Janet Britcher was interviewed on Cultural Brilliance Radio with Claudette Rowley, about her book, Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights. This is part 2, in which Janet talks about decision making and emotions, and uses an example from recent headlines to illustrate.
Claudette Rowley: We’re back on Cultural Brilliance – The DNA of Organizational Excellence. I’m Claudette Rowley. For those of you who just join us, my guest today is Janet Britcher. She is the author of the new book called, Zoom Leadership – Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights. We’re having a really interesting conversation about the role of perception and leadership. One of the things we were talking about right before we went to break was looking through the lines of feeling. Janet was just saying how the emotions and feelings have really gained some respect thankfully, over the last decade or so at work.
Janet, one of the things that popped to mind was a really interesting piece of neural science research I read recently. That talked about, this research that we’re looking at, people who had brain damage in the part of the brain that controls emotion. I see so many of these folks here actually realized that they could no longer make decisions. So many of our decisions have an emotional component. Even you said, even people who were deciding between having a turkey sandwich or chicken sandwich for lunch. Seems pretty straightforward except you could do pros and cons until the end of the time.
Ultimately, most of us are going to pick turkey or chicken based, just kind of what we feel like, it’s just similar. I was fascinated about how, just in the brain that emotion really counts for decision-making and how often that’s missed.
Janet Britcher: I think that’s right. The other arena where I looked at that is the field of behavioral economics. I’m no expert in economics, but the whole idea that decisions around finances are not financial. They’re not logical and that the stock market is in large part, an emotional tool representing optimism and hopefulness or pessimism. That feeling that something so seemingly logical as the stock market, is emotional; it’s such a good example of using that behavioral economics point of view.
Claudette Rowley: Oh, it’s a great example, isn’t it? Yes. So much emotion in money, and finances.
Janet Britcher: Yes, that’s right.
Claudette Rowley: Yes. The really important lens we wanted to introduce was the witness, right? The witness lens.
Janet Britcher: Yes. I would say that, it’s got less visibility in corporate but I’m here to advocate for it.
Claudetter Rowley: Yes.
Janet Britcher: [laughs] In the witness lens, I include what some people might call mindfulness, or some people might call bystander or observer. A situation where that comes up is first of all, being mindful of yourself and your own reaction. If we don’t see that with a bit of objectivity, it drives the bus. If you can see, “Oh, that story triggered me because I had a similar story.” Or if somebody challenges you if you can consider, “Well, does that person have a good point? Am I being defensive or should I entertain it?” First, being witness to your own reaction.
But then the other thing I often think of is, when somebody comes into your office, sits down and vents, lots of people out of helpfulness will come up with the answers. Try this, try that, try this, try that. If you’re like me you have found those, [laughter] don’t usually work. They’re either not receptive or they didn’t have enough background to be relevant. Very often, if someone comes into your office and plunks down and vents, they just need to be heard. Being able to reflect what you’ve heard is so helpful. Them getting grounded, maybe in their own feelings or in their own options or own next steps or actions, just helping them get clear by articulating much on their mind. That’s what I mean by the witness lens.
Claudette Rowley: I would wonder if this isn’t the most important lens.
Janet Britcher: Good point.
Claudette Rowley: Just like you’re saying, it’s mindfulness and reflection, and it’s self awareness. How cool am I? How am I operating?
Janet Britcher: Yes.
Claudette Rowley: What’s my impact? What causes that? Then, what I think is especially my organizational culture, the very very important role of the observer.
Janet Britcher: Yes.
Claudette Rowley: The pros of just standing outside is saying things and can say, “You know, I’m not sure if you’re aware.” I saw this interaction where I’m noticing this in our culture. I’m very fascinated by that one.
Janet Britcher: Again, zooming in from not only an individual point of view but an organizational point of view. Zooming in, you might say, “Are we a culture that interrupts?” This observing, do we regard that as rude or we guard that as energetic in participating?
Claudetter Rowley: Great point.
Janet Britcher: Zoom out and think about, “Well, is our culture one of friendliness or acceptance?” Then be able to evaluate, does that make us wishy-washy, does that make us not rigorous? Even on our organizational level, this getting closer or further from an issue provides perspective and options. I’m a big fan that the more perspectives you have, the more options you have. If you have more choice, more options, then there’s a greater likelihood that you will lead to decision that you feel really solid about.
