“Your purpose is to serve others in need, or it simply becomes an exercise to serve your own greed.” #RichDiddams, Dean, #LibertyUniversity School of Business
This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part three in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.
There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are going to be talking about in the next weeks, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We will be looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are going to pair them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Today, in part 2, we are discussing the second half of a pair, and will be talking about the idea of “You don’t see what you are not looking for”.
In the last episode, we talked about the idea that you see what you are looking for. The point we made was that, whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions tend to be based on either past experience or future expectations, or a combination of both. We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome. Consciously or not, we decide what we are looking for, and only see what affirms or confirms what we expect to see.
In today’s episode, we are flipping the coin to the other side. On the one side, we tend to see what we are looking for, but on the other side, we also tend to not see what we are not looking for.
Have you ever been looking for something in your refrigerator or medicine cabinet, and you can’t find it no matter how much you look, but then someone else grabs it right from under your nose? My wife needed to use some Vaseline, so I went to get it for her from the linen closet. I looked high and low but couldn’t find it. I went to the store, and when I found the Vaseline, all that I could see were (in my perspective) large containers. In my mind, I thought that it only came in smaller containers, but I didn’t see those there. Wouldn’t you know, when I got home, I immediately found the Vaseline that we already had, in a larger container in the linen closet. I realized that I had looked right at it in the closet but hadn’t seen it because I was looking for something much smaller. I didn’t see what I wasn’t looking for.
I’ve done the same thing countless times in the food pantry or in the refrigerator, looking for something with an unconscious image in my mind of what the thing looks like, and in these instances, instead of seeing what I was looking for, and because it’s what I was looking to see, I completely overlooked the thing that was right there in front of me. Once again, I didn’t see what I was not looking for.
Think about when there is a constant, repeating noise, like a ceiling fan or the humming of an air conditioner, that you tune out after a little while and don’t even notice that it is there anymore. Your mind is focusing on other things, so it tunes those things out, and eventually, you don’t even realize that they are there. That’s what is happening here. It’s too overwhelming to see everything, so your brain filters out what is not necessary or relevant, and even though it’s there, you don’t see it. Therefore, if you have a picture in your mind of what you are focusing on, your brain filters out the other things.
This idea applies to your leadership. Whether it’s people or circumstances, it’s easy for us to miss something important because we are not looking for it. It may be because we don’t want to see it, or because we are looking for something else, or because we are not paying attention. Regardless of the reason, we miss something important, and it results in a difficult challenge. Once, when I was a new head of school in a new school, I was also serving as the student government advisor so that I could be connected to the student culture. Based on my previous school experience, I had a great idea for a homecoming week activity, and I pushed the student leaders toward it. In my mind, it was a great idea (it had worked great someplace else, so, of course it would here!), and I was only thinking about how good this would be for the students and expected them to respond that way. I didn’t even see that they were not receiving it well. It was later that their discontent with the idea – and with me – came out when someone else pointed it out to me. Because I didn’t see what I wasn’t looking for, I had a mess to clean up.
Do see how that happens? Or should I ask, do you not see how that happens because you weren’t looking for it? And just like the discussion last week of seeing what you look for, the struggle of not seeing what we are not looking for leaves me with a couple of thoughts:
1) Be self-aware. Recognize how your own expectations and viewpoint can cause you to miss something important, and step back to make sure you are not allowing a “predetermined bias” to prevent you from seeing what you need to see.
2) Be intentional about gathering information and listening carefully before you decide what you are seeing or what you are looking for. Otherwise, you won’t see what you are not looking for.
The pair of principles we’ve discussed these two weeks go together: You see what you’re looking for, and you don’t see what you’re not looking for. With these two ideas working together, you can become much more careful and prudent about seeing what you need to see, which in turn will lead to better decisions and, therefore, better leadership.
Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Last week, we explored the idea that “You see what you are looking for,” and this week, the idea that “You don’t see what you are not looking for.”
Have you ever spent hours looking for something that you lost, only to find it sometime later in an obvious and open place? I have, and it usually causes me to mutter something like, “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before, it was right in front of me!” Don’t those experiences make you wonder why you couldn’t see it in the first place? This tendency seems to reflect an idea referred to by Chabris and Simons in The Invisible Gorilla (2010) as “the illusion of attention.”
