Do you really know why you do what you do?
I watched an interesting Tedx this morning, delivered by Petter Johansson, he completed an experiment around people and how we can convince ourselves that we are getting what we want. It was fascinating in that he was tricking people actually around decisions, one example was a political poll where people would rate their view on certain political issue, such as tax, social welfare etc. The individuals would choose a certain perspective and then he would swap it to the opposite perspective, with out them knowing. What was astounding was in most cases people didn’t realise it had been swapped and then they would go ahead and justify their decision, even though it was actually the opposite of what they had selected.
It made me think about how often in workplaces this occurrence might happen, where people get stuck on a view and because they have made the decision, they will spend a lot of time justifying and defending that decision. I train a lot around listening to defend and how people can get stuck in this type of listening and they lose the ability to here others perspectives or different views. I think this work further explains how this can lead to a limiting of diversity of thought or innovation in some organisations.
In all the cases in the experiment when people were tricked, they all found a way to relate to the other side of the argument, without impacting on their own beliefs or values. The different perspective though helped move their opinions and I think deepened their acceptance of an opposing view.
How often do we get stuck in listening to defend our view and does this limit out ability to understand why others have different perspectives, but more importantly help us build and develop our own views. In this crazy world of change, our ability to adapt, flex and innovate are becoming important ingredients and this blindspot could be hindering our ability to thrive in this new world. Food for thought.