Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps, by Jennifer Garvey Berger
My detailed notes on her excellent advice to any leader trying to be successful in our complex world.
This book is a succinct distillation of Jennifer Garvey Berger’s extensive research. She explores five ways our brains (due to our social evolution) lead us astray in complex modern situations, with two of the more effective strategies to diffuse each. I find myself coming back to her essential advice often. (And don’t miss the gem of an observation in the final chapter about how strong emotions are often several different emotions woven together!) Hope you enjoy.
If you enjoy my summary below, I highly encourage you to buy the book either from Bookshop or Amazon.
The Five Quirks and How They Become Traps
Our brains evolved for circumstances that changed more slowly and were less interconnected. The complexity and unpredictability of our world causes our instincts to mislead us in five different ways. We are trapped by simple stories, our desire to be right, our yearning for agreement, our need for control, and our protectiveness of our ego.
First Trap: Simple Stories
Our desire for simple explanations blinds us to true understanding. There are two main problems: a) we explain the past with simple stories, often ignoring that situations were not so clear-cut or inevitable in the moment; and b) we project into the future with simple stories, often ignoring that there are many different possibilities which could emerge.
We intuitively tie fragments together into what is (to us) a coherent story.
We believe that “stories have a beginning, middle, and end, and that causes and effects are linked.” See how often you make inferences about causes (using statements that start with “because”), and make future decisions based on our conclusions.
We “project forward from the past into the future and fill in missing pieces so it all makes sense.” See how often you assume there’s an underlying pattern which will continue into the future.
As Kahneman says, “It’s the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.”
We “create simple characters and select data to support our beliefs.” We expect our stories to have clear protagonists, antagonists, and archetypal characters, and we do the same in real-life. See how often you create (and believe) the equivalent of "stick-figure drawings of the people in our lives." Also ask whether you’re stuck in the “halo effect” where you form a quick opinion about someone based on one or two things and then find support for your opinion through confirmation bias.
Two main ways to break free of the simple story trap:
Ask yourself: How is this person a hero? It can be easy, especially when frustrated, to imagine someone as the villain of your story. We forget they are the hero in their own story. Explore this angle to unlock your simplistic framing of others.
Carry three different stories. Instead of preparing for the one scenario you think will happen, try preparing for the three scenarios you think may happen. Or when assessing the cause/effect of something, challenge yourself to come up with three likely stories, and not just one.
As Peter Coleman (complexity theorist) says, “Life, so full of contradictions and surprises, rarely ever makes complete sense. The pieces of the puzzle seldom fit together perfectly. When they do — beware.” (From The Five Percent Solution: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts.)
Second Trap: Rightness
“Your sense of being right about something, the sparkling clarity of certainty, is not a thought process, not a reasoning process, but an emotion that has nothing to do with whether you are right or not.” When we feel justified taking an action, we’re usually engaging in “post decision justification rather than a considered decision-making process beforehand.”
We intuitively settle into (and aggressively defend) the comfortable feeling of rightness.
“Our felt experience of [holding an] opinion is that it’s right.” Remember that the emotional experience of being wrong (in the time before you learn that you’re wrong) is indistinguishable from being right.
“Our experience of rightness kills curiosity and openness to data that proves us wrong.” Some of our best human traits — openness, curiosity, wonder — are stimulated into action by uncertainty. See how often you close off exploring new possibilities by thinking you’re right.
“Our experience of rightness changes the way we treat other people.” When we feel right, we tend to respond to public criticism with as either a) defensive and confident; or b) annoyed and offended. Challenge yourself to instead respond as c) open and curious.
Three main ways to unlock our rightness:
Ask yourself: What do I believe? “Naming our beliefs opens up the possibility that we or others could have other beliefs and not simply be wrong.” Often we muddle our way through situations without actually knowing what we believe. Answering this question can be very grounding.
Ask yourself: How could I be wrong? Exploring this angle is an easy way to unlock a state of curiosity, openness, and wonder.
Listen to Learn. Stop listening to win (the argument). Stop listening to fix what you think is someone’s problem. Both of these perspectives assume you’re right in some way. Start listening to learn, and watch as you check your assumptions and dig deeper for more information.
As Kathryn Shultz said, “We are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a mortal flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction, and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world.” (From On Being Wrong.)
Third Trap: Agreement
“Longing for alignment robs us of good ideas.” Our ability to connect with others is a gift of our social evolution, though it leads us to believe conflict has dire and disruptive consequences. In fact, we can only solve the complex problems we face today by harnessing conflict. We must find a balance between too much agreement and too much polarization (extreme disagreement).
We are drawn to agreement as a sense of connection. Our aversion to social pain can push us toward false agreement to avoid rejection.
“We believe that agreeability is a virtue.” See how often you catch yourself “social loafing,” where you mainly talk about things other people have already talked about (since they’ll agree with it), even if it means withholding other vital information. Also, look out for people who are “trying so hard to be nice to each other that they’re not willing to be honest about anything anymore.”
“We believe that our disagreement should be fixed with compromise.” Fairness and compromise makes sense when bartering for shoes with chickens. In complex situations, however, compromise can turn two viable options into one mediocre compromise.
“When we cannot compromise, we (abandon compromise, collect a group around us, and) polarize.” Watch out for moments when you misinterpret counter-evidence to “strengthen your cage” of rightness.
