I remember meeting “Phil” for the first time, and the instant dislike I took to him. I had just joined the clinical team in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, and Phil was one of the counselors. He seemed sneering and angry, constantly sarcastic to peers and patients, yet sucked up to the management and seemed to have an endless stream of stories to relay to them about his accomplishments.
My instant dislike was intensified and generalised by the “halo effect” (the tendency for an impression created in one area to influence opinion in another area) and very soon Phil could do nothing right in my eyes.
Of course, my negative judgements about Phil became a self-fulfilling prophecy, and in an alarmingly short time, he and I were members of a mutual loathing society. This unhelpful relationship impacted negatively upon my work, the organisation’s culture, and worst of all the patients.
Then something very simple but profound occurred. As part of the clinical team’s group supervision process, we were all invited to share our stories – our life journey to that point. Phil shared incredibly authentically and courageously, about the abuse and neglect he experienced throughout his formative years – how his older siblings were treated differently, and how his parents seemed aloof and dismissive of any of Phil’s achievements.
Phil’s sharing enabled me to make sense of some of his current behaviours. He was still seeking approval from authority figures, and was threatened by his peers, so he was dismissive towards them. After his sharing, it was easy (indeed automatic) for me to approach him and hug him, and to thank him for his courage and honesty.
We all have a story. We have walked through different parks and kneeled at different graves, and our stories shape who we are. Few of us had perfect childhoods, and where our fundamental needs were not met, we adapt our behaviours as coping mechanisms.
Our lazy brains’ preference for System 1 thinking (fast, automatic, frequent, emotional, stereotypic, subconscious) over System 2 thinking (slow, effortful, infrequent, logical, calculating, conscious) means that we form opinions about people very quickly, particularly when we don’t know the background story.
Steven Covey illustrates this point brilliantly in his classic work, The 7 habits of highly effective people.
I remember a mini-Paradigm Shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly -- some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.
The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.
It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?"
The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, 'Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.'
Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. "Your wife just died? Oh, I'm so sorry. Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?" Everything changed in an instant.
It seems to me of late that political expediency is served by focusing on division and creating fear among the electorate, with a subsequent reduction in trust and empathy that, in turn, discourages the use of system 2 thinking. If we could move past assumptions, and seek to understand why people act as they do, we could reverse this toxic trend.
Similarly, trust in business leaders is declining, with the subsequent damage to engagement levels and company culture becoming all too evident. As leaders, think what sharing our own stories could do for the culture of our teams.
Clive Lloyd is an Australian psychologist who assists high-hazard organisations to improve their safety performance through the development of trust and psychological safety and by doing Safety Differently. He is the co-director and principal consultant of GYST, and developer of the acclaimed CareFactor Program.