What happens when we don’t trust the solution
In a recently attended guest lecture on zoom, the speaker presented the message that you can improve your working environment by improving productivity and efficiency in the workplace. With his fancy strategies for transforming inboxes and to do lists, he had presented his system around a few months earlier expecting it to speak for itself (or be shoved down the throats of attendees courtesy of the event organiser) and had returned for a check-in session.
What he discovered from many audience members was the lack of follow through. This is because even if the problem is something we want to fix, to simply say here’s a way to make it easier isn’t going to overcome the hard wired narratives that have led to that person’s self-sabotage until now.
One audience member eagerly volunteered to share that they’d tried their very best but struggled to adopt everything recommended. They then went onto explain how they had successfully adopted x but when it came to big important things, preferred their old approach of y. This led to a situation that can only resemble watching a boy kicking a puppy with the puppy dumbfoundingly continuing to get up and approach the boy but that’s beside the point. What is important is what the scene illustrated.
The importance of trust.
If someone is offering you a solution and there is even 0.0001% doubt in your mind that it’s exactly what you need, that very small amount of doubt is enough to lure you back to where your brain knows it’s safe. Your brain HATES the unfamiliar and will tolerate crap above and beyond what it should simply because it’s familiar and so even the resulting hurt is something it knows is at least tolerable. But, battling the doubt is that pesky thing called ‘inner knowing’. It’s the little voice in your head that tells you that the way things are isn’t good for you and that you should try and be open to change.
That’s exactly what happened in the situation above. The audience member knew that they couldn’t keep their head above water with the number of emails and meetings and tasks flying at them. But the fear that the solution might falter, that it might miss something was enough for the doubt to grab onto. In jumped the brain warning them about all the terrible things that would happen if they missed a deadline or an email. Nobody would care why or that it was the fault of someone else’s system. All they’d care about is that it was missed and the attendee was to blame for letting them down. As a people pleaser, this was unfathomable and 100% unacceptable to this person and so they tried to take the best of each, merging them into a new hybrid system. This of course is an ego and fear driven approach and one I take great issue with in a number of situations. It’s the reason for phrases like you can’t have your cake and eat it too and do or do not, there is no try. The brain might have convinced them to be open but it didn’t have enough sway to overcome the underlying fear driving all those subconscious behaviours.
While the above is just an illustration, it’s just a small example of what happens when we don’t commit 100% to something. We’re constantly looking for something better, feeding the fear narratives and the doubt that will inevitably lead to our self-sabotage. This is the problem of the maximiser in decision making. It’s what used to make people flip through tv channels or radio stations and what led to the coining of the term ‘FOMO’. Until you want something more than the fear that’s been holding you were you are, you’ll almost never trust a solution because the temptation will almost always lure you back, especially where the environmental cues that reinforce the existing behaviour are strong.
How can you stack the odds in your favour?
Wait until you know things need to change. Until then, denial will make it near impossible to change subconsciously wired behaviours unless there’s a greater fear or duress being imposed from the outside.
Look for a solution that can genuinely help you shift from your before to after state. No solution just leads to a very stressed and sad little puppy running around in circles.
Do a pre-mortem of sorts and examine all the reasons you think that solution might suck. Why might it fail? Why might you give up on it? What about it do you not like as much as what you already do? What extra information might help that would address the doubts and where could you get it?
Take a long hard look in the mirror and play a game of 5 whys and get really clear on what’s driving the subconscious belief that makes you want to cling to what’s familiar and whether it’s something you’re really ready to let go of or if there’s a way to take baby steps that build up to that outcome.
Practice self-compassion. Whether you’re trying to change as an individual or you’re taking your team or even company along for the journey, the unfortunate reality is that as long as we’re not 100% self aware and know exactly what narratives are lurking in our subconscious, fear is almost always going to mean change is a bit of a struggle. Absolutely there are strategies to dodge the fear but let’s leave the libertarian paternalism nudge debate for another article shall we?
And one last note for all those wonderful solution developers out there. Please be patient. You’ve created some brilliant and imaginative strategies to address problems for all sorts of people. But our growth is limited by us as individuals. Your greatest task is therefore not just to present them with a solution but to present it in a way that they can be open to it. Otherwise it’s just going to be like all the other fancy toys that end up packed away on a shelf out of sight while the kid you designed it for returns to playing with an empty cardboard box.