The illusion of attention is the idea that “we experience far less of our visual world than we think we do,” as Chabris and Simons state, so, “when people devote their attention to a particular area or aspect of their visual world, they tend not to notice unexpected objects, even when those unexpected objects are salient, potentially important, and appear right where they are looking.” They go on to explain that “we know how vividly we see some aspects of our world, but we are completely unaware of those aspects of our world that fall outside of that current focus of attention,”, and that “we are only aware of the unexpected objects we do notice, not the ones we have missed.”. What this all really means is that, although we believe we notice everything, especially if we are looking, we tend to miss a lot of what is right in front of us, primarily because we are not looking for that specific thing in that specific way. Therefore when I am looking for something that I have lost, without realizing it I am expecting it to look a certain way and be in a certain place, so I then overlook it when it is not in that place or it looks different than what I remember or expect; essentially, “your moment-to-moment expectations, more than the visual distinctiveness of the object, determine what you see – and what you miss.”.
The same illusion of attention takes place in the context and environment of an organization, and in ways beyond the noticing of specific physical objects. When leaders are analyzing the present culture of the organization, planning for the future, or trying to identify issues and opportunities, it can be very easy to look around or look ahead with an unconscious expectation of what you will see; the result is that you will likely see what you are looking for but will miss what you are not looking for, and not even realize it. There may be an opportunity to tap into someone’s strength or ability, there may be an idea or a new method developing in a department, or there may be a problem that needs to be addressed, but because you are not looking for it, you miss it. And when you miss it, you may lose an opportunity or create greater difficulty.
So how do you open your eyes to see more of what you might otherwise miss? I remember a number of years ago the popularity of 3D optical illusions (also called stereograms) – pictures that looked like flat geometric patterns, but when you stared into the picture and allowed your eyes to relax and un-focus, looking beyond the flat image, a 3-dimensional image would appear. There was more to the image than the first look revealed, but it required intentional effort and a different way of looking. In the same way, when you are leading an organization, there must be intentional effort to see, and to see beyond what is in front of you or what you are expecting to see. How do you do that?
- First, recognize our tendency to not see what we are not looking for.
- Then, remove any expectations of what you think you might see.
- After that, you can work at zooming out and zooming in – trying to step back and take a wide-angle look at everything, then looking at more specific details, then stepping back for a wide-lens look again, and so on.
- Finally, you can also try to look through different eyes, by trying to see through the approach or perspective of other people or other angles.
It’s fairly easy to miss things that you are not looking for. I’ve done it when I was trying to introduce a new change that I assumed everyone would get behind, and because of what I was therefore expecting to see (their support), I only saw the examples of support and completely missed the grumbling from those who were resisting. You could probably guess that this eventually created difficulty in the change implementation because I had failed to see it and address it early. I looked, but I didn’t see because I was only looking for what I expected to see. So, as Chabris and Simons said, “looking is not sufficient for seeing”; because our tendency is to only see what we are looking for, it takes a conscious effort to see things that you are not looking for.
Chabris, C., and Simons, D. (2010). The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us. MJF Books: New York, NY.
There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. That’s what we are going to be talking about in the next weeks, in both the www.LeadershipEzra.com website articles and on the weekly podcast. We will be looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are going to pair them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. Today, in part 2, we are discussing the first half of a pair, and will be talking about the idea of “You see what you are looking for”.
Whether we realize it or not, we all develop perceptions of how we need to experience the world around us. Those perceptions, it seems, are often based on either past experience or future expectation, or a combination of both. We either have an experience, positive or negative, real or imagined, or we have a specific expectation that we are anticipating, and we then form a perception based on which we look for a certain outcome, and only see the things that confirm that outcome.
