A Foggy Morning
It was a dark and stormy night and the morning barely became visible through the fog. This sounds like the start of a Sherlock Holmes novel, but it is only the start of a typical Monday morning here on New York Harbor. I awoke last night several hours into my sleep with an unspecific nightmare plaguing me. Something must have changed during the night because I awoke at my regular hour with the feint memory of a pleasant dream. Neither dream is easily recalled, so I will have to assume that whatever bothered me got resolved. The human mind is a complicated thing.
As complicated as the mind may be, imagine how complicated it is when you take one mind and overlay it on another in a typical human interaction. What may seem simple is really complicated squared. Add in a third person and you have an endless array of complications.
My weekend was filled with a three-way interaction that was as complex as I suggest with the added twist that there should have been a fourth person involved who has opted out and given his proxy to one of the other two participants in this melee. That is a complication that stirs several underlying resentments and further stirs the pot in hidden ways. It shows itself at moments of extreme agitation as part of general flailing about the state of affairs.
At the heart of this and almost every human interaction is the concept of control. Control over others and over situations and outcomes is the core of most human endeavor. I am reminded of an old Italian technologist who described a member of the Management Committee of a firm I worked for long ago. He said, “Joe is a like the male wolf. He a mounts a the other male wolves, just a to show he can.” Over the years I have come to see that this as Alpha Male behavior to the utmost. I guess that must mean that human interactions, while taking on the patina of civilized behavior, are fundamentally primordial any way you look at it.
While I have seen distinctly lupine behavior in the business world, more often than not it is not so stark. Control is a subtle issue that is most often displayed in passive-aggressive manner. In fact, it is not so unusual to be forced to decide if it was indeed something driven by control orientation or whether there was another more altruistic objective. It’s usually a difficult call and it is very easy for those around you to convince you that nothing was meant by the action. It’s funny, I have very often felt that ascribing Machiavellian motives to people is unjustified and that the real explanation is usually a far simpler, less devious one. But I have the opposite view about control issues. People act out their subconscious in business decisions every day. The person who is in a position of losing control is highly likely to make decisions that are more motivated by that than anything else. In some ways, they have less to lose given the direction of their circumstances, so they tend to move in that direction.
The inability to admit those motives seems almost universal. Sometimes people just don’t like to think of themselves as being petty. Sometimes they are adamant that they only do things for the right reasons. The more they insist the more I tend to doubt. And then, not surprisingly, sometimes people just lie about their intentions because they are in an oppressed mood and do not feel any obligation to be truthful to the oppressor or the business in general. My personal favorite I liken to the mob hoodlum response, “Who me? I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’.”
The big question is what to do about it when you find yourself in this foggy place. Are you in a dream or in a nightmare? I find that the best path consists of equal parts apology, self-deprecation, acceptance of blame and pushing for a fair resolution. Nothing is ever gained by driving a point into the ground on the principle of the thing. Simply calling bullshit on a situation is enough to force enough clarity to proceed productively. That clarity needs to be moved forward by accepting the possibility of fault. I believe very strongly that if you start with an apology (warranted or not) it disarms people and sets a good starting tone. Then laying out the reality of what went down and how it could mean this or that or the next thing is all important. Everything is then on the table or at least set for others to add to the possibilities.
From that point on it may not even be necessary to get full assignment of fault (in fact, it is usually just not worth it). All you really need to do is acknowledge that everyone understands what the possible reasons for the misunderstanding were. Figuring out the next steps should be where the rest of the time is spent. OK, we are in this place, maybe for this reason or that reason, but how do we get out of it and move on? You will be surprised how much that does to move the ball forward and to get past bruised feelings.
Just today, I heard that one of my untoward weekend comments said in anger got back to my colleague. That alone is usually a cause for a flag on the play against the person who threw that gem into the mix, but regardless, there it is. When that happens you have a choice, you can deny it (the path most often taken, unfortunately) or you can own it, defend it, toss it aside as something said in anger and explain why you felt that then, but are over it now. You would be surprised how well that honest approach solves the problem most often. Let’s put it this way, if it doesn’t solve it there is a more fundamental problem that needs to be addressed anyway.
So, in summary, when you have a foggy morning after a dark and stormy night it is best to proceed slowly and decisively with no presumption of righteousness. Be humble, be cooperative and get to a better place. Words to live by and I note for the record the day seems clear and sunny now.