Assumption 2. Rationality or Unconscious Reactiveness

As human beings, we are the undisputed champions of intelligence among living beings on the planet. We know this because we have come to that conclusion ourselves, through reasonable thought and deliberation. The ravens, dolphins, and sequoia trees do not dispute the point with us. We're so smart we can teach some animals tricks, and we can construct machines that display awesome computational abilities.

We're even smart enough to understand that under certain circumstances we can behave in pretty stupid ways. Well, we can easily detect stupid behavior in other people, who of course, should (or actually do) know better. But what makes people act so stupid sometimes?

Anyone who has read Scott Adams' Dilbert comic strip and recognized his/her own work environment knows that stupid behavior is rampant and common in organizations--and many other places. But let's be clear: the real and very common spectacle is not just stupid people acting stupid, but smart people acting stupid.

What appears to an ambitious manager as his/her smart new directive to organize the production of software into a more efficient (-looking) structure is understood by the software engineers who are actually doing the coding as one more requirement to break the work up into smaller pieces, making the work more controllable by the manager, but less productive by the coding team.

Or consider the new VP of Administration who mounts a strategic planning project. Input is widely invited from all levels of the organization in order to increase their buy-in to the preconceived new priorities. No one is fooled by this exercise, though plenty of initially naïve and hopeful participants are frustrated and disenchanted. The exercise, intended as a career-enhancing move by the VP, turns out to be a trust-destroying experience for all concerned.

Managers are certainly not the only ones prone to this pattern, but their behavior is a rich source of examples. In each case there was a "rational" and often well-articulated intent. The software manager wanted to improve the organization of the coding process. The VP of Administration wanted to provide clear strategic direction for the organization. In both cases, their efforts had the opposite results.

One of the many ways in which rational behavior is undermined by unconscious reactiveness is the unacknowledged goal of looking good or feeling good about oneself in a situation that is really out of control. The assumption is that the role of manager requires one to know more than those one manages, be better at thinking than them, and help them to improve--or at least to control their behavior.

This is a losing proposition, for all concerned. It makes managers' work much harder--impossible, really. And their behavior, dressed in the garb of rationality, covers the ragged underwear of unacknowledged emotional reactiveness. Instead of real leadership toward individual and organizational excellence, it creates a Dilbert environment of cynicism, covert struggle, and organizational decline.

For those seeking to understand and avoid these pitfalls, it's useful first to acknowledge they exist. We all (yes, even I) experience layers of intention, awareness, and emotion along with our logical analysis. It is, after all, what makes us human. When we are ashamed of our humanity in this sense, we give up its genius; we paint ourselves into the corner of "rationality" without humility or wisdom.

But we can, instead, choose to accept our own and each other's full humanity, beauty marks and all, and reconnect with our own full capacities to think, experience, learn, and collaborate with each other toward our shared goals. It takes practice to change our habits of mind and heart in this way. But it's a good and useful practice.