Last week I was complaining about our inadequate sensory capabilities. Now we are adding our cognitive capabilities to the list. Even if our senses do not deceive us, our brains might! Not a comfortable feeling, but it is true.
If I am being rational as a leader and I fear that the irrational followers may not understand my rationality, I would have to engage in bi-directional communication with my followers. I would have to explain to them my actions and decisions clearly and in a most simple, straightforward manner. Then I would have to seek their feedback or response, to check if we are on the same “wavelength.” Through an iterative process, or dialog, a leader must be able to convince its traditionally irrational followers that his actions and decisions are indeed rational.
A common example of predictable irrationality that comes to my mind is the “glass half full” vs. “glass half empty” comparison. We can terribly depress (and demotivate) people by talking about how bad things are, while we may not depress them so much, or even motivate them, by talking about how things are not so bad, how things could be worse, or how things are going to be better. The lesson for leaders I see here is that 1) they should have a positive outlook (or be optimists) and stress the positive aspects of events and ideas; 2) simplify the problems and processes so that the choices need to be made between few and clear alternatives; 3) communicate clearly with the followers and engage in a dialog with them so that there are no uncertainties about the choices and decisions they have to make.
I think the decision processes involved in selecting schools for our daughter were examples of predictable irrationalities. When we were looking for a high school for her, we visited several schools and listened to their presentations. We really did not check carefully into their curricula, qualifications of the teachers, quality of their facilities, and their track record for their graduates entering the various colleges, all of which should have been part of the information for rationally assessing the schools and making a choice. But of course, such an assessment is a very difficult process, and the decision making based on facts would have been quite a challenging process for the family. Instead, we thought the school that was most difficult to get into must be a good one. Sure enough, we were very impressed with the way the staff and faculty “looked and talked.” It was a Catholic school and I had to tell them that we were not religious at all, but our family values closely matched theirs. Lo and behold, she was accepted as the “token Christian/Moslem/Nonnreligious” student. It did turn out well and we are very happy that she went to that school.
When time came for choosing a college, we went on several trips across the Country to visit all the colleges that our daughter could be interested in. She did not apply to Harvard, because the buildings in the town were old and they looked depressing, and the people on the streets were the worst kind of “dorks.” She turned down a good scholarship from USC, because she was not happy with all the girls in bikinis sun tanning on the grass on school grounds. And, so on. She finally chose Duke, because it had the “best-looking student body.” Although our reasoning was quite different than hers, we were very happy with the selection. It turned out to be a good school for her from many points of view and none of us regretted the decision. Funny thing is that she found a California boy during her first year in Durham, North Carolina, who is now her husband!
Some people call decisions predictably irrational, I like to call it going with your gut instincts. As leaders, we have to be willing to take risks and follow our instincts. If we did everything in a rational way, there is a chance that we would never move forward because we would do everything in a predictable way.
ReplyDeleteOnder, in your daughter's case we can call it predictably irrational or just fate. :)