"People are only 'disappointing' when one makes a wrong diagnosis..."
-Charlotte Mew
“Why won’t people listen to me!?!?!?”
If you have never wondered this, then you have never been in a position of authority. Whether you see this question through your lens as a parent, CEO, board chair, teacher, etc., all of us know what it’s like to be responsible for something, have a genuine desire to keep things in order, and feel like no one is listening.
Worse, if you are wise enough to read this newsletter (wink wink), you are hopefully bursting with ideas that you want to apply to your work, and can quickly get frustrated when no one seems to care.
We’ve all been there before…
If there was a heuristic I could teach you to eliminate this problem, believe me, I’d tell you.1
But where heuristics come into play is how we understand the gap between what we want and what actually takes place. Sometimes, there is a gap between how we diagnose someone else’s problem, and other times there is a gap in how we diagnose ourselves. But either way, this gap builds the mental foundation that can bless or poison our potential for effectiveness.
Diagnostic Suspicion Bias
I am always fascinated when a ritual found in Torah or Tanakh sneakily mirrors a bias that still enters our world today, and the Sotah Ritual2 of Parashat Naso is one of those cases. In brief, the Sotah Ritual is when a woman suspected of adultery takes a special drink to determine whether or not she had been unfaithful to her husband; if you want a brief summary, click here, and if you’d like a scholarly analysis of the highly-gendered nature of this ritual, click here.
Quickly, one realizes that the Sotah Ritual is an incredibly flawed process for diagnosis; the community wants to gain hidden knowledge, which I suppose is natural, but the ritual cannot possibly provide them the information they seek, which means that a certain amount of bias is likely to enter the picture. So while the ritual itself is one whose reliability is essentially non-existent, it’s a great opportunity to think about something called diagnostic suspicion bias (DSB). The Torah is not the only time when people make a diagnosis based on preexisting assumptions.
The National Library of Medicine defines DSB as, “when biased considerations along with inadequate individual thought patterns result in a misdiagnosis.”3 Although medicine is scientific, medical diagnosis still involves human judgment, thereby making diagnosis vulnerable to the cognitive biases of the doctor. If you’ve ever read an article about how doctors might underdiagnose pain in women or people of color, you are reading about a version of DSB. In this sense, the Sotah Ritual and DSB are not far apart; while the Sotah ritual has no scientific validity, the ritual imposes a kind of involuntary diagnosis on a woman based on the suspicions of her husband. While it’s unclear how much this ritual was actually performed, it’s not hard to see the linkage.
Returning to my original question, anyone who has to determine why their staff, colleagues, direct reports, children, students, etc. are not listening to them is making a kind of diagnosis. And if we are not careful about probing our biases, then we may end up making the wrong diagnosis and the wrong intervention.
For what it’s worth, the same thing can happen when we are trying to listen to ourselves. And this gives me the perfect chance to plug my favorite book…
Immunity to Change
No idea impacts my leadership practice more than immunity to change (ITC), a term coined in a book of the same name by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. Whenever I have a problem I want to better understand, I reach for ITC.
ITC describes a process where a person can genuinely claim to be committed to making a change (work, personal, etc.), but also possess a hidden “competing commitment” that causes them to step on the brake even while they claim to be stepping on the gas. For example, a manager claims that they want to become better at delegating. However, they also have a fear that if they delegate more work and people are successful, they will be seen as less necessary. The two thoughts in the manager’s head are both rational; but when they interact with each other, they create a kind of “immune system” that protects real change from taking place.
I love ITC because it provides a language for people to understand why resistance to change is normal and provides a compassionate framework to think about the fear under the surface. Kegan and Lahey write:
“It is not change that causes anxiety; it is the feeling that we are without defenses in the presence of what we see as danger that causes anxiety. That “change makes us uncomfortable” is now one of the most widely promoted, widely accepted, and underconsidered half-truths around. If we told you that tomorrow you would win the lottery, find the love of your life, or finally be promoted to partner, we think you’d agree any of these would entail big changes for you. But you’d probably also agree that anxiety is unlikely to be most people’s first emotion in response! So it is not change by itself that makes us uncomfortable; it is not even change that involves taking on something very difficult. Rather, it is change that leaves us feeling defenseless before the dangers we “know” to be present that causes us anxiety. Overturning an immunity to change always raises the specter of leaving us exposed to such dangers. We build an immune system to save our lives. We are not easily going to surrender such a critical protection.”4
Admittedly, while I love ITC and own multiple digital and print copies of the book, the book is a very challenging read if you are not interested in the wonky parts. Fortunately, like with the Net Promoter Score, Kagan and Lahey have a shorter article in The Harvard Business Review that introduces the concept.
Admittedly, the Jewish Community is what I know best, but from the moment I learned about ITC I found it immediately relevant to my work. Too often, we make the false assumption that lack of change comes from lack of desire or lack of competence, when it is more likely that people genuinely want to change, but are captive of a mindset that can be understood. Effective leaders understand the difference.
Special Offer
I am trained in ITC and use this technique with individuals and groups. You can sign up for a complimentary session where we do an ITC map together.
Brene Brown Does ITC
Apparently, she drinks too much Diet Coke.
Hear more about it in two parts…
Weekly Links
Confessions of a Juggler: This piece by Tina Fey was published in 2011, and I just read it this past week. It’s incredible.
What the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE) Misses About Blame: We’ve learned about FAE before, and it continues to be one of the most important heuristics I monitor about me. Here’s a take on how FAE relates to blame.
Providing an Antidote to Toxic Religion: Moderate and liberal religions remain under siege, yet we still need them more than ever. Here’s why.
How Can I Tell if I’m Burned Out or Depressed?: Mental health and burnout issues remain on the rise, yet the two concepts are distinct. Read this article on how to tell them apart.
No One Participates More in Politics Than Atheists: I’m not an atheist, but I have tremendous respect for them and believe we make false assumptions about atheism all the time. Here’s one more.
Or I’d keep it for myself since it would be like some weird superpower, and create a lucrative consulting business.
Bemidbar 5:11-31.
Here is the full definition:
“Diagnostic bias is when biased considerations along with inadequate individual thought patterns result in a misdiagnosis. It is a constant and challenging issue in all medical specialties. There is evidence that knowledge of diagnostic bias will enhance physicians' diagnostic abilities. This review finds that there are several effective strategies to reduce the risk of diagnostic bias. Cognitive models such as dual-process-theory and tools such as metacognition can help the clinician in their assessment of the patient.”
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Cambridge: Harvard Business Review Press, 2009), 46-47.
Brilliant and illuminating