Claudette Rowley: One thing that’s coming up for me, I agree, one thing that’s coming up for me is this: the idea of zooming in and zooming out. I’m just going to ask you is incredibly general questions. I know it maybe a case by case but, where do people tend to be? Are they not, are they in the middle? Not really zoomed in but we’re not really zoomed out or where do folks tend to fall?
Janet Britcher: I think it be more as folks tends to have a default.
Claudetter Rowley: Right.
Janet Britcher: Like any, again, back to the witness lens. If you’re aware of your default, let’s say you know you’re great with detail and you know you tend to be there, then you’re prompt to yourself might be, “I’ve tried that action for that dilemma before and details is my default, instead let me zoom out.” That awareness of default applies, in my opinion, not only to the zoom in and zoom out but also to the four lenses. It’s not that we can’t all use all of them, it’s that we tend to have a favorite one where we start.
Claudette Rowley: Definitely. I know you have a current event example for us, right?
Janet Britcher: I do.
Claudette Rowley: Yes.
Janet Britcher: I do. I looked at the United Airlines’ issue that occurred this spring as a very good example of having a fixed focus and not budging from the first idea that came to mind. That flight, some of you will remember, was in Chicago and destined for Louisville. The plane was fully boarded when the crew of that plane discovered that they needed to add four crew going to Louisville — two pilots and two stewardesses — in order to fly a plane leaving Louisville. When they realized this, they offered, they took action and they thought logically and they offered up to $800. That’s where they stopped and when only three people accepted that offer, they called the police.
By some algorithm, which we have never learned, they chose a particular passenger, Dr. Dao to remove from the plane. He was not wanting to leave, he had a ticket. He had another important commitment and he did not want to go. But their action got stuck on “call the police”. It was a logical thinking action, they picked up that phone, and dragged him off the plane. Now, if through that thinking lens, they had gotten a little closer to the detail, they might have thought, “You know, we’re authorized to offer up to $1,200, let’s see if we have any takers.” Or, if they had zoomed out of their logical decision, they might have thought, “Is there some other way we could make space?” or, “Is there some other airline that could transport these four?” or, “Is there some crew already in Louisville?”
Thinking logically, if they had zoomed out, it would have been several options they could have thought of. If you go to the action lens, they had fixed focus on, call the police, and drag the passenger off the plane. If they had gotten closer to what action could it take, they might’ve called their boss and said, “Can we offer more than $1,200? Can we offer $1,500?” Some of you may know that they have raised that now to $12,000 because of the fallout from this. If they have zoomed out of action they might have thought of other options and certainly the feeling lens was not deployed at all.
Claudette Rowley: No.
Janet Britcher: If they had thought how that passenger would feel, they would’ve stopped them. If they had thought how the other passengers feel observing this, if they had zoomed in on that, even if they had zoomed out on, how I feel in the morning about my participation and its disastrous action or how would regulators feel and will they impose more sanctions, so that feeling lens was not used at all. Certainly the witness lens was not used by the airline, although it was used by other passengers who video taped the event and that’s why it went viral.
Claudette Rowley: Right. That’s a very practical use of witness. The witness lens, we are a little late to record this as witnesses.
Janet Britcher: Exactly.
Claudette Rowley: We all know what actually occurred. Wow. What a great– Thank you for showing such a specific concrete example because almost all of us know about the United situation. To take us through and to see that they had so many other options available to them. They clearly did but especially when we look through your four lenses, we really see that they did and that a lot that was going on internally for them was blocking what they did externally.
Janet Britcher: Yes. Even in the thinking lens what ended up happening of course is their stock value dropped which at first was 140 million dollars in one day. If you think logically, we can’t offer more than $800. Even using their own lens and their own fixed focus would have opened up other ways of understanding the cost of making such a bad decision.
Claudette Rowley: What a great illustration. Such a great illustration of what can go wrong when we really don’t zoom in and zoom out and look through these lenses. We’re going to take a quick break. I’m Claudette Rowley and you’re listening to Cultural Brilliance Radio. When we come back Janet Britcher and I will continue talking about some really fascinating ways we can apply these four lenses.
Link to parts 1,3 & 4
Zoom Leadership, and the Need for Flexible Focus (Cultural Brilliance Radio – Part 1)
A Tool for Leadership Decisions; Applying the Model to a Client (Cultural Brilliance Radio – Part 3)
The Feel and Witness Lens of the Zoom Leadership Coaching Model (Cultural Brilliance Radio – Part 4)