I once worked with a teacher who was a dynamic and engaging teacher, and students loved being in his classroom because of it. However, despite his fantastic communication skills in the classroom (which he enjoyed), he struggled with the task of giving students feedback, especially in the form of analysis and grading of assignments that the students turned in. He was an English teacher who, ironically, did not enjoy reading and writing responses to the students’ work. As a result, and even though they enjoyed his teaching methods, they were getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of timely feedback, which they needed in order to make changes and improvements in what they were learning. They began to complain to their parents, who then started to email him, and he was not consistent or timely in responding to those emails. Perhaps because he didn’t enjoy conflict, perhaps because he knew where he was dropping the ball, and sometimes simply because the parents emailed using an incorrect email address. Regardless, I began to hear that “Mr. Teacher never responds to my emails!” When I met with him to discuss this, he showed me copies of emails that he replied to in an effort to show me that, to say he never replied to emails was not true. However, when I pressed, he had to admit that there were a number of parents to whom he had not replied or to whom he had taken a week or two to reply. So I helped him see that he had created the perception that he did not answer emails by failing to do so consistently. And now, because of that perception, he had a reputation as the teacher who never responded.
We talked for a while and put together a plan for him to change that perception. It’s probably more accurate to say that I gave him a plan that I expected him to follow. In essence, I told him that he needed to reply to every single email within the next 24-hour business day, without fail, for the next 9 weeks. I believed that he could change that perception if he would prove to the parents with his actions that he was not the person, at least not anymore. But I also told him that if he missed, even one time, then the parents would probably jump on it and tell me, “See, he never responds.” Why would they do that? Well, it’s because you tend to only see what you are looking for.
You see, the past experience of these parents had resulted in a future expectation of the teacher’s behavior. Therefore, even if he did do what he was supposed to do most of the time, they would likely only notice the times he missed. They formed the idea that he did not give feedback to their kids, and he did not communicate to parents, and any time he failed to respond to a parent therefore affirmed what they believed to be true. Even if it largely became untrue with changes in his behavior, they were still looking for him to not respond based on their past experience, so they would only see the times he lived up – or down – to that expectation.
We need to recognize that this is a part of our human behavior. Whether in positive ways or in negative ways, we look for what we expect to see. If there is something you regularly do in your leadership that people value, even if you don’t do it all the time, they will see it when you do because that’s what they are looking for. The same is true for the opposite – if you do something enough times that frustrates people (and sometimes it only takes a couple of times), they will form the perception that that’s what you do, then they all see the times you do those things.
Where does this leave you? With two important thoughts:
- Be self-aware. Recognize that you will do this just as much as anyone else, and check yourself to make sure you are seeing things in truth.
- Be intentional about cultivating and protecting the reputation of your character. If you want people to see you as a leader of integrity, make sure they see it consistently so that they will give you grace with your mistakes, because they know that’s not what they would normally see. They will only see (and remember) what they are looking for.
Sometimes, you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. In this series of articles and podcast episodes, we are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, are opposite, or at least differ from each other and pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. This week, we will explore the idea that “You see what you are looking for,” and next week, “You don’t see what you are not looking for.”
You have probably heard as often as I have that “perception is reality,” but the problem of perception is that you tend to see what you are looking for, whether it is there or not.
Here’s what happens: a person will form a perception about someone or something (usually based on an experience), and then will only see those things that reinforce that perception, therefore confirming its truth to that person. For example, if I have had an experience of clumsily stubbing my toe, I might begin to form the perception that I am not graceful. I might then walk around my house for two weeks without stubbing my toe, but the next time I do stub my toe, I will say to myself, “See, look how ungraceful you are.” Rather than giving credit to how rarely I do it, I see the occasional time that I do, and see it as a confirmation of my clumsiness.
This happens all the time in organizations. Someone has a bad customer service experience, an unmet (or unrealistic) expectation, or has misinterpreted something due to misinformation or lack of context, and then they form a perception about you or about the organization. From that point forward, they tend to only notice those things that reinforce that perception. So if they have formed a perception that you don’t care about your constituents, you may be demonstrating care frequently, but the next time you ignore their needs or don’t act helpful (whether unintentional or not), they see that as confirmation and reinforcement of their perception. Once that perception is in place, they will interpret everything through that lens. They will only see what they expect to see, or what they are looking for.
