Ego Free Leadership

by Brandon Black

We went back and forth for a few minutes. The more adamant he was, the more I dismissed his points.

  “Why don’t you value my opinion? I know this as well as anyone in the company. You’re not listening.”

  “Do you hear yourself? When I see how little you respect Paul’s Finance team, I worry about how your team is interacting with areas like Strategic Initiatives. Are you taking advantage of improvements they recommend?”

  “Don’t worry, Brandon. I’m not missing any opportunities because they don’t produce anything useful. If they ever do, rest assured, I’ll jump on it.”

  Not for the first time, our conversation was going nowhere fast. I wasn’t reassured in the least.

  SHAYNE

  “Now that I understand the downward spiral I was in with Dave,” Brandon said later, “I see it everywhere. It’s an epidemic.”

  People’s egosystems do more than just generate cultural dysfunction. Their desired and dreaded images and reactive behavior patterns set off ego-driven personality conflicts. These unconscious dynamics can lead to broken relationships and disrupt collaboration between individuals and entire departments.

  Brandon’s communication dynamic with Dave was symptomatic of many other downward spirals between leaders at Encore. Brandon thought the problem with Dave was that he was negative, stubborn, and extreme. Dave thought Brandon was biased and didn’t listen to him or value his opinion. Naturally, each thought that if the other just changed the way he was behaving, their communication would improve.

  Instead, when Brandon perceived Dave as being stubborn, he tuned him out. If Dave were a robot, he might have shrugged this off. As a human being, however, he had his own set of ego threats, and Brandon’s behavior made him feel ignored—a powerful trigger. Feeling pinched, Dave ratcheted up his intensity and language, hoping Brandon would see the wisdom of his words. But that reaction simply frustrated Brandon more, and the opposite occurred; Brandon was even less inclined to listen. When Brandon cut Dave off, he was hoping Dave would realize his ideas were off base and change them. Instead, Dave doubled down on his position.

  These loops are called “self-fulfilling prophecies,” and they describe how we unknowingly invite other people to react in ways that confirm our assumptions about them, and then use those reactions to justify our initial assumptions and behaviors.

  The more Brandon believed Dave was negative and stubborn, the more he noticed when Dave raised his voice or used extreme language. He missed Dave’s attempts to advocate objectively. “It got to the point,” Brandon laughed ruefully, “where I had dismissed his input before he even opened his mouth.”

  Science has extensively researched our brain’s tendency to notice— or interpret—what we expect to see. It is called “confirmation bias.” This forms a type of “filter” through which any information that contradicts our preconceived expectations passes unnoticed. Unfortunately, our brain doesn’t alert us when it’s discarding information about another person. We believe we are balanced in our perspective, when in fact the other person has a smaller and smaller window of possibility to speak to us. To make matters worse, their view of us is deteriorating in parallel, making them less and less likely to communicate in ways we can hear. Over time, self-fulfilling prophecies can make it nearly impossible for two people to have a quality discussion. The judgments and frustrations that accumulate can strain relationships to the breaking point. This downward spiral also happens in personal relationships, and our high divorce rate is proof of it. In all these cases, we experience it as entirely the other person’s fault and don’t see how we’ve actively contributed.

  BRANDON–DAVE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

  Realizing that these loops exist is a crucial first step. Unless we recognize when they occur in our daily life, we will unwittingly fall into them. The following figure outlines the generic steps of this loop.

  SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY LOOP

  DEFAULT EXPERIENCE: I believe I am just at the mercy of the person’s behavior and bear no responsibility.

  SELF-AWARE EXPERIENCE: I realize that my conclusions and actions are influencing the other person to react in ways that frustrate me. If I were him/her, I would respond similarly. I can break out of this cycle by working on my beliefs and/or actions.

  These downward spirals are so difficult to stop because our egosystem plays an active, pernicious role in them. It builds in stages.

  First, we see something negative in another person, feel threatened or aggravated by it, and react counterproductively. In Brandon’s case with Dave, he had concerns about Dave’s competence and analytical ability. His fears of rejection and not being liked, however, caused him to avoid expressing his criticisms. His frustrations and beliefs built up, becoming judgments that drove his part of the self-fulfilling prophecy. So Brandon’s conflict avoidance pattern contributed to the first stage of the downward spiral.

  Then, the less functional their relationship became, the more it triggered other ego threats for Brandon. “I hired Dave over the concerns of Paul and a few other people,” Brandon explained. “Seeing him struggle gave me a ‘failure’ or ‘I was wrong’ pinch.” This discomfort came out as impatience and anger, which also fed their self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Brandon was further triggered by Dave’s stubbornness, setting off his fear of being wrong and his tendency to debate. There was no way he was going to concede a point to someone he judged as not smart enough to understand Encore’s business.

  When we add it all up, we realize that Brandon wasn’t neutrally dismissing Dave because he was extreme; he was shutting him down because it made his egosystem feel right, superior, and powerful. As for each one of us, stopping his part in a self-fulfilling prophecy meant no longer reaping a variety of powerful ego benefits.

