Don’t Feed Your People’s Delusion: Embracing cause and effect

Episode #329 Don’t Feed Your People’s Delusion: Embracing cause and effect

MANY OF OUR EXPECTATIONS ARE UNREALISTIC

One of the more difficult aspects of leadership is managing your people’s expectations. You’re in the hot seat and your team is going to judge your leadership based on whether or not they feel as though you’ve met their expectations.

So, what do you do when your people’s expectations are unrealistic? Or irrational? Or even delusional?

As a No Bullsh!t Leader, I know you’re trying to be as open, clear, and direct with your people as you possibly can. At times, though, you’re going to be faced with a choice: to either feed your people’s delusion in order to keep the peace; or to manage their expectations with a solid dose of reality.

In many cases, the stakes simply aren’t high enough for you to put your time and energy into rewiring your people’s expectations – we all have to pick our battles.

But equally, there are times when it would be counterproductive to feed into your people’s delusion. And, in those cases, you need to do whatever it takes to help them shift to a more realistic position.

A good yardstick to help you decide whether to step in, is wherever you see the links between cause and effect being broken. That’s your opportunity to lead your people to a place that will ultimately serve them better.

In this newsletter, I give a few examples of cause and effect that we can all relate to; I dive into a topical workplace example that many of you are dealing with right now, which creates a disconnect between cause and effect. And I give some guidance on how to lead your people, when they lose perspective on the cause-and-effect relationships that affect them.

DO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK STAR? REALLY?!

Every kid who’s ever picked up a guitar has dreamed of being Eddie Van Halen or Taylor Swift, playing to packed stadiums on their sellout world tour – but very few of those dreamers have the innate talent that’s necessary to break through in the cutthroat world of music.

And, of those who do have the talent, only the tiniest fraction are prepared to do the difficult, thankless, repetitive work that would turn that talent into global stardom.

The Taylor Swifts of the world are extreme outliers who have the talent… then do the work… and are dysfunctionally fixated on the pursuit of their goals. Everyone else has to settle for dreaming about stardom.

It doesn’t matter how much you wish it were different, this is a universal law of nature – the unbreakable relationship between cause and effect. Put simply, our choices determine our outcomes.

But it seems we’re becoming less attached to the uncomfortable reality of cause and effect. The human drive to find a shortcut, a quick fix, or a way to avoid the work in pursuit of a desired outcome is inbuilt. After all, our brains are hardwired to try to conserve energy.

When you choose to do (or not do) certain things, the consequences are fairly predictable. For example:

• If I decide to eat only cookies, ice cream, and cake, I’m probably going to put on weight – it’s the cause and effect of that choice;
• If I decide to practice guitar for eight hours a day, I’m going to get pretty good, regardless of my base talent level – that’s the cause and effect of that choice.

We intuitively know that these simple cause-and-effect relationships are predictable, even inevitable.

But despite that compelling, irrefutable logic, our ability to see the links between cause and effect in some areas of our lives is diminishing. Why?

Because we’re increasingly being told, “It’s not your fault.”

I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad tidings, however, I think that you should know… it is, categorically and unequivocally, your fault!

Every choice we make has its consequences, good and bad. If you choose not to do the things that would achieve your desired result, then blaming external factors simply won’t help. You’re just howling at the moon.

Disconnecting cause from effect inside your own head is a form of rationalization: it might make you feel better in the short term, but it won’t change the inevitable outcomes that you set in motion when you make your choice.

There’s a real difference between what we’d like to be true about success and what it actually takes to be successful.

There’s absolutely no way to change the universal laws of nature no matter how much we’d like them to be different. The law of cause and effect is always operating silently in the background.

It’s like electricity – it works the same way for everyone, whether you believe in it or not. If you hit that switch, the light’s going to come on.

WHY DO WE SUPPORT PEOPLE’S UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS?

If you’re still reading, you’ve probably already accepted the notion that cause-and-effect relationships play out in our lives every day. As leaders, it extends well beyond our own personal belief system. Not only do we have to manage our own internal dialogue, but we also have to be strong enough to help our people to do the same.

