T R A P
by JoelD. Levitt
A Few Psychological Traps Meeting Facilitators Face
Being human,people tend to justify their ideas and positions,but their efforts to justify them can lead to judgmental behavior, thinking patterns that stay in unproductive ruts, and other patterns that may interfere with the goals of their
organization.The good facili- tator will train him/herself to listen for any of the following mechanisms being used to justify someone’s position at their meetings.
These are the same fallibilities that scientists have to be alert for, in doing their research. The difference is that in science there is a long tradition of checking for these problems, while in non-scientific organizations there is no such safety
mechanism.So be on the lookout for these common traps:
1. Dissonance is a situation where there is a lack of consistency or compatibility between actions and beliefs. Its more common definition is from music,being“a combination of
sounds that is unpleasant to listen to.” When the gap between actions and beliefs is large enough, the disjunction is extremely unpleasant to
people.Yet this gap may indicate there are new circumstances which make it time to retire previous good decisions which no longer seem appropriate. When a problem your team meeting has decided to investigate is based on a mistake or a judgment error,you may be facing dissonance.
2. Rationalization (commonly known as making excuses) is the process of constructing a logical justification for an action,belief or decision. It is a defense mechanism in which
perceived controversial behaviors (mistakes of some kind) are explained in a rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation (the person messed up).One solution to rationalization is to avoid the need for
it.Organizations or teams that avoid blaming and support reasonable experimentation tend to suffer much less from rationalization.
3. Cherry picking is when an observer who only sees a selected data set may wrongly conclude that most,or even all,examples are like
that.For instance:During a political
campaign,each side cherry picks the statistics to make their candidate look superior. Yet there may be many other possible statistics that favor the other side,or are neutral between the
sides.Cherry picking also can be found in other logical
fallacies.For exam- ple, the fallacy of anecdotal evidence tends to overlook large amounts of data in favor of whatever smaller items of information are known personally.
4. A "Red Herring" is a tactic that seeks to divert the attention of an opponent or a listen- er by introducing a new,unrelated topic. The best red herrings are ones that people have
strong feelings about; thus any mention of the diversionary topic is likely to bring up feel- ings strong enough to move the focus of conversation away from the original topic and rational thought while at the same time moving into the domain of the visceral reaction.
5. Circular causation is where the result of the phenomenon is claimed to be its cause. There are many real world examples of circular cause-and-effect (many of them either
virtuous or vicious cycles).Where the circular cause is a cycle, it is a complex of events that reinforces itself. A virtuous circle has favorable results,and a vicious circle has detri- mental results.
Joel D.Levitt is a prolific author, speaker and leading trainer of manufacturing,operational and maintenance profession- als, having trained more than 15,000 maintenance leaders from 3,000 organizations in 25
countries.Since 1980,he has been the president of Springfield Resources,a management consulting firm servicing clients of all sizes on a wide range of maintenance issues,and currently serves as director of international projects for Life Cycle Engineering.
www.maintenancetraining.com /
www.meetingdefender.com
Mid-Atlantic EVENTS Magazine 75
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84