Although I'm currently dogless, I consider myself a dog lover. One dog in particular — Caneel, a golden retriever who passed on long ago — still occupies a warm place in my heart. Caneel taught me something about how people (myself, in particular) make mistakes when we try to understand why others do what they do.
I used to walk Caneel every morning in a park near home. Even though there was very little traffic in our neighborhood, I kept her on a lead until we reached the park, for safety. She'd pull me along, keeping the lead taut, sniffing everything as she went. I always assumed that she needed a little more obedience training.
When we would reach the park, I'd take her off lead, always expecting her to bound off immediately into the woods. She never did. She would sit, looking up at me, puzzled, tilting her head first one way then the other, as dogs do. I'd say, "OK, go!" And off she would go. I couldn't figure out why she would tug at the lead all the way to the park, and then, once freed, she needed encouragement to go run.
One day, I realized that her experience of the lead might be different from mine. She might have been thinking, "Rick put me on the lead so he won't get lost, and he wants me to pull him along to show him the way to the park." And when I took her off the lead, she might have been thinking, "Are you sure you'll be OK without me for a few minutes if I run off?"
Crazy as this explanation sounds, it fits the data. It might be right.
Often When someone does something
that causes you some inconvenience
or discomfort, tolerance might be the
best available choice. Why they did
whatever they did might not
make any real difference.we assume that we know why others do what they do, but we're often wrong. Here are some of the many ways we get it wrong when we guess why others do what they do.
- Premature conclusions
- We reach conclusions before we have enough data to justify them. Sometimes, we reach conclusions with no data.
- The Fundamental Attribution Error
- We attribute to character what might better be attributed to circumstances. See "The Fundamental Attribution Error," Point Lookout for May 5, 2004, for more.
- Presumed omniscience
- We presume that we already know all there is to know about why someone might do what he or she just did.
- Preferred explanations
- We have biases and preferences among the many theories and conjectures about human motivation. We see what we expect to see, or worse, what we want to see.
- Intimidation
- We're afraid to question (or seek validation for) some hypotheses, because of the consequences of finding out that they're incorrect (or correct).
At some point today, there's a decent chance that you'll make one of these mistakes. Maybe more than one. If you do, don't ask me why. I have no clue why you do what you do. Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Beyond Our Control
- When bad things happen, despite our plans and our best efforts, we sometimes feel responsible. We failed.
We could have done more. But is that really true? Aren't some things beyond our control?
- Reactance and Micromanagement
- When we feel that our freedom at work is threatened, we sometimes experience urges to do what is forbidden,
or to not do what is required. This phenomenon — called reactance — might explain
some of the dynamics of micromanagement.
- Active Deceptions at Work
- Among the vast family of workplace deceptions, those that involve presenting fiction as reality are
among the most exasperating, because we sometimes feel fooled or gullible. Lies are the simplest example
of this type, but there are others, and some are fiendishly clever.
- Availability and Self-Assessments
- In many organizations, employees develop self-assessments as a part of the performance review process.
Because of a little-known effect related to the Availability Heuristic, these self-assessments can be
biased against the employee.
- Responses to Outrageous Demands
- From time to time, we might encounter a powerful person making outrageous demands, possibly accompanied
by threats if we don't comply. At first, the choice seems to be between acceding to their demands or
flat out refusing. There are other possibilities.
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
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- And on September 11: Beating the Layoffs: II
- If you work in an organization likely to conduct layoffs soon, keep in mind that exiting voluntarily can carry advantages. Here are some advantages that relate to collegial relationships, future interviews, health, and severance packages. Available here and by RSS on September 11.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group