The day you haven't been looking forward to has arrived. The new boss is finally introduced to the company team and immediately a feeling of withdrawal arises within you. You don't know why exactly, but there is something about him you just don't like. Is it the way his hair lays? His beady eyes? You aren't quite sure yet until you hear his voice and the specific words he likes to use at the reasons the company needs reform. The withdrawal within you intensifies as he presents his company "getting-back-on-track-success" speech. You look around to see if others are having similar reactions. You know some are, but their faces are neutral or expressing mild interest.
As you return to your desk after the meeting, another voice creeps into your mind. A familiar one that you know all too well, the one you have tried to get out of your head but couldn't for a long time after you left home. It is the criticizing voice of your father reminding you that you had made a failure of your life after you decided to not get your PhD and then got divorced. Then, there was your mother, standing beside him, giving you the "get-your-life-back-on-track" speech. Irritated by your memories, you decide to take a break and get a cup of coffee to shake off the stirring within you. You overhear another co-worker in the break room talking to a colleague quietly.
"I don't like his eyes. They look judgmental. Like no matter what you do he will still hate your work."
You shake your head, secretly satisfied that you aren't the only one who had a less than favorable impression. "He reminds me of my dad," you add.
"That sucks," your co-worker responds. He rolls his eyes. "Greeaaat, now we work for the judgmental father. Perfect."
From that day on, your response to your new boss has been one dominated by ill-favor. Every time he speaks, the sound of his voice causes resentment to grow within you. Although your feelings could be based on supportive evidence that he deserves the Asshole-of-the-Year award, your initial response was based on nothing more than the unhealed wounds of the past. These wounds set the foundation of perception for the behavior we observe within others, no matter the circumstance.
In being on the hiring team for a company I used to work for, I observed these biases lead my team to hiring the wrong person for the position we needed at various times. At one education company in particular, there was a situation where we were choosing between two candidates. Before hiring someone on the team, we would give them a topic to design a lesson over and then give them feedback. They would then correct any issues we found. After, we would assess their new design in response to the suggestions that were given. Me being the editor at the time, I was interested in how one received and implemented guidance more than anything else. One of the candidates demonstrated better problem-solving skills in my opinion, which was not the applicant everyone else favored. I had already experienced many issues with the team failing to adhere to design standards—pulling quizzes and other data from unsubstantiated random psychology websites (which is a no-can-do in curriculum development). So, I was adamantly looking for someone who could implement the feedback I gave or at least rationally justify why they would not make corrections other than because they didn't like me telling them what to do. I was out-voted on this particular occasion and backed out of my argument in order to give the other candidate a chance. As a result, I ended up having to redo most of her work to make it suitable for product delivery.
Later, I couldn't help but analyze why others on my team didn't prefer the candidate I favored. The one hired had a bachelor's degree in psychology, which was the course we were designing at the time. The one dismissed did not possess a subject matter degree but had curriculum development experience. Despite this, based on her final test and her eagerness to learn, there was no question in my mind that the woman without the degree would be more suitable. So, was it because the other was considered more qualified due to a having a degree in the subject area or because of something more? In this case, given we have hired for experience in the past, it was likely because of something more. I remembered that for the interview, she was dressed in expensive professional attire and looked immaculate, which did not sit well with some of the women in our group. Disregard was evident on their faces when the applicant walked into our office. I have seen this expression many times when joining an unfamiliar group of women. Their expression often falls when they see you, so you know you triggered some unwanted thing within them long before a word is uttered. Too late. The claws are out. Whether my team had what I label as the "recoil response" because they felt self-conscious when they saw her, or because her hair had the same highlights as the woman that stole their husband, or because her face reminded her of the one who bullied them in childhood, the point remains that her rating for top candidate dropped before she even sat down. The deeper the unhealed wound is within us, the more it interferes with sound judgement of any quality that appears before us.
This happened to me personally when I was in an interview and judged for being intelligent. What the hell, right? Eh, I thought intelligence was a wanted thing? I could tell that one woman on a hiring team didn't like me from the moment I walked in. There it was. The face drop. Where eyes show disdain, but the smile remains the same. The team asked a typical interview question about how I had solved curriculum design issues in the past and my response was perhaps, um, a little too impressive? The woman replied that the problem with smart people like me is that they think their way is the best, to which I responded, "Being smart doesn't mean one is inflexible." Yep, you guessed it. I didn't get the job.
But, what was really going on inside of that woman's mind for such a thought to even form? Did someone that looked like me steal her husband? She had never witnessed me being inflexible or unreasonable in my work but had somehow paired intelligence to being inflexible. Her judgment could be due to a past dynamic in which she experienced a situation with another that led her to form this thought and then generalized her belief to other people. Connect this with whatever I triggered within her when she saw me and unknowingly, I had started out with more than one strike against me before the interview room door shut.
We naturally do this all the time—pair uncorrelated concepts together to form judgments. Forming conclusions based on our stimulus-response experiences is how we adapt and survive in the world, and much of this process is automated because we are a product of our experiences until their influence is dismantled or transmuted. However, this tendency causes us to over-generalize these conclusions to multiple experiences, leading us to create poor/inaccurate/unhelpful assessments of similar situations that occur thereafter. Our deep-rooted judgments prevent us from seeing situations as they truly are, to the point that even if we are presented with evidence that contradicts what we believe, we prefer to dismiss it and keep our pre-formulated beliefs. Indeed, it can be frightening to let go of the addiction to our personal theories.
We have all been exposed to the variation that exists in every situation. We experience it each time we witness the same behavior in someone but have different opinions on how that behavior is interpreted. And yet, until we take the steps to heal our destructive wounds and reform healthier thought patterns, more problems such as, having to redo work, experience unnecessary emotional tension, or work with a divided team (just to name a few) will arise as obstacles to success.
Bring Me Solution
1. Increase self-awareness
This is always the first step in freeing ourselves from any limitation. The presence or lack of self-awareness influences every thought and behavior we have. I don't mean self-awareness in that it is simply "awareness of purpose" as some have defined it. I mean, Why do I react the way I do? Why does that person bother me? Do I have significant evidence to form the conclusions that I do or is it for some other reason? Why do I prefer this over that? What is important to me and why? Why do I feel like I can't get it right or feel as if I have failed?...
From general to specific, when answered truthfully, asking questions can consistently unveil more knowledge about the self. Knowing why you are the way you are can assist in orienting yourself in a way that maximizes the best possible outcome in all domains.
2. Re-frame limiting thought patterns
Altering thought patterns so they do not dominate your behavior can also assist in dismantling biases. Introducing flexibility in thinking is one way this is done. This is what I believe, but how else can it be seen? This is what I have experienced before, but how can it be different this time? This was my conclusion based on that time, but has there ever been an experience that surprised me in a different way? What personal beliefs or experiences formed this standard? Can things be different than in the past?...
By personally implementing these two steps to heal and clear the internal clutter, we can begin to free up the debilitating judgments we often readily form about others.
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