In a work environment, there are any number of situations where we seem to accept the breaking of the bonds between cause and effect.

Why on earth would we do that? There could be any number of reasons, for example:

• Often, it helps to avoid conflict. It’s just easier not to challenge some of the things that people would like to believe are true. And like I said in the intro, you’ve got to pick your battles.
• Other times we might have to ignore an obvious cause-and-effect relationship in order to appear morally virtuous.
• Perhaps we even have policies that have been put in place to incentivize certain behaviors, even though they swim against the tide of cause and effect.

We’ve always had a tendency to disconnect cause and effect for our people under certain circumstances, for example, when trying to soften the blow of a difficult message that we have to communicate to someone. 

But it feels more and more like we’re trying to protect our people from their own choices… to try to artificially level a playing field that may already be leveled, because it’s been created by a universal law of cause and effect.

DO YOUR CHOICES AFFECT YOUR CAREER PROSPECTS?

Let’s take a simple example that a lot of us are facing right now. Many pundits express their outrage at the fact that people who choose to work remotely may be disadvantaged when it comes to their promotion prospects.

Well, my response is, “Why on Earth do you think that wouldn’t be the case?”

It’s a relatively simple cause and effect relationship. The very effort of getting out of bed, making yourself presentable, and going through the pain in the arse of commuting to the job, demonstrates a level of commitment to your role. If you choose to do this then, all things being equal, it’s going to put you in a better position for career advancement than those who are insistent upon their right to work from home.

But people who choose to not make the effort to go into the office often feel entitled to the same career opportunities as their peers, despite the fact that they’ve chosen an easier road. They want to have their cake and they want to eat it too, which is only natural.

This is further complicated and entrenched by the myriad consultants, academics, business commentators, and well-meaning HR people who tell us that it’s entirely reasonable to expect the same outcomes irrespective of our choices.

So, when people who are adamant about their right to work from home raise it as a workplace equity issue, how do you respond as a leader? What message do you send?

You could tell them that choosing to work from home full-time won’t in any way disadvantage their promotion prospects. That’s an easy line to take, but it’s probably not true.

Another option is to tell them that, if they want a different outcome, then maybe they should make a different choice. It’s not really any more complicated than that.

One thing’s for certain though, your company’s work-from-home policy can’t outrun common sense, no matter what. It can’t break the cause-and-effect relationship between the effort you invest in your job and the regard in which you are held as a result of that effort.

It’ll just make the leadership look dishonest when the practical outcomes of the selection process don’t align with the impractical policy that sits on the company intranet.

TWO REASONS WHY THIS IS HARD

All this is just preamble to say that, if you want to be a leader with high integrity, who acts in the best interest of your company, your team, and every individual who works for you, then you need to give your people realistic expectations.

If you don’t, their disappointment will eventually turn to resentment, and the very policies that your company has put in place to try to keep people happy will, instead, become symbols of leadership hypocrisy.

My experience is that people benefit much more from being told the truth than perpetuating their unrealistic expectations. But breaking the cycle is highly complex for two fundamental reasons:

1. Our belief systems are firmly entrenched

People hold certain beliefs, which are incredibly difficult to change, and they’re further reinforced by the social discourse of the day. Our beliefs are shaped by the information we have available to us and, even though we live in the age of virtually limitless information, it doesn’t seem to be making us any smarter.

There’s so much information that it’s hard to know where to start. We have instantaneous access to data and opinions (which are largely from unverifiable sources), and we spend way too much time in the echo chamber of social media – our existing beliefs are constantly reinforced.

We get very little exposure to alternate viewpoints, and we end up with strident opinions about the way the world works – and should work. We tend to believe what it most benefits us to believe.

Let’s build on our work-from-home example. Remember before COVID, how coming into the office or factory or workshop each day was just a given. But in the space of just a few short years, our beliefs have completely shifted.

Now, many people firmly believe in their right to work from home. And the narrative that we need to support that right has been refined beautifully.

We’re told that if an employer requires us to turn up to work in person, it’s because they don’t trust us to do our jobs without close supervision. What other reason could there be? It’s all about control, right?!