As a school administrator, I have had several instances of a teacher being perceived as a poor communicator. In most of those circumstances, it began with the unintentional failure of the teacher to respond to a parent’s email. In some cases, that parent’s email was flagged as spam, but more frequently, the parent had misspelled the teacher’s email address, so the email was never received. Because there was no response, the parent began to believe the teacher did not communicate well with parents, and any email after that that did not receive a response reinforced that belief, and the parent began to spread that view among other parents. At that point, if the teacher answered a hundred emails and missed one, the one miss would reinforce the perception that had been formed. Once the issue came to light, it usually was a difficult process to correct that perception.
This can be frustrating, especially if you know the perception is wrong, and it can be very challenging and difficult to change. So what do you do when this happens? There are four practical steps you can take:
- Look for the truth in the perception. There was most likely some event or circumstance that initially prompted this perception. It may have been no fault of your own, or you may have simply messed up. Regardless, look for the mistake that has been made that needs to be corrected, whether it was a one-time event or an ongoing problem.
- Re-set. Address the cause of perception and take any necessary steps to correct what needs to be corrected. Communicate what you are doing to those who have been affected so that they can have an adjusted view (but also remember, they will likely be hesitant to believe any different until you prove otherwise).
- Over-compensate. For a period of time, you will need to go overboard to counter the perception. People will be watching closely to see if their perception is valid or not, so you will be under scrutiny. This is going to be challenging and requires work, but it must be done until expectations have been properly re-aligned.
- Create a new expectation. With the expectations appropriately established, now you can communicate the new (and realistic) expectations. If you have proven that you can be trusted, and have set realistic expectations that can be met, then you will start a new cycle of validating the new and positive perceptions.
Remember that we can be just as guilty of this perception error as anyone else; therefore, it is important that we become self-aware of this problem of perception in ourselves. Check yourself to make sure that you are seeing things correctly and that you are not letting a single experience, misinformation, or incomplete information become the filter through which you are viewing everything. To change those perceptions requires intentional work because remember, it is our tendency to see only what we are looking for.
This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part one in the series titled “Complementary Contradictions.” Here is the transcript of the podcast.
There are times when you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, you may hear conflicting counsel that seems to be contradictory to each other, but which is actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. It may be because they are two sides of the same coin, both of which are true depending on where or how you approach the situation. It may be because they are opposite but equally valid ideas that are intended to be applied in different circumstances. Or it may even be because they are parallel ideas that are intended to be used in unison. Regardless, they can be paired together, and both can be used in different ways, at different times, or side by side.
That’s what we are talking about in this series, in both the website articles and on the weekly podcast. We are looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are pairing them up to see how they actually complement each other, using them both to make you a better leader.
Today, in part 1, we are starting by introducing the overarching concept for the series.
Early in my leadership experience, it was emphasized to me that I needed to know my weaknesses so that I could work on them and develop them into strengths in order to become an effective leader. I wanted to lead well, so I set about trying to do just that. However, I did not consider my personal nature and how that affected my leadership style. You see, I am a very analytical introvert. That means that I take time to think about things first. In fact, my first response is not going to be as good as my later response, so I would keep my first response to myself until after I had taken time to process my thoughts. I did not want to assert myself aggressively into settings or conversations. I did not enjoy conflict. I liked to ensure an orderly process and procedure that made sense, and could be more focused on the procedure than on the people involved in the process. The challenge this created for me was that I began trying to be someone I was not, rather than trying to learn to lead well according to my giftedness. And therefore, I was becoming miserable. Then I read a book that seemed to give the opposite advice. The premise was that I needed to know my strengths and weaknesses so that I could focus on working within my strengths while letting other people whose strengths offset my weaknesses work within their strengths. The end result would be that all the gaps would be filled, and I would be doing only what I did well. I dove into this, in part because it let off the hook of improving things that I struggled with. The challenge that this new – and opposite – perspective created for me was that there were things I needed to take the lead on and address, even though they were hard for me, but I was leaving them for someone else which then was calling my leadership effectiveness into question.
