Recently, I was walking to the Chinese restaurant around the corner from my house. Along this walk I passed a couple walking with their little girl. While I was passing them the Father leaned over to this little girl and verbally scolded her and pointed his finger in her face. My first internal response was, “Whoah buddy, calm down… someone call child protective services because this guy must have a severe anger problem!”
In this quick moment something took place in my brain. I experienced something. Could this guy be a terrible and abusive person? Sure. Is it likely? Probably not. What took place internally? Psychologist call it the “Fundamental Attribution Error” (FAE).
FAE sounds complex but it’s actually quite simple. FAE is the tendency of human beings to attribute the negative or frustrating behaviors of the people around them to their intentions and personalities, while attributing their own negative attributes to their surroundings. In my above example, I attributed the behavior’s of this Father to his true personality. But if the roles were reversed, and I scolded my little girl in a similar fashion, it would be because she had been acting up severely or it was the end of a really long week for me. Basically, it’s not who I really am, it’s the product of my external factors.
We see this in the workplace all the time. Colleagues reacting to their team with negative assumptions and responding with FAE. Why? It’s easy. They simply don’t know them.
An experiment conducted by Sara Konrath and Brad Bushman supports these ideas. In this experiment, participants were insulted by someone and then given the opportunity to retaliate by blasting that person with painful noise. There was a twist, however: half of the participants were told that the other person was similar to them in some way - either they shared the same birthday or they had the same rare type of fingerprint. When people had something in common with their opponent, they were not nearly as aggressive. When we see ourselves as connected to others, egotism dissipates, FAE dissipates.
How can we connect better? Easy.
1.) Be present with your team members. Fight the tendency to think about what you need to say and really listen to the other person. Give them the gift of your full attention.
2.) Ask questions. A personal rule is to ask 2-3 follow up questions when someone is discussing something with me. It helps me retain the information better but I also want them to know I”m really with them.
3.) Really knowing someone can be difficult to do in just a workplace environment. Connect outside of the office. Go for a bike ride, rent a couple kayak’s, attend a fitness class together. Put yourself in an environment to see them in a different light.
Avoid the fundamental attribution error and really connect with those around you. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you discover.
David Goochee
David is the co-founder and managing partner of Redwoods Leadership Group - a boutique training and development company specializing in growing healthy leaders and teams that last.