Then there’s plenty of research being produced by academics to tell us that work from home is more productive. A cynical person might think that they did that research from home.

Then, on the extreme end of this, we even have labor unions negotiating for additional allowances, which must be paid to any worker who you require to turn up to work in person.

We believe what we want to believe.

2. Even if you don’t believe in your company’s policies, you’re duty-bound to follow them.

You’re a leader and you’re on the company payroll. Let’s flesh this one out with a hypothetical.

Say the company decides, for whatever reason, that it wants to hire more people who are dog owners. The rationale might be that dog owners are more nurturing and more responsible than people who don’t own dogs. This sets off a whole range of activities in the company:

• Hiring managers are encouraged to weight their role selection criteria in favor of dog owners;
• Owning a dog is listed as a “desirable” selection criterion in every job ad that the company posts;
• Quotas are set for team composition targets; and
• If the company decides to get really serious, your KPIs might include a measure of the percentage of dog owners in your team.

The intent might be justifiable – but implementing the policy requires you to ignore cause-and-effect relationships.

For example, it’s entirely possible that one of the reasons some employees don’t own dogs is because of their travel commitments for work… which, ironically, is a sign of their dedication and commitment to the company.

Then, there are the potential unintended consequences. People who don’t own dogs, but who want a job with your company may be incentivized to visit the local dog shelter to pick up a pooch, solely to increase their likelihood of being hired.

And, then there’s the perception in your existing team that they’re being discriminated against because you are choosing to advantage certain people based on an attribute that has zero bearing on work performance.

But, no matter what you think about your company’s dog owner policy, you are being paid to implement it. This is complex stuff, and one of the reasons why middle management roles can be so difficult.

… AND TWO SIMPLE (BUT DIFFICULT) SOLUTIONS

How you lead your team in the face of this type of complexity makes all the difference. How do you make sure you don’t feed your people’s delusions? How do you help them to take accountability for their choices, and accept the inevitable consequences of cause and effect?

There are two very simple things that you can do to help your people to stay firmly tethered to reality. Now, be careful – I said they’re simple, but they’re definitely not easy – which is why you have to make a conscious commitment to action.

1. Wherever possible, fight for common sense outcomes.

When you see things happening around you that fly in the face of cause and effect, whether in your company’s culture, or policies, or performance measures, you have to call them out.

Don’t just roll over on the dog policy, if you’ll pardon the pun.

As a leader, it’s part of your job to engage with the people above you when you see them making decisions that you don’t believe are going to serve the company (or your people) well. Anything that steps away from the reality of cause and effect will eventually create problems… it’s just a matter of time.

This is why you have to be courageous enough to call out the things that don’t make sense – the things that you know perpetuate the unhelpful perceptions that your people may be holding onto.

2. Be crystal clear with every individual about where they stand.

People are happiest when they have clarity and certainty, so anything you can do to move their unrealistic perspective closer to objective reality is highly valuable to them. They might not want to hear it at the time – none of us do – but they’ll benefit from it massively in the long term.

Many leaders avoid one-on-one conversations like this, though, because they know the message they have to give might not be well received.

That is no excuse for inaction.

What I’ve come to realize over the years is that people are happiest when they have a firm grip on the truth… when they know exactly where they stand. So never pass up an opportunity to bring your people closer to reality.

GIVE YOUR PEOPLE THE GIFT OF CLARITY

Everyone believes what they believe, for whatever reason. Don’t turn yourself inside out trying to understand the psychology behind it. What you do have to believe though, as a leader, is that people always benefit from gaining a better understanding of the reality of their situation.

Any effort you invest in realigning potentially unhelpful beliefs to move your people closer to reality is going to be highly beneficial for them. It’s your duty of care as a leader to give them as much clarity, consistency, and certainty as you possibly can.

This means that first, you have to overcome your own tendency to adopt comfortable positions that soften the realities of your choices. Then you have to help your people to do the same, with empathy and compassion.

Make no mistake – more often than not, your people won’t thank you for it. But in the years ahead, they’ll look back and realize what a great leader you truly were – and they’ll wish they still had a boss like you!