the Dalai Lama
In the previous two blogs, I tackled the importance for leaders to act humble and with candor. I argued that in order to provide the necessary psychological safety in an organization, leaders need to ask and expect frankness and directness from its employees, for example, to be able to investigate and incorporate different points of view in the creative process. Candor transforms all employees in potential contributors, improving the chances of success by exploring diverse ideas.
On the other hand, humble leaders understand that they do not have all the answers. They seek the knowledge of others to address complex issues. Humble leaders are usually curious leaders, asking the questions to force the out-of-the-box thinking. Humility promotes transparency and the sharing of accountability for team successes (and failures, aka, learning opportunities).
In today’s VUCA world, leaders use humility and candor to deal with the stressors and challenges that they will undoubtedly encounter on a regular basis. The VUCA world requires teams to come up with the best action to address any challenge. We will seldom face simple problems with simple solutions. Humility and candor provides us the basis to challenge some of the schemas, those patterns of thoughts and behaviors, that we fall prey to, and we are regularly reminded of the evolving complexity of the world within which we operate. Critical thinking succeeds when we invite others’ perspectives, and people feel safe providing us with those conflicting perspectives.
But we also have to take into consideration, that as humans, we are predisposed to tribalism. We like to be associated with specific groups, even based on the weakest of reasons. Henry Tajfel was one of the first researchers to write about social identity and our need to categorize social groups. In 1971, Tajfel conducted a research project where he randomly assigned students to either the group that likes the surrealist painters Kandinsky or the one that likes Klee. Students were told that the group assignment was based on their art preference based on a “fake” assessment. Then, the researchers asked those students to give awards to each other. Students were more likely to give awards to individuals within their own group (the in-group) than individuals in the “opposing” group (the out-group).
We, human beings, also seek to enhance that social cohesion within our in-group, developing a set of moral or beliefs that would represent our common view. We develop these morals based on loosely commonalities and, with time, those morals become institutionalized and start affecting our decisions and our views of other groups. We start to filter reality through a fixed and rigid made-up set of rules.
Psychologists have also noted that we have a tendency to rate things in simple ways — either good or bad. We have a tendency to rate anything our in-group likes, as “good” and anything that out-group may prefer, as “bad”. In today’s complex changing world, that’s a recipe for disaster. As a side note, research shows that critical thinking helps us limit the impact of bias thinking.
A friend of mine recently send me this tweet from the Dalai Lama, knowing that I do not tweet (or Instagram message or snapchat or spend much time with social media).
This tweet summarizes one of the best lessons on leadership. Since we know that we, as human beings, will seek to find the differences that distinguishes from others and puts us into certain social groups, why not focus on sameness first before we try to exploit some of the benefits of our corporate diversity? Research shows that the workplace is becoming increasingly diverse and most organizations still fail to tap into that diversity. Why do we think that’s happening? In my opinion, as the Dalai Lama mentioned, we have a tendency to put too much focus first on the diversity, targeting differences, even before we develop the fabric of a common basis of a team, an in-group that will be open to dialogue and use those differences.
Emphasizing our differences may not be the right way to start a conversation. My guess is that this is why small talk (as annoying as most of us may find it) was initial developed. Let me provide you with an example. Let’s say that you run into a stranger at the Department of Motor Vehicles or next to you on a plane. Would you want to start talking about politics? Let me make it even easier — would you be willing to start talking about allergies to nuts, that’s as in peanuts (which by the way are legumes), almonds, walnuts…? Most likely, you would not tackle that topic without a bit of small talk, for two main purpose — one, to evaluate certain qualities in the other individual (warmth and competence), and two, develop some sameness.
One would start with things such as the weather, we all suffer or enjoy the weather. Weather has a tendency to affect pathogens in the air so that may take the conversation into the seasonal allergies direction, which may drive the conversation into the rise in allergies and, voila, the dialogue devolves into the topic of peanut allergy, a topic that can be conflictive to some people who are passionate about preventing any type of nuts into school. Having seen a child suffering an anaphylaxis shock, I can understand why some parents will want to ban potential exposure to nuts in schools and being a peanut butter enthusiast for its taste, ease of use and portability, I do not want people to tell me what I can put in my or my kids sandwiches. By the time that you approach that topic, you have hopefully found enough common ground that you will at least agree to disagree, but you may understand what the other person is coming from, hopefully avoiding the label of “bad”.
As leaders, we need to start conversations with clear commonalities. For example, if we all work in the same organization, we should all be familiar and agree on the vision and mission of the organization. Hopefully, we also agree on the strategic umbrella under which we operate. As we get closer to the tactical actions, behaviors and specifics on how to get there, we may differ on our approach and we will be seeking different perspectives in a safe environment from a common base.
Common grounds on basics concepts such as the vision, the strategy or the purpose of the project are essential starters. A conversation based on a common understanding will create a stronger sense of social cohesion that would facilitate the difficult conversations, minimizing the “good” or “bad” labels.
