Pulling TeethSomething that I have learned time and time again over the years is that changing people is really really hard. What I mean by that is that…
Something that I have learned time and time again over the years is that changing people is really really hard. What I mean by that is that changing core and fundamental human behaviors takes an incredible amount of time, patience, experience and a willingness to fail.
I think there is this preconceived instinct among humans that our own ideas are best. We, naturally, understand our own point of view.
It becomes challenging, however, when there are people who inevitably hold opposing viewpoints to our own. The task, then, becomes to empathize with the alternative stance and either alter our own OR, engage in discussion, and attempt to alter theirs.
The big learning I have had, over the years, is that “winning an argument” should not really be the goal of most discussions. In fact, you can logically win an argument but still lose in the sense that the other person still very much so disagrees with your philosophy.
You cannot really pull people’s teeth and get them to do whatever you want.
They have to buy-in and put their own skin in the game. They have to be self-motivated, you cannot drag them along for the entire ride.
I think a lot of novice managers make this mistake and try to pull the teeth of their team to get them to move in a certain direction. While this may feel like the right thing to do in the short run, I feel as if this is never a sustainable approach. The better method, rather, is to get your team to experiment on their own, follow some form of intellectual curiosity and define their own strategy such that they are bought into their work.
The same is true with friendships. Some friends dictate the direction of the friend group. “We are playing soccer today. We are eating at this particular restaurant. We are showing up at this time.”
This approach never works to great success because not everyone is bought in.
If people do not want to play soccer, and you get them to, do you “win?” Do they win? Does the group win? What even is winning?
Would you rather get people to do things you want them to do or have people do things that they want to do that aligns with your visions?
Originally published at gonen.blog.
By jordangonen on February 15, 2018.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.
