Extremes
Our default interpretation
As a guest at the SA Budget Briefing Breakfast held at the Adelaide Oval last week, I joined a room of investors and financial experts for the enthusiastic and passionate presentation by Michael Wood, the Head of Institutional Research & Asset Allocation for Ord Minnett. It was a fascinating and insightful look at the Australian Federal Budget (released the night before). In a side discussion I spoke with Alex (the financial planner hosting our table) about the talk and the role he and his team play in the game of personal and private investment. To paraphrase, he told me their role is to guide a client towards a portfolio of investments to yield gains without over-exposure to risk. He said, "We guard people against fear and greed".
Fear and Greed.
These words hit me between the eyes. Alex was downplaying his role with this oversimplification but it resonated deeply with me. The point being that people are either overly cautious with investments (low yield) or become overly bullish (high risk) and struggle to find balance for stable and sustainable growth. I see this in our everyday workplace discussions and interactions. For some reason, our default setting seems to be extremes no matter the context or the content. I see this when working through communication models and theory with practicing leaders across industry.
The other day I was speaking to a room of Real Estate Agent leaders about trust. I referenced a study of 2000 CEO's showing four key behaviours for building trust as a leader. As I shared one of the four behaviours - a leader's ability to 'decide with speed and conviction', the first question from the room was as predictable as it was understandable...
"But, doesn't rushing decisions mean key information will be missed and cause all sorts of problems?"
The immediate interpretation was one of extreme where speed equals rushing/impatient/unconsidered/being hurried. My immediate response was to put this idea on a spectrum where Rushing is at one end and Dithering at the other with Speed in the middle. It is one example of what I see in learners and audiences constantly and what we experience in our people, clients, and colleagues daily.
Why?
The need to make sense of the world around us is a protection mechanism and one we find difficult to turn off. In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman speaks of our need to jump to conclusions based on previous experience. Once we do this we create a bias to believe and confirm our assertion. Most of this happens before our conscious brain can intervene. Kahneman states how we double-down on our conclusions due to a secondary reason - laziness. Fundamentally, we jump to extreme conclusions because it is the easiest and quickest way to make sense of the world through our past experiences while protecting us from harm. Even when harm may come in the form of a new perspective on a topic (ie. change).
What can we do?
Don't be surprised. As with most communication topics the first step is awareness. Often we feel ambushed by the response we get from people due to extreme misinterpretations. Don't be. Know it is coming and be ready to explain or discuss what I call 'the centre'isation' of your idea.
Choose your words carefully. We can reduce the extremity of a person's response by crafting our message and how concepts are introduced. Use data and information upfront followed by the point we are trying to land. If we rush into our communication it is likely the response will be more extreme rather than central. This is a nod to the importance of planning when improving our communication.
The long term game. As a leader one of our key jobs is to develop our people. In this area of communication we can role model the behaviour of enquiry, thinking, and consideration which stops us from jumping to extreme conclusions. We can teach our people to create space in a conversation for understanding rather than shouting out off-the-cuff statements . All can be done in real time and complimented with professional training and mentoring.
If we tend towards extremes with our hard earned life savings then it makes complete sense we do the same in our daily communication. A leader's ability to understand and navigate through this can make for improved meetings, problem solving, and trusting relationships in general. The time and effort we save for ourselves and our business could be quite drastic. In the meantime, it may be worth checking in with your financial planner to see how centralised your portfolio is looking!
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