So, after first trying to focus only on my weaknesses, which made me miserable, and then trying to focus only on my strengths, which made me ignore things I needed to address, I finally figured out that there was truth in both approaches and that they actually needed to be used together. I figured out that they were complementary contradictions. Yes, I need to emphasize my strengths to my advantage while also using the strengths of the team around me to offset my weaknesses, but I also need to grow as a leader by learning how to strengthen the areas in which I struggled, and still be myself. For example, when I started as the head of school at a new school, I knew that my introversion made it hard for me to be gregarious at public events, like concerts and football games, and that I am not someone who can “work the crowd.” But at the same time, I knew that it was important to connect with people and that I am good at engaging with people one-on-one. So, I would go to events and stand where people would pass by me and let opportunities for face-to-face conversations happen organically. In doing that, I connected on a personal level with a lot of people, without having to do so in an extroverted manner that didn’t match my strengths.
The truth is, those two different approaches to leadership both had elements of truth. On the one hand, when working with a team, it is important to have a variety of strengths within the team that work together well while filling in gaps. But on the other hand, sometimes the team is not there (or the work you are doing is by yourself), and you don’t have that luxury, so you have to become competent at the things that are more difficult for you to do. Or, on the one hand, It is important for you to focus on strengths so that they become even better, because a lack of exercise in those areas will lead to diminished strength. But on the other hand, at the same time, you still need to identify the things that are challenging for you just because they are not in your wheelhouse or not things you enjoy, and work to strengthen those to a greater level of ability so that you can do them when necessary. Failing to do that will likely cause important things to be neglected, which will have consequences.
This all serves as an example of the point we are making in this series that there are leadership principles and practices that may seem to be contradictory to each other, but which are actually both true, depending on the need or the circumstance. Before you choose one or the other, perhaps you should first think about the valuable lessons found in both and figure out how to apply them cooperatively.
Coming back full circle, that’s what we will be doing in the next few weeks. One week, we’ll talk about “When a plan comes together,” and the next week, we’ll talk about “When a plan falls apart.” Or, one week, we’ll talk about “Do what works,” and the next week, we’ll talk about “If it doesn’t work, do something different.” You get the picture. We will be identifying and discussing complementary contradictions as pairs of principles that play well together so that you can become a better leader by incorporating both pieces of advice, not just one or the other.
Have you ever received conflicting words of advice? You know, two different people or two different sources telling you to do opposite things. Or even two different clichés that could apply, but they seem to contradict each other? For example, “Many hands make light work,” and “Too many cooks spoil the pot.” Do you need a lot of people to help, or do you need people to get out of the way? Even the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament seems to do this, when it says in Proverbs 26:4, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him,” but then the very next verse says, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” These conflicting or contradictory pieces of advice seem to leave you in a pickle. You don’t know whose advice to follow or what you are supposed to do.
Sometimes, it’s true that you get conflicting words of advice, one which is good and the other which is not, and it requires discernment to determine which is the right advice to follow. But often, these seeming contradictions are actually complementary and, when used appropriately and in the right way, can work together to help you make better decisions. It may be because they are two sides of the same coin, both of which are true depending on where or how you approach the situation. It may be because they are opposite but equally valid ideas that are intended to be applied in different circumstances. Or it may even be because they are parallel ideas that are intended to be used in unison. Regardless, they can be paired together, and both can be used in different ways, at different times, or side by side.
That’s what we are going to be talking about in the next weeks, in the website articles and on the weekly podcast. We will be looking at different leadership ideas or principles that seem to contradict, or at least differ from each other, and we are going to pair them up to see how they actually complement each other to make you a better leader. For example, one week, we’ll talk about “When a plan comes together,” and the next week, we’ll talk about “When a plan falls apart.” Or, one week, we’ll talk about “Do what works,” and the next week, we’ll talk about “If it doesn’t work, do something different.” You get the picture. We’ll be looking at 5 or 6 of these pairs and learn some things that help you become a better decision-maker in your leadership.
The goal in front of us is to see how these seeming contradictions are, in reality, complementary and can play well together so that you can use them to become a better leader. There are many situations you will face, many dilemmas to resolve, many choices to make, and many circumstances to address. Let’s learn how we can handle these things even better by putting these complementary contradictions together.
“Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15