Cognitive Dissonance

We recently engaged a renowned behavioral scientist to assist our management team with a myriad of challenges, some of which even we didn't know we had. I am always fascinated by how different people tick. It was quickly established that we had selected our group primarily by function and had very real cultural fit disconnects that need to be acted on for the group dynamic to gel. Osmosis will not be enough.

We discussed in various lengths of detail many of the choice points for our management within the systems, processes, standards, identity, vision, mission, values, behaviors protocols and cultures within our business.

Each of these items is a topic of it's own, however the thrust of today's article is this concept of cognitive dissonance that arose in the discussion. Cognitive dissonance describes the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. At least that is what google tells me it is! My head was starting to ache as I tried to grasp what or more particularly how that definition manifests.

The theory goes that when a person's beliefs and desires conflict, they will experience discomfort as they become aware of the inconsistency. Leon Festinger apparently came up with the theory in 1957 so it is far from new however still possibly not well known outside psychology circles.

In our context, we were trying to figure out what happens in the workplace when the collective whole prescribes a vision, values and desired methods in the search for outcomes both for the business and the people we are seeking to serve. In a classic problem without malice, what we are finding is sub cultures developing whereby smaller teams and specializations within teams are searching both for direction and autonomy, clarity and collaboration and become confused when one doesn't match the other when overlaid with preexisting prejudice or beliefs. When the behaviors are inconsistent either with the values or with the direction of travel, cognitive dissonance occurs making the individuals uncomfortable.

It can be said that diagnosis is the major event on the way to recovery. In this instance, it would further appear logical that dissonance can be reduced by either changing attitudes, behavior, beliefs or reduce the importance of the beliefs and attitudes to align with what the company is trying to achieve.

For our group, we mapped out 7 questions to help our group decide when a matter demands their attention, and when it does not. Out of interest, the questions were:

1. Do I have the right?

2. Is it my responsibility?

3. Do I have permission? (We spent time on working out how to ask permission in our language and conversation style).

4. Is it in their best interest?

5. Is it in my best interest? (We touched on heroic narcissism, Karpman's triangle and Martyrdom as being examples of acting but not in my best interest)

6. Is it in OUR collective best interest?

7. Is it in ALL OF OUR best interest?

These simple questions provide a method to avoid the petty, focus on the important, attend to the urgent and do better and be better in everything we do. There are sacred cows in every organisation. Cameron Ling once said to our business people that success comes when you are elite at the basics. If you are feeling uncomfortable, feel that something just isn't right and you can't quite put your finger on it, try to reflect on whether there is a disconnect between your attitudes and beliefs and your behavior. It is much easier to self reflect on what you did or you did not do that brought about negative emotion or dissonance. Curiously, it would appear in the research that extroverts are somewhat less likely to feel the negative impact of cognitive dissonance and are less likely to change their mind, so this article is probably targeted to the introverts capable of such reflection. Acting to clarify rather than judge, and considering the 7 questions above may go some way to alleviating negative experiences. We undertook as a group to choose what we stay out of, to learn how to say no to allow us to keep our word and be on time with a overarching view that there are no rights in life without responsibility. The responsibility to not just acknowledge that cognitive dissonance exists, but to facilitate the reduction of it in pursuit of organisation goals has been embraced by our group. What happens next in the group dynamic will be absolutely fascinating.