  It’s not that Dave didn’t have performance issues and skill gaps to address. But Brandon had lost his ability to productively coach and mentor him. Despite theoretically wanting Dave to succeed, Brandon’s ego was invested in knocking him down. Similarly, Dave knew his relationship with Brandon was crucial to his job at Encore, yet his ego caused him to be argumentative and guarded, directly undermining the likelihood of his success. All of this, to our detriment, happens unconsciously.

  More problematic, this prevalent one-on-one dysfunction invariably spawns team-on-team dysfunction.

  The Us vs. Them Epidemic

  BRANDON

  I told Paul that Dave wasn’t thrilled with the process but understood the urgency. Paul called a meeting with the leadership team and their budgeting analysts. Twenty key people were needed to create the forecast.

  “Welcome,” Paul said. “I asked the Finance team to give us a head start by creating a collection and revenue forecast for the next eighteen months—”

  Before he could get a second sentence out, one of Dave’s key lieutenants cut him off.

  “I don’t know where these numbers come from, so how can I be sure they are accurate?”

  “They come directly from our models,” Paul responded. “Just like they always do.”

  “Yes,” another operational leader spoke up, “but are they correct?”

  I stopped the discussion. “Nobody can predict what will happen over the next year with 100 percent precision, but these are our best projections. We need to work with them.”

  I shot a look at Dave. He asked his team to hold their thoughts until Paul completed his explanation. With everybody back on task, Paul resumed the discussion.

  “I am also distributing a current headcount census that is the foundation for the expense projections—”

  “I haven’t seen this before,” another person objected. “I can’t agree to use it without verifying it myself.”

  “Are you questioning my work?” one of Paul’s financial directors asked.

  Several people started talking at once. What was going on? Barely ten minutes had passed, and we were all over the place, arguing about things that weren’t controversial.

  “Look, gu
ys, these numbers are accurate,” I cut them off. “We need to move on.”

  That didn’t work either.

  “Every year, the Finance guys and the Decision Science people create scenarios without our input,” someone from the Operations team called out in frustration. “Then you ask us to build an operating plan around numbers we don’t believe in and have no ability to influence.”

  “Actually, you typically ignore our numbers and build forecasts that fall short of our corporate objectives,” Paul said. “It helps you look good when you exceed expectations. Are we here to win a beauty contest or increase the stock price?” In this case, I thought his sarcasm was justified.

  “We give you reasonable projections of what people can actually do,” Dave retorted, “not made-up numbers to fit your fantasy.”

  The whole room was tense. Until now, I hadn’t noticed the seating arrangements and nonverbal cues between groups. The Finance and Decision Science people sat on one side of the table, while the Operations and other staff leaders sat on the other. When one member of either “group” made an assertion about the other, head nodding and affirmative glances followed. Finding it unacceptable, I stepped in more forcefully.

  “You will do a forecast using these numbers as a baseline. To Paul’s point, I’m worried about past patterns of sandbagging collection objectives. We have no room for error. You guys need to make your individual targets match the portfolio expectations, period.”

  The meeting continued without any additional debate. People listened to Paul and then dutifully left the room.

  I went back to my office, feeling troubled. Why were we having such a difficult time rallying around a basic plan? How would we ever overcome the major challenges ahead if we couldn’t do the simple things quickly and efficiently? Our new investors were counting on me. I was just glad they weren’t in our meetings.

  SHAYNE

  Paul and Dave had progressed far enough down the self-fulfilling prophecy loop that neither had much respect for the other. They dismissed the other’s point of view; they defended their positions in disagreements; they were critical of each other out of earshot. The responsibilities and objectives that Paul and Dave shared, like building a useful budget or implementing operational improvements, took a backseat. This kind of dysfunction between key executives is common in large organizations.

  Often having pinches with the other, Dave and Paul each talked with Brandon, other executives, and their own team about their frustrations, drawing them into the dynamic like a black hole swallowing sunshine. It’s an unfortunate trait of the egosystem that we seek out people to confirm we are right rather than to challenge our perceptions. This inclusion of other people amplifies these downward spirals to an organizational level. Because both Paul and Dave led departments, their respective teams progressively saw the conflict through their leader’s eyes. They developed antagonistic views not only of the other leader but also of the sister organization. By the time Brandon unwittingly sat down with these teams to create the budget forecast, this “Us vs. Them” divide had been going on for some time. The following figure schematically shows how this amplification occurs.

  The conflict Brandon described between Finance and Operations was just one of many interdepartmental Us vs. Them dynamics. Sharon and her Human Resources team were exasperated with how Operations took exception to every initiative they launched; Strategic Initiatives bristled at how infrequently Operations followed through on their ideas, while Operations belittled SI’s plans as naive and disconnected from reality; the middle of the organization judged senior management for their double-talk and lack of clear direction; and, of course, everyone complained about Information Technology.

  I wish Encore had been an anomaly, but it wasn’t. Over the last twenty years, my colleagues and I have worked with multinational Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, privately owned companies, nonprofits, and academic institutions. Almost without exception, individuals, teams, and departments in these varied organizations developed beliefs and stories about each other, until they eventually spent significant amounts of their time and energy criticizing each other’s behaviors and intentions. They saw the problem as “over there.” They were right, and the other group just didn’t get it. But that “other” group believed just as fervently that they were the heroes, and the first group the villains. Science calls this “self-serving biases.”