Two ways to unlock our simple agreement trap:
Ask Yourself: Could this conflict serve to deepen a relationship? Confronting others in ways that deepen focuses your conflict on mutual understanding and resolution rather than winning.
Disagree to expand. Complex situations rarely have one simple solution. Seek disagreement to expand the potential options, and consider ways you can pursue multiple paths at once to seek out the best way forward.
Fourth Trap: Control
“Trying to take charge strips you of influence.” We are happy when we’re in control, but the complex issues we face today have too many interrelated parts for any one person to fully control. The only way to manage it is by letting go of control and “creating the conditions for good things to happen.”
Life does have predictable aspects that can and should be in control. For example, a hotel should be in control of managing their available rooms and guaranteeing space to each guest who arrives. Attempts to control complex and unpredictable things usually backfire.
"We believe that being in control is critical to our success and happiness.” Our simple story of self-efficacy leads us to believe “we should have direct control over the outcomes that are important to us.” We cannot control emergent outcomes.
“When we can’t control big things, we substitute smaller ones.” Focusing too intently on specific goals (like making sure your child maintains a good GPA, which may feel more achievable than nurturing their love of learning) can create perverse incentives and cause you to lose the larger perspective of what we want in our work and our lives.
“If things seem out of control, we blame ourselves or others.” One common myth is that the control you currently lack is held by the person one or two levels above you in the organization. In reality, new CEOs are often surprised by feeling less in control than in their more junior positions. CEOs are held accountable for complex outcomes over which they only have influence.
Keys to unlock our need for control:
Ask Yourself: What can I help enable? What could enable me? When you hit a wall while trying to control the outcome, think instead enabling the outcome less directly. For example, what would help enable your team to collaborate more effectively? And for yourself: what would enable you to have the life you want? If you notice yourself craving a destination, think instead about creating a direction.
Experiment at the edges. Genuine experimentation - trying something where we really don’t know what might happen - may yield unexpected progress in the direction we seek.
“We need to notice the patterns that are creating the circumstances we dislike and then experiment at the edges to change those patterns” (and amplify the patterns that create the circumstances we like). As Peter Coleman says, “Alter patterns, not outcomes.”
Fifth Trap: Ego
“Shackled to who you are now, you can’t reach for who you’ll be next.” We have a natural tendency to preserve our reputation, put our best selves forward, protect our fragile ego, and hide our inadequacies from ourselves and others. “The greatest trap is created by the person we are wanting to seem to be to ourselves and others.” We find evidence for this in how we admire vulnerability shown by others yet feel humiliated by our own displays of vulnerability.
We are “perfectly designed for a world that has happened already, instead of growing better able to handle the world that is coming next.”
“We believe we have changed much in the past and won’t change much in the future.” This tends to be true at all ages. See how easily you project your current self into the future rather than imagine the numerous ways you could change and grow.
“We protect and defend the identity we have rather than open ourselves to possibilities.” Enormous hidden energy is spent protecting our beliefs, hiding our inadequacies, managing others’ impressions of ourselves, and proving to others we are worthy of admiration and love. We invest this energy to convince ourselves as well as others.
“We don’t have a sense of the patterns of our life.” We tend to think that just a little more polish is all we need, and we miss the broad threads of growth and change.
[Berger also shares an interesting way to understand the stages of personal development as our evolution through various forms of mind, from...
… a socialized form of mind, where we rely on the outside perspective of authorities, experts, or teachers to know what is right, wrong, successful
… to a self-authored form of mind, where we develop our inner voice to resolve conflict within those outside perspectives for ourselves
… to a self-transforming form of mind, where we transcend the ego/rightness/control traps of the self-authored form and see ourselves as jazz musicians of life, riffing along with everyone else.]
Keys to unlock our ego-protection trap:
Ask Yourself: Who do I want to be next? Instead of saying, “I’m not good at X,” try saying instead, “Up until now, I haven’t been good at X.” Unlock your growth-mindset and put yourself on a trajectory to becoming the person who is good at X.
Listen to Learn from Yourself. Turn your listening powers on yourself and how you make sense of the world. When you find yourself frustrated or confused, ask questions like: "What’s at stake for me here? What’s the hardest part about this? What’s the best part about this? How do I know if this is true?"
Escaping the Traps
Connect With Your Purpose. Finding a deep purpose and aligning your trajectory with that helps to keep us from getting blown off course. Consider what it would say if you abstracted your life onto a tombstone. This should not be something you could ever accomplish fully. It’s pursuing the purpose that matters
Connect With Your Body. Paying attention to what our bodies are telling us helps keep us more grounded in what is. Listen to learn about yourself. Consider ways you may be reacting to the various traps (or how your body may signal to you that you’re falling into a trap).
Connect With Your Emotions. Emotions are vital information for understanding what is going on in your life. Learn how to name your emotions (positive and negative) with nuance and granularity to be more resilient to setbacks and better equipped to manage anxiety, stress, and the uncertainties of life.
Imagine strong emotions as being many different emotions braided together. Learn to identify those strands. E.g. “anger over negative feedback might unbraid into shame, indignation, gratitude, and the seeds of connection and change.”
Connect With Compassion For Yourselves and Others. Compassion helps us connect to others (and ourselves) without judgment, and with open, curious kindness. This compassion is particularly important after experiencing failure together.
Great summary