  People don’t do this because they are stupid, or because they have bad intentions, or even because they don’t know better (they usually do). Also, being aware that self-serving biases exist is insufficient to stop us, because we unconsciously depend on them. How could we not? These entrenched conflicts feed our addiction of feeling right and being the hero. They enable us to shift the blame for our shortfalls. Most delicious of all, obsessing about “them” distracts us from our most daunting business challenges. It was far more gratifying for Operations to focus on how Sharon and HR had an agenda and SI’s ideas were useless than to confront their own difficulty in responding to massive price increases. And let’s not forget how colluding against an outside enemy is an easy way for a group to create an artificial sense of cohesion.

  This group collusion makes it doubly hard to change. As leaders, once our judgments of others are known, softening or changing our position can feel like publicly losing face, appearing weak, or being seen as a traitor to our “side.” All these ego motivators contribute to how invested we become in other people or groups being wrong. This is the great tragedy of workplace politics, turf wars, and lack of trust: nobody wants it, but everybody perpetuates it.

  HOW INDIVIDUAL SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES BECOME DEPARTMENT-WIDE US VS. THEMS

  In a “functional” company, departments operate in their own silos, working around each other but not creatively collaborating. In most organizations (especially matrixed), these turf wars become disruptive, as mutual suspicion prevents problem solving or working effectively toward shared goals. When performance shortfalls occur, learning and accountability get overrun by finger-pointing. The organization’s mission takes a back seat.

  Unfortunately, the popular strategy of reorganizing a company or a department is ineffective at resolving silos and turf wars. The causes are not structural, so structural solutions will not fix them. More than once I have seen leaders of two warring factions exchange roles—and within three months be aggressively accusing the very people they previously led.

  With these dynamics at play, functional collaboration—much less high-performance teaming—becomes nearly impossible. To make any significant and sustainable progress on these spirals, each leader needs to understand, on a personal level, how he or she has become invested in them.

  What are the uncomfortable ego threats that push you to judge, criticize, avoid conflict, and/or vent to others? How does this lead you to be the starting point of these divisions in your teams and departments? What is the cost of these broken relationships to your key strategies and bottom line results? These were questions that Brandon and his team were just beginning to contemplate.

  The Dollar Cost of Cultural Breakdowns

  BRANDON

  With the planning process finally under way, I turned my attention back to India. Our failure to get any traction was sobering, and I was desperate to change the trajectory of this very complicated venture. We were trying to motivate recent college graduates in India to collect debt from people halfway around the world. Their job consisted of making phone calls between the hours of 5:00 pm and 5:00 am to ask for sums of money most of them didn’t earn in a year. Just as daunting, these employees needed approval from their families to take the job. Culturally, what someone’s parents think really matters in India. Disapproval of the company or the industry meant they just didn’t work there. Period.

  Had it been me, I think I would have found a new profession. But Manu Rikhye and his team were determined to make it work. They were constantly brainstorming solutions and looking for the silver lining. I
was so impressed with their attitude and commitment, quitting just didn’t seem like an option.

  I set up a meeting with Jay Cherry, our VP of Operations, to get an update on performance. Jay and I had worked together for a long time and I knew he would give me his unvarnished opinion.

  “Well,” Jay said right off the bat, “your test worked.”

  “What test?”

  “When you authorized giving higher-quality accounts to our Indian collectors, we set up a small, dedicated group so we could track their progress.”

  “What, did we get a 5 percent or 10 percent increase?” I asked.

  “You’re way off. The team in India is absolutely killing it, Brandon. After only four months, they’re producing revenues comparable to domestic teams.”

  “That can’t be right. Our learning curve in the U.S. is six to seven months, and most people fail. How could India get an entire team to average numbers this high? You’re missing something.”

  “I thought the same thing, so I went through the numbers myself. Math doesn’t lie. They’re doing something amazing. Manu was right.”

  I still didn’t believe him. Assuming there was a clerical error or too many accounts had been sent to India, I forced Jay to take me through the numbers. Everything added up.

  “Even more impressive,” Jay added, “is how they’re doing all this with abysmal technological support. Imagine having to make small talk for five to ten seconds because our system is painfully slow and hasn’t told you whom you’re talking with.”

  I realized with a shock that I had been a victim of my preconceived ideas. I had viewed our Indian workforce as low-cost employees capable of collecting only on marginally profitable accounts. They were a cost-reduction play and my decisions had unwittingly helped them prove me right. The mere act of doing something different had allowed them to break out of the cycle. I now realized that if I viewed them as a high-quality workforce—each Indian employee as valuable as an American employee—it became a contribution opportunity. If the team in India could produce equal or better performance than in the United States, at a lower cost, it would be a game changer. We wouldn’t just be able to realize significant levels of collection revenues at a vastly lower cost; we also could make investments in other areas like analytics and technology.